Introduction

The Commission has been disturbed by persistent reports of unconstitutional and violent acts by some agents of justice in the United States.

After an extensive review of these allegations and the entire field ofadministration of justice, the Commission authorized a study of threeproblems: (i ) police brutality and related private violence; (2) theCivil Rights Acts and their enforcement; and (3) jury exclusion.

In 1931 President Hoover's Wickersham Committee found extensiveevidence of police lawlessness, including unjustified violence. 1 Sixteenyears later another Presidential Committee, this one appointed by President Truman, concluded that police brutality, especially against theunpopular, the weak, and the defenseless, was a distressing problem. 8

And now in 1961 this Commission must report that police brutality is

still a serious problem throughout the United States.

Police connivance with private persons in acts of violence is not aswidespread. But the recent racial outbursts in Alabama demonstratethat it is still a problem. Referring to the Montgomery incident, FederalJudge Frank Johnson, Jr. stated that local police officers had purposelyfailed to curb the mob, a failure which "clearly amount[ed] to unlawfulstate action in violation of the Equal Protection Clause . . ." 8

At least one form of mob violence2014as to which the police have not

been entirely blameless2014is becoming less common. At the beginningof this century the annual toll of lynchings ran into the hundreds. During the 14 years prior to the Truman Committee report of 1947 therewere 123 known lynchings. During the 14 years since that report therehave been 14. Not one has been reported in the past 2 years. 4 Yet thethreat lives on: 8

The devastating consequences of lynching go far beyond what is

shown by counting the victims. When . . . lynchers go unpunished, thousands wonder where the evil will appear again and whatmischance may produce another victim.

I

The major responsibility for the control of violence rests upon Stateand local governments. But the Federal Government also has responsibilities in this area that are imposed upon it by the Constitution andby the Civil Rights Acts. And so the Commission has sought to discover how effective the Civil Rights Acts have been in combating policebrutality and associated private violence. President Truman's Committee in 1947 found weaknesses both in the Acts and in their enforcement.Its recommendation that the Civil Rights...