Reform is insufficient. It’s time to democratize public safety.

Tim Wise · 8 min read

Police in Washington D.C. on June 2. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

IfAmerica is to live, policing as we know it must die. It is that simple. If we aspire for it to become a multicultural, multiracial, and pluralistic democracy, America simply cannot go on this way much longer. Too many bodies are buried in the soil, too much blood has been spilled, and too many families have been shattered.

Those bodies and lives and families have been sacrificed in the name of law and order. But when the law becomes lawless, there is no order, and so here we are. We are watching it all collapse in real time, in HD, on the nightly news, on Twitter, on TikTok, as police respond to nonviolent protest with brutality. They gleefully shoot rubber bullets at journalistsmace children, and shove the elderly, anyone who dares criticize them for murdering black folks.

The back of the national camel has met its last straw.

That things are breaking down is no surprise. It is only surprising it has taken this long. The United States was conceived from the contradictory impulses of liberty and slavery, freedom, and oppression. It was forged from the fires of a fundamental incongruity: On the one hand, the inalienable rights of man, and on the other, the alienable lives of those deemed lesser than human.

Beset by its split personality from the beginning, America has demonstrated the impracticality of trying to walk the thin line between tyranny and liberty, of seeking to have it both ways. This doesn’t work. Once you establish a country around the precept some are to be free and others not, that some are to be protected and others subordinated, neither time nor pretty words will undo what has been done.

Law enforcement has always been the root of the problem. It is the fulcrum of white supremacy and has been so from the beginning. Remember, the Constitution says it right there in Article IV, Section 2:

No person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due…

Shorter version: If an enslaved person runs away to a free state and we catch them, their ass is going back.

And who, one wonders, would be given the task of “delivering up” said runaways? It would be, of course, the 18th century’s equivalent of cops, whether recognized as members of an official law enforcement body or simply white men deputized by dint of their skin to act as such. Slave patrols had been operating since long before the nation was founded. Indeed, many white men over a certain age were required to participate in them. In this way, not only was the oppression of black people baked into the nation from the start, so too was the collaboration of white people.

It was part of the recipe. It was the yeast without which the bread would not have risen. It was the roux around which all other ingredients would blend. And how does one undo the gumbo once it has been simmering for hundreds of years? Or more to the point, how does one unwind a culture of policing fostered over centuries?

Not with simpleminded reforms, and not with more training, that’s for sure. Training suggests law enforcement’s violence and misconduct result from some kind of failure in the system. But policing has been about violence from the beginning, at least so far as black folks have experienced it. It was never Officer Friendly who came to get your cat out of the tree or gave little Johnny a ride-around with the siren going just for fun.

Policing has been about violence from the beginning, at least so far as black folks have experienced it.

For black people, police served to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, and later, Jim Crow segregation. Sheriffs and their deputies would arrest black men, on suspicion of some fabricated wrongdoing, only to release them into the hands of a white mob that would hang them, burn them, and mutilate their bodies. Lynchings were a local spectacle and could only happen with the active collaboration of police.

How could training have made a difference? Perhaps we could sit down with the murderers and have a heartfelt discussion about their implicit bias? Please. And body cams? Those would merely have allowed us to witness the carnage in higher pixelation. Training assumes a system failure is the problem, but where is the failure?

When Jim Clark and his goons brutalized marchers on the bridge in Selma, they were doing their job, and that’s the problem. So too Bull Connor. These men weren’t failing under the terms set by the system under which they operated. Everything they did flowed from the system itself.

When cops enforced the war on drugs, they too were doing their job. It was not a system breakdown. It was the system operating as designed. Thinking that one can train one’s way out of oppression — when oppression is the point — makes no sense. It’s like standing at the end of a conveyor belt in a sausage factory waiting for it to give you chicken nuggets and becoming frustrated at its unwillingness to do so. It’s a sausage factory. Sausage is what it does. Expect sausage.

Ultimately we must envision a society without policing, at least in so far as we currently conceive of it. The purpose of such a body must be reconceptualized and rebuilt with the explicit participation of the communities it is meant to serve. Not just their participation — their control.

Police culture, as it exists, must be destroyed.

This means no more decommissioned tanks from the nation’s armed services, no more military hardware — which suggests to officers that when they go into a neighborhood, they are going to battle against a foreign enemy. No more camo. You don’t need desert camouflage in Ferguson or Baltimore or Minneapolis. There are no sand dunes with which you need to blend in. Police wear gear to feel like soldiers, and for no other reason. Enough.

