Black Police, White Society

Chapter 7. The Police Role in the Black Community

Chapter Seven The Police Role in the Black Community Nobody in the black community wants to be thought of as a stool. O DR concerns are with the way black police perceive their role in ghetto communities, with the expectations black citizens attach to the police mission, and whether or not these coincide. We also discuss some of the problems black (and white) police routinely face in attempting to meet the demands of the black community for greater police protection as well as the reactions of the men as they come to realize that they are somewhat ineffectual in dealing with many of these problems. First, and contrary to our initial expectations, the great majority of black policemen in this study defined their role in the black community in traditional police terms. That is, they saw their primary duties as fighting crime, apprehending felons and maintaining order rather than providing extra-legal, non-enforcement services to the public. Second, and also contrary to our expectations, black policemen, for the most part, did not perceive themselves as more effective crime fighters than white police. In fact, when asked, this same majority of men rejected the notion that a relationship even existed between a policeman's race and the quality of law enforcement he provided. 198 THE POLICE AND THE BLACK COMMUNITY Barriers to Effective Crime Control It is widely accepted by police in New York City that one of the critical problems facing cops who work in the ghetto is the widespread lack of citizen cooperation in matters pertaining to the control , apprehension, and prosecution of criminal offenders. The policemen we surveyed gave a number of reasons which, when considered together, tend to explain why people living under a constant fear of attack and property loss often do not rally behind the police. These are based on a misunderstanding of the police role and the constraints placed upon police, fear of criminal retaliation , and an enforcement priority system which concentrates on serious crime while leaving petty but high visibility offenders on the street. The effect of these factors on citizen attitudes and expectations is compounded by the reciprocal nature of this alienation . That is, policemen themselves tend to react with increased indifference to the people under pressure resulting from the COIllmunity 's lack of cooperation and from the official constraints imposed on them by the legal system and the department itself. Much of the problem, we are told, stems from a general and widespread misunderstanding on the part of the black public as to what the police can and cannot do in terms of protecting people from personal attack and property loss. Our men contend that many blacks living ill the ghetto see the police as failing to fulfill their law enforcemellt responsibilities and respond both individually and at times collectively by refusing to assist in police investigations. It might be noted that detectives in this study voiced even greater concern and disappointment than uniformed patrol officers over the black public's unwillingness to cooperate in criminal investigations . Yet, one might expect this type of response from detectives since, as a specialized group, they are subjected more than uniformed officers to organizational pressures to make arrests and clear cases. Reflecting on what they believe to be the public's unrealistic expectations concerning the police role today, several detectives recalled instances in which they were personally accused of failing to meet their obligations to the community at large. The following account, for example, typifies the experiences of many police, both white and black, who find themselves in the position of having to The Police Role in the Black Community 199 assume responsibility for the inadequacies of the larger criminal justice system: There is very little cooperation from the public as far as I'm concerned . I don't know all the reasons, but I can tell you what I believe from working in Harlem for the last 12 years. Many peoplenot all-don't have trust in the police. And this is because mostly they don't understand our job. They blame us for all the things that go wrong in the street and courts, the guy who's out in the street and maybe should be in jail. . . . How about the guy that molested those two kids a couple of months ago? He was released a couple of days after we locked him up; something to do with the...