 CHAPTER XI. POLICE AND THE COMMUNITY PART I. We have cited deep hostility between police and ghetto communities as a primary cause of the disorders surveyed by the Commission. In Newark, Detroit, Watts, and Harlem, in practically every city that has experienced racial disruption since the summer of 1964, abrasive relationships between police and Negroes and other minority groups have been a major source of grievance, tension, and ultimately disorder. In a fundamental sense, however, it is wrong to define the problem solely as hostility to police. In many ways the policeman only symbolizes much deeper problems. The policeman in the ghetto is a symbol not only of law, but of the entire system of law enforcement and criminal justice. As such he becomes the tangible target for grievances against shortcomings throughout that system, against assembly-line justice in teeming lower courts, against wide disparities in sentences, against antiquated correctional facilities, against the basic inequities imposed by the system on the poor, to whom, for example, the option of bail means only jail. The policeman in the ghetto is a symbol of increasingly bitter social debate over law enforcement. One side, disturbed and perplexed by sharp rises in crime and urban violence, exerts extreme pressure on police for tougher law enforcement. Another group, inflamed against police as agents of repression, tends toward defiance of what it regards as order maintained at the expense of justice. The policeman in the ghetto is the most visible symbol, finally, of a society from which many ghetto Negroes are increasingly alienated. At the same time, police responsibilities in the ghetto are even greater than elsewhere in the community, since the other institutions of social control have so little authority. The schools, because so many are segregated, old and inferior, religion which has become irrelevant to those who have lost faith as they lost hope, career aspirations which for many young Negroes are totally lacking, the family because its bonds are so often snapped. It is the policeman who must deal with the consequences of this institutional vacuum, and is then resented for the presence and the measures this effort demands. Alone, the policeman in the ghetto cannot solve these problems. His role is already one of the most difficult in our society. He must deal daily with a range of problems and people that test his patience, ingenuity, character and courage in ways that few of us are ever tested. Without positive leadership, goals, operational guidance and public support, the individual policeman can only feel victimized. Nor are these problems the responsibility only of police administrators. They are deep enough to tax the courage, intelligence and leadership of mayors, city officials and community leaders. As Dr. Kenneth B. Clark told the Commission, This society knows that if human beings are confinding ghetto compounds of our cities and are subjected to criminally inferior education, pervasive economic and job discrimination, committed to houses unfit for human habitation, subjected to unspeakable conditions of municipal services such as sanitation, that such human beings are not likely to be responsive to appeals to be lawful, to be respectful, to be concerned with property of others. And yet precisely because the policeman in the ghetto is a symbol, precisely because he symbolizes so much, it is of critical importance that the police and society take every possible step to allay grievances that flow from a sense of injustice and increased tension and turmoil. In this work the police bear a major responsibility for making needed changes. In the first instance they have the prime responsibility for safeguarding the minimum goal of any civilized society, security of life and property. To do so they are given society's maximum power, discretion in the use of force. Second it is axiomatic that effective law enforcement requires the support of the community. Such support will not be present when a substantial segment of the community feels threatened by the police and regards the police as an occupying force. At the same time public officials also have a clear duty to help the police make any changes necessary to minimize so far as possible the risk of further disorders. We see five basic problem areas. The need for change in police operations in the ghetto to ensure proper conduct by individual officers and to eliminate abrasive practices. The need for more adequate police protection of ghetto residents to eliminate the present high sense of insecurity to person and property. The need for effective mechanisms for resolving citizen grievances against the police. The need for policy guidelines to assist police in areas where police conduct can create tension. The need to develop community support for law enforcement. Our discussion of each of these problem areas is followed by specific recommendations which relate directly to achieving more effective law enforcement and to the prevention and control of civil disorders. Police conduct and patrol practices. In an earlier era third degree interrogations were widespread. Indiscriminate arrests on suspicion were generally accepted, and alley justice dispensed with the night-stick was common. Today many disturbances studied by the commission began with a police incident. But these incidents were not for the most part the crude acts of an earlier time. They were routine police actions such as stopping a motorist or raiding an illegal business. Indeed many of the serious disturbances took place in cities whose police are among the best led, best organized, best trained and most professional in the country. Yet some activities of even the most professional police department may heighten tension and enhance the potential for civil disorder. An increase in complaints of police misconduct, for example, may in fact be a reflection of professionalism. The department may simply be using law enforcement methods which increase the total volume of police contacts with the public. The number of charges of police misconduct may be greater simply because the volume of police citizen contacts is higher. Here we examine two aspects of police activities that have great tension creating potential. Our objective is to provide recommendations to assist city and police officials in developing practices which can allay rather than contribute to tension. Police Conduct Negroes firmly believe that police brutality and harassment occur repeatedly in Negro neighborhoods. This belief is unquestionably one of the major reasons for intense Negro resentment against the police. The extent of this belief is suggested by Attitude Surveys. In 1964 a New York Times study of Harlem showed that 43% of those questioned believed in the existence of police brutality. In 1965 a nationwide Gallup poll found that 35% of Negro men believed there was police brutality in their areas. 7% of white men thought so. In 1966 a survey conducted for the Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization found that 60% of Watts Negroes aged 15 to 19 believed there was some police brutality. Half said they had witnessed such conduct. A University of California at Los Angeles study of the Watts area found that 79% of the Negro males believed police lack respect for or use insulting language to Negroes and 74% believed police use unnecessary force when making arrests. In 1967 an Urban League study of the Detroit Riot area found that 82% believed there was some form of police brutality. The true extent of excessive and unjustified use of force is difficult to determine. One survey done for the Crime Commission suggests that when police citizen contacts are systematically observed the vast majority are handled without antagonism or incident. Of 5,339 police citizen contacts observed in slum precincts in three large cities, in the opinion of the Observer only 20, about three-tenths of 1%, involved excessive or unnecessary force. And although almost all of those subjected to such force were poor, more than half were white. Verbal discurtycy was much more common. 15% of all such contacts began with a brusque or nasty command on the part of the officer. Again however the objects of such commands were more likely to be white than Negro. Such observer surveys may not fully reflect the normal pattern of police conduct. The Crime Commission task force concluded that although the study gave no basis for stating the extent to which police officers used force it did confirm that such conduct still exists in the cities where the observations were made. Our investigations confirm this conclusion. Physical abuse is only one source of aggravation in the ghetto. In nearly every city surveyed the Commission heard complaints of harassment of interracial couples, dispersal of social street gatherings and the stopping of Negroes on foot or in cars without any objective basis. These, together with the contemptuous and degrading verbal abuse, have a great impact in the ghetto. As one Commission witness said, these strip the Negro of the one thing that he may have left, his dignity, the question of being a man. Some conduct, breaking up of street groups, indiscriminate stops and searches, is frequently directed at youths, creating special tensions in the ghetto where the average age is generally under twenty-one. Ghetto youths, often without work and with homes that may be nearly uninhabitable particularly in the summer, commonly spend much time on the street. Characteristically they are not only hostile to police but eager to demonstrate their own masculinity and courage. The police therefore are often subject to taunts and provocations, testing their self-control and probably for some reinforcing their hostility to Negroes in general. Because youths commit a large and increasing proportion of crime, police are under growing pressure from their supervisors and from the community to deal with them forcefully. Harassment of youths may therefore be viewed by some police departments and some members even of the Negro community as a proper crime prevention technique. In a number of cities the commission heard complaints of abuse from Negro adults of all social and economic classes. Particular resentment is aroused by harassing Negro men in the company of white women, often their light-skinned Negro wives. Harassment or discurtycy may not be the result of malicious or discriminatory intent of police officers. Many officers simply fail to understand the effect of their actions because of their limited knowledge of the Negro community. Calling a Negro teenager by his first name may arouse resentment because many whites still refuse to extend to adult Negroes the courtesy of the title Mr. A patrolman may take