Gleaning Facebook: We Need Comprehensive Police Reform

Sheila and I reminding folks on Turner McCall Boulevard of the
names of some of the recent victims of racism.

I know this is just a minor part of my neighbor Russell's excellent post, but it is a long time firm belief of mine so just a note of emphasis: There should be NO PRIVATE PRISONS EVER!!!! Making it PROFITABLE to lock someone up in a republic is obscene. There are politicians who get campaign donations from prison companies--- [https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php...] --- VOMIT!!!! The stupidity and immorality of Capital-R-Republican fondness for privatizing basic governmental functions is plain.

 From Russell Cook's Facebook:

Alright y’all. I haven’t been on social media much lately, and certainly haven’t thought that my voice was the one thing missing from a national conversation on race and police violence. However, judging from what’s coming out of the keyboards of some folks I see on here, there might be a use in hearing it from as many people as possible, as often as possible. After all of the upheaval of the past couple of weeks, a police officer in Atlanta saw fit, in the moment, to shoot a man twice in the back as he ran away. Shooting someone in the back is murder, no matter how you try to justify it. They knew who he was. They had his car. They had run his ID and talked to him for half an hour. Whatever happened, he was no mortal danger to the officer or to anyone else, even if he did grab and discharge a non-lethal taser in his struggle to get away.

But police work is dangerous, right? Every car pulled over is a potential cop killer, right? But how many actually are? It’s easy to find out. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, police work is in the top 20 or so for dangerous jobs in the U.S., at 108 fatalities last year. That’s 6 or 7 fatalities per 100,000 officers. But that’s a fraction of the fatalities of another public servant: Sanitation Workers have 35 or so fatalities per 100,000. Read that again. You are three or four times as likely to be killed in the line of duty as a Garbageman than as a Cop. Farmers, Truck Drivers, even Landscapers are much more likely to die in the line of duty than the Police. And roughly half of those on-the-job police deaths come from traffic accidents, not from a bad guy with a gun.

There is a significant danger associated with police work though: Police violence, that is, violence by the police, is a leading cause of death of young American men, and black men are roughly twice as likely as white men to be killed by the police. Over the course of a lifetime, roughly 1 in 1000 black men can expect to be killed by law enforcement. This data comes from the National Academy of Sciences. 1 in 1000 is 100 in 100,000, which is a higher rate of death than the most dangerous occupations, Logging and Commercial Fishing. So, if being a black man in the United States were a chosen occupation, it would be among the most dangerous occupations one could choose, with this danger solely based on your chance of being killed by law enforcement. Think about that. When a policeman shoots to kill, (and they are not trained to shoot in any other way) is that fear reasonable and justified? Oftentimes not, based on the numbers. If you are a black man, do you have reason to fear for your life when the police show up, no matter your situation? Absolutely.

None of this is opinion. This is all fact, easily found in govt. data. So, here's the opinion: does the police force as we know it really protect and serve? If so, what are they protecting? Who are they serving? In my very limited, and mostly benign experience with law enforcement, there seems to be too much emphasis on enforcement, with not enough emphasis on the actual law. The assumption seems to be that if the officer is wrong, it’ll come out in court…months later, after thousands spent on legal fees, assuming you can afford it, and many cannot. That may have something to do with the fact that we have only 5% of the world’s population, but 20% of the world’s prison population. California is doing the right thing by ending for-profit prisons. We need comprehensive police reform to go with it.

Comment

Keith M. Padgett
When I was doing my MS in Florida, we toured GEO Groups headquarters. Just being in that building made me sick to my stomach and so angry. And the dismissive answers they gave to questions just infuriated me.