A recent poll by ICM Research exclusively for Sputnik focused on the ProPublica results and revealed that one third of those polled agreed that there is persistent racism within the culture of law enforcement in the United States.
“It seems clear that on an unconscious level, white and black police officers implicitly associate black men with danger and disgust, resulting in state-sanctioned actions that often dehumanize black men,” Vanderbilt University Associate Professor of Sociology Tony Brown said.
Stanford University Law Professor Richard Ford told Sputnik said that US law enforcement targets poor communities with predominantly black populations and contributes to the creation of situations in which clashes become inevitable.
“That explains a significant amount of the racial disparity in these police incidents, you have a policy where the police are going into areas that are heavily African-American with a mandate to crack down on petty offenses,” Ford said.
“Policy changes within police departments are unlikely to have a meaningful effect because of the fraternal order of policing,” Brown said. “White and black police officers will protect each out and bend the rules and regulations for each other.”
Ford argued that the United States needs to change the incentive system for police officers and to reinforce awareness of accountability throughout the force.
“Let’s also make sure that officers have a mandate that they can fulfill without triggering these kinds of incidents, that’s a better approach, and that I think does have the potential to fix the problem,” he added.
In recent months, police in the United States have been strongly criticized for excessive use of force, including through nationwide protests in response to a series of well-documented deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers.
