THE

AUTHORITY OF
LAW
ENFORCEMENT

[Pick the date]

Where is the limit?

A deliberation about agreeing on the
problems that exist with our law
enforcement, and about what approaches
should be taken to fix them.

The Authority of Law Enforcement

The Authority of Law

Enforcement
WHERE

IS

THE

LIMIT?

ISSUE AT A GLANCE
The numbers just seem to keep
pointing at something wrong in our
justice system. A disproportionate
amount of minorities and poor people are
incarcerated annually in the U.S., the
news has exploded with racially charged
stories of police enforcement in recent
years, and a highly successful
documentary has given rise to doubts
about the practices of our police forces
and judicial system.

ways to approach them. The deliberation

is about agreeing on what issues are most
important, and what strategies we are
willing to employ to fix those problems.

WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS?

Of all the problems with the law
enforcement in the U.S., there are a few
that stand out and which have grabbed
the attention of the country as a whole.
The Problems:
Accountability
Profiling
The Drug War
Accountability

There are many problems facing

our law enforcement today, and many

The widely reported death of

Michael Brown revealed one of the
major issues with our police
enforcement. Michael Brown was a 28
year old black man who, after stealing
some cigarillos from a convenience store,
was shot several times while unarmed by
a white police officer. After a variety of
witness accounts describing the final
moments of Browns life were released,
it became apparent that people did not
trust the police to be honest, and thus
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The Authority of Law Enforcement

there was a sense of a lack of

accountability. (NBC News) For many it
felt like the police could say what they
wanted and probably get off the hook
because there was no way to really verify
anybodys word in a situation like that of
Michael Browns death. Suddenly there
was a big question on the publics mind:
how do we make our police more
accountable?
Another dimension to this question
is that accountability has to be balanced
with privacy and liberty. How far are we
willing to go to assure that police are
being held accountable for their every
action? Could the police become victims
of bad policy?
Profiling
Also as a result of the cases at
Ferguson and Baltimore, the problem of
racial profiling has risen to the forefront
of the discussion about our justice
system. As the graph on the previous
page presents, the gap of incarceration
between whites and other racial groups
has dramatically widened over the past
decades. Even beyond the gap, these
groups are disproportionately affected by
incarceration:
Even though people of
color make up about 30%
of the U.S. population,
they make up about 60%
of that in U.S.

prisons. (American
Progress)

This disproportionality stretches

beyond just harsh sentencing, and to
actual arrest rates. Young black males
have a substantially higher chance than
white of being arrested in the first place.
Such disparity in treatment affects these
peoples lives beyond jail too. Black men
and women face less promising wage
trajectories coming out of prison than
white men and women with similar jail
sentences (American Progress).
The Drug War
In the past few decades, the U.S.
government has begun to wage a war
against drugs. It now spends about $50
billion a year trying to make our country
drug free which many would say is an
unfeasible proposition in the first place
(Alternet). Not only is the war an
economic drain, but it is morally
destructive as well. Should we be
imprisoning, denying education, and in
many ways destroying peoples lives
over minor nonviolent drug offenses?
The United States imprisons more people
than any other country in the world, and
that is largely due to drug war policies
that mandate sentencing among other
things (Drug Policy). Drug users are not
any less in number than when we started
the war, but instead we see increasing
amounts of them in hospitals and jails,

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The Authority of Law Enforcement

leaving children to live difficult lives,

because there is no attention paid to what
happens to them. The people who most
benefit from the drug war are the
criminal organizations who make
fortunes as a result of prohibition, much
like Al Capone in the alcohol prohibition
days (Stanford).
Directly relating to the problem of
profiling, the drug war is waged
disproportionately. Racial groups are
deliberately targeted, and neighborhoods
are ravished by conflict.
How much of a problem is drug
abuse in the U.S.? Should users be
treated as criminals? Should certain
drugs be legalized to destroy organized
crimes market? The drug war raises
many questions regarding our
fundamental American principles, and it
is an important consideration in
improving our law enforcement.

