Chapter 11

Police and the Community

INTRODUCTION

We have cited deep hostility between police and ghetto communities as a primary cause of the disorders surveyed by the Commission. In Newark, Detroit, Watts, and Harlem-in practically every city that has experienced racial disruption since the summer of 1964, abrasive relationships between police and Negroes and other minority groups have been a major source of grievance, tension and, ultimately, disorder.

In a fundamental sense, however, it is wrong to define the problem solely as hostility to police. In many ways, the policeman only symbolizes much deeper problems.

The policeman in the ghetto is a symbol not only of law, but of the entire system of law enforcement and criminal justice.

As such, he becomes the tangible target for grievances against shortcomings throughout that system: Against assembly-line justice in teeming lower courts; against wide disparities in sentences; against antiquated correctional facilities; against the basic inequities imposed by the system on the poor-to whom, for example, the option of bail means only jail.

The policeman in the ghetto is a symbol of increasingly bitter social debate over law enforcement.

One side, disturbed and perplexed by sharp rises. in crime and urban violence, exerts extreme pressure on police for tougher law enforcement. Another group, inflamed against police as agents of repression, tends toward defiance of what it regards as order maintained at the expense of justice.

The policeman in the ghetto is the most visible symbol, finally, of a society from which many ghetto Negroes are increasingly alienated.

At the same time, police responsibilities in the ghetto are even greater than elsewhere in the community since the other institutions of social control have so little authority: The schools, because so many are segregated, old and inferior; religion, which has become irrelevant to those who have lost faith as they lost hope; career aspirations, which for many young Negroes are totally lacking; the family, because its bonds are so often snapped. It is the policeman who must deal with the consequences of this institutional vacuum and is then resented for the presence and the measures this effort demands.

Alone, the policeman in the ghetto cannot solve these problems. His role is already one of the most difficult in our society. He must deal daily with a range of problems and people that test his patience, ingenuity, character, and courage in ways that few of us are ever tested. Without positive leadership, goals, operational guidance, and public support, the individual policeman can only feel victimized. Nor are these problems the responsibility only of police administrators; they are deep enough to tax the courage, intelligence and leadership of mayors, city officials, and community leaders. As Dr. Kenneth B. Clark told the Commission:

This society knows * * that if human beings are

confined in ghetto compounds of our cities and are
subjected to criminally inferior education, pervasive
economic and job discrimination, committed to
houses unfit for human habitation, subjected to un-
speakable conditions of municipal services, such as
sanitation, that such human beings are not likely to
be responsive to appeals to be lawful, to be respect-
ful, to be concerned with property of others.

And yet, precisely because the policeman in the ghetto is a symbol-precisely because he symbolizes so much—it is of critical importance that the police and society take every possible step to allay grievances that flow from a sense of injustice and increased tension and turmoil.

In this work, the police bear a major responsibility for making needed changes. In the first instance, they have the prime responsibility for safeguarding the minimum goal of any civilized society: Security of life and property. To do so, they are given society's maximum power: Discretion in the use of force. Second, it is axiomatic that effective law enforcement requires the support of the community. Such support will not be present when a substantial segment of the community feels threatened by the police and regards the

police as an occupying force.

At the same time, public officials also have a clear duty to help the police make any necessary changes to minimize so far as possible the risk of further disorders.

We see five basic problem areas:

The need for change in police operations in the ghetto, to insure proper conduct by individual officers and to elimi nate abrasive practices.

The need for more adequate police protection of ghetto residents, to eliminate the present high sense of insecurity to person and property.

The need for effective mechanisms for resolving citizen grievances against the police.

The need for policy guidelines to assist police in areas where police conduct can create tension.

■ The need to develop community support for law enforce

ment.

Our discussion of each of these problem areas is followed by specific recommendations which relate directly to achieving more effective law enforcement and to the prevention and control of civil disorders.1

In an earlier era, third-degree interrogations were widespread, indiscriminate arrests on suspicion were generally accepted and "alley justice" dispensed with the nightstick was common.

Today, many disturbances studied by the Commission began with a police incident. But these incidents were not, for the most part, the crude acts of an earlier time. They were routine police actions such as stopping a motorist or raiding an illegal business. Indeed, many of the serious disturbances took place in cities whose police are among the best led, best organized, best trained and most professional in the country.

Yet some activities of even the most professional police department may heighten tension and enhance the potential for civil disorder. An increase in complaints of police misconduct, for example, may in fact be a reflection of professionalism; the department may simply be using law enforcement methods which increase the total volume of police contacts with the public. The number of charges of police misconduct may be greater simply because the volume of police-citizen contacts is higher.

