Police Training

The Washington Times reports that Obama says police training is needed to reduce their racial ‘bias’. As usual, I disagree with almost everything that Obama says. However to give him some benefit of doubt, there is always at least a partial element of truth in his statements.

In this particular case, I agree completely that police need training, but they don't need training with respect to bias. Most police forces are multiracial, which means that there are a number of blacks included in the force. It is highly unlikely that a black would have a racial bias against another black, although it may be possible. Similarly, while there may be some whites who have racial bias against blacks, that is not a common occurrence.

The usual attitude of most people, including police, and probably with the exception of the black community, is that the record shows that most crimes of assault, murder, robbery, burglary, drug dealing and the like are committed at a higher per capita rate by blacks. In spite of any attempted teaching to the contrary by government, common sense always prevails among people that track record is an important consideration. If I have known that a person has been committed for embezzlement, I would be less likely to hire him as my financial officer. This is not to say that the world is not full of do-gooders and forgivers to the extent that they might even show preference to hiring such person to show what I believe would be an unwarranted trust. The fact remains that there is such a factor as recidivism, which is a chronic tendency toward repetition of criminal or antisocial behavior.

I have said previously the police need additional training; not to remove racial bias but rather to improve their relationship with the general public. Those police officers who demonstrate an officious attitude in their conversation with witnesses and suspected offenders must be either retrained or eliminated from duty. Gestapo attitudes are not appropriate in our current society. Information can be collected in a semi-friendly manner without any attempt to generate fear in the person being interrogated. Witnesses should be treated with respect, even if their contributions do not seem particularly relevant to the situation at hand. Officers need to be taught how to smile and use such phrases as "please and thank you". Those that continue to demonstrate Gestapo attitudes and actions need to be eliminated. Such training will over time bring greater respect to police forces and in all likelihood a better working cooperation with the public. Considerable damage has been done to the black community, and a lot of this damage has been self-imposed. It will take longer for the black community to accept the police as an organization with intention to help the community develop along positive productive lines, rather than constantly looking for deficiencies and efforts to jail individuals.