Introduction
Kelling and Moore (1988) highlighted the history of American policing by identifying three general eras associated with its professional development and strategic orientations: the political, the reform, and the community eras. However, Williams and Murphy (1990) provided a minority perspective of Kelling and Moore’s analysis and reframed the eras to include their impacts on enslaved Africans in America and their descendants. As a result, the political era was recast to encompass the inherent nature of policing the powerless, the reform era was refocused to highlight how the benefits of the reform movement eluded blacks, and the community era was elaborated upon by acknowledging the potential benefits and challenges of empowering and partnering with historically marginalized communities (Williams and Murphy 1990).
Drawing upon the analysis of Williams and Murphy and others, this article provides a historical overview of a select number of events that affected and continue to affect the relationship between minority communities in general and the black community in particular and local law enforcement agencies. It concludes by highlighting policy and practical implications.
Historical Tension between Blacks and Those in Blue
Tension between the police and racial/ ethnic minority communities has been and continues to be one of the most pressing issues facing American police organizations (Culver 2004; Barak, Flavin, and Leighton 2001; Websdale 2001; Williams 1998). The history of American policing has been tainted by legally sanctioned, disparate service delivery and tarnished by the enforcement of racially motivated laws and statutes. Consequently, the present-day relationship between minorities and the police in America is one that has been impacted by the historical legacies of slavery, segregation, and discrimination, all part and parcel of racism at the societal, institutional, and individual levels.
The Political and Reform Eras: From Slave Patrols to Jim Crow
Compelling evidence exists that links the advent of America’s modern style of policing with slave patrols. Walker (1977, 1980) suggests that slave patrols were the forerunners or precursors to American police agencies. As such, slave patrols played an instrumental role in maintaining public order by limiting slave resistance and insurrection and enforcing the existing laws of Southern societies as embodied by the slave codes (Websdale 2001). In essence, these slave codes served to regulate slave life, reinforce social boundaries, and uphold chattel slavery (Russell 1998).
Coinciding with the conclusion of the Civil War, the emancipation of enslaved Africans, and the Reconstruction of the South, the first black codes were adopted in 1865. These codes were enforced by local law enforcement. Although the black codes provided some rights to newly freed blacks, overall they helped to create a new system of involuntary servitude by criminalizing black unemployment or idleness as vagrancy and the congregating of blacks as unlawful assembly.
In essence, ”the slave codes and the black codes represent two mutations of state sanctioned double standards” (Russell 1998,22) and helped birth Jim Crow-era public policy, symbolized by the 1896 Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson. Nonetheless, two constants remained: Blackness itself remained a crime (that is, African Americans were disproportionately targeted for specific crimes such as vagrancy) and local police agencies were used as the instrument to enforce the laws.
The Community Era: From Kerner Commission to Contemporary Issues
To prevent a repeat of the riots of the 1960s and to address the more aggressive measures, negative interactions, and related effects of ”saturation policing” associated with minority and poor communities, as well as the festering racial tension between the police and the African American community, the Kerner Commission recommended the establishment of police-community relations programs (Fogelson 1968; Websdale 2001). These helped to foster and further facilitate the community era of American policing.
The community era’s generic approach to improving police-community relations has morphed into the more modern-day practices of community- and problem-oriented policing (COP/POP). Both approaches share an overarching philosophy of partnering with all segments of the community to better identify and understand community issues and concerns and ultimately solve community problems. Nonetheless, problems remain in police-community relations. This is evident by recalling incidents ranging from the beatings of Rodney King and Abner Louima to the alleged ”depolicing” of minority neighborhoods and communities, bias-based policing efforts that target members of a particular race or religion (for example, pulling over a disproportionate number of black drivers or suspecting someone of terrorist activities simply for being Muslim or Arab), and the excessive use of force toward members of marginalized populations.
Where Do We Go From Here? Policy Implications for the Twenty-First Century
Austin and Dodge (1992, 594) propose that ”it is the reality blacks perceive that influences their discontent [with the police]. They [blacks] may base their expectations on the past and present of racial inequality and discrimination.” This quote offers important policy and practical implications for local law enforcement, especially considering the contemporary context of American society and taking a more inclusive perspective of America’s minority communities.
Local law enforcement agencies must be more creative and aggressive in their attempts to repair the damage done by slavery, discrimination, and past and current police practices supporting systems of racially and/or ethnically based oppression and exploitation. Likewise, police agencies and individual officers must be sensitive to the biased perceptions that persist in America, including those that have become more evident since the attacks of 9/11.
Accompanying local police agencies’ efforts to engage in their duties, especially their efforts in the war on drugs and the campaign against terrorism, are public concerns about biased police practices that include racial, ethnic, and religious profiling. To address these perceptions, police agencies must become (1) more community oriented and culturally competent by inviting citizens to become involved and active participants in all stages of the recruitment, selection, training, and promotion process and (2) more transparent by embracing civilian review boards. An aggressive approach would have more impact in adapting American police practices and services to the changing landscape of American society.
Conclusion
As elucidated more than sixty years ago in Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, a strained relationship continues to exist between the minority community and local law enforcement agencies. Indeed, ”there are remarkable and disturbing historical homologies among the control of African slaves in the American colonies, the regulation of freedmen and freed-women during nineteenth-century Reconstruction and Redemption, and the close surveillance and punitiveness directed at blacks [and other minorities] in postindus-trial inner cities” (Websdale 2001, 8). This presents a challenge for the profession of policing.
Local law enforcement agencies and individual officers of today must recognize, acknowledge, and understand how the historical legacy and practices of the police profession still affect the perception and participation of minority communities in collaborative problem solving and the coproduction of public safety and order. Creative approaches that encourage the confidence and support of the minority community can repair the damage that has been done and foster a symbiotic relationship between the minority community and local law enforcement.
