Police in America

1
Police in America

• Chapter Nine
• Police Community Relations

2
Definition of Police Community Relations

• Police-community relations refers primarily to
  relations between the police and racial and
  ethnic minority communities.

3
Different racial and ethnic groups

• Hispanic
• More likely to experience police initiated
  contact
• Largest racial or ethnic minority group by 2010
• Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, Central and
  South America

• Native American
• Higher crime rate on reservation
• Tribal police
• Asian Americans
• Vietnam, Cambodia are newest immigrants
• African American

4
Public Opinion and the police

• Racial and Ethnic differences
• Significant differences of different racial and
  ethnic groups
• Majority of African Americans and Hispanics have
  a favorable attitude toward the police
• Attitudes about police use of force
• 60 white favorable
• 33 black favorable
• 42 Hispanic favorable

5
Public Opinion and the police

• Vast majority of Americans have a positive
  attitude toward the police.
• Racial and ethnic minorities consistently rate
  the police less favorably than whites.
• A majority of African Americans and Hispanics
  gives the police a generally favorable rating.
• Young people rate the police less favorably than
  older people.
• Poor people, less educated people, and crime
  victims tend to rate the police lower than
  others.
• There are significant differences in opinions
  about the police among different cities.

6
Police Field Practices

• Deadly Force
• Source of major conflict between minorities and
  police
• Changed significantly over last 40 years
• Does current disparity between African Americans
  and whites shot and killed represent systematic
  discrimination?

• Use of Physical Force
• Most common complaint by minorities
• Use of force continuum
• Police use force more often against
• Criminal suspects
• Male suspects
• Black males
• Drunk and antagonistic
• Physical resistance

7
Police Field Practices

• Arrest
• African Americans more than whites relative to
  their percentage in the population
• Arrests of blacks more likely declined for
  prosecution than whites
• Drug offences

• Traffic Stops
• Driving while black
• Driving while brown
• Driving while female
• Field interrogations and searches
• Being out of place
• Conflicting evidence

8
Police Field Practices

• Verbal Abuse and ethnic slurs
• Rodney King incident
• Canine Units
• Higher incidence of dog bites
• Delay in Responding to calls
• Family disturbance
• Abuse of gay men, lesbians, and transgendered
  persons
• Abuse and disrespect

9
Administrative practices

• Handling Citizen Complaints
• Whitewash officer conduct?
• Hispanic Americans less likely to file complaints
• Employment practices
• Racial and ethnic minorities underrepresented in
  departments
• Improving police-community relations
• Creating special police-community relations units
• Training for officers