Contents
The summer of 2020 promised to be remembered for the pandemic, but protests came to the fore, accompanied by clashes with the police: first in the United States, then in Belarus. How did it happen that society and law enforcement officers became enemies?
Contents:
- Militia/Police: Roots of Russian Problems
- Racism and police violence in the US
- How police officers develop the “danger imperative”
- How can the police be reformed?
Now all attention is riveted to Belarus, where the dissatisfaction of citizens with the results of the presidential elections spilled onto the streets. For the third day, popular unrest continues, during which demonstrators confront law enforcement officers: while some prepare Molotov cocktails and erect barricades, the latter use stun grenades and tear gas, shoot people with rubber bullets or move in a paddy wagon – not to mention detentions and beatings.
According to political analyst Ekaterina Shulman, the use of force to contain protests is typical for such regimes:
“There is no public support. Elections are held in order to win. This is how it usually happens: power does not change in elections, but it can change as a result of elections.”
Tough measures, Schulman believes, can be effective if the protest can be suppressed immediately. However, using the example of the events in Belarus, it becomes obvious that other scenarios are also possible: for example, in the regions, law enforcement officers chose not to show excessive cruelty, and in some cities they even lowered their shields or even joined the protesters.
Such an imbalance between the center and the periphery, as well as the reaction of the international community, can lead to the fact that the forceful environment from an instrument of retaining power can become an instrument of its overthrow.
“… You can beat everyone, there are no physical obstacles to this. The question is what to do with it later and for how long you can – again, I don’t want to use these banal metaphors – but it’s really difficult to sit on bayonets. First of all, not because their conscience torments them (their conscience does not torment them), but because there is a very large, absolute, complete dependence on their power environment, and the power environment raises the question that I have already formulated: why do we need this one? this old one here … a frame when we ourselves could perform this function both younger and more cheerful and better?” Shulman says.
Militia/Police: Roots of Russian Problems
A month earlier, the world had already seen similar actions by the police in the United States, but in our country, the routine use of water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets is still perceived as something alien – and overly cruel. Both citizens and authorities agree on this: Dmitry Peskov said that in our country the problem of abuse of power by police officers is not so acute, and according to a survey by the Levada Center, 59% of our country rather trust law enforcement officers.
However, the same document states that 10% of respondents believe they were tortured by law enforcement officers, and the falsification of cases related to narcotic substances in order to improve the clearance statistics is rampant: every fourth prisoner is convicted of such crimes.
The cautious attitude towards the police, and then the police in our country, is also largely due to its history. Born after the October Revolution the workers’ militia, according to the plan, was to consist of representatives of the people, ready to defend their own with weapons in their hands. However, in fact, former criminals began to join the detachments.which significantly affected the efficiency and integrity of the work.
In 1918, the decree “On the Workers’ Militia” prohibited the admission of “class alien elements” and those who did not recognize Soviet power into the ranks of law enforcement officers. Also, the road to the law enforcement structure was closed to people who had previously served in the police or gendarmerie, which means they had experience in fighting crime. At the same time, the person who committed the murder could become a policeman. In 1920, the militia, recruited according to such principles, officially became a professional structure – the decree “On the Workers’ and Peasants’ Militia” assigned it the status of armed special forces.
However, the level of respect for the police remained low, before the establishment of the NKVD in 1934, it did not even have a centralized administration. Police work was not considered prestigious, because under the Soviet regime crime had to be put an end to – no great achievements were to come. The KGB, which appeared in 1954, became a rival of the police for many years: those who worked in the police were not taken into the structure, and the officers treated the policemen with contempt. This confrontation subsequently provided much support for Gorbachev and Yeltsin in police circles.
In the 1970s, under the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Nikolai Shchelokov, a system was formed to evaluate the effectiveness of the work of the police in terms of disclosure, referral of cases to court – the so-called cane system, which for many employees has become a motivation for exceeding their duties. Low salaries and dissatisfaction with the service forced the police to look for part-time jobs as security guards or engage in corruption.
In the 1990s, the police became a key tool for dividing spheres of influence. For suppressing street protests, establishing control over TV channels and maintaining order during election campaigns, the Ministry of Internal Affairs received an inviolable status and the opportunity to receive additional income from protection and corruption. Work in the police has become a profitable business, attracting people of a certain warehouse. Gradually, the policemen began to be associated with the inhabitants of the authorities, and the law enforcement officers themselves began to consider themselves the last frontier in the fight against extremism, drug mafia and crime.