The warrior mindset — which many departments openly encourage and even send officers to trainings to learn better — must be stamped out. So too must be the inward protectionism which encourages officers to place loyalty to the blue brotherhood (and sisterhood) above all else.

You’ll hear it often said by cops that “my number one job is to get home to my family each night.” No, it’s not. And any cop who thinks that’s their job should be fired on the spot. Their job is to protect and serve. It’s in the oath they took.

Ultimately we need a society built on the idea that communities are in the best position to protect themselves and to serve themselves, and that we — the collective — will provide them with the resources needed to do so. This means that rather than policing as we know it, we must move to conflict resolution models that are community-driven and bottom-up rather than top-down. Gang interrupters, drawn from the community, many of them formerly incarcerated, can prove far more effective at crime control than outsiders and enforcers, especially if we provide them with the resources we currently piss away on cops.

And I know, many will say that without aggressive policing, crime will spiral out of control. But it’s not true. Crime has fallen even in those cities that have moved away from broken windows enforcement and stop and frisk. It could fall even further were we to move to the next levels of de-escalation.

What is often missed is how criminal offense itself is a direct outgrowth not only of economic deprivation — which requires a much broader set of solutions — but also a sense of hopelessness and lack of control over one’s life. Lacking power, lacking perceived agency, folks will act out and hurt others.

De-policing cannot occur overnight, but we must begin the transition.

Some, feeling disrespected daily by the larger society, sadly, will manifest the same disrespect against others, including others in their own communities. But ask please, who taught them their lives and the lives of their neighbors didn’t matter? Where did they learn that lesson? Not on the corner. They learned it in our schools, our media, and from every instruction offered by our national history. Perhaps if we reconstituted the notion of public safety, beginning with the idea that the people themselves should have control, that sense of autonomy would translate into respect for self and others.

Such a sea change will take time. De-policing cannot occur overnight but we must begin the transition. So here’s an idea. It’s the kind of thing that activist groups like the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and others have discussed for years, and it’s time we took it seriously.

First, anyone looking to serve as an officer in a community of color — regardless of that aspiring officer’s race — should submit to a probationary period of, say, four months. During that time, they would be on the payroll, but they would not have powers of arrest. They would have no gun. Their job would be to get to know the communities and neighborhoods where they seek to serve — walking the blocks, talking to folks on their front porches, their stoops, in their barbershops, their cafés, their bodegas, their houses of worship. They would be talking, yes, but more crucially listening to the voices of those who live there. Finding out what they want and need from law enforcement. Assessing their hopes and fears.

After aspiring officers had gotten to know the people of the community — having met their families and shown them pictures of their own, and connected along the lines of a common humanity — the community would get to vote. The community would get to say yes or no to every aspirant. Having had the time to assess the humility, the character, and the commitment of each one who seeks to become a cop, the people would decide.

In all likelihood, those who weren’t cut out for this new and democratized culture wouldn’t make it four days, let alone four months. They wouldn’t even submit to the process in the first place. They would self-select out of policing as a career, at least in so far as they would be working in such communities. Good.

And those that stuck with it? Those who worked for months as community organizers, whose first job is always to listen? They would likely get the thumbs up. Either way, the control would be in the hands of the people.

This cannot be the endgame, of course. We need to rethink the entire concept of policing and move toward other forms of protecting public safety. But in the meantime, promoting self-determination would go a long way toward signaling that we were prepared to let the old ways die, to allow the scaffolding of police culture as we know it to crash and burn so that the nation doesn’t have to.

It would signal that we love the idea of America and still believe in it. Far more indeed than those who would defend the existing order.

4 thoughts on “The Fate of America Depends on Ending Its Culture of Policing”
  1. Think504.com compiles insightful and necessary information rooted in history. An absolute needed tool to navigate today’s challenges for safety, equality and justice. Smitty

  2. How does NOLA view “Due Process” for Kids and Others Madam Mayor?

    LBRC- To: Madam Mayor Cantrell, New Orleans, and Chief Shawn Ferguson et al, plus Law Enforcement and so- called “Peace Officers” Nationally- The Most “Abused” Constitutional Rights regarding “Negro Citizenship”, since the ratification of The 13th, are “The 5th and 14th Amendments! 

    Re: What constitutes Constitutional “Due Process”? 

    1. 1st and foremost- Due Process is a U.S. Constitutional “Right” and Mandate”! btw- As former Reserve and Military Law Enforcement, we have worked with others and attended lots of activities for so- called “Post Certified Peace Officers”! In our best Ebonics, “Most of ‘dees Peeps ain’t ‘gotta clue! Some are barely literate, notwithstanding the ability to comprehend “Fundamental” Constitutional concepts! And you wonder why Racist Patterns “Persist”, even after so- called “Re- training”?

