To say that all police officers are bad people is an outlandish and inaccurate statement. But, even the good guys are not immune to the systemic biases that is bred in police departments across the country. Feelings of camaraderie, brotherhood, and institutional pressures from chain of command can affect even the noblest officer.
Obviously, police officers are people who come in different degrees of good and bad, just like the rest of us. Like all of us, they can be influenced by their surroundings, friends, coworkers, etc. Do racist and/or overall evil police officers exist? Yes, of course they do. You don’t have to search online too hard to find a good number of examples.
But, good police officers also exist. There are those who became officers for all the right reasons and wish to serve their communities. In fact, my personal faith in humanity leads me to believe there are more good officers than bad.
That doesn’t mean, however, that these good officers are not susceptible to acting on implicit biases or prejudices. They are part of an institution that has its roots in the slave patrols of the 1700s. The system in which they work is a system that breeds prejudices and fear based on race and ethnicity. Whether in training, quota pressures, or in the social environment among peers, these pressures can influence even the virtuous of officers.
I wouldn’t argue that all officers are affected the same way. The systemic issues in police departments, themselves, differ among jurisdictions. In some cases, such as that of Redditt Hudson, an office may choose to leave after experiencing some of the institutional racism and biases in the police department.
But, the pressures of your environment can have even the slightest impact on you.
I have a friend who is a police officer, and I know him to be a good guy. He’s a first generation Latino who, like many of us growing up New York City, did not have the most favorable opinions of police. Through personal experiences or by following the tradition of our peers, we grew up viewing police as the antagonizers of blacks and Latinos in urban communities.
Since then, my friend, who has been on the job for a handful of years, has started to change his outlook on not just the police, but also the dynamic of the relationship between minorities and the police. With the recent attention over the last few years of constant violence involving black men and the police, he has become more sympathetic to the officers involved. While that may be expected because of his career, he now often dismisses opposing arguments and frequently ignores facts. His overall attitude towards the relationship between the police and minorities has changed to almost a blind support in favor of police. I now wonder how much of that change is due to implicit biases fueled by working within an institution and culture that is based on racism.
I know not all police officers are bad people – or even bad officers, for that matter. Nevertheless, those good officers are still susceptible to acting on the biases that are plaguing our nation and harming our friends and families of color. I only hope that we can change this system, together, and with those whom we can still call our friends in uniform.
