While most Americans don’t want to completely abolish law enforcement, the increasing calls to defund the police give us an opportunity to rethink policing in the United States. The video of George Floyd’s gruesome death and the ensuing protests have made it abundantly clear why African Americans have come to dread the presence of uniformed patrols. The racial disparities in terms of violent encounters with police are enough to give anyone pause. But while black men and women have suffered disproportionately from the deadly use of force, there is no doubt that everyone in the country would benefit from a less violent approach to policing.
The stark fact is that far more people are shot and killed by police in America each year than in any other Western democracy. While there is no official national register of fatal police encounters, research has shown that approximately a thousand Americans are killed each year by cops. Victims are majority white but disproportionately black with a fatality rate 2.8 times higher among blacks than whites. Most victims were reported to be armed (83%); however, black victims were more likely to be unarmed. There is no doubt that structural racism has caused African Americans to bear a disproportionate brunt of police violence. That violence, however, touches us all.
The thousand people killed each year by police in the United States is over ten times the number as Germany (11), France (26), England (3), Canada (36), Australia (4), Japan (2), Taiwan (2), Poland (2) and the Netherlands (4) combined. The countries with similar rates of citizens being killed by police—such as Brazil and Venezuela—have precisely the kinds of authoritarian governments that our founders fought to prevent from taking root in this land.
Clearly, it’s time for us to rethink when and how police should unleash deadly force in the community.
There is no better place to start than the police academy. Cadets in the United States typically receive no more than six months of training. German police officers by contrast have at least two years of training and British cadets get three. In particular, police need to be well-prepared to de-escalation conflicts. The recent death of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta is a textbook case of what can go wrong when police attempt to make an arrest when a warning or citation would have sufficed.
Urban police forces also need to use far less military-grade equipment. Since 1990, local law enforcement has received over six billion dollars of surplus military equipment. While we all want our uniformed officers to be well-equipped and protected when on patrol, it is hard to see how tanks, Humvees and mine-resistant vehicles are necessary parts of daily police work. More often than not, the use of military equipment will cause violence rather than prevent it.
Another source of unnecessary violence is the proliferation of no-knock warrants, frequently used in drug busts. As marijuana becomes legalized in more states, we must pull the reins back on police task forces that that burst into people’s homes without identifying themselves in search of narcotics. In the case of Breonna Taylor, a mistaken address lead to death.
A final measure to reduce unnecessary killings is to remove qualified immunity for police. Under this doctrine, created by the Supreme Court in 1967, police are shielded from legal repercussions for any but the most egregious killings. While there clearly are moments when police officers are justified in using deadly force, qualified immunity has the effect of protecting the worst cops from any consequences.
On the far horizon of police reform is our national gun culture. There are more guns in America than there are citizens, which has not only made us the world’s leader in mass-shootings but created the very environment where police have to worry that any encounter on the streets can be turn deadly.
The United States should never be a nation where its most vulnerable citizens have to fear the police. Our lawmakers should commit to remaking law enforcement so that it can best serve America’s communities.
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Photo by Max Bender on Unsplash