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/due_process

    Amendment XIV- Section 1.

    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws./end/ 

    2. At a minimum, “Due Process” means that a citizen who will be affected by a government decision must be given notice of what government plans to do and have a chance to comment on the action. Government takes many actions that may deprive people of life, “liberty” (Including Free Movement) , or property.

    3. Citizens “Paid” via taxes for the various roads, expressways, streets and salaries of those who intentionally or unintentionally violate their rights of ingress and egress! Yes, Public Safety requires examination, however- Let’s examine what happened regarding the “Chemical and/or Tear Gas incident several nights ago. 

    a. Children were among the “Petitioners aka Protestors” on and approaching the bridge!  What is so “Prudent” about Tear Gassing “Children” in 2020? Now say anachronism!!! In 1960, Bull Connor and other Southern Racist weren’t prudent either! In 202 Covid in on attack as well and flourishes with coughs induced by Gassing, especially kids and the  the elderly! We used to say- “If they did it to Christ, whatever, then they’ll do it to you”! Now we say- If Caucasian Racist leaders  and their ilk, did it to Dr. King, then their proxy Negro Willie Lynch Prison Industrial Complex Negroes will as well! Negro Children and The Elderly are still not exempt! Where was the Due Process for all those Kids? You didn’t see Them? The Most High did!!! 

    b. Protestors were already on the Bridge, and “Vehicle Traffic” had already been halted! (Disclaimer: “Citizen Protest and Democracy, as Rumsfeld, Bush Administration stated- “Is sometimes messy”, most Bobble Heads” nodded in agreement”! Those apart from all the “Bobble Heads” said ‘Nuttun or wrote no dissenting opinion as per our research, not even anecdotally! 

    c. Every action taken by government and its agents are funded by “Citizen Tax Dollars”! When Government errs via “Ignorance”, citizens pay and most egregious Madam Mayor and Chief- “Citizens paid for ‘Dat Tear Gas and The Time it took Chief et al, to Gas our Kids and The Elderly plus “Deny” others access to the Bridge, when hundreds of Petitioners with Children, were also De Facto Gassed and already “on the bridge”! 

    “Why didn’t you PROTECT them? Not all “Provoked” your so- called “Peace Officers”, who refused to turn a cheek like Dr. king did! 

    Orleans Parish has “More Wrongful Convictions than any city in the U.S.!!! Who trains your cops, and what has your (j)ustice system produced? Even the “Violent” deserve and are “Entitled” to “Due Process”! It begins on the streets!!! Neither you Madam Mayor or “Your” Chief has the authority to abridge it! Problematic is? The very reason you are in a 2020 Consent Decree, is you have established over decades, a “Culture” of “Non Compliance”! Non Compliance is “Law” via “Ignorance, Conformity and Submission” to the same!!! Solution: Read and if possible comprehend-  The 5th and 14th Amendments to The U.S. Constitution!!! 

    No Respect for Constitutional Rights, No Peace!!!

  3. btw…, Sent to The NOLA Mayor, Council and others et al…
    LBRC- Who should be held “Accountable” for Police Abuse in NOLA? ‘Simps will never get it and neither do most vote anyway!

    1. Children were “Gassed” on a bridge in NOLA. It’s not enough to say “Oops…, sorry”, because you do not comprehend the true role of “Peace Officers”! Police Aggression” against the whole (Including Children) of a Peaceful “Petition Mrch”, is not only counter- productive, but violates the rights of those “Petitioning Peacefully”!!!

    2. Where’s the “Logic”- Meaning?

    a. Peace Officer work requires discretion! Discretion is highly dependent on and related to “Intellectual Synthesis”! Show us a “Poor Thinker” and we’ll show you poor processes  with a high “Correlation Coefficient” to “Poor Outcomes” aka like “Innocent Children” and other citizens,  being denied their “Due Process” and frankly “Humanity”! A 2020  Edmund Pettus Bridge action? Poor thinking plus Racism and complicity,  promotes poor and Tragic outcomes! Just like George Floyd! In NOLA, the Mayor and Chief of Police are Negro!!! How can this abuse be in 2020? 

