Criminal Justice (3): Law Enforcement
"Be Careful Out There"
I started teaching at my last institution right after they added a criminal justice major to the sociology curriculum. For reasons outlined in the first newsletter in this series, I became the go-to guy who advised all the majors and taught the majority of the courses. When you asked incoming freshmen what they wanted to do with the degree, answers were divided between “FBI agent” and “FBI Profiler”.1 I don’t have any former students in the FBI, as far as I know. But they are city officers, sheriff’s deputies, state patrol officers, lawyers, and social service workers.
Teaching criminal justice to aspiring police officers in a Christian liberal arts setting is interesting. The focus on critical thinking requires softly debunking the “lock em all up” mindset they come in with. It means introducing complexity, Christian character, and awareness of class/race disparities that, hopefully, stick with them after they are riding in the car.
But I know that after they left me, they went to academy and spent time with a Field Training Officer. They will be inculcated into a new culture, one that has some very peculiar dynamics. It fosters in-group loyalty and distrust of those outside of law enforcement. That loyalty is important to maintain confidence in one’s partner and colleagues but the downsides are well documented.
I realize that a single newsletter on law enforcement is going to be extremely general. The topic deserves a long series of its own. We’ll see.
I want to begin this 25,000 foot level look at law enforcement by returning to the previous newsletter in this series. Remember, the major report we have from the FBI was called “Crimes Known to the Police”. So how do crimes get known? Perhaps people call 911. Or one of those sound devices in major cities records shots fired. Or a business or home alarm goes off. As often as these sources occur, there is also what happens as police officer are driving around the neighborhoods they patrol.
Every police department operates with limited personnel resources, which is why there’s a consistent impetus to expand forces (even from the Biden administration). Departments must figure out how to deploy their limited resources in ways that are most effective. This often takes the form of disproportionately covering areas that have been known to be high-crime areas.2
There’s an important circularity to this strategy. We deploy officers to cover high crime areas, they observe questionable behavior, the crime gets known to the police, and we need to deploy more officers in light of the increase in crime. Consider the disparity in drug arrests; there has been a long history of drug arrests in urban, predominantly minority communities while drug use in the suburbs or rural areas goes unobserved and thereby less likely to face arrest (unless other events accompany the drug use).
This focus of law enforcement observation contributed to the strategy known as “stop and frisk”. Due to limitations the Supreme Court place on fourth amendment protections against search and seizure, police officers in New York and other cities could stop someone on simple suspicion that something might be happening. The person stopped could be required to explain what they were doing and could be searched for contraband. When a judge was prepared to declare the practice unconstitutional in New York, then-Mayor Bloomberg stopped the practice. The real issue with stop and frisk wasn’t just that it discriminated against people of color (because that’s the neighborhood where the police were) but after action research showed that a very small percentage of people searched had any contraband at all. Even when arrests were made (often for resisting arrest), those cases were not prosecuted.3
Interactions that are ambiguous in nature are par for the course. That person outside the bodega might just be hanging out waiting for a friend. Or they might be armed and dangerous ready to rob the store. This sense of danger and threat is a common component of street interactions as numerous cell phone videos have made clear.4 The subtitle of today’s piece comes from Hill Street Blues, which ran from 1981 to 1987 on ABC. The sergeant in charge of the shift would always end his morning briefing with “Let’s be careful out there.”5
Because “out there” is a dangerous place with threats abounding, one must always be on guard for bad actors. It’s a split second between thinking you’re in danger and responding.
There have been a number of stories here in the Denver area in the last week or so that illustrate how this sense of threat manifests itself. On July 20th, Denver police were responding to reports of a fight as the downtown bars were closing up. Seeing the suspect pull a gun from his hoodie pocket, police officers opened fire wounding the suspect and injuring six bystanders (either shot or hit by shrapnel). Subsequent reporting clarified that the suspect did remove a gun but was holding it by the slide on top and not by the trigger. Last month, officers in one of the Denver suburbs shot and killed a man who had stolen a truck. As they were apprehending him, he got back in the still running truck and started to pull away. Officers said that they believed he would run over them and so fired on the man.
It was interesting to see the Denver bar shooting unfold in the press. First there was confusion as to what had happened or how bystanders were injured (initial stories missed one bystander completely). Eventually more of the story came out. This underscores the way in which early press reports are heavily dependent upon police sources and reports as the basis of reporting, which changes over time (as the Uvalde tragedy has shown).
I don’t want to minimize the risk officers are under, especially in confusing situation unfolding by the second. Yet their training appears to lean toward maximizing perceived threat.
Dealing with this threat and ambiguity results in a reliance on showing strength and authority in all situations. Maintaining control of the situation is paramount. Nearly every viral police video involves an officer relying on strength (physical or personality) to manage the situation, even if there were better ways to respond.6
The limitations of the “strength and authority” position were clear during the 2020 George Floyd protests. Officers, who had received limited training in riot response, were deployed with shields, batons, sprays, and stun weapons. When facing an agitated crowd hurling epithets, water bottles, rocks, and debris, their first response was to increase the strength and authority of their position. This simply increased the agitation of the crowd.
The physical separation of protestors and law enforcement in the midst of a tense situation gave a concrete representation of what is known as “the Thin Blue Line”. This is what separates the people from the police. This sense of distrust runs both directions and reinforces the early lessons an officer received that it’s only the others in Blue (which separates you from “the brass”) who can be trusted.
That in-group loyalty is what makes substantive police reform so difficult. While you can hear reports of “bad apples” that need to be removed, it’s actually very hard to see that happen. A great deal of that has to do with the power of Police Unions who maintain an internal loyalty that makes removal very difficult. Because union leaders hold to the most extreme “we are the only thing keeping society safe” views, reform cannot happen.
Our television viewing taught us that the motto of the LA Police Department is “To Protect and Serve”. Too often, the means of protecting is limited to making an arrest after an incident has occurred. This is what the FBI reports call “clearance”. Clearance varies widely by offense type. It’s highest (but not great) on homicide, pretty bad on rape, and very low on burglary. But “getting the bad guy” is what we’ve learned is the name of the game.
It’s actually just the start of the game, as I’ll explore in the next newsletter.
As I have been noting, media influence is really important.
High crime areas are disproportionately urban, lower-income, transient, renter populations with a host of social ills on top of high crime.
This arrest and release strategy was common during the 2020 George Floyd protests.
To be fair, nobody takes cell phone video of the respectful officer dealing compassionately with a troubled person on the street.
Yes, I’m influence by television portrayals as well.
This is the logic behind having mental health experts as part of response teams or suggestions that municipalities have traffic patrols that are not law enforcement officers. (This is NOT “defund the police”)