Race and Policing

 

The recent police killings of Black civilians such as Breonna Taylor and George Floyd—and the mass protests in response—have refocused national attention on violence and racism in law enforcement. But to understand the problems you need to know the basics.

The United States is home to some 18,000 law enforcement agencies employing more than 900,000 sworn officers. This includes agents in federal bureaucracies like the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, state police officers (often called troopers), and police in city and town departments. It also encompasses county sheriffs and their deputies.

In many places the law enforcement budget far outpaces that of any other municipal service. Police are unique among public employees in that they are granted the legal authority to use force in the course of their work.

While individual police may “protect and serve,” solving homicides and rapes, patrolling to deter crime, or answering calls for help, all too often encounters between police and communities of color have ended violently.

Kerem Yucel/AFP, via Getty Images

Policing, like many American institutions, has roots in white supremacy. In the South, some of the first law enforcement groups were designed to capture Black people who escaped slavery. After Reconstruction, law enforcement was the primary means by which free Blacks were coerced into slavery-like conditions, typically by being arrested on vague and trumped-up charges and leased out to do unpaid work for corporations and landowners. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 made it illegal for anyone acting on behalf of the government to deprive an American citizen of their constitutional rights because of their race. Despite those protections, local police forces often supported, if not explicitly initiated, more than 6,500 lynchings in the U.S. between 1865 and 1950.

When “Cops” debuted on Fox in 1989, it was a bombastic departure from scripted police shows like “Dragnet,” “Barney Miller” and “Columbo.” There was no real narrative arc, just supposedly unscripted, minimally edited footage of police officers apprehending people. The “Cops” production crew shot 100 minutes of footage for every minute that it televised, giving PDs the opportunity to cut scenes they didn’t like in exchange for access. The share of onscreen suspects who were Black or Latino vastly outpaced the number in police reports. By the mid-1990s it drew 8 million viewers an episode. “Cops,” and its successor, “Live PD,” were both cancelled in 2020.

Police militarization began in 1967 when the Los Angeles Police Department started the first Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team: A highly armed branch of the department intended to respond to complex violent crimes like hostage situations and bank robberies. By 1995, 77 percent of all American cities with over 25,000 people had a SWAT team. These units infused city police forces with military tactics and culture—actual military gear soon followed.

In 1997, the Defense Department authorized the 1033 program, which makes surplus military equipment available to local governments. Since the program started, municipalities around the country have acquired at least $1.4 billion in gear such as armored personnel carriers, helicopters and many, many guns. After 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security granted municipalities more than $30 billion to purchase their own military equipment, further bolstering a now entrenched warrior mentality in many police forces.

In 2014, the Department of Defense began to release information on where surplus equipment from the 1033 program ended up. The Marshall Project built this tool to provide a snapshot of what local police departments, state police or fish and game departments had received. While much of it was tactical gear, the program had both a quotidian side—forklifts, tractors, computer equipment. Sharp eyed PDs could also snap up French horns, TVs, softball equipment and the occasional electric guitar.

Watch

Listen

Read