the arm of a person he is leading to the police car. Negroes are more likely to resent this than whites because the action implies that they are on the verge of flight and may degrade them in the eyes of friends and onlookers. In assessing the impact of police misconduct we emphasize that the improper acts of a relatively few officers create severe tensions between the department and the entire Negro community. Whatever the actual extent of such conduct we concur in the crime commission's conclusion that all such behavior is obviously and totally reprehensible and when it is directed against minority group citizens it is particularly likely to lead for quite obvious reasons to bitterness in the community. Police Patrol Practices Although police administrators may take steps to eliminate misconduct by individual police officers many departments have adopted patrol practices which in the words of one commentator have replaced harassment by individual patrolmen with harassment by entire departments. These practices sometimes known as aggressive preventive patrol take a number of forms but invariably they involve a large number of police citizen contacts initiated by the police rather than in response to a call for help or service. One such practice utilizes a roving task force which moves into high crime districts without prior notice and conducts intensive often indiscriminate street stops and searches. A number of obviously suspicious persons are stopped but so also are persons whom the regular beat patrolmen would know are respected members of the community. Such task forces are often deliberately moved from place to place making it impossible for its members to know the people with whom they come in contact. In some cities aggressive patrol is not limited to special task forces. The beat patrolman himself is expected to participate and to file a minimum number of stop and frisk or field interrogation reports for each tour of duty. This pressure to produce or a lack of familiarity with the neighborhood and its people may lead to widespread use of these techniques without adequate differentiation between genuinely suspicious behavior and behavior which is suspicious to a particular officer merely because it is unfamiliar. Police administrators, pressed by public concern about crime, have instituted such patrol practices often without weighing their tension creating effects and their resulting relationship to civil disorder. Motorization of police is another aspect of patrol that has affected law enforcement in the ghetto. The patrolman comes to see the city through a windshield and hear about it over a police radio. To him the area increasingly comes to consist only of law breakers. To the ghetto resident the policeman comes increasingly to be only an enforcer. Loss of contact between the police officer and the community he serves adversely affects law enforcement. If an officer has never met, does not know and cannot understand the language and habits of the people in the area he patrols, he cannot do an effective police job. His ability to detect truly suspicious behavior is impaired. He deprives himself of important sources of information. He fails to know those persons with an equity in the community, homeowners, small businessmen, professional men, persons who are anxious to support proper law enforcement, and thus he sacrifices the contributions they can make to maintaining community order. Recommendations Police misconduct, whether described as brutality, harassment, verbal abuse or discourtesy, cannot be tolerated even if it is infrequent. It contributes directly to the risk of civil disorder. It is inconsistent with the basic responsibility and function of a police force in a democracy. Police departments must have rules prohibiting such misconduct and must enforce them vigorously. Police commanders must be aware of what takes place in the field and must take firm steps to correct abuses. We will consider this matter further in the section on policy guidelines. Elimination of misconduct also requires care in selecting police for ghetto areas. For there the police responsibility is particularly sensitive, demanding and often dangerous. The highest caliber of personnel is required if police are to overcome feelings within the ghetto community of inadequate protection and unfair discriminatory treatment. Despite this need, data from commission investigators and from the Crime Commission disclose that often a department's worst, not its best, are assigned to the minority group neighborhoods. As Professor Albert Reis, director of the Center for Research on Social Organization, University of Michigan, testified before the commission, I think we confront in modern urban police departments in large cities much of what we encounter in our schools in these cities. The slum police precinct is like the slum schools. It gets, with few exceptions, the worst in the system. Referring to extensive studies in one city, Professor Reis concluded, in predominantly Negro precincts, over three-fourths of the white policemen expressed prejudiced or highly prejudiced attitudes towards Negroes. Only one percent of the officers expressed attitudes which could be described as sympathetic towards Negroes. Indeed, close to one-half of all the police officers in the predominantly Negro high crime rate areas showed extreme prejudice against Negroes. What do I mean by extreme racial prejudice? I mean that they describe Negroes in terms that are not people terms. They describe them in terms of the animal kingdom. Although some prejudice was displayed in only eight percent of police citizen encounters, the cost of such prejudiced behavior I suggest is much higher than my statistics suggest. Over a period of time, a substantial proportion of citizens, particularly in high crime rate areas, may experience at least one encounter with a police officer where prejudice is shown. To ensure assignment of well-qualified police to ghetto areas, the commission recommends, officers with bad reputations among residents in minority areas should be immediately reassigned to other areas. This will serve the interests of both the police and the community. Screening procedures should be developed to ensure that officers with superior ability, sensitivity, and the common sense necessary for enlightened law enforcement are assigned to minority group areas. We believe that with proper training in ghetto problems and conditions, and with proper standards for recruitment of new officers, in the long run most policemen can meet these standards. Incentives, such as bonuses or credits for promotion, should be developed wherever necessary to attract outstanding officers for ghetto positions. The recommendations we have proposed are designed to help ensure proper police conduct in minority areas. Yet there is another facet of the problem, negro perceptions of police misconduct. Even if those perceptions are exaggerated they do exist. If outstanding officers are assigned to ghetto areas, if acts of misconduct however infrequent result in proper and visible disciplinary action, and if these corrective practices are made part of a known policy, we believe the community will soon learn to reject unfounded claims of misconduct. Problems stemming from police patrol cannot perhaps be so easily resolved, but there are two considerations which can help to allay such problems. The first relates to law enforcement philosophy behind the use of techniques like aggressive patrol. Many police officials believe strongly that there are law enforcement gains from such techniques. However these techniques also have law enforcement liabilities. Their employment therefore should not be merely automatic, but the product of a deliberate balancing of pluses and minuses by command personnel. We know that advice of this sort is easier to give than to act on. The factors involved are difficult to weigh. Gains cannot be measured solely in the number of arrests. Losses in police protection cannot be accepted solely because of some vague gain in diminished community tension. The kind of thorough objective assessment of patrol practices and search for innovation we need will require the best efforts of research and development units within police departments, augmented if necessary by outside research assistants. The federal government can also play a major role in funding and conducting such research. The second consideration concerning patrol is execution. There is more crime in the ghetto than in other areas. If the aggressive patrol clearly relates to the control of crime, the residents of the ghetto are likely to endorse the practice. What may arouse hostility is not the fact of aggressive patrol, but its indiscriminate use, so that it comes to be regarded not as crime control, but as a new method of racial harassment. All patrol practices must be carefully reviewed to ensure that they are properly carried out by individual officers. New patrol practices must be designed to increase the patrolman's knowledge of the ghetto. Although motorized patrols are essential, means should be devised to get the patrolman out of the car and into the neighborhood, and keeping him on the same beat long enough to get to know the people and understand the conditions. This will require training the patrolman to convince him of the desirability of such practices. There must be continuing administrative supervision. In practice, as well as theory, all aspects of patrol must be lawful and must conform to policy guidelines. Unless carried out with courtesy and with understanding of the community, even the most enlightened patrol practices may degenerate into what residents will come to regard as harassment. Finally, this concept of patrol should be publicly explained so that ghetto residents understand it and know what to expect. End of Section 35, Recording by Maria Casper. Section 36 of the Kerner Commission Report. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Kerner Commission Report. Chapter 11 Police and the Community, Part 2 The Problem of Police Protection The strength of ghetto feelings about hostile police conduct may even be exceeded by the conviction that ghetto neighborhoods are not given adequate police protection. This belief is founded on two basic types of complaint. The first is that the police maintain a much less rigorous standard of law enforcement in the ghetto, tolerating their illegal activities like drug addiction, prostitution and street violence that they would not tolerate elsewhere. The second is that the police treat complaints and calls for help from Negro areas much less urgently than from white areas. These perceptions are widespread. As David Hardy, of the staff of the New York Daily News, testified, to put it simply, for decades little if any law enforcement has prevailed among Negroes in America, particularly those in the ghettos, if a black man kills another black man, the law is generally enforced at its minimum, violence of every type runs rampant in a ghetto. A Crime Commission study found that Negroes in Philadelphia and San Diego are convinced that the police apply a different standard of law enforcement in the ghettos. Another Crime Commission study found that about one white person in two believes that the police provide very good protection in his community, for Negroes that figure is one in five. Other surveys have reported that Negroes in Harlem and South Central Los Angeles mention inadequate protection more often than brutality or harassment as a reason for their resentment toward the police. The report of a New Haven community group summarizes the complaints. The problem of the adequacy of current police protection ranked with police misconduct as the most serious sore points in police community relations. When calls for help are registered it is all too frequent that police respond too slowly or not at all. When they do come they arrive with many more men and cars than are necessary, brandishing guns and adding to the confusion. There is evidence to suggest that the lack of protection does not necessarily result from different basic police attitudes but rather from a relative lack of police personnel for ghetto areas considering the volume of calls for police. As a consequence the police work according to priorities. Because of the need for attention to major crimes little if any attention can be accorded to reports of a suspicious person for example or a noisy party or a drunk and attention even to major crimes may sometimes be routine or skeptical. Ghetto residents however see a dual standard of law enforcement. Particularly because many of them work in other areas of the city and have seen the nature of police responsiveness there they are keenly aware of the difference. They come to believe that an assault on a white victim produces one reaction and an assault on an negro quite another. The police heavily engaged in the ghetto might assert that they cannot cover serious offenses and minor complaints at the same time that they cannot be two places at once. The ghetto resident however often concludes that the police respond neither to serious offenses nor to minor complaints. Recent studies have documented the inadequacies of police response in some ghetto areas. A Yale Law Journal study of Hartford, Connecticut, found that the residents of a large area in the center of the Negro ghetto are victims of over one third of the daylight residential burglaries in the city. Yet during the daytime only one of Hartford's eighteen patrol cars and none of its eleven foot patrolmen is assigned to this area. Sections in the white part of town about the same size as the central ghetto area receive slightly more intensive daytime patrol even though the citizens in the ghetto area summon the police about six times as often because of criminal acts. In a United States Commission on Civil Rights study, a review of police communications records in Cleveland disclosed that police took almost four times as long to respond to calls concerning robbery from the Negro district as for the district where response was next slowest. The response time for some other crimes was at least twice as long. The Commission recommends police departments should have a clear and enforced policy that the standard of law enforcement in ghetto areas is the same as in other communities. Complaints and appeals from the ghetto should be treated with the same urgency and importance as those from white neighborhoods. Because a basic problem in furnishing protection to the ghetto is the shortage of manpower, police departments should review the existing deployment of field personnel to ensure the most efficient use of manpower. The police task force of the Crime Commission stressed the need to distribute patrol officers in accordance with the actual need for their presence. Communities may have to pay for more and better policing for the entire community as well as for the ghetto. In allocating manpower to the ghetto, enforcement emphasis should be given to crimes that threaten life and property. Stress on social gambling or loitering, when more serious crimes are being neglected, not only diverts manpower but fosters distrust and tension in the ghetto community. The problem of grievance mechanisms. A third source of Negro hostility to police is the almost total lack of effective channels for redress of complaints against police conduct. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Plainfield, New Jersey, for example, ghetto residents complained that police reject complaints out of hand. In New Haven, a Negro citizens group characterized a police review board as worthless. In Detroit, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission found that, despite well-intentioned leadership, no real sanctions are imposed on offending officers. In Newark, the mayor referred complaints to the FBI, which had very limited jurisdiction over them. In many of the cities surveyed by the Commission, Negro complaints focused on the continued presence in the ghetto of officers regarded as notorious for prejudice and brutality. The 1967 report of the Civil Rights Commission also states that a major issue in the Negro community is inadequate investigation of complaints against the police. It even reports threats of criminal actions designed to discourage complainants. A survey for the Crime Commission found substantial evidence that policemen in some cities have little fear of punishment for using unnecessary force because they appear to have a degree of immunity from their departments. Recommendations Objective evaluation, analysis and innovation on this subject are vitally necessary. Yet attention has been largely and unfortunately diverted by protracted debate over the desirability of civilian review boards. Research conducted by the Crime Commission and others shows that the benefits and liabilities of such boards have probably both been exaggerated. In the context of civil disorder, appearances and reality are of almost equal importance in the handling of citizen complaints against the police. It is not enough that there are adequate machinery and procedures for handling complaints. It is also necessary that citizens believe these procedures are adequate. Some citizens will never trust an agency against which they have a grievance. Some irresponsible citizens will attempt to provoke distrust of every agency. Hence some police administrators have been tempted to throw up their hands and do nothing on the ground that whatever they do will be misunderstood. These sentiments may be understandable, but the police should appreciate that the Negro citizens also want to throw up their hands, for they believe that the police stick together, that they will cover up for each other, that no officer ever receives more than a token punishment for misconduct, and that even such expensive legal steps as false arrest or civil damage suits are for doomed because it is the officer's word against mine. We believe that an internal review board in which the police department itself receives and acts on complaints, regardless of its efficiency or fairness, can rarely generate the necessary community confidence or protect the police against unfounded charges. We also believe, as did the Crime Commission, that police should not be the only municipal agency subject to outside scrutiny and review. Incompetence and mistreatment by any public servant should be equally subject to review by an independent agency. The Crime Commission Police Task Force reviewed the various external grievance procedures attempted or suggested in this country and abroad. Without attempting to recommend a specific procedure, our commission believes that police departments should be subject to external review. We discussed this problem in Chapter 10, the Community Response. Here we highlight what we believe to be the basic elements of an effective system. The Commission recommends making a complaint should be easy. It should be possible to file a grievance without excessive formality. If forms are used they should be easily available and their use explained in widely distributed pamphlets. In large cities it should not be necessary to go to a central headquarters office to file a complaint, but it should also be possible to file a complaint at neighborhood locations. Police officers on the beat, community service aides, or other municipal employees in the community should be empowered to receive complaints. A specialized agency, with adequate funds and staff, should be created separate from other municipal agencies to handle, investigate, and make recommendations on citizen complaints. The procedure should have a built-in conciliation process to attempt to resolve complaints without the need for full investigation and processing. The complaining party should be able to participate in the investigation and in any hearings, with right of representation by council, so that the complaint is fully investigated and findings made on the merits. He should be promptly and fully informed of the outcome. The results of the investigation should be made public. Since many citizen complaints concern departmental policies rather than individual conduct, information concerning complaints of this sort should be forwarded to the departmental unit which formulates and reviews policy and procedures. Information concerning all complaints should be forwarded to appropriate training units, so that any deficiencies correctable by training can be eliminated. Although we advocate an external agency as the means of resolving grievances, we believe that the basic need is to adopt procedures which will gain the respect and confidence of the entire community. This need can in the end be met only by sustained direction through the line of command, through investigation of complaints, and prompt visible disciplinary action where justified. The need for policy guidelines, how a policeman handles day-to-day contacts with citizens, will to a large extent shape the relationships between the police and the community. These contacts involve considerable discretion. Improper exercise of such discretion can needlessly create tension and contribute to community grievances. Formally the police officer has no discretion. His task is to enforce all laws at all times. Formally the officer's only basic enforcement option is to make an arrest or to do nothing. Formally when a citizen resists arrest the officer's only recourse is to apply such reasonable force as he can bring with his