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Winter Books Toleration shields police abuse
SHIELDED FROM
JUSTICE: POLICE BRUTALITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES By
Allyson Collins Human Rights Watch, 440 pages, $20
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By NEVE GORDON
Whos there? is the opening line of
Shakespeares Hamlet. Surprisingly though, it is not the guard but
the man approaching the castles gate who poses the question. This
reversal of roles seems to intimate that something is seriously awry in
Elsinore, that the kingdom has been corrupted by evil forces.
Likewise, Shielded from Justice cautions us about the
reversal of roles in our society, suggesting that the protectors of rights have
turned into violators. In New Orleans, for example, public awareness of
police corruption and abuse reached a new high in the mid-1990s, as dozens of
officers were tried for felonies including murder, armed robbery and drug
trafficking. ... One officer was convicted of hiring a professional killer to
murder a woman for bringing a brutality complaint against him, and another was
convicted for killing a brother and sister who worked at a family-run
restaurant where the officer had been a security guard ... The New
Orleans police force, one might add, is only one of many departments currently
under investigation by the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division.
Although this impressive study provides several examples of the
excessive use of force by officers, claiming that police brutality is one
of the most serious, enduring, and divisive violations in the United
States, the authors principal objective is not focused on
documenting horrific incidents. Rather, Shielded from Justice
concentrates on uncovering the conditions that allow these barbarous
occurrences to persist, averring that the problem is nationwide, and its
nature is institutionalized.
Collins rigorous investigation revolves around a
straightforward question: How is it that police brutality continues to be
rampant despite the fact that it has been exposed by the media and that many
police departments have been harshly criticized by independent commissions? The
answer, though complex, is forthright: There is a general lack of
accountability. The analysis of this deficit is the authors most
important contribution.
Shielded from Justice represents two years of research in
fourteen major cities around the country, and it is divided into four parts.
The first, Summary and Recommendations, is followed by an overview
that analyzes the major causes for the lack of accountability in cases of
police brutality. These two parts are based on the findings of the third
section, the bulk of the book, which includes fourteen chapters, each one
dedicated to a different city: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis,
Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland,
Providence, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
The last section includes eight appendices that may be used for
reference.
The author argues that police abuse exists primarily because it is
tolerated; furthermore this tolerance is supported by the very institutional
apparatus that is supposed to combat such offenses. By exposing institutional
barriers to investigation, to redress and to the prosecution of police
offenses, the book at times transcends its own objectives and manages to
uncover some of the more general problems facing our society.
We read that a small group of abusive officers, usually comprising
no more than 2 or 3 percent of any given police force, generate most of the
complaints of excessive use of force. The problem is that these officers are
not ejected from the system and consequently continue their criminal activity.
Although the book does not say as much, it is evident from the findings that
the violators are not only the officers who actually engage in unjustified
shootings or unnecessary rough physical treatment, but include all those who,
by remaining silent, ensure the impunity of the lawbreakers.
Lack of effective leadership and the failure of the judiciary
system are, according to the book, among the major shortcomings common to all
the cities. Following the 1991 Christopher Commission report published in the
aftermath of the Rodney King beating, the author concludes that the problem of
excessive use of force is fundamentally a problem of supervision,
management and leadership. Police supervisors have never been evaluated
according to how they deal with subordinate officers who commit human rights
violations. Very few departments around the country, if any, have developed
early warning systems to identify and manage problem
officers, and police unions are often all too hasty to protect
offenders instead of removing the rotten apples from the basket. Above all,
hardly any police chiefs have actually implemented a zero tolerance for
abuse policy.
The failure of professional leadership is aggravated by the
inadequacy of political leadership. In 1994, Congress called on the Justice
Department to produce a nationwide report on police brutality. Almost four
years have passed, the report is still unfinished and the representatives are
waiting ... patiently. Data reveals that, despite rhetoric to the
contrary, the Clinton administration has neither dedicated significantly
greater resources nor had much more success than previous administrations in
prosecuting law enforcement officers for civil rights violations.
The judiciary system is culpable as well. Out of 9,000 attorneys
working for the Justice Department, only 32 are responsible for prosecuting
police abuse; that is, one federal civil rights prosecutor for every 22,950 law
enforcement officers. Its no wonder that of the thousands of
complaints the Justice Department receives annually, it prosecutes only a
handful. Local prosecution of excessive use of force by police personnel
is even rarer. This pattern is particularly alarming since it points to an
inadequate separation of power between the executive and judiciary
branches.
Race, the author emphasizes, continues to play a central role in
the use of excessive force in the United States, yet she does not stress the
relevance of sex. (If the book would have examined police brutality in prisons
-- or even taken into account other Human Rights Watch reports that have done
just that -- the significance of sex would not have been downplayed). Even more
important, in my opinion, is her failure to underscore the crucial role that
class plays in cases of police brutality; most abuses seem to occur at the
intersection of race or sex with class. Collins book reinforces the lack
of economic analysis that characterizes Human Rights Watchs work in
general; this work, in turn, mirrors the broader fear of Marxs specter in
U.S. culture.
This criticism brings to the fore what I believe to be the
books most critical oversight. Namely, that social and even human rights
critiques must include an economic analysis.
Consider the following example. We read that even though
aggressive quality of life policing has led to an increase in
complaints of abuse, New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani continues to flaunt his
policing techniques. Collins notes that Guilianis strategy has become
very popular and is now being copied in other cities around the country. She
neglects to point out that the mayors quality of life
policing is primarily popular with the middle class. The middle class supports
Guilianis policy since it, generally speaking, is not subjected to
excessive use of force. Guiliani, in turn, listens to the middle class because
it comprises the majority of voters in this country.
As the author makes clear in the recommendations, in order to stop
police brutality a no-tolerance policy must be imposed from the top down. She
does not add, however, that such a policy will be adopted only when voters
demand change. By and large, the millions of lower-class citizens, particularly
blacks and Latinos who are most affected by police brutality, no longer
participate in this countrys political life. Consequently, their needs
are not seriously considered by the political leadership. The books
success in exposing the lack of institutional support to stop police brutality
only confirms this claim, but the recommendations do not actually address it.
Reforming legal procedures and ensuring transparency, as the book suggests,
will not suffice if the objective is to secure the rights of all people. If
political leaders are to be accountable to all citizens, including poor
minorities, the political system itself will have to be transformed.
Despite Collins inattentiveness to the role of economics, I
strongly recommend her book. Whos there? Collins asks, and,
as with Hamlet, whose search leads him to realize that Elsinore has been
corrupted, she finds the situation in the U.S. indefensible. Indeed, her
incessant effort to probe into a system that is often concealed from the
publics eye has enabled her to expose its bankruptcy, revealing that the
institutions and people who are supposed to stop the pernicious acts committed
by police officers have failed us.
It seems that not a week goes by without an incident of police
brutality appearing in the press; and yet we tend to be forgiving, we tend to
forget. Perhaps it is because police work is difficult and so often dangerous
that people are inclined to refrain from looking too closely at how the
objectives are accomplished. As one person said, if safety means kicking a
little butt, so be it. Aside from the fact that we are not merely talking about
kicking a little butt, this logic endorses the morally hollow view
that the end justifies the means; it does so in order to rationalize
societies indifference toward police brutality. Collins rejects this
moral position, showing that excessive use of force by officers has become an
accepted norm in our culture. By uncovering some of the causes that have led to
this culture of violence, Collins has done a great service to all those who
believe that the struggle for a more just society begins in ones
backyard.
The book is also available on Human Rights Watchs website:
http://www.hrw.org
Neve Gordon writes from Israel.
National Catholic Reporter, November 6,
1998
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