Preventing Police Brutality: Starting with a Revamped Police Training System
Back in 1992, a series of riots broke out in the city of Los Angeles, resulting in injuries and billions of dollars in losses. The cause of the unrest was the beating death of Rodney King by four police officers suspected of traffic violations; all four officers were later acquitted. The recent death of George Floyd has once again brought the social issue of abuse of police authority to the forefront. Although none of these incidents is the root of the direct conflict between minority groups and law enforcement officers in the U.S., they reflect a significant degree of the tension between the two groups. To this day, news of police brutality in the U.S. continues to be a common occurrence. The accumulation of such cases can lead to social unrest and protests, such as the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 2013 “BLM” marches. These misuses of police power demonstrate society’s lack of systematic measures and oversight to address the phenomenon of violent law enforcement. Such systemic shortcomings directly contribute to the significantly increased possibilities of police brutality against homeless people in distressed neighborhoods like Skid Row, as police officers often concentrate on how to lower the total amount of crime in the area rather than specifically assessing specific cases. Hence, to ensure the fundamental human rights of the homeless community and prevent the frequent occurrence of police violence, the judiciary should improve the current police training system to assure the physical and mental safety of homeless residents.
Police violence and other types of violent law enforcement directly or indirectly affect the physical and psychological well-being of any individual who experiences it directly, and police brutality also affects entire communities. On a physical level, whenever police officers subjectively assume that a “suspect” is refusing to cooperate in the law enforcement process, U.S. police officers may turn to violence to force them to comply. This violence is not limited to blows with sticks, pepper spray, tasers, firearms with bean bag rounds, or even live ammunition. These violent tactics can cause severe damage to the human body system and even lead to death. In addition, there is a growing body of empirical evidence to support that violent law enforcement can also seriously affect the mental health of those who experience it. Analyzed survey data from 1,615 participants in four U.S. cities (Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.), finding correlations between victimization by police and depression or other psychological distress (DeVylder 26). Under the situation, victimization was framed as a consequence of a single individual or agency intentionally acting to oppress or harm another individual. “Police brutality certainly generates stress, and we are aware this has an impact on a variety of health and wellbeing outcomes, and that these interactions may contribute to anxiety that weakens the physiological systems of people of color, raising the allogeneic burden and causing deterioration.” (Todd 19). Studies demonstrates that ongoing pressure from the imminent risks of police abuse, the real-life experience of police violence, and the disruptive consequences of police abuse at the individual and communal levels can dramatically impact people’s psychological well-being. Opponents are correct in saying that police existence in the community can benefit psychological well-being by providing a sense of security. Nevertheless, Aggressive policing also widens racial disparities in arrests, detentions, and criminalization, inhibiting social mobility and exacerbating economic segregation’s pressures on mental health. As a result, police brutality makes it more challenging to police effectively and the neighborhoods they serve more unsafe, raising the stress on public healthcare in general.
When patrol officers work in these high-crime areas, they are more inclined to perceive risk than to act on suspects by culpability, and officers are more concerned with lowering the total amount of crime in the area rather than assessing individual cases. Therefore, police violence is always more prevalent in marginalized communities like Skid Row rather than in Beverly Hills. According to the article “The Police on Skid-Row: A Study of Peace Keeping,” Egon states that “Most of the criticism voiced by officers had to do with the use of undue harshness and with the indiscriminate use of arrest powers when these were based on personal feelings rather than the requirements of the situation” (714). In his article, police work consists of two different activities, “law enforcement” and “peace-keeping.” The difference, however, is that the latter is not determined by an explicit legal mandate and is not controlled by any outside force. Therefore, this has led to an aggressive and personalized approach by police forces to the homeless in civilian areas like Skid Row when they want to maintain peace. Unlike most other forms of violence, police brutality in the United States is rooted in a history of enforcement that allows for the brutal and dehumanizing punishment of individuals or groups perceived as the so-called “dangerous classes (Ober 7). This permissive framework for police in the United States gives the officers greater discretion in the use of deadly force than police in other countries. For instance, police officers in Spanish must use both verbal warning shots before they are allowed to target a person. Eventually, since police forces are not constrained by international law, the use of fatal force in the United States is not limited to “last resort” situations, which results in unarmed people being killed by police every year and creating additional public health challenges, especially in communities of colors and poor neighborhoods. As a result, the enactment of several statutes and the constant updating of rules within U.S. police agencies to limit police power abuse is necessary to protect homeless people.
In fact, in 2015, the Obama Administration’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommended policy reforms at the federal level and released the Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In addition, Project ABLE, or Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement, has also reduced the frequency of violent police enforcement to some extent. The final report of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing noted that building trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they protect and serve is critical to a democracy. The Task Force on 21st Century Policing reviewed scientific data on policing and recommended significant policy changes at the federal level, including improvements in oversight, training, and the health of police officers. However, efforts at the federal level have slowed in recent years, and most changes have occurred only at the local level. And with 18,000 police departments across the United States, the response from these large law enforcement agencies has been fragmented and inconsistent (Goff 16). Another intervention that has shown promise in reducing police violence is the ABLE Project, which can also be called Active Bystander Status for Law Enforcement. Based on the work of psychologist Ervin Staub, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the project encourages a peer intervention culture by teaching police officers how to stop their peers from using needless violence, which can help them protect lives and advance their own careers. For example, when an officer engages in senseless violence, his colleagues are forced to make a difficult decision. It’s a crime to report the act and gain a reputation as a “snitch,” which could mean your subsequent request for backup isn’t met, or to lie. Joel Dvoskin, Ph.D., ABPP, a clinical and forensic psychologist and past president of APA’s Div.18, says, “What if, instead, you could prevent bad things from happening in the first place?” “What if you demonstrated your loyalty to your fellow man by helping him or her stay out of trouble?” It follows that a minor intervention by a fellow cop can be very effective.