hands, night-stick, or revolver. But informally and in reality the officer faces an entirely different situation. He has and must have a great deal of discretion. There are not enough police or jails to permit the levels of surveillance that would be necessary to enforce all laws all the time, levels which the public would in any event regard as intolerable. Patrick V. Murphy, now Director of Public Safety in the District of Columbia, told the Commission, The police of course exercise very broad discretion, and although in many states the law says or implies that all laws must be enforced, and although the manuals of many police departments state every officer is responsible for the enforcement of all laws, as a practical matter it is impossible for the police to enforce all laws, and as a result they exercise very broad discretion. By failing to understand the fact that they do exercise important discretion every day, some police do not perceive just how they maintain the peace in different ways in different sections of a city. The formal remedies of law are inappropriate for many common problems. A family quarrel or a street fight, followed by an arrest, would give the parties a record, and typically a suspended sentence, it would not solve the problem. And the appropriate legal grounds for making an arrest are often not present, for the officer has not witnessed the incident, nor does he have a sworn complaint from someone who has. Pacifying the dispute may then well be the best approach, but many officers lack the training or experience to do so effectively. If the parties resist pacification or arrest, the officer alone on the street must either back down or use force, sometimes lethal. Crime Commission studies and our police survey show that guidance in the exercise of discretion in many situations is often not available to the policemen. There are guidelines for wearing uniforms, but not for how to intervene in a domestic dispute, for the cleaning of a revolver, but not for when to fire it, for use of departmental property, but not for whether or not to break up a sidewalk gathering, for handling stray dogs, but not for handling field interrogations. Recommendations. Contacts between citizens and the police in the ghetto require discretion and judgment, which should be based upon carefully drawn written departmental policy. The report of the Crime Commission and the Police Task Force report considered this problem in detail and recommended subjects for policy guidelines. The Commission recommends the establishment of guidelines covering, at a minimum, the issuance of orders to citizens regarding their movements or activities, for example, when, if ever, should a policeman order a social street gathering to break up or move on. The handling of minor disputes between husband and wife, merchant and customer or landlord and tenant, guidelines should cover resources available in the community, family courts, probation departments, counseling services, welfare agencies, to which citizens can be referred. The decision whether to arrest in a specific situation involving a specific crime, for example, when police should arrest persons engaged in crimes such as social gambling, vagrancy and loitering, and other crimes which do not involve victims, the use of alternatives to arrest, such as a summons should also be considered. The selection and use of investigating methods. Problems concerning the use of field interrogations and stop-and-frisk techniques are especially critical. Crime Commission studies and evidence before this commission demonstrate that these techniques have the potential for becoming a major source of friction between police and minority groups. Their constitutionality is presently under review in the United States Supreme Court. We also recognize that police regard them as important methods of preventing and investigating crime. Although we do not advocate use or adoption of any particular investigative method, we believe that any such method should be covered by guidelines drafted to minimize friction with the community. Safeguarding the constitutional right of free expression, such as the rights of persons engaged in lawful demonstrations, the need to protect lawful demonstrators, and how to handle spontaneous demonstrations, the circumstances under which the various forms of physical force, including lethal force, can and should be applied, recognition of this need was demonstrated by the regulations recently adopted by the City of New York, further implementing the state law governing police use of firearms, and the proper manner of address for contacts with any citizen. The drafting of guidelines should not be solely a police responsibility. It is the duty of mayors and other elected and appointed executive officials to take the initiative to participate fully in the drafting and to ensure that the guidelines are carried out in practice. Police research and planning units should be fully used in identifying problem areas, performing the necessary studies, and in resolving problems. Their products should be reviewed by the chief of police and city executives, and by representatives of the prosecution, courts, correction agencies, and other criminal justice agencies. The views of ghetto residents should be obtained, perhaps through police-community relations programs or human relations agencies. Once promulgated, the guidelines should be disseminated clearly and forcefully to all operational personnel. Concise, simply worded and if necessary foreign language summaries of police powers and individual rights should be distributed to the public. Training the police to perform according to the guidelines is essential. Although conventional instruction is a minimum requirement, full understanding can only be achieved by intensive small group training involving simulation. Guidelines, no matter how carefully drafted, will have little effect unless the department enforces them. This primarily requires command supervision and commitment to the guidelines. It also requires a strong internal investigative unit to enforce compliance. Such a unit should not only enforce the guidelines on a case-by-case basis against individual officers, but should also develop procedures to deter and prevent violations. The Crime Commission discussed the various methods available, and a fair and effective means to handle citizen complaints. Finally, provision should be made for periodic review of the guidelines to ensure that changes are made to take account of current court rulings and new laws. End of Section 36. Recording by Maria Casper. Section 37 of the Kerner Commission Report. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Kerner Commission Report. Chapter 11. Police and the Community, Part 3. Community Support for Law Enforcement. A fifth major reason for police community hostility, particularly obvious since the recent disorders, is the general breakdown of communication between police and the ghetto. The contacts that do occur are primarily adversary contacts. In the section on police patrol practices we discussed one basic aspect of this problem. Here we consider how police forces have tried, with varying degrees of success, to deal with three issues underlying relations with ghetto communities. Recruitment, assignment, and promotion of Negroes. The Crime Commission Police Task Force found that for police in a Negro community to be predominantly white can serve as a dangerous irritant. A feeling may develop that the community is not being policed to maintain civil peace but to maintain the status quo. It further found that contact with Negro officers can help to avoid stereotypes and prejudices in the minds of white officers. Negro officers can also increase departmental insight into ghetto problems and provide information necessary for early anticipation of the tensions and grievances that could lead to disorders. Commission witnesses confirm these conclusions. There is evidence that Negro officers also can be particularly effective in controlling any disorders that do break out. In studying the relative performance of Army and National Guard forces in the Detroit disorder, we concluded that the higher percentage of Negroes in the Army forces contributed substantially to their better performance. As a result, last August, we recommended an increase in the percentage of Negroes in the National Guard. The need for increased Negro participation in police departments is equally acute. Despite this need, and despite recent efforts to hire more Negro police, the proportion of Negroes on police forces still falls far below the proportion of Negroes in the total population. Of twenty-eight departments which reported information of this kind in a Commission survey of police departments, the percentage of Negro sworn personnel ranged from less than one percent to twenty-one percent. The median figure for Negro sworn personnel on the force was six percent. The median figure for the Negro population was approximately twenty-four percent. In no case was the proportion of Negroes in the police department equal to the proportion in the population. A 1962 survey of the United States Civil Rights Commission, as reported in the Crime Commission Police Task Force report, shows correspondingly low figures for other cities. There are even more marked disproportion of Negro supervisory personnel. Our survey showed the following ratios. One in every twenty-six Negroes is a sergeant. The white ratio is one in twelve. One in every hundred and fourteen Negroes is a lieutenant. The white ratio is one in twenty-six. One in every two hundred thirty-five Negroes is a captain or above. The white ratio is one in fifty-three. Public Safety Director Murphy, testifying before the Commission, described the problem and at least one of its causes. I think one of the serious problems facing the police in the nation today is the lack of adequate representation of Negroes in police departments. I think the police have not recruited enough Negroes in the past and are not recruiting enough of them today. I think we would be less than honest if we didn't admit that Negroes have been kept out of police departments in the past for reasons of racial discrimination. In a number of cities, particularly larger ones, police officials are not only willing but anxious to appoint Negro officers. There are obstacles other than discrimination. While these obstacles cannot readily be measured, they can be identified. One is the relatively high standard for police employment, another is pay. Better qualified Negroes are often more attracted by other better-paying positions, and another obstacle is the bad image of police in the Negro community. There are also obstacles to promotion, apart from