Police brutality, body cameras, overcriminalization in concert

[ note- this was a multi-student question - my questions and answers are included - the references the other students used are included, but not their responses to the questions or answers]

 Does the “we/they” police worldview contribute to the use of police brutality? How?

The “we/they”, or “us versus them” worldview is perhaps the greatest cause of police brutality. I am going to break from the academic material here, because I judge that research does not accurately capture this culture conflict between police and the rest of society. I base this judgment on four “sources”; police fiction ( in particular, Joseph Wambaugh), an anthology of personal stories of policemen called “Cops: their lives in their own words”, personal interaction with police, and finally, academia. I list these in the order of how important they have been in forming my opinion of “the police attitude”.

Joseph Wambaugh was a LA cop that went on to write quite a few fictional novels and a couple of non-fiction books focusing on policemen's lives. Rutten comments on Wambaugh's “unequaled ability to capture the nuances of the LAPD's isolated and essentially Hobbesian tribal culture” (2008, para. 3). I contend that Wambaugh captures the attitude of police across the nation as well (and I'll return to Hobbes momentarily). The “us versus them” worldview develops in his (and other fiction) in three sub-themes; police have to trust each other because civilians can't understand them, the use of black humor (in the sense of cynical and sarcastic, not necessarily, but SOMETIMES racial) to shield themselves from the personal costs of their work, and that police have to show “the street” who is boss.

When I read “Cops: their lives in their own words”, I was surprised at how often these stories told by actual police reflected the fiction I had read. One story I read that stood out even 20 years later was about the perception of a racist cop by his fellow officers; they considered him to be a buffoon, but that he was still a cop. They tried to keep him out of the way, but also protected him.

I have a wide range of personal experience with police, as an arrestee (twice ;>), as a victim of crime, as a security officer who worked with police frequently, and finally, socially, as I know a few cops that were in my company in the Corps, and I also had a roommate who was a cop, and I sometimes partied with the members of his department. I share, for the most part, the attitudes and philosophical veiwpoints of most policemen, and yet I was still a civilian in their viewpoint. I found it interesting that policemen may admit the existence of the “us versus them” view, but that they are reluctant to discuss it with outsiders. In the times when I was able to discuss some of the harsher aspects relating to these themes I had read about, the cops I spoke with would say something like, “we don't don't do that anymore”...but they recognized what I was asking about, showing that the concepts are still part of police culture. I used to get a good laugh with the following joke, highlighting the black humor that is part of the we/they contruct:

“How many cops does it take to push a handcuffed suspect down the stairs?”

“None, the asshole tripped and fell”

This reluctance to discuss the viewpoint with outsiders may be why academic studies can capture the existence of the viewpoint, but not to translate into personal understanding...or it could be that I just have an “I already know that” attitude towards the research I have read ;> Paoline reports that “Research on police officers has noted the negative attitudes that police hold toward citizens” (2004, p. 208), and discusses regional and personal variations on the concept. Paoline's research reflects two of the three sub-themes introduced in the fiction, excluding the dark humor. Finally, Paoline notes that while the “us versus them” attitude is a dominant attitude, it is not a uniform attitude.

How does this “us versus them” attitude contribute to police brutality? I noted Hobbes as a reference earlier in the discussion; a central theme of Hobbe's Leviathan is that the threat of force is the only thing that keeps human behavior civil. This is also reflected in Wilson's typology of the police legalistic Enforcer, who's mission is fighting crime. This is directly reflected in the sub-theme of “showing the street who is boss”. Wambaugh uses the “catch-up” game in his fiction in several of his books. The “catch-up game” consists in continuing to beat a suspect who has assaulted a policeman even after the suspect has been subdued. Although Wambaugh explains that the “catch-up” game as partly a result of adrenaline and fear ( as a parallel in war, Keegan notes that the shooting of soldiers who are trying to surrender becomes more frequent immediately after a battle), Wambaugh also notes that the “catch-up game” was condoned on the street level as it was an warning to other criminals; don't swing on cops.

References

Baker, M. (1986). Cops: their lives in their own words. New York: Pocket Books.