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

Less Harsh Policy

(The Drug War)

Improving Training
(Profiling and
Accountability)

Body Cameras
(Accountability)

Approach 1: Less Harsh

Policy (The Drug War)
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Four decades ago, the U.S.

government declared a war on drugs.
This marked the start of the Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA) whose goal
was to eradicate the production and
consumption of illegal drugs (Collett).
They have had some success tracking
down violent cartels, for example the
DEAs arrest of Pablo Escobar is
probably their biggest accomplishment.
However the majority of
this government effort
involving the war on
drugs is not going
towards tracking down
violent criminals.

In fact, because of the war on drugs,

police are more compelled to incarcerate
non-violent drug users opposed to violent
criminals such as rapists and murderers.
In New York City alone, police spend
over 1 million man hours annually
working towards 440,000 annual arrests
for marijuana possession and
consumption. From 2000 to now this has
cost New York taxpayers over 1 billion
dollars (Levine). Because these
criminals are more common and easier
to catch than murders, officers are able to
make up to 60 arrests in one month. This
is a huge difference compared to the
average of one murderer, rapist, or robber
that is arrested by an officer working in a
specified crime unit.

The Authority of Law Enforcement

Some may ask what stopping the

war on drugs would do to help end police
brutality; the relationship is one based on
numbers. In 2010 52% of arrests made in
America were related to cannabis
(Newman). It stands to reason that if
cannabis is legalized then half of these
arrests would go away. Now of course
these offices time would be spent
elsewhere, but with so much less
interaction then we would no doubt see a
decrease police brutality incidents.
There is a huge spectrum of
options regarding solutions to this
problem ranging from legalizing only
marijuana to legalizing all drugs and
treating people who have become
addicted and want help. By adopting the
latter policy approach to this drug war it
is estimated that America would save
about 12 billion dollars each year due to
lower incarceration rates, lower
recidivism, and increased employment
among addicts (Balko). If we regulated
drugs as a health issue instead of a
criminal and moral issue, we can manage
the issue much better.
If we legalized and then taxed
drugs at the same level of alcohol
and tobacco, the U.S. government
would see $46.7 billion in revenue
(Ghosh).

Finally a few more statistics to

add. After recreational marijuana was
legalized in Colorado crime rates
dropped 15%, fatalities from car
accidents were down over 30% and the

annual $78 million in tax revenue

generated completely covered the cost of
three new schools. If the war on drugs
ended then cops would be less focused
on persecuting people who are
committing victimless crimes which
would certainly lead to less police
brutality (Tims). Again, considering that
52% of arrests in America in 2010 were
related to cannabis it would reason that if
cannabis became legal police brutality
could drop by about 50%.

Approach 2: Improved
Training (Profiling and
Accountability)
Police officers promise to respect
the rights of all individuals and to act
with courtesy and regard for the welfare
of others when taking an oath to serve
and protect community members.
Recent violent incidents have made it
clear that law enforcement need to alter
their methods of training the officers.
One case involved an African American
teen, David Joseph, who was fatally shot

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by an officer while running around naked

through a neighborhood, unarmed.
When David started running at the
officer he was then shot by Officer
Geoffrey Freeman just seconds after
David started to approach the officer.
(Harvard Politics). Occurrences like this
where an officer is more violent than
necessary has become a nationwide
trend. Jim Harrington, director of the
TRCP spoke on the David Joseph case,
There have been way
too many police
killings over the years
simply because police
do not know how to deescalate situations and
end up resorting to
violence. This has to
stop. (Huffington
Post).

Clearly a new method of training

is desperately needed to officers will
know how to handle situations
appropriately. Police departments
nationwide have taken note on this and
are reforming their policies and training
methods to reduce violence and develop
de-escalation approaches to situations.
Seth Stoughton an officer at a large
municipal police department states
American police officers are among the
best-trained in the world, but what
theyre trained to do is part of the
problem(The Atlantic).

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Officers begin their training in the

academy where the safety of the officers
is extremely emphasized and in some
academies is regarded as the first rule of
law enforcement. While in the academy
officers are shown footage of officers
being beaten, disarmed and gunned down
after hesitating and not acting with force
immediately. The problem with this
method of training is that it gives the
officers the perspective that their primary
goal is to protect themselves when it
really should be that the goal is to protect
everyone whether that person being the
felon or not. Officers also go through
hands-on exercise that teach officers to
be proactive which often leads to officers
shooting before anything threatening
event occurs. They are told that a
suspect leaning into a car can quickly
pull out a gun and shoot the officer or a
suspect whose back is turned can easily
turn around and shot the officer first.
These are just a few examples of
how officers are taught right off the bat
that Hesitation can be fatal so officers
choose to shot before being threatened.
(The Atlantic). Police officers are trained
to be cautious and afraid and because of
this they act with violence in fear for
themselves. Police departments are
working to diminish this fear by training
officers communication skills and nonviolent techniques that will help the
officers get out of a situation without
either party leaving the situation injured
or dead.

