The videos recording police actions in New York City, Oakland, Portland, Seattle and finally UC Davis have been very disturbing and run counter to everything I learned and practiced while working, teaching and studying in criminal justice. The sorry point is that I mostly worked in corrections and I (we) never committed such brazen acts of cruelty and unprofessionalism in a prison, and we were out of sight and mind. Oh sure, if there was a fight the officers often got in an and extra swing, but we all knew, inmates included, that disturbing the peace in prison can have unpleasant consequences. Nobody whined about a broken tooth or a bloody nose. However, the “victims” in the recent acts weren’t convicts or criminals, but largely non-violent protesters gathering in assembly as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
t seems as if the police have come full circle. The riots in the inner cities of Watts, Detroit, New York, Rochester, NY, Washington DC and other cities were about large issues such as unemployment, lack of services, discrimination, and so on, but one large factor was that the police acted like an occupying army, seldom getting out of their car except to roust someone or to investigate an incident. Otherwise, they were aloof and uninvolved. Then in reaction scholars and practitioners came up with Problem Oriented Policing (POP), ethics training, academies, and community oriented policing (COPs).
Along the way, technology seems to have muddied the water. By that I mean the use of “non-lethal” means of dealing with offenders. I have no doubt that tasers, for example, have saved many lives, both police and offenders. But the side effect has been that less attention has been given to human relations training so it seems that many officers have the attitude that “I don’t have to bother with talking with this creep, if he doesn’t do what I say, I’ll just zap him.” That is not a good idea in my mind for it gives the officer a false sense of security and depreciates any social capital that has been built up by the department. Therefore, the distance between officer and public widens just a little more.
Another factor, or factors, that play into this problem is what Jerome Skolnick calls “Justice without Trial.” While a young Assistant Professor at Cal State Long Beach he did a study with the Lakewood Police Department inquiring into the police culture. To make a long story short, he concluded that two factors create solidarity among police officers; danger and authority. Needless to say that police officers daily face danger from those who don’t like them. They also possess the authority make people do what they may not want to do. Danger is a not stranger to soldiers for example, but they do not have the authority the police officer has. Teachers have authority, but they do not face danger (usually anyway). However, the two variables uniquely come together in the position of police officer thereby creating a press to look to one another for support and solidarity and seeing non-police officers as outsiders who do not understand.
Skolnick uncovered one other variable thus far unrevealed; the symbolic assailant. The symbolic assailant need not ever have committed a violent act; he (or she) need only look like an assailant. By this I am referring to dress, hair, demeanor, and so on. It is perceptual shorthand developed by the officer to help him identify those who may be a threat and they act accordingly because the officer identifies with a fellow officer who has been harmed by someone who looks like the symbolic assailant. This is a good lesson for gang bangers in that if they didn’t look like a gang banger they wouldn’t be bothered so often by the police, but they never seem to learn and that is a different post.
As a consequence when one puts the concepts of danger, authority, and symbolic assailant together we can understand the over-the-top reactions by police when confronting the Occupy Protesters. There is one more issue that needs to be address that may explain the reaction of police to the occupiers. The conservative political leanings of most police. Over the past forty years the conservative wing of the Republican Party has worked very hard to drive a wedge between “liberals” and the rest of society. Many people don’t think things through and accept drivel as fact and some of the “drivel” is that protesters are unwashed, don’t want to work, hate America, are commies, and generally undeserving of respect. We saw this with the civil rights protesters, the anti-war protesters of the 60s and 70s and usually anyone who went against the conservative common wisdom. Thus, it isn’t much of a stretch to understand that many, not all, police officers see the occupiers as not only all of the above, but deserving of any punishment meted out by the guardians of the status quo. I didn’t quite understand this concept until I had the time to look closely at the pepper spraying of the seated protesters at UC Davis. It is apparent in the video that the lard-ass officer spraying the seated students experienced a profound sense of satisfaction from the act.
But, we are forced to ask, “Isn’t the training received by police in how to deal with offenders supposed to teach then to use appropriate tactics and force?” To my mind the answer is both yes and no. I say yes because training regimes are supposed to teach that sort of stuff, including human relations training. I say no because often the SWAT team is called out for the response and they are trained in the use of force and to be sure that fellow officers and others nearby are not harmed. There is a set protocol. My assertion is that the SWAT team is unnecessary for this task. In fact, is the level of response even necessary?
New York City, Seattle, Oakland, and Portland all used their SWAT teams to clear the crowd with no civilian official present, let alone in control. This is akin to letting the fox guard the hen house. Aren’t elected officials supposed to be in charge of the police? Absolutely, in each case the Mayor and at least a few of the city council members should have been present to monitor the level of response. But, in no instance were they present, they were AWOL. This leads to my usual suggestions
· Leave the protesters alone. They represent me and 99% of citizens who are fed up with corruption of Congress, want change for the better and want everyone to carry a fair share of the tax burden.
· The Mayor should be present in any instance where a non-violent crowd is being dispersed.
· Municipalities must devote more money to human relations training and not so much to purchase of hardware.
· University Criminal justice programs must make political science classes a part of the core program. If the recruit is not a college graduate, the state academy must offer six hours of instruction in history of protest and constitutional issues related to the First Amendment.
· International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) must update accreditation requirements to include quarterly instruction in human relations.
Needless to say I am outraged. Outraged that there are so few expressions of outrage by ordinary citizenry, outraged that fellow criminal justice practitioners would act so cruelly to non-violent protesters, that elected officials would sanction such behavior, and finally there are no expressions of outrage from elected officials all the way from President Obama down to city councilmen. As a nation we seem to have lost our way and in spite of my suggestions, I don’t really know how to find the way back. We thought a college education would make better informed police officers, we thought that Problem Oriented Policing would do the trick, and we thought community policing would empower citizens and make officers more sensitive to the needs of the citizens. None of that seems to have worked and it seems as if the police are acting more like an army of occupation than as guardians of the peace and the Constitution.
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