Here we examine two aspects of police activities that have great tension-creating potential. Our objective is to provide recommendations to assist city and police officials in developing practices which can allay rather than contribute to tension.

POLICE CONDUCT

Negroes firmly believe that police brutality and harassment occur repeatedly in Negro neighborhoods.

This belief is unquestionably one of the major reasons for intense Negro resentment against the police.

The extent of this belief is suggested by attitude surveys. In 1964, a New York Times study of Harlem showed that 43 percent of those questioned believed in the existence of police "brutality."2 In 1965, a nationwide Gallup poll found that 35 percent of Negro men believed there was police brutality in their areas; 7 percent of white men thought so. In 1966, a survey conducted for the Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization found that 60 percent of Watts Negroes aged 15 to 19 believed there was some police brutality. Half said they had witnessed such conduct. A University of California at Los Angeles study of the Watts area found that 79 percent of the Negro males believed police lack respect for, or use insulting language to, Negroes, and 74 percent believed police use unnecessary force in making arrests. In 1967, an Urban League study of the Detroit riot area found that 82 percent believed there was some form of police brutality.

The true extent of excessive and unjustified use of force is difficult to determine. One survey done for the Crime Commission suggests that when police-citizen contacts are systematically observed, the vast majority are handled without antagonism or incident. Of 5,339 police-citizen contacts observed in slum precincts in three large cities, in the opinion of the observer only 20-about three-tenths of 1 percent-involved excessive or unnecessary force. And although almost all of those subjected to such force were poor, more than half were white. Verbal discourtesy was more common-15 percent of all such contacts began with a "brusque or nasty command" on the part of the officer. Again, however, the objects of such commands were more likely to be white than Negro.

Such "observer" surveys may not fully reflect the normal pattern of police conduct. The Crime Commission Task Force concluded that although the study gave "no basis for stating the extent to which police officers used force, it did confirm that such conduct still exists in the cities where observations were made." Our investigations confirm this conclusion.

Physical abuse is only one source of aggravation in the ghetto. In nearly every city surveyed, the Commission heard complaints of harassment of interracial couples, dispersal of social street gatherings and the stopping of Negroes on foot or in cars without objective basis. These, together with contemptuous and degrading verbal abuse, have great impact in the ghetto. As one Commission witness said, these strip the Negro of the one thing that he may have left-his dignity, "the question of being a man.”

Some conduct-breaking up of street groups, indiscriminate stops and searches-is frequently directed at youths, creating special tensions in the ghetto where the average age is generally under 21. Ghetto youths, often without work and with homes that may be nearly uninhabitable, particularly in the summer, commonly spend much time on the street. Characteristically, they are not only hostile to police but eager to demonstrate their own masculinity and courage. The police, therefore, are often subject to taunts and provocations, testing their self-control and, probably, for some, reinforcing their hostility to Negroes in general. Because youths commit a large and increasing proportion of crime, police are under growing pressure from their supervisors and from the community-to deal with them forcefully. "Harassment of youths" may therefore be viewed by some police departments-and members even of the Negro community-as a proper crime prevention technique.

In a number of cities, the Commission heard complaints of abuse from Negro adults of all social and economic classes. Particular resentment is aroused by harassing Negro men in the company of white women-often their light-skinned Negro wives.

"Harassment" or discourtesy may not be the result

of malicious or discriminatory intent of police officers. Many officers simply fail to understand the effects of their actions because of their limited knowledge of the Negro community. Calling a Negro teenager by his first name may arose resentment because many whites still refuse to extend to adult Negroes the courtesy of the title, "Mister." A patrolman may take the arm of a person he is leading to the police car. Negroes are more likely to resent this than whites because the action implies that they are on the verge of flight and may degrade them in the eyes of friends or onlookers.

In assessing the impact of police misconduct, we emphasize that the improper acts of a relatively few officers may create severe tensions between the department and the entire Negro community. Whatever the actual extent of such conduct, we concur in the Crime Commission's conclusion that:

✦✦✦ all such behavior is obviously and totally reprehensible, and when it is directed against minority-group citizens, it is particularly likely to lead, for quite obvious reasons, to bitterness in the community.

POLICE PATROL PRACTICES

Although police administrators may take steps to eliminate misconduct by individual police officers, many departments have adopted patrol practices. which in the words of one commentator, have “* * * replaced harassment by individual patrolmen with harassment by entire departments."

