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Tuesday, November 1, 2016

HOW DO WE DE-ESCALATE THE VIOLENCE AGAINST POLICE?


Over the first eight months of 2015, American police killed 776 people, while British police killed exactly one. American police are eight times as likely to kill a citizen, and ten times as likely to die on the job, as their essentially unarmed British counterparts.   

It is difficult to compare policing practices in different countries with different cultures and populations.  I respect the dangerous job police perform no matter where they do it.  And to be fair, it does make a lot more sense for every officer to be armed in the U.S., since so many citizens are armed.   London, as a whole, had 114 homicides and 1,662 gun crimes last year, in a population of 8.63 million. It's not even fair to compare.  I just think the tactical methods and training of most of the police in the U.S. has gone the wrong way.  

For example, police in the U.S. are trained similar to the military with the sole purpose to protect the lives of the police.  Yes, their slogan is to “protect and serve,” but in my opinion, their training seems more concerned with hunkering down until it is safe to proceed.   When the damage has already been done, they charge in sometimes using excessive force.  I am not an expert on police training in the U.S., but I think we need to have a discussion about what our response to the police should be and how the police should be trained.   
 
My own experience with police is limited, but when I do get stopped, it is far from a friendly experience.  I was immediately given commands and barked to by the officer without telling me what wrong I had done.  It was a form of intimidation that innocent people find offensive.  All the loud commands and aggressive behavior from the police does not induce a relaxed and peaceful response, especially from men.  I know police are trained to treat everyone the same according to political correctness.   Just like the Department of Homeland Security treats grandmothers and little children as terrorists at the airport for the same reason.  Both methods are demeaning and ineffective to creating a respected police force. 
 
We call policemen and firefighters heroes because they risk their life to save others.  But watching how their safety measures prevent them from disarming a shooter or running into a burning building seems to take away from that heroism.   They are taught not to risk their life for another.  I am not advocating sacrificing police and firemen and we do have too many lose their lives in the call of duty, but I am trying to provide some observations concerning how police practices have changed in my lifetime.  I may be too naïve having grown up watching Andy Griffith on TV policing the fictitious town of Mayberry.  I do like the fact that Andy was approachable and knew everyone in town.
Can we look at other police training practices that may provide a better model?    

Unlike the U.S. model of law enforcement, the British police have a thing they call Policing By Consent, based on the principles of Sir Robert Peel, who came up with the Metropolitan Police in 1829. It states that constables are citizens in uniform "who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence." It's been the guiding principle for close to 200 years.  

Here are Peel’s nine principles:

1.       To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2.       To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect. 

3.       To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws. 

4.       To recognize always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives. 

5.       To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life. 

6.       To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective. 

7.       To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.  (emphasis is mine) 

8.       To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary, of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty. 

9.       To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.  

Do you agree some of these principles should be a part of police training in the U.S.? 

The British police training is designed to teach police how to disarm suspects wielding knives, guns, and foul language.  Each officer is equipped with an extendable metal stick called an asp and a can of “aggressive hairspray” laughably termed CS as if it's tear gas.  According to a London policeman, “one lesson that everyone who ever became a half-decent copper did take on board was that the most important piece of officer safety equipment we ever had was talk.”   Police are generally trained to de-escalate hostile situations and use minimal violence in response to a threat.  For example, the British police have interviews instead of interrogations.  Also, they are not allowed to lie to the suspect about the evidence they have.  

In a 2004 survey, 82 percent of Britain's Police Federation members said that they did not want to be routinely armed on duty, according to the BBC. At least one third of British police officers have feared for their lives while being on duty, but remained opposed to carrying firearms. But for the most part, many British police would like to have a Taser.  Basically, it comes down to the fact that their conflicts so very rarely involve firearms that they simply don't need them.  However, they would be the first to say if every drunk or crackhead I stopped to search had a concealed carry weapon, I would be the first to ask for a gun.  In terrorist or other situations involving a shooter, the British do have SWAT teams with expert snipers that are deployed.  

A police officer does not have to shoot to kill and, in several countries, a police officer does not even have to carry a gun. In Norway, Iceland, New Zealand, Britain, and Ireland, police officers generally do not carry firearms.  Richard Hill, history professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, explains that New Zealand police were disarmed for routine work in 1886, following the principle of the British police that: “Constables are placed in authority to protect, not to oppress, the public.” For officers to carry guns would not just be unnecessary, he says, “but also antithetical to the values of civil society.”  

You may say, “But these countries don’t allow guns!”  But what about in Iceland, where there are an estimated 90,000 guns in a population of 323,000?  The country has one of the lowest global crime rates in the world and, the BBC reports, the majority of crimes that do occur don’t involve firearms.  So it is possible to police a population that owns guns and reduce violence too.  

In these countries where citizens don’t have access to guns, the police are rarely taken by surprise by a firearm. There are officers trained in how to handle firearms when necessary, and can respond to reports of a citizen with a gun by sending out an armed police officer. But another key difference between the US and elsewhere is training. Paul Hirschfield, an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University, points out that US police officers are trained for an average of just 19 weeks. Compare that to police in Norway, who have three years of training before they’re fully qualified.  In Finland, officers have to get permission from a superior officer before shooting. In Spain, officers should fire a warning shot, then aim for non-vital body parts, before resorting to lethal shooting. “In the United States, you only shoot to kill. You only use deadly force,” says Hirschfield.  

It doesn’t help that the law in the United States gives fairly wide scope for police violence. Under the European Convention of Human Rights, police can only shoot if it’s “absolutely necessary” in order to achieve a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Meanwhile, in the US, police officers can shoot if there’s “reasonable” perception of a grave and imminent threat, which is a far more subjective standard. “What defines reasonable?,” says Hirschfield. “We have a society where it’s often considered reasonable to take a black person reaching into their waistband as a threat. The whole legal framework for determining whether lethal force is legal or not is premised on a flawed assumption that officers can determine what is reasonable.”  

“If you only have 19 weeks of training, you’re going to spend those on the most essential things. Unfortunately, in the United States, it’s about what you need to defend yourself. How you’re going to avoid getting hurt,” says Hirschfield. “If you have three years, you can also learn how to protect people, how to avoid these situations from arising in the first place. It fosters a whole different orientation and culture in law enforcement.”   
Just some food for thought, so please don’t accuse me of hating police.  I don’t. 
 
Excerpts taken from:
I Was A Cop In A Country With No Guns: 6 Startling Truths  By Charley Clark, July 12, 2016
How do police handle violence in countries where officers don’t carry guns?   By Olivia Goldhill, July 09, 2016
 


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