I understand their frustration and desire for dramatic changes.
But demanding the defunding or dismantling of the police makes no sense. If I see a mouse in my house, I’ll buy a cat or a mouse trap. I won’t burn down my house.
What we need is more accountability and transparency from our existing police departments. We need to eliminate the “blue wall of silence”. Every policeman must realize that we WILL hold them to the highest standard because we are entrusting them with our lives.
Specific actions can be taken:
(1) Every department needs a civilian oversight committee, whose members are either elected or appointed to one or two year terms. If appointed, these committees must be large enough to ensure that they reflect the racial makeup of their jurisdiction. No person should be able to serve on a committee for more than one term. This will ensure prevent a new “establishment” from entrenching itself.
(2) Mandate the use of video cameras on all patrol cars and persons on patrol. These videos must be made public as much as possible, without compromising investigations or citizens’ privacies. The decision on when to release these videos should be made by the civilian oversight committee.
(3) Set policies that officers who witness serious misconduct must report it, and, when possible, actively intervene to stop it. “Serious” misconduct would include any conduct that could result in a felony or civil rights charge against the officer.
(4) Identify officers whose attitude does not reflect the proper values and respect for all citizens that is required of them. These officers should be terminated, or, at the very least, removed from the street until they have received counseling and additional training to correct the issues. In larger departments, annual reviews for all officers should be conducted using an independent counselor or board.
(5) Every department needs to maintain statistics detailing the quantity and reason for all police/citizen contacts, arrests, complaints, prosecutions, etc., using a national standard that uniformly classifies types of encounters, broken down by race, sex, age, geographic area, etc. We need a NATIONAL website that will make these statistics publicly available. This website would not only let us look at any individual department, city, or even neighborhood, but would show averages for each category as a whole, and also broken down by state, city, and even city size. Police departments that fall below par would be identified and correct measures taken.
(6) Emphasize community involvement. The public should be encouraged to meet their patrolman, and given ample opportunities to do so. “Ride a longs”, “Citizen Police Academies”, and other such programs should be offered that allow the public to see not only how the police operate, but WHY they take the actions that they do.
BUT THAT’S NOT ENOUGH!
We need to take actions to address the underlying social and economic problems plaguing our communities, such as poverty, hunger, healthcare including mental health, inadequate child care services, income inequality, below-par educational inner-city schools, gangs, the homeless, drugs, and other issues which lead to crime.
We need to stop treating drug addicts as criminals and offer them treatment and support. That includes programs to identify and enable early intervention.
It cost’s the taxpayers an average $31,000 per year to keep someone in prison, and the average inmate spends two years in prison. That’s $64,000 every time we send someone to jail. For far less than that, we could help them get back on their feet by making sure that they have food, a decent place to live, and providing meaningful job training and assistance.
We need to eliminate this fear of giving help to a community because someone might get something they don’t deserve. We setup our current support and aid programs in a way that makes it difficult for many to get access to the services they need. We are so worried about someone getting food stamps that doesn’t deserve it, we make it so that many people who DO need them don’t. I would rather see ten people get them who don’t need them than one person who does need then get deprived. (Of course, when we find those that do abuse the system, they do need to be held accountable.)
Most people DO WANT TO WORK. There is tremendous satisfaction to being able to support one’s self and their family. It builds self-esteem, and people NEED THAT. It’s the lack of self-esteem and pride that leads many into a sense of hopelessness, and that is the major underlying cause of most of our social ills.
Let’s give people the TOOLS they need to success. Let’s make sure that EVERY PERSON in the county has the CHANCE to succeed.
