Does Anti-Profiling Legislation Really Work?
There is not a person in this country who does not know that the police engages in racial profiling. If a Black person says they are not aware of this practice, they are either not yet beyond the toddler stage of life, or being intentionally deceptive in hopes of receiving special considerations from the white dominators. We all know that every day in every city, every town and every rural community in this country, the very life of a Black person is in danger when they come across a member of the law enforcement community.
But, politicians want to sit around and debate the issue. They want to request a whole bunch of statistical analysis to prove what every Black person over the age of 2 years old understands: police profile racially. Why do politicians play this game? To pretend they are actually attempting to address the scourge of law enforcement bigotry without actually doing a goddamn thing about the problem.
If all these folks are going to do is sit around in a little room and say, “profiling is bad…. we should do something about it…” and then move onto the next topic, they need to get the fuck out of office, because they do not care about what happens to real people in the real world.
Who are the people compiling the statistics and where are they coming from? Most of the time, they work FOR the people in power, who are invested in maintaining the status quo. So, not only can they manipulate the facts to make them fit the narrative of the white dominators, but they rely on information given to them by the oppressive law enforcement community. Somehow, the word of a cop is seen as more reliable than that of his victim, so he can lie about absolutely anything and be seen as the “good guy” in the story. What is to stop a white police officer from incorrectly listing the race of his victims in order to “prove” that he is not engaging in racially biased behavior on the job? (In fact, it was proven that in East Haven, Connecticut, police officers did exactly this for many years)
If a victim of police oppression reports the crimes that officers commit against him, it is usually written off as unfounded, or uncorroborated. Yet the word of a single pig is enough to land a man behind bars. Why are police given more credibility than an ordinary community member, especially if that community member is Black?
There is also nothing stopping police officers from harassing and endangering anyone who reports profiling or brutish behavior. Everyone knows about the “blue wall of silence”. If a Black person walks into a police station to report to an officer that one of his fellow “boys in blue” has committed criminal acts against him, he is putting his safety in the hands of people who are invested only in defending and protecting the man carrying the badge.
Combating racial profiling is not about crunching numbers, compiling reports and making recommendations that the police look at as optional. In order to fight racist police practices, there needs to be serious consequences for officers who are caught profiling. They should be kicked off the police force and charged with a felony. They need to be held accountable. As it stands today, police officers can commit even most egregious offenses, like the murder of unarmed people, with little to no chance of repercussions. ANYTIME a police officer shoots an unarmed person, they should be charged and convicted for murder (or attempted murder if the person is lucky enough to survive.) Police officers complain that they do not want to have to stop to think before they act, that it could put their lives in danger… well… tough shit. Shouldn’t you HAVE TO take a second to think before you take the life of another human being?
Police officers also should not be foreign invaders. If there is a need for law enforcement presence in a given community, the officers should be recruited from among local residents only. No more white “good ole boys” rolling into a Black community and running roughshod over the rights of the people who actually live there. Let the white boys stay in their little suburban communities and arrest the folks with the meth labs in their garage.
I understand the desire for activist groups to enforce racial profiling laws. There is this belief that compiling statistics to “prove” that racial profiling exists will somehow force police departments to change their ways. That the threat of removing funding sources to police departments who are non-compliant will help alleviate the insidiousness of racial profiling. However, I think that until a police officer has to worry about facing VERY REAL CONSEQUENCES, like PRISON TIME for engaging in such practices, there is really no incentive for an individual officer to change his behavior.
Recently, there was an amendment passed for Connecticut’s racial profiling law, the Penn Act. A huge production was made about the “much needed changes” to the Penn Act that were added. Basically, the legislators decided that the Penn Act provisions would be enforced more stringently if they added a “traffic stop receipt” concept to the legislation, so that motorists who have been pulled over can be sure that their race was listed correctly. They also included a provision that allowed people to anonymously launch complaints about profiling, and appointed a committee to investigate the claims, as well as to examine the statistics compiled for evidence of profiling. Honestly, I do not see the efficacy of this sort of approach. Why do people need “proof” that profiling happens? We all know it does! How do statistics protect motorists from police officers? Where is the incentive for officers to stop this behavior?
And what about pedestrians? How many anti-profiling laws include people on foot? We all know that “stop and frisk” policies are steeped in racial profiling. Why not include people who are walking through the community under the umbrella of these profiling laws? One proponent of the Penn Act Amendment here in Hartford actually became angry when another activists mentioned that the Act did not go far enough because it only “protected” motorists! He said that the Penn Act was not intended to protect people on foot, therefore the amendment did not include them. Well, if you are “amending” a piss poor law, why not make the logical choice to extend the legislation to cover ALL people who are profiled, not just those in cars?
Compiling statistics is not the solution. SERIOUS consequences for INDIVIDUAL officers as well as departments who violate the rights of community members MUST BE INCLUDED in order for an anti-profiling law to offer any serious protection for the public. It is one thing to “work within the system”, it is quite another to ignore what REALLY needs to be done to address police profiling and brutality simply to get a piece of legislation passed.
