When news about police shooting down unarmed black men and women is so common, it becomes hard to deny that there is a problem in our country. We can no longer deny that police brutality exists when unarmed black people were killed at 5x the rate of unarmed whites in 2015. We cannot deny that there is racism involved. Still, these problems persist and there is a constant debate about police brutality. What is the cause of police brutality, and how should it be handled?

Opinion: It’s An Individual Problem

Many people argue that while there have been police who have committed acts of police brutality, it is unfair to characterize the entirety of police forces as killers. This is an individualist outlook. A sort of “there’s always a few bad apples in the barrel” view on the issue. According to CNN, Canterbury of the Fraternal Order of Police suggests that there should be more training and better selection, along with better wages, and a change in police culture. CNN also cites, Christy Lopez, who has investigated into police brutality through the Justice department. She states that when police brutality occurs, communities distrust them, and in turn are rude to the police. This makes the police feel disrespected and oppressed and it perpetuates a cycle of police brutality.

These opinions suggest that policemen guilty of committing acts of police brutality are racist, but not the police forces themselves. The solutions offered are: punishing acts of police brutality, better race training, hiring more selectively, and compelling people of color and police to respect each other more.

The part of this opinion that suggests that people of color need to create a better relationship with police officers receives criticism from the fact that it is victim blaming and does not guarantee the safety of black lives. Another problem with this position entirely is that it sees that it acknowledges that racism within the justice system in America exists, but it mostly suggests individualistic reforms. It also suggests that the system works; that it only needs to be tweaked through better police training and weeding out the racists rather than reworking the system entirely and/or replacing it.

The “bad apple” argument has also been discredited by many academic sources and research projects to show that police brutality goes beyond racist cops being in the police. A study by Princeton University shows that police brutality is extremely disproportionate between whites and minorities and that police brutality stems from racist motivations. So if better police training is not enough, what should the police do?

Opinion: It’s An Institutional Problem

Other opinions on police brutality state that rather than it being an individual issue, that it stems from systematic racism. It states that police brutality is not something you can reform by simply telling cops to be less racist and by asking people of color to be nicer.

For instance, in Ijeoma Oluo’s book, So You Want to Talk About Race, her chapter, Is Police Brutality Really About Race? she explains the vast history behind police brutality in America. She cites how police forces were originally the Night Patrols responsible for capturing “escaped” slaves and re-enslaving them. After the civil war, the Night Patrols were turned into the first police forces. In the post-Reconstruction era, police participated in terrorizing black people. They were KKK members. Oluo states, “[Our police force] was created to police black Americans and serve white Americans…Our police forces were created not to protect Americans of color, but to control Americans of color…what we need is different policing. Policing not steeped from root to flower in the need to control people of color” (91-95).

What is this “different policing?” and how is it different from the previous opinion’s solutions? For one, this opinion says, “one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.” This opinion sees police brutality as an institutional problem entrenched in the U.S.’s history. Police brutality does not come from racist police, but rather systemic racism. Institutional problems are changed by changing the institution. Across the U.S., legislation has been passed at the state level about when to use force. In April of 2018, Shirley Weber introduced Assembly Bill 931, which would change the requirements for the use of force from “reasonable” to “necessary.” According to NPR, the Seattle police department agreed to change their use of force policy and make more efforts to deescalate confrontations. These measures, however, raise concerns about police officer’s safety.

This argument also agrees that there needs to be a cultural change. It does not agree that it is the responsibility of people of color to have a more “respectful” attitude towards police. Many black men and women have been gunned down while being respectful. So while more police training and better selection methods will help combat police brutality, there needs to be a systemic change and it is not the responsibility of the marginalized population to control that.

This opinion also suggest that police reform cannot only be through changing the police officers. It needs to occur through legal enforcement because in order to fix a systemic racial issue, the institution itself needs to be changed. This is shown through the laws earlier mentioned, but some suggest that there should be more done. One example is Campaign Zero, an activist group against police brutality, that suggests ten principles of police reform. Some of these intersect with the individualist approach, which is better training, community representation, and community oversight, but the other principles differ. For instance, it suggests, ending broken windows policing, limiting use of force, installing body cams/filming the police, ending for-profit policing, demilitarization, fair police-union contracts, and most importantly, independently investigating and prosecuting the police. This is important because in most situations of police brutality, local prosecutors rely on the local police departments to conduct investigations into crimes. This undoubtedly creates a conflict of interest because if police officers are investigating their own officers. Campaign Zero suggests that the changes in investigating should be: lower the standard of proof for Department of Justice civil rights investigations of police officers, use federal funds to encourage independent investigations and prosecutions, establish a permanent Special Prosecutor’s Office at the State level for cases of police violence, and require independent investigations of all cases where police kill or seriously injure civilians. These changes would drastically change the justice system in America, and thus address some of the institutionalized racism that exists in our police departments.

This point of view, in comparison to the individualist outlook on police brutality, has more reliable evidence, research, and solid solutions. This makes this side of the debate more reliable but it is still fairly controversial to the public. The idea of changing the justice system so much is hard for people to imagine when they see America from an individualistic approach, but also because the idea of changing the government seems like a radical and impossible task.

So…What Now?

The first opinion, that police brutality is an individual issue and needs to be handled as such makes sense on a surface level but it does not have a lot of factual support to back it up. The second opinion, that police brutality is a result of institutionalized racism, has a lot more evidence. It also has a lot more solutions with evidence to show that they would be effective if implemented.

Both these opinions, however, intersect in some of their solutions and they all share a common motivation to combat racism and achieve peace.

Works Cited

“Article 931.” Bill Text – AB-931 Criminal Procedure: Use of Force by Peace Officers., leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB931.

Goncalves, Felipe. “A Few Bad Apples? Racial Bias in Policing.” Industrial Relations Section, 2018, pp. 1–80., doi:http://www.princeton.edu/~fmg/JMP.

“History of Racial Injustice: Ongoing Police Violence.” Equal Justice Initiative, eji.org/history-racial-injustice-ongoing-police-violence.

“Independent Investigations and Prosecutions.” Campaign Zero, http://www.joincampaignzero.org/investigations.

Kaste, Martin. “For Police, A Debate Over Force, Cop Culture And Confrontation.” NPR, NPR, 25 Sept. 2014, http://www.npr.org/2014/09/25/351373721/police-mental-stamina-metrics-shed-light-on-deadly-force.

Lopez. “There Are Huge Racial Disparities in How US Police Use Force.” Vox, Vox, 14 Nov. 2018, http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938186/police-shootings-killings-racism-racial-disparities.

Moralmondayct. “Statement Regarding Police Brutality.” Moral Monday CT, 1 Apr. 2018, moralmondayct.org/2018/03/30/statement-regarding-police-brutality/.

“Police Killed More than 100 Unarmed Black People in 2015.” Mapping Police Violence, mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed.

Vera, Amir. “Should Police Use of Force Be Regulated? The Answer Isn’t Simple, and That’s a Problem.” CNN, Cable News Network, 30 Sept. 2018, http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/30/us/police-use-of-force-legislation/index.html.