Good policing matters.

AuthorPegues, Corey
PositionAMERICAN JUSTICE

PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS TALKING about the different solutions for the friction we have between cops and minority communities. People want body cameras and independent prosecutors to investigate misconduct. Those are important steps, but real change only can come when you alter the culture of the department and, in a paramilitary organization, transforming the culture comes down to one thing: leadership.

In 1994, New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton walked into Manhattan's 30th Precinct, the Dirty Thirty, one of the most corrupt precincts in the city. He marched the corrupt cops out the door, and threw their badges in the trash. In doing so, he set a tone: this will not be tolerated. Police corruption went down, not because of IAB investigations or fear of independent prosecutors, but because Bratton changed the culture. Being a dirty cop became a mark of shame in the eyes of fellow officers. It is the same when it comes to fixing attitudes toward young blacks and minority communities. There are deeply ingrained patterns of behavior and ways of thinking that have to be broken down and built back up again.

Changing the culture starts with something as simple as changing the way people speak. We had these third- and fourth-generation white cops on the force. They had grown up listening to their brothers and uncles talking about the spies and the coloreds and how you have to knock them around to show who is boss--the racism gets passed down. Guys come in looking at black people like animals, and their language reflects it. I would be at events around the city and cops would say to me, "Wow, the six-seven? You work in that [blank] hole?"

These were fellow captains and commanders talking to me like this. That is the way black neighborhoods were referred to; nobody challenged it. I did. I would reply, "I grew up in a community like that. Those are good people." At roll call, I always would tell my cops, "Be respectful of these people. This is my community. If I catch anybody doing something wrong in my community, you're going to have problems." I made it personal. My cops knew I took ownership.

I did everything I could to challenge perceptions, to change the mentality of treating every black and brown person as a suspect. I did things that were totally unorthodox in the NYPD. It is customary to have neighborhood people come in and talk to the cops as a way of getting to know the community. It usually is the local pastor or a prominent...

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