Two nights ago I sat riveted
and horrified by the LiveFeed coming out of Ferguson, MO. Police advanced like shock troops against
protesting citizens and journalists doing their jobs. For days, no one in the police department of
St. Louis County seemed to have any idea what to do except bring out heavier
and more intimidating equipment.
Facts have emerged about the
Ferguson cops that make some of this conflict more understandable – e.g., only
5 of the 53 officers serving the mostly-black suburb are black. But I also
wondered how these officers view the situation. How did their leadership (mis)understand
what was going on?
My colleague in the
Sociology and Anthropology department here at Wheaton College has studied crime and race for many years.
In a brief conversation, he noted reports from 1968 (40 years ago!) produced
after major American riots explaining the relationship of political
disenfranchisement and violence. He talked about the insufficient training
police receive in community relations and social dynamics. He noted the lack of
nuance law enforcement leadership regularly exhibit when they seek to explain
complex social contexts. History, social
science, empathy. Complex problem solving, critical thinking, curiosity. These were patently missing from the police
response in Ferguson. And these are exactly what we, in the liberal arts
college, teach our students.
This raised the question for me: How do we get our
students to become cops?
I had a recent student, a
bright and engaged young mind, who choose to do a short ethnographic study of
policing a few years ago. He did a ride-along with a cop in a nearby suburb,
interviewed the officer and several others, and observed dynamics of police
culture and those they served. He found the whole thing fascinating. But when I
suggested that perhaps he’d found a career path, he brushed it off. “It was fun
for a project,” he said, “but I could never become a cop.”
Why not?
My students want to serve.
They want to make a difference in people’s lives. They often point to the
social problems and underserved communities currently suffering from inept and
unjust policing.
At the same time, police
work has a reputation as blue-collar, almost grunt work. It’s masculine in traditional ways that
intimidates the bookish sort and offends the feminist. It has a
kind of class context that my soon-to-be college graduate students are seeking
to avoid (or escape) rather than enter.
There needs to be a shift in
who is recruited to be police, and how we, in higher ed, talk about law enforcement as a
career.
The police should be actively
recruiting my students because they have the skills and dispositions to become
the kinds of leaders who will understand Ferguson and the thousands of
communities like it. They should be
seeking out majors in anthropology, sociology, students of literature, and
physicists who graduate with liberal arts backgrounds. They know how to study
new situations and understand them, read human behavior, and think critically
about problems.
For our part, we in the
liberal arts should demonstrate the relevance and importance of law enforcement
as a multi-faceted career. From prosecuting attorney or public defender, to
officers on the beat with the potential to rise in rank and responsibility, we
should be encouraging our graduates to consider these as valid career fields.
Our nation is only becoming more
complex and diverse. We need police prepared to interact with complex and
diverse people. Training in tactical
procedures and weapon use, without a comparable ability for the police to think
differently, learn quickly, and engage complexity is an invitation for more
chaos.
Liberal arts graduates, if
you want to make a difference in the world, consider this: become a cop.