discrimination, such as the more limited educational background of some Negro officers. Recommendations The Commission recommends police departments should intensify their efforts to recruit more Negroes. The police task force of the Crime Commission discussed a number of ways to do this and the problems involved. The Department of Defense program to help police departments recruit returning servicemen should be fully utilized. An army report of Negro participation in the National Guard and Army Reserves may also provide useful information. In order to increase the number of Negroes in supervisory positions, police departments should review promotion policies to ensure that Negroes have full opportunity to be rapidly and fairly promoted. Negro officers should be so assigned as to ensure that the police department is fully and visibly integrated. Some cities have adopted a policy of assigning one white and one Negro officer to patrol cars, especially in ghetto areas. These assignments result in better understanding, tempered judgment, and increased ability to separate the truly suspect from the merely unfamiliar. Recruiting more Negro officers alone will not solve the problems of lack of communication and hostility toward police. A Negro's understanding of the ghetto is not enough to make him a good officer. He must also meet the same standards as white officers and pass the same screening process. These requirements help create a dilemma noted by the Crime Commission. The need to develop better relations with minority group communities requires recruitment of police from these groups, groups handicapped by a lack of educational opportunities and achievement. To require that police recruits have a high school diploma sets a standard too low in terms of the need for recruiting college graduates, and perhaps too high in terms of the need for recruiting members of minority groups. To meet this problem the Crime Commission recommended creation of a new type of uniformed community service officer. This officer would typically be a young man between 17 and 21 with the aptitude, integrity, and stability necessary to perform police work. He would perform a variety of duties short of exercising full law enforcement powers with the primary emphasis on community service work, and while so serving he would continue his studies in order to be promoted as quickly as possible to the status of a police officer. The Commission recommends the community service officer program should be adopted. Use of this program to increase the number of Negroes in police departments will help to establish needed channels of communication with the Negro community, will permit the police to perform better their community service function especially in the minority group neighborhoods, and will also create a number of badly needed jobs for Negro youths. The standards of selection for such community service officers or aides should be drawn to ensure that the great majority of young Negro males are eligible to participate in the program. As stated in the Crime Commission Task Force Report, selection should not be based on inflexible educational requirements, but instead should be made on an individual basis, with priority being given to applicants with promising aspirations, honesty, intelligence, a desire and tested capacity to advance his education, and an understanding of the neighborhood and its problems. An arrest record or a minor conviction record should not in itself be a bar to such employment. The Commission recommends the federal government should launch a program to establish community service officers or aides in cities with populations over 50,000. Allegable police departments should be reimbursed for 90% of the costs of employing one aide for every 10 full-time police officers. We must emphasize, however, that recruitment of community service aides must complement not replace the efforts to recruit more Negroes as police officers. Because police run almost the only 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week emergency service, they find it very hard not to become involved in a host of non-police services. Complaints about a wide range of matters, from noisy neighbors in deteriorated streets to building code violations, are at best only peripheral to police work. Because these are often not police matters and because police increasingly face serious shortages of manpower and money, police administrators have resisted becoming involved in such matters. This resistance, coupled with the centralization and motorization of the police, has resulted in the police becoming more distant from the people they serve. Recommendations. The commission believes that police cannot and should not resist becoming involved in community service matters. There will be benefits for law enforcement no less than for public order. First, police, because of their front-line position in dealing with ghetto problems, will be better able to identify problems in the community that may lead to disorder. Second, they will be better able to handle incidents requiring police intervention, particularly marital disputes that have a potential for violence. How well the police handle domestic disturbances affects the incidents of serious crimes including assaults and homicides. Third, willing performance of such work can gain police the respect and support of the community. Finally, development of non-adversarial contacts can provide the police with a vital source of information and intelligence concerning the communities they serve. A variety of methods have been devised to improve police performance of this service function. We comment on two of special interests. The first is the New York Police Department's Experimental Family Crisis Intervention Program to develop better police response to marital disputes. If results develop as expected, this may serve as a model for other departments. Second, neighborhood service centers have been opened in some cities. These centers typically are established in tense high-crime areas in easily accessible locations such as storefronts or public housing projects. Staffed by a civilian city employee as well as a police officer, their task is to provide information and service, putting a citizen in touch with the right agency, furnishing general advice. This gives the beat patrolman somewhere to refer a marital dispute. It gives the local resident a clear, simple contact with official advice. It gives the police in general the opportunity to provide services not merely enforce the law. The needed additional manpower for such centers could be provided by the community service aides recommended earlier or by continuing to employ experienced policemen who have reached the age of retirement. Community Relations Programs Many police departments have established programs to deal specifically with police-community relations. The Crime Commission recommended a number of such programs and federal funds have been made available for putting them into operation. Although of great potential benefit, the results thus far have been disappointing. This is true partly because the changes in attitude sought by such programs can only be achieved over time. But there are other reasons, as was shown by Detroit's experience with police-community meetings. Minimum participation by ghetto residents, infrequent meetings, lack of patrolmen involvement, lack of attention to youth programs, lack of coordination by police leadership either within the department or with other city programs. More significantly, both the Detroit Evaluation and the studies carried on for the Commission show that too often these are not community relations programs, but public relations programs designed to improve the department's image in the community. In one major city covered by the Commission's study the department's plan for citizen observers of police work failed because people believed that the citizen observer was allowed to see only what the police thought he should see. Similarly, the police chief's open house, an opportunity for discussion, was considered useless by many who regarded him as unsympathetic and unresponsive. Moreover, it is clear that these programs have little support among rank-and-file officers. In Detroit, more than a year after instructions were sent out to establish such programs, several precincts had still failed to do so. Other cities have had similar experiences. On the command level there is often little interest, programs are not integrated into the departments, units do not receive adequate budgetary support. Nevertheless, some programs have been successful. In Atlanta, a Crime Prevention Bureau has within two years established a good relationship with the community, particularly with the young people. It has concentrated on social services, persuading almost 600 dropouts to return to school, assisting some 250 hardship cases with food and work, arranging for dances and hydrant showers during the summer, working quickly and closely with families of missing persons. The result is a close rapport with the community and recruits for the department. Baltimore and Winston-Salem are reported to have equally successful programs. Recommendations Community relations programs and training can be important in increasing communication and decreasing hostility between the police and the ghetto. Community relations programs can also be used by police to explain new patrol practices, law enforcement programs, and other police efforts to reduce crime. Police have a right to expect ghetto leaders to work responsibly to reduce crime. Community relations programs offer a way to create and foster these efforts. We believe that community relations is an integral part of all law enforcement, but it cannot be made so by part-time effort, peripheral status, or cliché methods. One way to bolster community relations is to expand police department award systems. Traditionally special awards, promotional credit, bonuses, and selection for special assignments are based on heroic acts and arrest activity. Award systems should take equal cognizance of the work of officers who improve relations with alienated members of the community, and by so doing minimize the potential for disorder. However, we see no easy solution to police-community relations and misunderstandings, and we are aware that no single procedure or program will suffice. Improving community relations is a full-time assignment for every commander and every officer, an assignment that must include the development of an attitude, a tone, throughout the force, that conforms with the ultimate responsibility of every policeman, public service. End of Section 37. Recording by Maria Casper. Section 38 of the Kerner Commission Report. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Kerner Commission Report. Chapter 12 Control of Disorder, Part 1. Introduction. To analyze the complex social causes of disorder, to plumb the impact of generations of deprivation, to work for broad and sensitive efforts at prevention are vital tasks, but they are slow and difficult. When, in the meantime, civil disorder breaks out, three simple principles emerge. First, preserving civil peace is the first responsibility of government. Individuals cannot be permitted to endanger the public peace and safety, and public officials have a duty to make it clear that all just and necessary means to protect both will be used. Our society is founded on the rule of law. That rule must prevail. Without it we will lack not only order but the environment essential to social and economic progress. Second, in maintaining the rule of law we must be careful not to sacrifice it in the name of order. In our concern over civil disorder we must not mistake lawful protest for illegal activities. The guardians of the law are also subject to the law they serve. As the FBI states in its riot manual for law enforcement officers, a peaceful or lawful demonstration should not be looked upon with disapproval by a police agency. Rather it should be considered as a safety valve, possibly serving to prevent a riot. The police agency should not countenance violations of law, however a police agency does not have the right to deny the demonstrator his constitutional rights. Third, maintaining civil order is the responsibility of the entire community. Not even the most professional and devoted law enforcement agency alone can quell civil disorder any more than it alone can prevent civil disorder. A thin blue line is too thin. Maintaining civil peace is the responsibility of the entire community, particularly public officials. The guidance, assistance and support of the mayor can be decisive. This does not deny the very great responsibility which is and should be borne by the police. In the supplement on control of disorder at the end of this report, we offer specific comments which we hope will help law enforcement agencies regain control after major disorders have developed. In this chapter however, the commission considers ways by which the police, with the leadership and support of the civil authorities, can suppress and restrain potentially major disorders in their initial phases. The initial incident. Last summer almost 150 cities experienced some form of civil disorder. Most remained minor disturbances, effectively controlled by the local police and civil authorities. In some cities similar incidents led to serious disorder. Why? Testimony and evidence studied by the commission point to the preeminent role of police reaction to the initial incident. How the police and the community respond to and deal with such incidents may well determine whether they remain relatively minor police problems or balloon into major disorders. Initial police response. When police receive word of an accident, fight or similar incident, a patrolman is routinely sent to the scene. He is called on to exercise technical and professional skills at which he is practiced, investigation, individual control, and perhaps arrest. Infrequently he may have to call for assistance. In any event his judgments, while important, normally have an impact only on the immediate participants. In the densely populated ghetto, however, particularly when summer heat drives many residents into the streets, even the most routine incident may call for far more than a technical assessment. The responding officer's initial judgment here is critical in two respects. First it will guide his own conduct. Second it will guide the response of his superiors. What orders, if any, should they give him? What help should they send if he asks for help? An assessment of this sort may be difficult for the best informed officer. What makes it even more difficult is that police often do not know what to expect when they respond to incidents in ghetto areas where virtually all the 1967 disorders occurred. The average police officer has little knowledge or understanding of the underlying tensions and grievances that exist in the ghetto. Yet this information is vital if the police officer is to decide correctly what police or other control measures should be taken to deal with the incident. The task is to find ways to inform his judgment to the maximum extent possible. While good judgment cannot be institutionalized, some broad considerations can be offered. The basic factors. Five factors, often inseparable, recurred in the major disorders of last summer. One, crowded ghetto living conditions worsened by summer heat. Two, youth on the streets. Three, hostility to police. Four, delay in appropriate police response. And five, persistent rumors and inadequate information. On hot summer nights the front steps and the street become a refuge from the stifling tenements of the ghetto. Detroit's Twelfth Street, New Haven's Congress Street, and the grim public housing blocks of Newark, illustrate how ghetto streets come alive with people, especially on summer nights and weekends, when many of the disorders of 1967 began. The people on the streets invariably include a very high proportion of youth. It takes little to attract a crowd in this setting. Making an arrest is a routine matter to many police officers. In the ghetto it can draw a crowd instantly. Quick to misunderstand. Quick to characterize the police action as unfair. Quick to abandon curiosity for anger. Crowded ghetto living conditions and youth on the streets, the first two factors, cannot be remedied by the police. But the police must take these conditions into account, in assessing even the most routine ghetto incident. Every police officer responding to a call, in tense, heavily populated areas, must be sensitive to tension situations. Here, more than in any other type of police duty, the individual officer must exercise good judgment and common sense. The Chicago Police Department issued the following training bulletin to all its personnel. Preventing civil disorders is always easier than suppressing them. The police officer, by disciplining his emotions, recognizing the rights of all citizens, and conducting himself in the manner his office demands, can do much to prevent a tension situation from erupting into a serious disturbance. There are, however, steps police can take to eliminate or minimize the effects of the remaining three factors. In the preceding chapter we have already discussed the factor of hostility to police. As for delay, sufficient manpower is a prerequisite for controlling potentially dangerous crowds. The speed with which it arrives may well determine whether the situation can be controlled. In the summer of 1967 we believe that delay in mobilizing help permitted several incidents to develop into dangerous disorders, in the end requiring far more control personnel, and creating increased hazards to life and property. Rumors significantly aggravated tension and disorder in more than 65% of the disorders studied by the commission. Sometimes, as in Tampa and New Haven, rumor served as the spark which turned an incident into a civil disorder. Elsewhere, notably Detroit and Newark, even where they were not precipitating or motivating factors, inflaming rumors made the job of police and community leaders far more difficult. Experience also has shown that the harmful effect of rumors can be offset if police, public officials, and community leaders quickly and effectively circulate the facts. An innovative method is that of a rumor-central, an office responsible for the collection, evaluation, and countering of rumors which could lead to civil disorder. To be most effective such units might be located outside police departments. In any event they should work closely with police and with other public officials. In addition to the problem of rumors, incident to disorders, the police are often handicapped by the lack of adequate, reliable information. An effective police intelligence unit trained and equipped to gather, evaluate, analyze, and disseminate information is needed to rectify this deficiency. Control capabilities. Whenever an initial incident erupts into a major crowd control problem, most police departments are confronted with a difficult manpower problem. A police department normally has only a fraction, something around 13 percent, of its uniformed force on duty during the peak 4 p.m. to midnight watch when nearly all the riots studied by the commission began. For example, a city like Cincinnati, with a population of about 500,000 and an area of 77 square miles, would normally have fewer than 100 uniformed policemen available if trouble broke out. A city like Peoria, Illinois, with a population of about 100,000, would have fewer than 25 uniformed patrolmen on hand. Dispersal is also a factor. Normal police operations require personnel to be distributed over the entire geographical area of a city. When disorder breaks out, the task of mobilizing all available manpower is enormous. The police administrator must weigh the need for police to control the riot against the risks of leaving vital areas of the city without police protection. It is apparent that most American cities would not have enough patrolmen quickly available to assure control in the event of a sudden large disorder. A high premium must hence be placed on the capability to prevent disorders or to contain them before they develop into serious proportions. Training. Despite the obvious importance of well-trained police in controlling disorder, the Commission's survey of the capabilities of selected police departments disclosed serious deficiencies. For example, riot control training is primarily given to recruits. This averaged 18 hours for the department's surveyed, ranging from 62 hours to only two. Little additional training is provided for command-level officers. In contrast, the National Guard now receives a minimum of 32 hours of riot control training under new U.S. Army regulations, and National Guard officers receive 16 hours of command training for disorder situations. The deficiencies in police training for disorders are magnified by the fact that standard police training and operations differ radically from training needed for the control of riots. Traditional training and emphasis have been on the individual policemen. His routine duties involve isolated incidents and dealings with small numbers of people at one time. The nature of his work, riding or walking mostly alone or in pairs, means that he has considerable individual discretion. The control of civil disturbances, on the other hand, requires large numbers of disciplined personnel, comparable to soldiers