The last reform of the Russian law enforcement agencies took place in 2009-2011: then, after a series of resonant malfeasance, the police turned into the police and received even more funding. The changes did not affect the personnel policy and did not provide for decentralization, and in fact remained exclusively image-based.
Racism and police violence in the US
In the United States, racism and police violence are at the top of the list of top issues, with 91% and 89% of Americans, respectively. In total, about a thousand people die at the hands of the police every year, and in 99% of such cases do not lead to charges of murder.
According to the FBI, 2019 police officers died in the line of duty in the United States in 89, 41 of them as a result of accidents.
On May 25, police officer Derek Chauvin killed African-American George Floyd during his arrest – Chauvin pressed his knee to the ground for almost nine minutes on the neck of an unarmed man who was suspected of using a counterfeit bill when buying cigarettes.
Floyd’s death triggered a wave of mass protests against racism and police violence, first in the US and then around the world. American Black Lives Matter protests peaked on June 6, with about half a million people protesting in 550 cities despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The response from the authorities was the use of tear-eye and even the firing of rubber bullets, including at the press.
The result of a tense confrontation between activists and the authorities was the signing of a decree on police reform by President Donald Trump on June 16. It provides for limiting the use of lethal physical force by police officers, prioritizing social services or psychologists for non-violent calls, and establishing a national database of police officers found to have used excessive force. In addition, according to the decree, police departments must recruit more new employees from the communities to which they belong.
However, these measures seemed to many not deep enough and did not reflect the real problems – namely, systemic racism, which is considered one of the main causes of police violence. In addition, the reforms did not affect the state doctrine in any way, which removes responsibility from representatives of the authorities for violations of constitutional laws.
Heavy legacy
Studies show that a black male in the US has a 2,5 times higher risk of being killed upon arrest than a white male, even though the black population is only 12%.
Many see the roots of the problem in the very history of the police. The first state-funded police agencies appeared in the slave South in the early XNUMXth century, with slave patrols tasked with finding and recovering escaped slaves and suppressing riots against slave owners. After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the slave patrols continued their work, later merging into the formed police departments.
By the 1950s, the main activity of the police departments of the South was the control of the implementation of the “Jim Crow Laws”, in fact, they were exclusively engaged in the protection of the white population from the black – most often with the use of violence. At the same time, lynching was widespread, and the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist organizations were openly active in the southern states, but the police tended to turn a blind eye to incidents involving them.
Since 1960, systemic police violence has been a regular source of race riots and peaceful demonstrations, and in 2013 the Black Lives Matter movement emerged in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who shot unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin.
How police officers develop the “danger imperative”
It is possible to consider cases of excessive police violence out of the ordinary, but some researchers consider police culture to be the main source of excessive brutality. Sociologist Michael Sierra-Arévalo turned to the “danger imperative,” a method used to train police officers.
It is based on creating a sense of constant threat among the police: for example, senior colleagues educate recruits about the dangers that await them after graduation from the academy, backed up with audio and video recordings of arrests in which police officers were killed by suspects before help could arrive. Also, policemen who have recently been injured can attend classes – they tell under what circumstances this happened, pointing out the need for decisive action on the part of the authorities.
One of the videos used to train young recruits in the US is the so-called “Dinkheller video” of the assassination of Sheriff Kyle Dinkheller by Vietnam War veteran with PTSD Andrew Howard Brennan. In it, in just a few minutes, events unfold from a seemingly harmless eccentricity to a brutal shootout, which ultimately cost the policeman his life. Video Dinkheller becomes for many recruits an example of how a banal detention can end if the policeman does not act proactively.
The “Dinkheller Video” can be viewed on YouTube. Please note: This video contains scenes of violence and obscene language. The information is not recommended for viewing by persons under the age of majority or with a weak psyche.
Such planting of the “danger imperative” creates a disproportion between real threats and expected ones and leads to the fact that police officers begin to consider violence the main way to protect their lives. As a result, a gap is created between society and the officers themselves in assessing the dangers of police work. So, when asked whether Americans understand the degree of danger faced by the police, 86% of employees answered “no”, while 83% of civilians answered “yes”.
The misunderstanding between the public and the police is becoming more serious, and eventually leads to the normalization of the “they against us” model.. Some police officers would not want their children to follow in their footsteps as they “do not feel supported and are at war with society.” The symbol of this confrontation was the “thin blue line” and a variation of the American flag, where this line separates the stars and stripes.