    b. The truth? In 2020, reigning “Cultures” have more to do with the perpetuation of linear traditions, than they do with solid or “Moral”  linear reasoning, i.e., Pork might be high in unhealthy Fat, ‘Greezy, High in Sodium, plus Pigs are “Slop Eaters”- But it taste good, right? So what’s the issue about its relationship with “High Blood Pressure and Kidney issues, right? Your Tradition says, generations of my family ‘Luved- ‘dead-ed’ it, and so do I”! Though “you” might have “High Blood Pressure” and Kidney issues, so what, right? Deep 6 the Logic of Eating to live in 2020? So… 

    c. NOPD has developed a “Culture of Policing Negroes and others over decades void “Consequences” and in fact- “They and their Complicit Negroes have doubled down”!!! In majority Negro cities, Negroes have moved into ‘Massa’s house and all the Negroes in it are Neo House Negroes! Even while under a Consent Decree since its inception in NOLA, “How many NOPD officers have been indicted, including so- called brass? What does the “Data” and “Facts” say? Most if not all of their brass are remnants of “Pre Consent Decree” and “Remain”! What was the current Chief doing during “Katrina” and “Pre Consent Decree” (Complaining?)? Citizens on The CCC were being fired upon by Jefferson Parish Deputies and others? What about the Superdome Chamber of Horrors? What about when “Riley” went house to house “Confiscating” weapons from “Law Abiding Citizens”, used for their protection, notwithstanding The 2nd Amendment? ‘Oops…, says The NOLA Culture of Policing, right? Who was held “Accountable”? We  ‘askin…

    3. The Point of all? Ans. Accountability!!!

    a. The current NOPD Chief is a Mayoral appointee!!! This makes The Mayor accountable for actions “Sanctioned by and even defended by The Chief”!!! ‘Oops is no longer a viable justification for abuse aka “Gassing Kids/Others” and denying them “Due Process”! 

    b. Additionally- Here is a “Moral Hazard” as we see it. We call this, The Negro “Preacher Apostate Syndrome” aka “Never Removed not even for egregious Sin”, just like Judas 32 Pieces of Silver Politicians! Traditionally, The Negro Church has been seen as a Sanctuary from overt and covert “American Injustice”! Once upon a time, especially when Negroes had little to no resources, especially ‘Mulla (Most Still Don’t, except in their Castles they build in skies), Negro Preachers were hardly impeached for Immorality, Greed for Filthy Lucre, Corruption”! Enter the “Post” so- called Civil Rights Era! Now? Negro Preacher Apostates require Luxury Jets, Planes, Autos, Houses, Disposable Income, High Maintenance life styles for themselves and so- called Ladies and Mistress, yada…! Priest Apostates aren’t exempt either! “Children” for “Sex Toys”? Their temples are Bankrupt and in fact have filed for it! Not until “Truth” got exposed by others, are lay and Priest been made to “Account”! 

    c. More egregious, Negro Apostates have imbedded and aligned themselves with Politicians!

    d. The Negro Apostate Syndrome refuses to abide by what “Clear Scripture” says about “Who and What” makes an “Altar”Holy (What happened to pretenders who went behind The Holy Curtain anyway “Old School”?).  “Deep 6 Holy” aka- “We forgive our Apostates for Theft, Greed, False Claims about The Levites and Tithes, Worldly Ambition and yada…, and btw- Moses left The House of Pharaoh, their City Hall and once gone? He never “Sucked- up” to ‘Dat government to regain his once prestigious place in it! In 2020, not only do Negro Preacher Apostates vie to get in, but Filthy Lucre is ambition and “Haughty” Appearances is Priority!! 

    e.We’re still talking Accountability Madam Mayor! You are admonished again- “Gassing innocent Children is totally unacceptable! You nor Chief are commonly regarded as “Spiritual Leaders”, but? Oops doesn’t cut it in 2020!  

    f. Negro Preacher Apostates have no place near an Altar, let alone on it (Read Requirements in Scripture for The Office of Bishop)! The altar of Public Service is a “Public one” and Literacy counts! We vote and our ranks are growing! Remember when Polls predicted Desiree, the so- called  chosen “Creole” aka “Light Bright and Darn near White aka close, to win by a landslide? We rallied and made waste of ‘Dat old “Tradition” of “Racist Press” determining who’ll rule in a “Majority Negro City”! Unfortunately, a few  still got in! Didn’t get the memo? YOU WILL!!! Deep 6 all the speeches, ‘oops…, “Bobble Heading”, Grandstanding and “Articulated BS!!! 

    No Constitutional Rights or Due Process for Us and our Other Brothers and Sisters/Multi- Ethnic, marching alongside and with us, especially Children- No Peace!!! 

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