Two-Faces Too Many

            One sees the criminal justice system in action quite frequently when you grow up the way I did. Therefore my perception of the men in blue or black, aka the police, is a little more complex than others. If I approach them with my white girl voice from a politically correct standpoint, as a college student, I get the upmost respect. I see someone who is proud of their job. I see someone who studied the handbook the night before because they knew I would be documenting out encounter. Clearly, they present themselves as people who uphold the law, no biases, no questions asked. However, I do believe that they do not realize, I am that same girl that watched them harass people for standing on the corner waiting to cross the street. I am the same girl who heard them say racist things and look at her people with pure disdain. I am the same girl who witnessed them exert sheer brutality and force on innocent people, not because they deserved it, but simply because they could.

            However, I do not blame them for what they do. I know this sounds bad, but I don’t. I cannot blame them for working for a system that has failed, and continues to fail them also. “Individuals are assimilated into a police force by formal training, supervision, and informal peer socialization….It is the police system not the personality of the candidate that is the more powerful determinant of behavior and ideology.” (Binder and Scharf, 113)  If corruption and unpreparedness were detected inside the system, then it would never reach the streets. If these officers were monitored not only as officers, but also as civilians, stereotyping and biases would not reach the streets or be passed down like sacred rules from chief to captain to lieutenant to sergeant to detective, to the officers on the beats, and the ones working at the desks.  I was asked to observe the criminal justice department in a formal approach in which the officers knew I was present. I did and it is so different from when you are just another nobody and they do not notice a person only a face. So I combined my experiences in order to give you my interpretation. Neither one person nor one thing is perfect. However, some things need to change in order to encompass an entire community, in order for the community to trust and believe in the criminal justice system as a whole. Until then “Snitches get stitches” and “F*** the police” will continue to be a motto that tons of Americans live by.

References:

Arnold Binder, Peter Scharf.  “The Violent Police-Citizen Encounter” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 452, The Police and Violence (Nov., 1980), pp. 111-121 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and Social Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1042765