in a military unit, organized and trained to work as a team under a highly unified command and control system. Thus when a civil disturbance occurs, a police department must suddenly shift into a new type of organization with different operational procedures. The individual officer must stop acting independently and begin to perform as a member of a closely supervised disciplined team. Our survey disclosed that training in practically all departments is limited to the individual. Last year's disorders demonstrated that the control problems encountered were different from those for which riot control training had been designed. Violence often involved small groups and hit-and-run tactics. Except in the later stages of the largest disorders, the crowds included large numbers of spectators, not active in looting or destruction. Since they were mostly residents of the area, dispersal alone was futile. As a result, training in conventional riot control formations and tactics, designed primarily to control and disperse mobs, was often inapplicable and ineffective. Few departments have the resources and expertise to provide adequate and relevant training for control of serious disorders. We discuss this problem in greater detail in our supplement on control of disorder and set forth additional recommendations. Discipline and command. As the riot profiles in the opening chapter of the report have shown, discipline of the control force is a crucial factor. Officers at the scene of a ghetto disorder are likely to suffer vilification and to be the targets for rocks or bottles. Nevertheless, police discipline must be sufficiently strong so that an individual officer is not provoked into unilateral action. He must develop sufficient confidence in himself and his fellow officers to avoid panic and the indiscriminate and inflammatory use of force that has sometimes occurred in the heat of disorders. Discipline of this sort depends on the leadership of seasoned commanders and the presence in the field of sufficient supervisory officers to make major decisions. The ability of police commanders to maintain command and control of units at the scene of disorder is severely handicapped by deficiencies in police communications. Police departments usually can communicate with their personnel only through radios in police vehicles. Once the officer leaves his police car or motorcycle, he loses communication with his superiors and is outside their effective control. The military has field communication systems which make it possible to achieve effective command and control. The nation's police departments do not. A more complete discussion of this problem and the commissioner's recommendations are contained in the supplement. Police tactics. There are no all-purpose control tactics. Last summer's disorders demonstrated repeatedly that tactics which are effective in one situation may be totally ineffective in another. The cardinal requirement is to have enough men and control equipment available to carry out effectively whatever tactics are necessary and appropriate according to the dictates of sound judgment. Tactical operations are dealt with in the supplement. Specific riot control tactics are discussed in the Model Operations Plan, described in the supplement, which has been prepared for separate distribution to police departments. End of Section 38, Recording by Maria Casper. Section 39 of the Kerner Commission Report. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Kerner Commission Report. Chapter 12. Control of Disorder, Part 2. The Use of Force. Justification of Deadly Force. There are at least three serious problems involved in the use of deadly weapons in a civil disorder. The first is the risk of killing or wounding innocent persons, bystanders or passers-by, who may in fact be hundreds of feet away when a shot is fired. The second is the justification for the use of deadly force against looting or vandalism. Are bullets the correct response to offenses of this sort? Major General George Gelston told the Commission, I am not going to order a man killed for stealing a six-pack of beer or a television set. Instead he said a non-lethal tear gas can stop any looting. The third problem is that the use of excessive force, even the inappropriate display of weapons, may be inflammatory and lead to even worse disorder. As the FBI riot control manual states, the basic rule when applying force is to use only the minimum force necessary to effectively control the situation. Unwarranted application of force will incite the mob to further violence as well as kindle seeds of resentment for the police that in turn could cause a riot to recur. Ill-advised and excessive application of force will not only result in charges of police brutality, but may also prolong the disturbance. Such counsel with respect to disorders accords with the clearly established legal and social principle of minimum use of force by police. The major difficulty in dealing with all these problems, however, is the limited choice still presented to police in mass disorders to use too much force or too little. The police who faced the New York riot of 1863 were equipped with two weapons, a wooden stick and a gun. For the most part the police faced with urban disorders last summer had to rely on two weapons, a wooden stick and a gun. Our police departments today require a middle range of physical force with which to restrain and control illegal behavior more humanely and more effectively. Alternatives to deadly force. The dilemma regarding force has endured for more than a century for two reasons. One is that police are inhibited from using even the new tools which have been developed. The second is that the improvement and perfection of these tools are proceeding far too slowly. As pointed out in the supplement, fear of public reaction and other policy considerations have tended to inhibit police use of non-lethal chemical agents in civil disorders. The U.S. Army, on the other hand, relies heavily on the use of C.S., a chemical agent for controlling riots. The Army has found it to be both much more effective and safer than the more traditional tear gas, C.N. The use of C.S. is prescribed in the standard military sequence of force prior to the employment of any lethal firearms. Moreover, new developments now make it possible to use chemical agents selectively against individuals and small groups with minimum danger to innocent persons. Thus the understandable concern of many police and public officials as to the wisdom of using massive amounts of gas in a densely populated area need no longer prove a barrier. The value and effectiveness of chemical agents in restoring law and order with minimum danger to lives and property is also attested to by the FBI's riot control manual. Chemical agents can negate the numerical superiority the mob has over the police force. They are the most effective and most humane means of achieving a temporary neutralization of a mob with minimum of personal injury. The Commission recommends that in suppressing disorder, the police, whenever possible, follow the example of the U.S. Army in requiring the use of chemical agents before the use of deadly weapons. The experience of many police forces has demonstrated, however, that the value and community acceptance of new non-lethal methods may be jeopardized if police officers employ them in an indiscriminate way. In some of the cities we studied, reports of the improper use of some chemical weapons by individual police officers have led to charges that these weapons are brutalizing and demeaning. To assure public confidence and prevent misuse, police administrators should issue clear guidelines on where and how police may employ such control measures. The Commission has received many suggestions for other non-lethal control equipment. Distinctive marking dies or odors and the filming of rioters have been recommended both to deter and positively identify persons guilty of illegal acts. Sticky tapes, adhesive blobs, and liquid foam are advocated to immobilize or block rioters. Intensely bright lights and loud distressing sounds capable of creating temporary disability may prove to be useful. Technology will provide still other tools. There is need for additional experience and evaluation before the police and the public can be reasonably assured that these control innovations meet the performance and safety standards required for use in civilian communities. The Commission believes, however, that the urgent need for some non-lethal alternatives requires immediate attention and federal support. We discuss this further in the supplement. Community assistance in disorder control. Commission studies have shown that in a number of instances both police and other responsible civil authorities were forced to make decisions without adequate facts in an atmosphere charged by rumor. Police administrators consulted by the Commission emphasized the importance of employing trained police intelligence officers to collect, evaluate, and disseminate information. The use of undercover police officers, reliable informants, and the assignment of police personnel to provide fast, accurate on-the-scene reports were all cited as essential. During the early stage of a disorder when lawlessness is still relatively restricted, the cooperation and assistance of Negro leaders and other community residents with a common interest in the maintenance of order can be extremely valuable. They can provide the police with the kind of pertinent and reliable information essential for decision-making during the disorder. Many agencies and organizations in the area, public and private, have valuable contacts and channels of communication. These can also serve as important information resources. In some cities counter rioters have played an important role in dampening disturbance. Volunteers have assisted in restoring order by patrolling their neighborhoods and trying independently to persuade others to go home. Sometimes local authorities have actively recruited ghetto residents to perform these missions. The Commission believes that mayors and police chiefs should recognize and assess carefully the potential benefits such efforts can sometimes provide, restoring the peace in a way that will earn public support and confidence. The larger question, however, whether police should withdraw from the disorder area and let community leaders and forces seek to cool the rioting, raises a number of critical issues. The first and most important is whether by so doing the police are abdicating their basic responsibility to maintain order and protect lives and property. Some police administrators are deeply convinced that it is a dereliction of duty for police to delegate complete