These practices, sometimes known as "aggressive preventive patrol," take a number of forms, but invariably they involve a large number of police-citizen contacts initiated by police rather than in response to a call for help or service. One such practice utilizes a roving task force which moves into high-crime districts without prior notice and conducts intensive, often indiscriminate, street stops and searches. A number of obviously suspicious persons are stopped. But so also are persons whom the beat patrolman would know are respected members of the community. Such task forces are often deliberately moved from place to place making it impossible for its members to know the people with whom they come in contact.

In some cities, aggressive patrol is not limited to special task forces. The beat patrolman himself is expected to participate and to file a minimum number of "stop-and-frisk" or field interrogation reports for each tour of duty. This pressure to produce, or a lack of familiarity with the neighborhood and its people, may lead to widespread use of these techniques. without adequate differentiation between genuinely suspicious behavior and behavior which is suspicious to a particular officer merely because it is unfamiliar.

Police administrators, pressed by public concern about crime, have instituted such patrol practices often without weighing their tension-creating effects and

the resulting relationship to civil disorder.

Motorization of police is another aspect of patrol that has affected law enforcement in the ghetto. The patrolman comes to see the city through a windshield and hear about it over a police radio. To him, the area increasingly comes to consist only of lawbreakers. To the ghetto resident, the policeman comes increasingly to be only an enforcer.

Loss of contact between the police officer and the community he serves adversely affects law enforcement. If an officer has never met, does not know and cannot understand the language and habits of the people in the area he patrols, he cannot do an effective police job. His ability to detect truly suspicious behavior is impaired. He deprives himself of important sources of information. He fails to know those persons with an "equity" in the community-homeowners, small businessmen, professional men, persons who are anxious to support proper law enforcement— and thus sacrifices the contributions they can make to maintaining community order.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Police misconduct-whether described as brutality, harassment, verbal abuse or discourtesy-cannot be tolerated even if it is infrequent. It contributes directly to the risk of civil disorder. It is inconsistent with the basic responsibility and function of a police force in a democracy. Police departments must have rules prohibiting such misconduct and enforce them vigorously. Police commanders must be aware of what takes place in the field and take firm steps to correct abuses. We consider this matter further in the section on policy guidelines.

Elimination of misconduct also requires care in selecting police for ghetto areas, for there the police responsibility is particularly sensitive, demanding and often dangerous. The highest caliber of personnel is required if police are to overcome feelings within the ghetto community of inadequate protection and unfair, discriminatory treatment. Despite this need, data from Commission investigators and from the Crime Commission disclose that often a department's worst, not its best, are assigned to minority group neighborhoods. As Prof. Albert Reiss, director of the Center for Research on Social Organization, University of Michigan, testified before the Commission:

I think we confront in modern urban police depart-
ments in large cities much of what we encounter in
our schools in these cities. The slum police precinct
is like the slum schools. It gets, with few exceptions,
the worst in the system.

Referring to extensive studies in one city, Professor Reiss concluded:

In predominantly Negro precincts, over threefourths of the white policemen expressed prejudice

one

or highly prejudiced attitudes towards Negroes. Only one percent of the officers expressed attitudes which could be described as sympathetic towards Negroes. Indeed, close to half of all the police officers in predominantly Negro high-crime-rate areas showed extreme prejudice against Negroes. What do I mean by extreme racial prejudice? I mean that they describe Negroes in terms that are not people terms. They describe them in terms of the animal kingdom. * * * Although some prejudice was displayed in only 8 percent of police-citizen encounters:

The cost of such prejudiced behavior I suggest is
much higher than my statistics suggest. Over a pe-
riod of time, a substantial proportion of citizens,
particularly in high-crime-rate areas, may experience
at least one encounter with a police officer where
prejudice is shown.

To insure assignment of well-qualified police to ghetto areas, the Commission recommends:

■ Officers with bad reputations among residents in minority areas should be immediately reassigned to other areas. This will serve the interests of both the police and the community. ■ Screening procedures should be developed to ensure that officers with superior ability, sensitivity and the common sense necessary for enlightened law enforcement are assigned to minority group areas. We believe that, with proper training in ghetto problems and conditions, and with proper standards for recruitment of new officers, in the long run most policemen can meet these standards.

■ Incentives, such as bonuses or credits for promotion, should be developed wherever necessary to attract outstanding officers for ghetto positions.

The recommendations we have proposed are designed to help insure proper police conduct in minority areas. Yet there is another facet of the problem: Negro perceptions of police misconduct. Even if those perceptions are exaggerated, they do exist. If outstanding officers are assigned to ghetto areas, if acts of misconduct, however infrequent, result in proper-and visibledisciplinary action and if these corrective practices are made part of known policy, we believe the community will soon learn to reject unfounded claims of misconduct.

