Reforms are coming to America’s police, either with them or over them. Which?

Larry Kummer, Editor

11 years ago

Summary: For decades people have written about our unjust criminal justice system, dysfunctional in many ways from the arbitrary and unsupervised power of district attorneies down to our 3rd world-like prisons (e.g., overcrowding, run by gangs, with routine rape). However it worked sufficiently well for our elites to remain stable and repel criticisms. The people oppressed had little power and less legitimacy, so their complaints had no effect. Now the structure totters, undermined as technology washes away its foundation. Let’s hope we’ll get large reforms that produce a better system. {2nd of 2 posts today.}

DNA tests reveal kangaroo court justice.
SWAT and militarization of police.
Cameras plus YouTube = a revolution.
The action results from the reaction.
Opportunity knocks for the Left.
For More Information.

(1) DNA tests reveal kangaroo court justice

The revolution produced by DNA testing tore the facade of justice off the system. The tiny Innocence Project has exonerated 325 prisoners so far, a microscopic fraction of those unjustly convicted now rotting in jail or tarred with a felony conviction. Worse, examination of their cases reveals their trials as travesties of justice: prosecutor misconduct, bungled laboratory forensics, perjured testimony, and pervasive witness misidentification.

For links to articles about these things see About the collapse of the American Criminal Justice System. Still, these were just inconsequential dots in the daily news flow.

(2) SWAT and militarization of police

The armored vehicles and army-like police raiding homes, breaking up peaceful demonstrations — plus the high body count that follows their raids (usually to deliver a summons) — transformed the image of police in the minds of many. We get a new police for our New America, but most prefer not to see these changes. There were no substantial effects but, like the DNA testing, it weakened people’s confidence in their police.

“Chief Conley said that the actions of Officer Casebolt had been ‘indefensible’.”

(3) Cameras plus YouTube = a revolution

… the fact that this policeman was arrested so swiftly shows that there can be justice for victims so long as a bystander is nearby, has a camera phone on them, captures the whole interaction, and several dozen other circumstances play out in the precise sequence,” said North Charleston, SC resident Jenine Williams, echoing the sentiments of millions of Americans who told reporters they have faith that, as long as a fair-minded eyewitness happens to be passing by at the exact right time; has the inclination to stop and film; an unobstructed view; enough battery life and memory on their phone; a steady hand; the forethought to start filming an interaction with the police before it escalates into violence; is close enough to get detailed footage, but far enough away to avoid being shot themselves or seen by the officer and potentially having their phone confiscated; and it is daytime, then justice would certainly be served.

… The nation added that they were also hopeful the situation would change the behavior of police officers by making them look around to see if anyone was filming them before they moved from excessive to lethal force.

“Nation Hopeful There Will Be Equally Random Chance Of Justice For Future Victims Of Police Abuse” in The Onion (tomorrow’s fantastic news, today).

DNA proofs of innocence only affected Americans for whom information influences their opinions, a number too small to matter (see Ezra Klein’s articles here, and here). Only something vivid and irrefutable could shake the deep pillars of our vast law enforcement apparatus, a deus ex machina. Now we have it.

Cameras plus YouTube have unleashed a series of explosions whose results we cannot yet imagine. We see police shooting harmless children, a man running away, and mentally ill people no longer posing a threat to anyone, plus numerous unjustified beatings. Plus the spectacle of so many police reports proved by videos to be perjury.

As with DNA testing, cameras only reveal a small fraction of excessive police violence. Unlike DNA testing, people understand cameras — and the rarity of capturing such events. They understand what it means when these appear as an endless stream on YouTube.

(4) The action results from the reaction

So far the reaction of police has been defensive, reactive. Their institutional and public support (the 2nd most respected institution) has minimized consequences for most of the officers involved — except in the most high-profile or outrageous cases. Strong reforms remain MIA — other than increased use of body cameras (a powerful tool for police surveillance of the public).

Police seem to believe that they can continue with business as usual, blaming “the system”, criminals and their supporters, Leftist agitators. The police unions often respond from the PR playbook: the police are the victims (examples here), reforms hurt them (e.g., slightly reducing their access to military gear), and we need more of them (as crime rates fall) — in brief, the solution is better treatment of the police.

It’s a response that could buy time for police to institute their own meaningful reforms. But they’re dreaming if they believe this response will prevent reforms. They’re overplaying their cards, as did the automobile unions (building “Monday morning lemons” in the 1970s) — and most famously, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization in 1981.

Public institutions thrive only to the extent that they have legitimacy with the broad public. Legitimacy is a capital sum, subject to deposits and withdrawals. Police are rapidly drawing down their balance. Failure to make obvious reforms will result in changes forced on them.

Other professionals have more effective internal disciplinary systems and open records on which everything is recorded — complaints, punishments, legal settlements. I doubt that police can avoid both of these, as the elites running our cities learn how much this costs them — as Nick Wing at the Huffington Post documents: “We Pay A Shocking Amount For Police Misconduct, And Cops Want Us Just To Accept It“. While they obviously believe that Black lives don’t matter, money does. The police are impervious to the opinions of the underclass, but we might see how quickly they respond to the decisions of our ruling elites.

If these videos continue to appear on YouTube, eventually the public will demand action. That will happen only after confidence in police is far lower than today — and even more polarized. In other words, when police become yet another damaged institution in America.

(5) Opportunity knocks for the Left

Samuel Adams would cheer these events as a gift from Nature’s God, an opportunity to build an organization capable of long-term action. Will these events force development of better leaders on the Left? I doubt it. The Left is among our most broken institutions (e.g., see this on their guaranteed-to-fail leadership methods), probably now incapable of effective action. I believe that much will happen before a new Left can arise.

(6) For More Information

Some good articles about police reform:

“The Myth of Police Reform” by Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic: “The real problem is the belief that all our social problems can be solved with force.”
“Police Reform: Does Anything Work?” by Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker.
We can’t fix police violence because we don’t know the cause.

For deeper understanding of these things I recommend Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces (2014) and John T. Whitehead’s A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (2013). Also see The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010) by legal scholar Michelle Alexander.

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