‘Zero tolerance’ poisons cop-community relations
Even those who’ve long known about racial disparities in Baltimore policing found last week’s Justice Department report stunning in the systemic and brazen intrusions it revealed:
Police stopped one black man in his mid-50s 30 times in less than four years, frequently detained him to check for warrants, but never issued a single citation or criminal charge.
Supervisors directed a shift of patrol officers to arrest “all the black hoodies” in a neighborhood. In another instance, when a patrol officer protested that there was no reason to clear a group of black men standing on a corner, a sergeant told him to “make something up.”
An African-American teenager was strip-searched on a public street, in front of his girlfriend, by an officer who was looking for the teen’s older brother — one of many strip-searches that resulted in multiple lawsuits and 60 complaints against police.
Officers allegedly used racial epithets, including the n-word, and made threats when interacting with African Americans, including knocking down an 87-year-old grandmother.
During the five-and-a-half years studied, 91% of those arrested in Baltimore for “highly discretionary offenses” such as “failure to obey” or “trespassing ” were black, in a city that is less than two-thirds black. On the roads, African Americans — about 60% of the driving-age population — accounted for 82% of traffic stops.
Such findings have become all too familiar across the nation. In the past two years, the Justice Department has found similar patterns of racist practices in Ferguson, Mo., and excessive use of deadly force in Cleveland. Now, Chicago police are deservedly under the microscope. What to do? Integrating police departments, long sold as a panacea for these sorts of problems, is essential but insufficient. In Baltimore, about 50% of police are black and the city is led by a black mayor.
“Zero tolerance” policing — cracking down on small offenses such as public drunkenness or trespassing in a bid to prevent violent crimes — appears to do more harm than good. Even though Baltimore police and political leaders have disavowed zero tolerance, the Justice report found that its legacy lives on.
Nor is the problem about “a relatively small number of police officers over many, many years,” as Police Commissioner Kevin Davis would have it. A “small number” cannot produce 132,000 stops, many of them unconstitutional, concentrated in two African-American police districts over five-and-a-half years.
Solutions remain complex. Police have dangerous, difficult jobs. In inner-city neighborhoods, they face the brunt of societal problems they didn’t create and over which they have no control. But that’s not an excuse for condoning racial bias, protecting bad cops or avoiding systemic changes in policies, training, oversight and accountability.
Cities such as Camden, N.J., Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., have managed to turn problem departments around through restructuring, strong leadership or a commitment to community policing. If they can do it, so can others.