Transparency, accountability, and monitoring
A quick game plan for improving the relationship between marginalized communities and law enforcement
Throughout thousands of years of civilized society, civilians have permitted with consent the existence of governmental bodies that are tasked with enforcing the laws of said society. It is a remarkable power in which other human beings can act as a check on other human beings to the point where they can arrest other human beings, charge other human beings, try other human beings, and incarcerate (and in more serious offenses, legally murder) other human beings.
This power has never been exercised without prejudice. Prejudice can infect any part of the due process of law, whether it is the initial detainment, interrogation, charging, booking, jailing, trying, and imprisoning. This prejudice can prove debilitating to families and whole communities. For Black and Latino Americans, it shapes an acrimonious relationship between their communities and predominantly white law enforcement.
It’s hard to say what policies can be put into place that can show marginalized communities that there is indeed equal justice under the law, that no one individual is above the law, and that if a law enforcement officer or official is deemed the perpetrator in a tragic incident, that officer and official will be subject to the same rigorous due process as if they were a civilian perpetrator.
I’m not an emotional man. As a black man, I’m admittedly not on edge when it comes to law enforcement, I am not anti-police, nor do I have a fear of the police. I’ve been stopped 25 times for various things over the past 10 years. I’ve been followed by a police officer for a mile because he saw me driving with a hoodie on. I’ve been pulled over in the wealthiest suburbs of Houston. I’m also well aware of the fact that there are characteristics about me — namely the fact that I speak with a standard American dialect — that affords me a degree of privilege that other blacks that may fit a “social stereotype” would not be afforded.
Nevertheless, I am still disheartened by the fact that we’re just minutes into an hour that is going to drag a generation; 455 years of damage is not going to be rectified in a half-century since the end of the Second American Civil Rights Movement. There are still many people in our society that do not understand the fight that we’re fighting as blacks have more to do with just civil rights and economic justice — it’s the relentless pursuit of the peace of mind knowing that we’re human beings too, entitled to the same dignity as any other human, and we’re more than just a commodity that serves as society’s pleasure.
I’ll get into that issue in another post. However, I want to talk about policy because I’m an armchair policy wonk. For the past few days, I have been thinking about what policies would I like to see take place that could, for one provide fairness to both civilians and law enforcement, and for two, provide an additional layer of confidence for civilians that any misconduct by law enforcement against civilians will not go unheard.
In brief, I would like to see can be categorized into three areas — transparency, accountability, and monitoring.
Transparency
- Law enforcement agencies serving populations greater than 100,000 people in its jurisdiction must wear body cameras that activate as soon as a police officer gets out of their patrol vehicle. This protects the civilian as well as the officer. Most agencies serving major cities have body cameras including Minneapolis; however, the body camera was not activated in the preceding moments before George Floyd was fatally pinned to the ground.
- Law enforcement agencies must provide annual reports to the FBI, the Department of Justice, and an additional Department (that I will propose in the second of the three areas) all civilian injuries and deaths that occur while in police custody. This is currently not federally mandated. A few years ago, former FBI Director James Comey infamously told a Congressional panel that he had no idea how many civilians die in police custody every year.
Accountability
I feel that one of two things should occur:
- The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice must be rebuilt under a Democratic administration (because it’s been effectively useless and rudderless under the Trump administration and unless a Democrat is elected President, it’s going to stay that way) and empowered to investigate all civilian fatalities that occurs while that individual is in police custody, not just of those with significant public interest. When it comes to these matters, communities, for the most part, are not going to trust local government officials.
- A cabinet-level department is established to deal specifically with the protection and enforcement of civil rights and civil liberties. This department would have investigative powers and be separate from the Department of Justice. As I mentioned previously, marginalized communities are not going to trust local government.
Monitoring
- Build upon the foundation laid by the bipartisan (and unfortunately little-reported) Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act of 2017 by not only providing robust support and guidance for mental health and psychological evaluations but also sociological evaluations to potentially identify officers that have adversarial views, biases, and prejudices against certain demographics that are significant enough to affect how they treat civilians of said demographic in an encounter. It’s tantamount to our society that law enforcement has a healthy relationship with the communities they patrol, protect, and serve.
With nearly 18,000 law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels (all with their own rules) making over 13 million arrests each year, the reality is that most law enforcement encounters with civilians are relatively peaceful. Cumulatively, fatal encounters are extremely rare. Regardless, with the remarkable power that law enforcement agencies have, it is important that civilians have some degree of trust.
This is only just a small piece of criminal justice reform; however, the relationship between the police and the communities that they serve should not be acrimonious and dehumanizing. Just as law enforcement serves as a check on behavior that is deemed to violate the laws of society; civilians should be just as empowered to have a check against law enforcement’s power. It is the only way that we can sustain a healthy society.