Admittedly, while these policy reforms and programs can serve as preventive measures against the abuse of force to some extent, they are not absolutely effective because they are not widespread and universal. The biggest reason is that these policies cannot be guaranteed to be replicated and implemented by police departments across the country. As I mentioned earlier, in the years following the Obama 21st Century Task Force, innovation at the federal level regarding police departments has been slow, if not mostly stagnant. Society is changing, as are the demands and perceptions of law enforcement. Consequently, stagnant police reform is no longer conducive to deterring and preventing further police brutality. Likewise, it must be acknowledged that the ABLE program has been very successful and convincing in discouraging unnecessary force against fellow police officers. However, the authors forget to mention that many police colleagues harbor violence against each other. According to “A Growing Dilemma: How Police Brutality Affects Mental Health in Black Communities,” the author argues that “Police often maintain a code of silence regarding fellow officers’ violence and therefore fail to hold each other accountable. This undermines the experiences of victims who do report incidents” (Reginald 7). This culture of mutual secrecy within the police makes the ABLE program ineffective. Not to mention the scenarios in which police officers go out on solo assignments, which are not uncommon.
When examining the current police training system, there are two main issues. One is the extremely short duration of induction training, and the other is the excessive amount of firearms training for police officers. According to a report by the Institute for Criminal Justice Training Reform (ICJTR), U.S. police officers spend far less time in training before they are formally inducted into the force than in most other developed countries. “On average, U.S. police officers spend about 21 weeks in training before being qualified to patrol” (Trotter 2). The report examined police training requirements in more than 100 countries and found that the U.S. was among the lowest in terms of the average time required. When we turn our attention to the content of U.S. police training, we find that U.S. police officers spend more time on firearms training than de-escalation training. According to a 2013 report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, the U.S. Police Academy spends far more time on firearms training than on de-escalation — an average of 71 hours compared to 21 hours (Trotter, 43). It is the extremely short training time requirements and the greater proportion of weapons training rather than communication and bias removal training that have led to the failure of the police training system. Therefore, the police training system and entry requirements must be revamped to avoid abuse of police power.
According to Yasmeen’s research, a new one-day police training program could significantly reduce the likelihood of officers using force in response to suspects with psychological issues. This approach was developed by having police officers interact with trained actors in six real-life scenarios with the aim of improving their communication skills and empathy. At the end of the experiment, the actors would give feedback on how they felt about the police officers’ performance in handling the events. “There were significant improvements in directly measured behaviors (n = 142) as well as in indirect measurements of behavior throughout the police force” (10). This data suggests that this new training course, which includes improved empathy and communication skills, can significantly change police force behavior even if it is only one day long. Thus, this study strongly supports my core argument for changing the training focus of the police system and extending the duration of training.
To sum up, while the introduction of the Obama Task Force and ABLE program at the federal level several years ago mitigated the frequency of police brutality at some level, the slow progress of the law in recent years has once again brought the issue of police brutality to the forefront of the public’s mind. In order to protect homeless populations like those on Skid Row, extending the federal government’s police training requirements and reforming the content of police induction training are necessary steps to prevent police brutality. The current federal government should be called upon to draft reforms at the federal level that would extend police training requirements, reduce the percentage of time spent on firearms training, and increase the percentage of time spent on communication skills and anti-bias courses. By doing so, while the problem of police violence cannot be entirely avoided, the current deficiencies in police training can be improved, and police violence can be further prevented.
Works Cited
J.E. DeVylder, et al., Prevalence, Demographic Variation and Psychological Correlates of Exposure to Police Victimisation in Four US Cities, 26 Epidemiology & Psychiatric Sci. 466 (2017).
Carolyn L. Todd, Why Police Brutality is a Public Health Issue, Self (June 17, 2020), https://www.self.com/story/police-brutality-public-health-issue.
Holly Ober, Experiencing Police Violence Worsens Mental Health in Distinct Ways, UC Riverside (Oct. 13, 2020), https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2020/10/13/experiencing-police-violence-worsens-mental-health-distinctways.
Univ. Chi. L. Sch. Glob. Hum. Rts. Clinic, Deadly Discretion: The Failure of Police Use of Force Policies to Meet Fundamental International Human Rights Law and Standards 19 (2020), https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=ihrc.
Goff, P.A., The Science of Justice: Race, Arrests and Police Use of Force
et al. Center for Policing Equity, 2016
Young-Drake, Reginald, et al. “A Growing Dilemma: How Police Brutality Affects Mental Health in Black Communities.” The Movement Lawyering Clinic, Howard University School of Law (2021).
Bittner, Egon. “The Police on Skid-Row: A Study of Peace Keeping.” American Sociological Review, vol. 32, no. 5, 1967, pp. 699–715. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2092019. Accessed 3 Nov. 2022.
Horton, Jake. “How US police training compares with the rest of the world.” BBC News (2021).
Reaves, Brian A., and April L. Trotter. “The state of law enforcement training academies.” Sheriff & Deputy 69.1 (2017): 44–47.
Krameddine, Yasmeen I., et al. “A novel training program for police officers that improves interactions with mentally ill individuals and is cost-effective.” Frontiers in psychiatry 4 (2013): 9.
