The resulting proliferation led the President to call upon the Department of Housing and Urban Development to establish comprehensive one-stop service centers. The experience thus far indicates the need for more effective coordination of Federal programs at the national and regional levels. Legislation may be required to simplify grant procedures and assure such coordination.

Each center should have enough neighborhood workers to reach out into the homes of needy people who are not able to seek help. To assure that the service centers are relevant to the needs and styles of the neighborhood, ghetto residents should be trained and employed at all levels. This purpose can well be served through establishment and involvement of Community Service Center Councils to establish overall policy.

We recommend increased Federal funding for comprehensive centers and implementation of the policy guidelines proposed above.

IMPROVED POLITICAL REPRESENTATION

It is beyond the scope of this Report to consider in detail the many problems presented by the existing distribution of political power within city governments. But it is plain that the Negro ghetto resident feels. deeply that he is not represented fairly and adequately under the arrangements which prevail in many cities. This condition strikes at major democratic values.

To meet this problem, city government and the majority community should revitalize the political system to encourage fuller participation by all segments of the community. Whether this requires adoption of any one system of representation, we are not prepared to say. But it is clear that at-large representation, currently the practice in many American cities, does not give members of the minority community a feeling of involvement or stake in city government. Further, this form of representation dilutes the normal political impact of pressures generated by a particular neighborhood or district.

Negro representation and participation in the formal structure of government can also be furthered by a concerted effort to appoint Negroes to significant policy positions in city government.

MORE EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY
PARTICIPATION

One of the most difficult and controversial problems we have encountered relates to ghetto demands for "self-determination" or "community control." To a limited extent, this concept was made a matter of national policy in the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which specified that community action programs should be developed, conducted and administered with "maximum feasible participation" of the residents of the areas and members of the groups served.

In the 3 years since the beginning of the War on Poverty, the effort to put maximum feasible participation into effect has met with both success and failure. One measure of its success can be seen in the extent to which the demand for participation, even control, over a variety of programs affecting the ghetto has spilled over into the most traditional areas, such as public school administration.

But the demands made often seem intransigent and the time required for negotiation with residents extravagant. The pulling and hauling of different factions competing for control within the ghetto community sometimes makes it difficult to mount any program. Moreover, it is often easier to organize groups to oppose, complain, demonstrate and boycott than to develop and run programs.

Yet the demand for a community voice represents a marked and desirable gain over the apathy that existed before. Despite its problems, we believe that meaningful community participation and a substantial measure of involvement in program development is an essential strategy for city government. The democratic values which it advances-providing a stake in the social system, improving the accountability of public officials—as well as the pragmatic benefits which it provides far outweigh these costs.

The essential question which city leadership must face is the ultimate goal of community participation. In this sense, community involvement is directly related to the strategy of decentralization, for with the support of the city, neighborhood groups may become an effective force for carrying on a variety of functions such as physical renewal and redevelopment— which can be highly disruptive when imposed by outside authority.

If these principles are accomplished, then the choice of mechanisms will depend upon the needs of the particular community and the structure of the local government. We have described earlier in this section opportunities for meaningful community participation in the processes of government. Additional and diverse instrumentalities such as community neighborhood school boards, community planning boards, tenants' councils, youth councils, advisory committees and consumer trade organizations offer further ways of providing institutional channels for effective citizen participation in public decision making. The crucial issue, however, is whether city government is willing to legitimize these organizations by dealing with them on a regular basis with respect to matters within their competence. We believe that such an approach offers substantial promise of improving the relationship between local government and ghetto residents.

The involvement of the ghetto community in the planning and operation of development programs need not be confined to the public arena. There is great potential in private community development corpor

ations which can emerge from a combined publicprivate sponsorship and perform mixed functions for the community, including sponsorship of locally owned businesses.

A most promising approach is the neighborhood membership corporation, the first of which was established in Columbus, Ohio, in 1965-the East Central Citizens Organization (ECCO), under an OEO grant. Functioning as a town meeting, its members include all of the residents of a defined ghetto neighborhood (8,150 people). Its activities encompass day-care

CONCLUSION

Finally, there remains the issue of leadership. Now, as never before, the American city has need for the personal qualities of strong democratic leadership. Given the difficulties and delays involved in administrative reorganization or institutional change, the best hope for the city in the short run lies in this powerful instrument. In most cities, the mayor will have the prime responsibility.

It is in large part his role now to create a sense of commitment and concern for the problems of the ghetto community and to set the tone for the entire relationship between the institutions of city government and all the citizenry.

Part of the task is to interpret the problems of the ghetto community to the citizenry at large and to generate channels of communication between Negro and white leadership outside of government. Only if all the institutions of the community-those outside of government as well as those inside the structure-are implicated in the problems of the ghetto can the alienation and distrust of disadvantaged citizens be overcome. This is now the decisive role for the urban mayor.

centers, credit unions, legal and medical services, newspapers, restaurants and business enterprises.

Both money and manpower will be needed from government, foundations and private business to create and assist these corporations and other new community institutions. Technical and professional support will be required. The opportunity that they offer to develop stable community leadership structures and constructive involvement should not be allowed to fail for lack of such support.

As leader and mediator, he must involve all those groups employers, news media, unions, financial institutions and others-which only together can bridge the chasm now separating the racial ghetto from the community. His goal, in effect, must be to develop a new working concept of democracy within the city.

In this effort, state government has a vital role to play. It must equip city leadership with the jurisdictional tools to deal with its problems. It must provide a fuller measure of financial and other resources to urban areas. Most importantly, state leadership is in a unique position to focus the interests and growing resources, political as well as financial, of the suburbs on the physical, social and cultural environment of the central cities. The crisis confronting city government today cannot be met without regional cooperation. This cooperation can take many forms-metropolitan government, regional planning, joint endeavors. It must be a principal goal, perhaps the overriding concern, of leadership at the state level to fashion a lasting and mutually productive relationship between city and suburban areas.

ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY
INSTRUMENTATION TECH.
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING TECH
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING TECH
SANITARY ENGINEERING TECH
DENTAL ASSISTING

DENTAL LABORATORY TECH
MEDICAL OFFICE ASSISTANT
PRACTICAL NURSING

IBM CARD PUNCH OPERATOR MARKETING MANAGEMEN

Atlanta, February 1968

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 eliminate 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 enforcement.

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.

158

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.