Balko, R. (2011). A Decade after 9/11, Police Departments Are Increasingly Militarized.  . Retrieved online from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/police-militarization-9-11-september-11_n_955508.html

Diversity in law enforcement: A literature review. (2015). Retrieved June 7, 2015, from http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/Diversity_in_Law_Enforcement_Literature_Review.pdf

Gane-McCalla, C. (2009, March 26). 5 Ways to Fight Police Brutality. Retrieved June 6, 2015, from http://newsone.com/138441/how-to-fight-police-brutality/

McGinnis, N. (2003). The “Broken Windows” Theory and Community Supervision: Public Safety is Sometimes a Matter of Appearance. CSOSA. Retrieved inline from http://www.csosa.gov/newsmedia/newsletter_articles/brokenwindowstheory.aspx

NorthBendale.org. (n.d). Community Safety and Crime Prevention. Retrieved online from http://northbendale.org/safety_crime.html

Paoline, E. A. (2004). Shedding light on police culture: An examination of officers’ occupational attitudes. Police Quarterly, 7(2), 205–236. http://doi.org/10.1177/1098611103257074

Rutten, T. (2008, March 26). Owner of the LAPD. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 6, 2015 from http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/26/entertainment/et-rutten26

Stanford School of Public Policy. (2015). Did 9/11 Change Anything? Everything?" Panelists discuss freedoms, human rights, U.S. foreign relations. Retrieved online from http://news.sanford.duke.edu/news-type/news/2011/did-911-change-anything-everything-panelists-discuss-freedoms-human-rights-us-fo 

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I would say that overcriminalization is the contributing factor, but that militarization of the police can make the situation worse.

Balko does make the argument that militarization has increased, when in the past, "SWAT
teams and other paramilitary units were used sparingly, only in volatile, high-risk situations
such as bank robberies or hostage situations" (Balko, 2006, p.4).  Now SWAT units are employed to serve simple warrants.  I read a news report last week in which a SWAT unit served a warrant on a bad check writer.

The War on Drugs, like Prohibition before it, serves as an excuse for government officials to rationalize away Constitutional protections.  See Okrant's Last Call for a detailed discussion on how both local governments and the Feds used Prohibition to set the precedent in violating the 3rd and 4th Amendment protections of citizens.   The "crimes" involved are victimless crimes to begin with.  The sad thing is that significant portions of the population, sometimes even the majority of the nation, is quite happy to send SWAT teams against the perpetrators of these so-called "crimes".

But the problem goes deeper than simple nanny-stating.  Silvergate discusses the landslide of "crimes" that have been invented by the federal government over the last 30 years, including "crimes" that are based upon regulations rather than on the Constitutional process of law-making.  Silvergate contends that the average American commits three felonies a day...without even knowing about it.

It is understandable that police have an us vs. them mentality when dealing with mala in se criminals.  It is further understandable that police would have a degree of seperation with civilians who do not understand the mix of boredom, fear, adrenaline, and sadness that police can experience, and often rely on dishonest reporters for their perceptions of police.  But the landslide of "crimes" set down by politicians has exacerbated the position of the mentality to the point where it is the "crime" that drives the mentality, not the actual severity of the crime, and equates the common citizen with the murderer, rapist, or thief.

Balko, R. (2006). Overkill: The rise of paramilitary police raids in America. Washington, D.C.  The Cato Institute

Okrent, D. (2010). Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York. Simon and Schuster.

Silverglate, H. (2013). Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. Encounter Books.

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Studies have shown that both use of force incidents and false citizen complaints can be reduced through the use of body cameras(White, 2014, pp. 19-21), yet Dr. Suboch discusses potential issues with such use.

One way to mitigate privacy issues would be to allow the officer to turn the body camera on or off at discretion, allowing for personal privacy but also to allow witness with sensitives issues the option for privacy.  However, there would be a remote toggling function built in, so that when an officer responds to a dispatch the camera would be activated.  This could reduce the number of accidental and malicious incidents where the camera is not turned on.

White, M. D. (2014). Police Officer  Body-Worn Cameras  Assessing the  evidence. Washington, D.C.: OJP Diagnostic Center, U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved October 3, 2014 from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6525606

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there would have to be personal (not necessarily sworn officers) to review footage, and this can be time consuming.

I have done video editing before ( I worked for three years at the public access TV station, and I had to review footage before it was aired), and it takes time to go through video.  Maybe not on an hour by hour basis, but at least on a 1 to 4 time ratio.  The reviewer would also have to have the duty logs to focus on interactions with the public that may be problematic.

Finally, you would have to set policies on, like you said, how long the footage is kept, how is it to be released to the public, etc etc 

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That's very true, and there are definite problems with agencies that don't have the budgetary resources to equip their officers with cameras, much less the training you discuss.

There are also budgetary hindrances to the video storage and data collation  systems that would be necessary for efficient use of body cameras.