authority to individuals or groups who lack legal responsibility. In their judgment such an action creates the danger of vigilante groups. The Commission shares this concern. A sanctioned control group could use its position to intimidate or terrorize. Also, those who come forward to discourage rioting may have no influence with the rioters. If they fail they may well blame officials creating new enforcement problems. The Commission believes that only the mayor, who has the ultimate responsibility for the welfare and safety of the community, can, with the advice of the police administrator, make the critical judgment. The role of public officials. The Commission believes incidents are less likely to escalate into larger violence if ghetto residents know they have effective political channels of protest. We discussed formal grievance outlets at length in the preceding chapters. Here we are particularly concerned with the role of the mayor or city manager and police chief. Civil disorders are fundamental governmental problems, not simply police matters. As the chief elected official the mayor must take ultimate responsibility for all governmental action in times of disorder. To make this meaningful he must have the corresponding authority and control. He must become fully involved in disorder planning and operations. He must understand the nature of the problems posed by a disorder, the strategy of response, and field operations. In some cities mayors have taken the view that disorders were entirely police matters. This represents a failure to accept a fundamental responsibility. The unwillingness of a mayor to become personally involved and to negotiate grievances with local residents may cut off a vital outlet for peaceful protest. Similarly police chiefs should understand this responsibility and should involve the mayor in their planning activities and operations. Only regular participation by the mayor in police problems, in cold winters as well as hot summers, will educate both the mayor and the police as to the mutually reinforcing nature of their relationship. Parallel responsibilities exist at the state level. Governors and other civilian officials with responsibility over state law enforcement activities, such as attorneys general, have an obligation to supervise planning and operations for civil disorders. One of the most important responsibilities of local officials is to maintain close personal contact with the ghetto. The importance of creating channels of communication with ministers, with community organizations, with Negro leaders including young activists and militants cannot be overestimated. Given such contacts, officials become more sensitive to ghetto reactions to particular episodes and frictions. They also create acquaintanceships which can be used to help alleviate tensions that might otherwise heighten. As the riot profiles indicate, in a number of the disorders studied by the commission, efforts were made to respond to grievances. In some instances Negro leaders took the initiative. In others mayors and state officials did so. In New Brunswick, for example, discussion alleviated tension and led to a peaceful settlement. Often the determination of civilian officials, especially the mayor, to seek out these opportunities may be decisive in avoiding violence. Having determined that it will try to resolve its problems by political means, the city must then decide with whom to negotiate. Often a difficult question. Large meetings open to the general public or small meetings limited to established older Negro leaders were rarely found to be effective. City officials are often faced with a fragmented Negro community. If they have failed to keep open broad channels of communication, city officials will have great difficulty identifying leaders with sufficient influence to get through to those on the streets. Even after contacts are made, negotiations may be extremely difficult. Younger, militant leaders are often distrustful of city government, fearful of compromising their militancy or their leadership by allying themselves too closely with the power structure, particularly when that structure may have nothing to deliver. Civil disorders require the maximum coordination of the activities of all governmental agencies. Such cooperation can only be brought about by the chief executive. Examples are joint operations by the police and fire departments, mutual assistance agreements with neighboring communities and state and federal assistance. These problems are discussed in the supplement. Danger of overreaction. Emergencies are anticipated in police planning. They range from natural threats like floods and storms to man-made incidents like the recent disorders. Until 1964, most civil disorders were regarded as difficult but basically manageable police problems of an essentially local nature. The events of the last few summers, however, particularly the events of 1967, have radically changed this view. Disturbances in densely populated, predominantly negro areas, which might earlier have been labeled brawls, became characterized as riots with racial overtones. A national climate of tension and fear developed, particularly in cities with large negro populations, were relatively minor incidents inflated or escalated into serious disturbances? Did such inflation result from overly aggressive law enforcement action? Did it stem from unwarranted fears on the part of the ghetto community? Precise answers are impossible. What can be said, however, is that there was widespread misunderstanding and exaggeration of what did occur. The most notable example is the belief, widely held across the country last summer, that riot cities were paralyzed by sniper fire. Of twenty-three cities surveyed by the commission, there had been reports of sniping in at least fifteen. What is probable, although the evidence is fragmentary, is that there was at least some sniping. What is certain is that the amount of sniping attributed to rioters by law enforcement officials as well as the press was highly exaggerated. According to the best information available to the commission, most reported sniping incidents were demonstrated to be gunfire by either the police or national guardsmen. The climate of fear and expectation of violence created by such exaggerated, sometimes totally erroneous reports demonstrates the serious risks of overreaction and excessive use of force. In particular the commission is deeply concerned that in their anxiety to control disorders some law enforcement agencies may resort to indiscriminate repressive use of force against wholly innocent elements of the negro community. The injustice of such conduct and its abrasive effects would be incalculable. Elected officials, police and national guard officials must take effective steps to prevent false assessments and the tragic consequences that could follow. This will require improved communications. It will require reliable intelligence about ghetto problems and incidents. It will require equally assurance of steadfast discipline among control personnel. Funding of Recommendations for Prevention and Control of Disorder Many of the recommendations in this and the preceding chapter will be costly. Studies of police practices, intensified recruitment of negro officers, increased planning and training for disorder control, all would impose heavy financial burdens on communities already hard-pressed by the increasing costs of their present systems of criminal justice. The commission recommends that the federal government bear a part of this burden. Federal funding need not and should not in any way infringe on the principle of local law enforcement authority. The federal government already finances a variety of law enforcement assistance programs without such infringement. The Department of Justice provides direct grants for research, planning and demonstration through the Office of Law Enforcement Assistance, and the FBI conducts training programs for state and local police officers. The Department of Health Education and Welfare administers juvenile delinquency control programs and educational grants for law enforcement studies. The Department of Labor helps pay for police cadet training programs. The Office of Economic Opportunity assists in police community relations activities. We commend and endorse these efforts, but we believe more federal financial assistance is needed. Such assistance should take two forms. First, in this chapter, the preceding one and in the supplement, we specifically recommend federal funding for certain programs, community service officers, development of portable communications equipment, a national clearinghouse for training information, and non-lethal weapons development. Second, we also believe that more federal support is necessary to help local communities improve the overall quality of their criminal justice systems. With the Crime Commission, we believe that the federal government can make a dramatic new contribution to the national effort against crime by greatly expanding its support of the agencies of justice in the states and in the cities. These remarks are in no way intended to excuse local governments from their financial responsibilities. Improved law enforcement at the local level, including increased capacity to prevent and control civil disorders, is possible only if local citizens are willing to put their tax money where their desires are. But this commission believes that not even the most devoted and willing community can succeed by acting alone. Only the federal government is in a position to provide expertise, conduct and evaluate comprehensive test programs, and pay for the large capital investment necessary to develop experimental programs and new equipment. The Crime Commission outlined a broad program of federal funding, advice and assistance to meet major criminal justice needs. It estimated that in the next decade several hundred million dollars could be profitably spent each year on this program. The increased demands imposed on law enforcement agencies by the recent disorders have intensified the urgency and increased the cost of such a program. Nevertheless, fourteen months have now passed since the Crime Commission's exhaustive study and recommendations. Thirteen months have passed since the President first urged the Congress to enact such a program. That urgent request was renewed by the President in his public safety message on February 7, 1968. No final action has yet been taken. It should be taken and taken promptly. Because law enforcement is a local responsibility, whatever legislation is adopted should permit direct grants to municipal governments. Funding should be at least as high as that requested by the President in his message.