How can the police be reformed?
The problem facing the American police requires much more decisive action than the creation of a nationwide base and a ban on chokeholds. Among the most popular proposals are a reduction in police funding, deeper and more systemic reforms, and a radical option – the complete abolition of the institution.
- The option to revise police funding suggests reducing the number of police officers, but some studies show that in areas with high crime rates, 60% of blacks and 74% of Hispanics would like to see more policemen, on the contrary. In addition, as shifts increase, so does the likelihood that an employee will be abusive at work due to fatigue.
- The answer could be a redistribution of funds in favor of local initiatives aimed at maintaining well-being and security. In this case, the calls associated with psychological crises or the use of narcotic substances will be able to go to specialized specialists, and not the armed police.
- Supporters of the abolition of the institution of the police also demand that the billions that the state now spends on the police, on health care, education and the fight against poverty, be redirected. This, they emphasize, will help to significantly reduce the need for police, because even now the police are mainly involved in noise complaints, parking – on average, one police officer detains only one real criminal per year.
- Finally, to bridge the gap between the police and the public, departments should develop new recruitment policies that will allow for recruits from the local community and thus gender and racial diversity. For 2016, 71% of sworn employees are white and 12,3% are women. Wherein an increase in the number of women in the police force has led to a decrease in domestic violence and related deaths as victims began to seek police protection more frequently.
Special way
Unlike America, news about shootings and the use of lethal techniques during detention in our country is really a rare occurrence, therefore, for example, the murder of Vladimir Taushankov in Yekaterinburg caused a great public outcry.
This means that at this stage, the decisions of the United States are not suitable for our police system with its birth injuries and peculiarities.
“In our country, known cases of police brutality go unpunished, and we simply do not know about the huge number of these cases. Torture, drug planting and other horrifying things are common in our country. Unjustified police violence against people is not punishable by the courts. In this sense, our country is really not America: such stories in the US result in mass protests, firing of police chiefs, re-election of mayors and other representatives, and a lot of research and activist work with law enforcement. In our country, this is not and will not be until there is at least some incentive to update law enforcement agencies, which will arise only when there is real competition between political programs and elective power,” sociologist Alexei Knorre told Trends.
mass protests are also still taking place without tear gas and rubber bullets, but police often use physical violence even where it could be dispensed with. As in the case of the American police, it is not about individuals, but about the general culture and methods of training employees.
“Law enforcement officers are setting up. They are told: “Those who come out, come out not for the sake of elections, but to arrange a Maidan, these are people who want to destabilize the situation in the country. These are people who go out for the money of the West, who just want to get rowdy.” And many policemen really believe in this,” says Alla Frolova, legal aid coordinator at OVD-Info.
Methods of police training are also criticized by Igor Burmistrov, who worked as a consultant on special tactics at the department of combat and physical training of the North-Western Institute for Advanced Studies of the Federal Drug Control Service. According to him, it is the low level of training that leads to the excessive use of force, because employees learn only combat training aimed at injury, and not competent detention without injury. Also increases the risk of overly aggressive actions by the police and the use of bulletproof vests and helmets.
According to Alexei Knorre, decentralization could partially solve the issue of growing police arbitrariness, which implies the possibility for police departments at the regional or city level to decide how and according to what standards to work:
“For this, of course, the head of the police in the region must be independent from the Minister of the Interior, just as the governor must be independent from the president. One of the options is the creation of a municipal police that works with local problems: petty “administration”, work with people and solving their problems.”
The second point is the lack of a working system of checks and balances:
“Neither the prosecutor’s office nor the criminal courts are really engaged in checking the quality of criminal cases and are working together on the same targets in an assembly line mode.”
And finally, it is important that the police too often neglect their main function – helping people:
“Crimes are often not registered or dealt with, there is no assistance to victims – both in terms of reparation and in terms of assistance, for example, to victims of domestic and sexual violence. It seems that in the American police such problems have been more or less solved for a long time.
Despite the growth in civic engagement and the increasing public demand to limit the powers of the police, the potential reform involves only expanding the rights of law enforcement officers. In May 2020, the government submitted a bill to the State Duma that would allow police officers to use firearms during arrest if the person being pursued at least somehow threatens to attack, as well as to open vehicles “in order to save citizens whose lives and health are in danger” .
Subscribe also to the Trends Telegram channel and stay up to date with current trends and forecasts about the future of technology, economics, education and innovation.