Problems stemming from police patrol cannot, perhaps, be so easily resolved. But there are two considerations which can help to allay such problems. The first relates to law enforcement philosophy behind the use of techniques like aggressive patrol. Many police officials believe strongly that there are law enforcement gains from such techniques. However, these techniques also have law enforcement liabilities. Their employment therefore should not be merely automatic but the product of a deliberate balancing of pluses and minuses by command personnel.

We know that advice of this sort is easier to give than to act on. The factors involved are difficult to weigh. Gains cannot be measured solely in the number of arrests. Losses in police protection cannot be accepted solely because of some vague gain in diminished com

munity tension. The kind of thorough, objective assessment of patrol practices and search for innovation we need will require the best efforts of research and development units within police departments, augmented if necessary by outside research assistance. The Federal Government can also play a major role in funding and conducting such research.

The second consideration concerning patrol is execution. There is more crime in the ghetto than in other areas. If the aggressive patrol clearly relates to the control of crime, the residents of the ghetto are likely to endorse the practice. What may arouse hostility is not the fact of aggressive patrol but its indiscriminate use so that it comes to be regarded not as crime control but as a new method of racial harassment. All patrol practices must be carefully reviewed to insure they are properly carried out by individual officers.

New patrol practices must be designed to increase the patrolman's knowledge of the ghetto. Although motorized patrols are essential, means should be devised to get the patrolman out of the car and into the neighborhood and keeping him on the same beat long enough to get to know the people and understand the conditions. This will require training the patrolman to convince him of the desirability of such practices. There must be continuing administrative supervision. In practice as well as theory, all aspects of patrol must be lawful and conform to policy guidelines. Unless carried out with courtesy and with understanding of the community, even the most enlightened patrol practices may degenerate into what residents will come to regard as harassment. Finally, this concept of patrol should be publicly explained so that ghetto residents. understand it and know what to expect.

The strength of ghetto feelings about hostile police conduct may even be exceeded by the conviction that ghetto neighborhoods are not given adequate police protection.

This belief is founded on two basic types of complaint. The first is that the police maintain a much less rigorous standard of law enforcement in the ghetto, tolerating there illegal activities like drug addiction, prostitution, and street violence that they would not tolerate elsewhere. The second is that police treat complaints and calls for help from Negro areas much less urgently than from white areas. These perceptions are widespread. As David Hardy, of the staff of the New York Daily News, testified:

To put it simply, for decades little if any law enforce-
ment has prevailed among Negroes in America, par-
ticularly those in the ghettos. If a black man kills
another black man, the law is generally enforced at
its minimum. Violence of every type runs rampant
in a ghetto.

A Crime Commission study found that Negroes in Philadelphia and San Diego are convinced that the police apply a different standard of law enforcement in the ghettos. Another Crime Commission study found that about one white person in two believes police provide very good protection in his community; for Negroes, the figure is one in five. Other surveys have reported that Negroes in Harlem and south central Los Angeles mention inadequate protection more often than brutality or harassment as a reason for their resentment toward the police.

The report of a New Haven community group summarizes the complaints:

The problem of the adequacy of current police pro-
tection ranked with "police misconduct" as the most
serious sore points in police-community relations.

*** When calls for help are registered, it is all too
frequent that police respond too slowly or not at all.

When they do come, [they] arrive with many
more men and cars than are necessary ✶ ✶ ✶ brand-
ishing guns and adding to the confusion.3

There is evidence to suggest that the lack of protection does not necessarily result from different basic police attitudes but rather from a relative lack of police personnel for ghetto areas, considering the volume of calls for police. As a consequence, the police work according to priorities. Because of the need for attention to major crimes, little, if any, attention can be accorded to reports of a suspicious person, for example, or a noisy party or a drunk. And attention even to major crimes may sometimes be routine or skeptical.

Ghetto residents, however, see a dual standard of law enforcement. Particularly because many work in other areas of the city and have seen the nature of police responsiveness there, they are keenly aware of the difference. They come to believe that an assault on a white victim produces one reaction and an assault on a Negro quite another. The police, heavily engaged in the ghetto, might assert that they cannot cover serious offenses and minor complaints at the same time-that they cannot be two places at once. The ghetto resident, however, often concludes that the police respond neither to serious offenses nor to minor complaints.

Recent studies have documented the inadequacies of police response in some ghetto areas. A Yale Law Journal study of Hartford, Conn., found that:

[T]he residents of a large area in the center of the Negro ghetto are victims of over one-third of the

"In Search of Fair and Adequate Law Enforcement," report of the Hill-Dwight Citizens Commission on Police Community Relations, June 1967, pp. 12-13.

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