Accusations of police hostility and abuse towards African Americans has been a pressing issue fueling mass demonstrations demanding reform. Amnesty International has joined in, censuring the U.S. for the nearly 1,000 police killings per year with a disproportionate number of Black and Latino victims. The problem of police abuse, however, is not confined to the Black community. It is a problem for all of us.
Consider this: The record shows that more Whites than Blacks are killed by police each year. Something similar holds true for other kinds of police abuse: It is part of police culture affecting all of us, but it is exacerbated by racial animosity.
Police face demanding challenges: responding to violent crimes, searching for suspects, and confronting a gun culture. This has led to a police culture in which they consider a whole neighborhood dangerous, see everyone as a possible criminal, and believe they must exercise their authority swiftly and forcefully. Add in anger, fear, and racial hostility and you come up with an explosive mixture. As we might expect, the severity of the problem varies with the department and the individual police officer. Nevertheless, it is not just a case of some “rotten apples.” It is a part of a culture.
'Stanford Study' revealed tendency toward abuse of power
Abuse of power is not confined to police. Psychological research finds that those in any job requiring controlling the behavior of others come to emphasize their power, support one another in doing so, and even dehumanize those they are intended to control.
The work of prison guards and police officers differs in many respects, but both involve maintaining control over people. That is why revisiting the classic Stanford Prison Study, conducted some 30 years ago should help us understand why. In the study, a group of Stanford college students who had volunteered to serve as prisoners or guards during the research were randomly assigned to one or the other position. How did they respond to the challenge? Those assigned to be guards saw their job as keeping order and controlling the prisoners who, in turn, resented and resisted their efforts.
Guards then cracked down, became more authoritarian and demanding and used more force. Tension between the two groups quickly escalated, and as conditions deteriorated, the researchers were forced to halt the project. In just a few days, perfectly normal, decent college students had become abusive.
A history of the institutions our society uses to control behavior shows the effort entailed in reducing physical abuse in families, schools, psychiatric facilities, nursing homes and such. Abuse still occurs, but we have made considerable progress.
Answer is investment, not defunding
Can we make progress with police too? Certainly. But not by defunding them. We must invest in promoting professional police practices and eliminating outmoded ones.
One such practice is the rough ride in the police van. Some say it goes back to the time when newly arrived Irish, victims of poverty and prejudice, were herded into police wagons and bounced around roughly on route to the police station. The vehicles were dubbed paddy wagons.
In more recent years, police chiefs and protesters have worked to do away with the rough rides in police vans that have been part of police culture. Such tactics have resulted in deaths, numerous injuries, and millions of dollars in damages awarded to victims and their families. The rough ride in a Baltimore police van that led to the death of Freddy Gray, a 25 -year-old Black man in April 2015 was widely protested. Records reveal a number of serious injuries sustained in such rides in Baltimore including a plumber in his 50s accused of public urination and a 27-year-old woman brought in for being part of a noisy party.
These incidents in Baltimore resonated with me. Several years ago, when my daughter was ill in her apartment in Philadelphia, I called for emergency help to get her to a hospital. A police van arrived with two officers who handled the situation routinely. (I saw them as decent men much like other police I knew through family, friends and neighbors).
My daughter, seemingly in a daze, accompanied them passively to the van where they cuffed her hands behind her back (“standard procedure” they responded to my protests) and helped her to a bench in the van that was not equipped with seat belts or other restraints. The subsequent ride, with jackrabbit starts, sharp turns, and sudden stops threw her to the floor and bounced her from one side of the van to the other.
Rough ride in police van has become part of the culture
In Philadelphia, it’s called a "nickel ride," a term going back to the days when rides in amusement parks cost a nickel. In Chicago, it’s a "joy ride." Other names used in other places include a "cowboy ride" and a "screen test." Like other ways of dealing with the varied situations police encounter, it is passed down from more experienced officers to rookies until it becomes part of police culture. A variety of such aspects of this culture produce mistrust, resentment, and hostility among law-abiding citizens.
Unfortunately, many people still believe that physical force is the best way to address undesirable behavior. In addressing a group of law enforcement officers on Long Island, for example, President Donald Trump provoked the ire of police chiefs when he proclaimed his strategy to combat crime.
“When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon — you just see them thrown in, rough — I said, please don’t be too nice.”
A few months after my daughter’s "nickel ride," I was walking in downtown Philadelphia when I noticed a Black man standing on the corner I was approaching. Seemingly drunk, he was muttering to himself and struggling to maintain balance. As a police officer, several feet ahead of me passed him, he delivered a powerful punch to the Black man's solar plexus and continued on his way without looking back.
Other pedestrians also continued on their way not knowing what to do for the man writhing on the ground. Should I call 911 for help? I thought. But I decided that his chances may be better lying on the pavement than riding in a police van.
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