The Authority of Law Enforcement

Police departments such as the

agencies in Richmond, California have
been emphasizing de-escalation over
assertive policing in their training and
have seen a substantial decrease in uses
of force without any increase in officer
fatalities. De-escalation training and
comprehensive tactical training have
proven to prevent officers from using
unnecessary force. A temporary retreatwhat officers call a tactical withdrawalcan, in the right circumstances, maintain
safety while offering alternatives to
deadly force. (The Atlantic). The
officers of Kalamazoo, Michigan used
communication and tactics to deal with
an intoxicated man carrying a rifle which
resulted in a forty minute standoff ending
with a handshake and no use of force.
(USA Today). While it is clear that new
methods of police training will result in
less fatalities and a less fear based law
enforcement, it will come at a big cost.
When Los Angeles implemented the
reform, the agreement took twelve years
and cost around $300 million. Part of
these reforms included spending $40
million on computer systems to track
traffic and officer performance. (The
Washington Post). So the question is if
implementing new training techniques is
worth the price or not.

A tricky thing to consider is the differing

amount of resources available to different
states for these kinds of improvements in
training.
Approach 3 Solution: Body
Cameras (Accountability)
The death of Michael Brown,
unarmed, at the hands of a police officer
raised many questions about the
accountability of our police force. No
solid evidence was ever presented that
justified the actions of officer, Darren
Wilson, who terminated Michael
Browns life in the suburbs of Ferguson,
Missouri. Browns family and friends
called him Big Mike, and those that
personally knew him would argue this
nickname originated due to the size of his
heart opposed to his physical appearance
(Banker). He was known as an outgoing
and friendly young man with many goals
and aspirations, including Vatterott
College where he would have continued
his education (Shoichet). The loss of his
life shook Ferguson, and as more varying
testimonies were released as to what had
actually led to the death of this unarmed,

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eighteen-year old boy, one thing became

clear, there was no way to know for sure.

appear to have a positive impact on

police and citizen interaction.

A solution to this problem which

made its way into the American
consciousness is the use of body
cameras. These cameras are designed to
be the length of a cigarette, and portable
enough to be mounted on several areas of
the officers uniform including
sunglasses, hats/helmets, and collars. The
pros to this solution can be beneficial to
both civilians, and the officers
themselves. In addition to exposing
misconduct of officers, they may also
prevent false accusations against them
that may occur. Recorded footage can
serve as reliable evidence and potentially
quicken court proceedings.

However, with this solution also

arises issues surrounding the notion of
privacy. The recording of all public
encounters could undermine community
members rights to privacy according to
the Police Executive Research Forum
(Fieldstadt). Yet the American Civil
Liberties Union which aims to defend
and preserve individual liberties claims
body cameras are beneficial for both the
police force and community members if
solely utilized for the purpose of
providing evidence for cases and not
acting as a means of community
surveillance (Stanley).

The University of Cambridges

Institute of Criminology conducted
a study in which police officers in
Rialto, California were equipped
with body cameras over a 12-month
period. There was a 59 percent
decrease in officers use of force.

Researchers claim this decline is in

part due to officers awareness of being
filmed. Following this number, civilian
complaints of officer misconduct
dropped by 88 percent, suggesting
civilians are more trusting of their police
force with the knowledge that their
actions on duty are being recorded (Ziv).
These statistics reflect that body cameras

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What appears to be the biggest

drawback associated with the
implementation of body cameras is the
substantial cost. Shortly after the Brown
tragedy, President Obama proposed a
three-year funding program amounting to
over $75 million that would cover half
the costs associated with these devices.
Yet, that also meant the other $75
million and counting would have to come
from state funding (Dann). But, is there
really a price limit to be placed on the
implementation of body cameras and like
equipment when it is citizens lives that
are currently in question without them?