A Quote by John Kleinig
Police do not work at the immediate direction of the communities they serve, but through their institutional connections. Police departments may develop structures, modi operandi, and cultures that are ethically problematic.
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You build the bonds through the community and police force, build bonds of understanding, and then when people feel comfortable in their communities, that gap between the police and the communities they serve narrows. And when that gap narrows, it's safer for the communities and it's safer for the police.
Here's what I learned as a mayor and a governor. The way you make communities safer and the way you make police safer is through community policing. You build the bonds between the community and the police force, build bonds of understanding, and then when people feel comfortable in their communities, that gap between the police and the communities they serve narrows. And when that gap narrows, it's safer for the communities and it's safer for the police.
We need to demilitarize local police departments so that they do not look like occupying armies. We want police departments that look like the communities they are serving.
There has to be a readjustment of resources that is being diverted to police and policing as opposed to community health services, and there certainly has to be control over the police by the communities that they are supposed to protect and serve.
Effective policing relies on the police having the confidence of the communities they serve, and this consultation gives the public an opportunity to contribute to the values and standards they expect of police officers.
I want our police officers to have the resources and training they need to investigate hate crime fully, and to ensure we have neighborhood police teams that understand and reflect the communities they serve.
I think it is important that independent government agencies be put in charge of investigating misconduct so that police departments are no longer allowed to police themselves. There is a conflict of interest there which, I believe, allows police to excuse their own behavior.
Many White people are not sensitive to the kind of abuse that African Americans, especially younger African Americans, receive at the hands of police officers and police departments. I think for most Whites their experience with the police has been good or neutral because they don't interact with the police as much as those in the Black community.
When the culture of police departments is sometimes infused with bias or preconceived ideas against certain groups, there needs to be reform and retraining throughout. And unfortunately, we cannot rely on local departments to police themselves; we need intervention from the top.
Defund the police does not mean abolish the police. It means a dramatic reduction in the number of police in our poor communities and particularly our poor Black and Brown communities.
Police departments across the nation must develop nonviolent 'rules of engagement,' so that they don't reflexively respond to suspected crimes with violence. This will require more in-depth training in the behavioral psychology of conflict resolution so police have tried-and-true techniques of preventing and de-escalating violence.
Police departments are always a reflection of the society that they serve. Is there such a thing as 'police culture?' Absolutely. Is that culture isolated form the surrounding society? Absolutely not.
While we have come a long way, we must go further if we are to ensure greater diversity and truly modern police forces that reflect the communities they serve and provide police officers able to tackle not only traditional crime but also the changing face of crime.
Racial profiling punishes innocent individuals for the past actions of those who look and sound like them. It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It has no place in our national discourse, and no place in our nation's police departments.
Communities of color don't understand what it means to be a police officer, the fear that police officers have in just being on the streets.
Cops should not be separate from the black community or any community. Their salaries are paid for by the communities they police. They should be working for the communities they police. But as we saw in Ferguson, Missouri, they are not always doing that.
