How do we think about institutional racism in the American police force?

American political institutions are responsible for police racism

Question: How do we think about institutional racism in the American police force?
Position‹2 of 3›: 'The police are not the issue!': The police should not be blamed for the problems of a racialized society
Argument‹6 of 7›: American political institutions are responsible for police racism

The actions of the police are shaped by politicians and lawmakers. For decades, they have been directed to deliberately undermine black communities. Proponents point to Nixon's War on Drugs, which was later confirmed to have been a policy crafted to victimise blacks. This tradition has sustained throughout successive governments. As New York Times opinion writer Jamelle Bouie states, "Trump explicitly rejects the legitimacy of nonwhites as political actors, having launched his political career on the need for more and greater racial control of Muslims and Hispanic immigrants". The issue is not the police - it is with the racism embedded within our political institutions. And those who lead them. That is where we should be focusing our attention. Proponents include USA Today reporter Wenei Philimon.

The argument

The role of police officers is to enforce laws. They are not responsible for making them, nor are they responsible for carrying out judgment or sentencing in crimes. That division of labour is the starting point for assigning blame, because an institution can only be held responsible for the decisions it actually makes, and the decision about what shall count as a crime is made elsewhere. Some of the strongest policies that have targeted racial groups, like Jim Crow laws and the War on Drugs, were created and passed by elected politicians. These laws allowed for marijuana possession to be classified as a felony, and black communities have been affected more than white communities despite nearly equal rates of marijuana usage. That disparity is instructive. If usage is comparable but consequences are not, the racial outcome is being produced by decisions about what to prohibit and where to enforce — decisions made by legislatures and budget-writers, not by the officer executing them. An officer who declines to enforce the drug laws is not thereby ending the War on Drugs; he is simply being replaced. The American political trope of being "tough on crime" has been used as a guise to pass ever-stricter laws that target black and minority communities, allegedly to protect Americans from "chaos" and criminality. American political parties have continued to create policies and laws that undermine minority communities, and have done so because the posture is electorally rewarding, which is precisely why the pattern persists across administrations of both parties. The police force agrees to uphold the law it is given. The lack of political leadership to smooth over racial tensions is not only leaving police in the line of fire unnecessarily but also preventing them from doing their jobs, since officers sent to enforce policies the public experiences as unjust inherit an antagonism they did not create. The racism visible in policing is therefore the racism of American political institutions, and it is there that responsibility lies.

Premises

[P1]Police officers' role is to enforce laws, not to create them or carry out judgment and sentencing. [P2] The laws that have disproportionately harmed black and minority communities, such as Jim Crow and War on Drugs policies, were created and passed by elected politicians. [P3] The failure of political leaders to address racial tensions and reform these laws leaves police enforcing inherently racialized policies. [C] Therefore, American political institutions, not the police, are responsible for the racism manifested in policing.

Counter-arguments

Police officers are individuals with free will, and there have been many documented incidents of excessive force utilized by police that far exceeded the necessary action required for an arrest. Stop-and-frisk laws implemented in NYC showed that while the law was supposed to apply to all, over 80% of those stopped were African American or Latino; stops that were carried out at the discretion of the police.There is ample evidence to show police acting outside of what is considered necessary for the enforcement of established laws and benefitting from policies that refuse to prosecute them for law violations.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Enforcement is not the mechanical function the premise describes: the counter points to documented incidents of force well beyond what an arrest required, which are choices made by officers exercising free will rather than steps dictated by a statute. [Rejecting P3] Discretion is where the disparity appears on the counter's account — under stop-and-frisk in New York a law written to apply to everyone produced stops in which over 80 percent of those held were African American or Latino, and those stops were made at officers' discretion, so the pattern cannot be attributed wholly to the drafting of the law. [Rejecting C] The counter also disputes the exclusivity of the conclusion, noting evidence of officers acting outside what enforcement of established law requires while benefiting from policies that decline to prosecute them, which leaves responsibility distributed rather than located solely in political institutions.