This is one of the most uplifting things that I have seen since I can’t remember when. I wrote the other day that it didn’t really matter how much police academies examine their incoming students, once they get in, they all want to be good partners and cops. And their partners are all corrupted.
But on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell tonight, he closed with a segment that seriously gave me hope for the future. The example he provided won’t change the paradigm by itself, it will require many more colleges to follow suit, but it could be a way to quickly change the makeup of police departments all over the country.
O’Donnell’s subject tonight was Lincoln University, a HBCU located in Jefferson City, Missouri. The campus chief of police, an 18 year veteran of the county police, got a wild hair up his ass. He decided that if we really wanted to reform policing, the secret was to have increased minority policing in the profession itself. And the way to do that was for HBCU’s to create their own, fully accredited police academies tp train mostly minority students to be ready to go right into any police academy in the country. He sold the program, and goddamn if he didn’t get it approved!
This is the path to the next level of policing in America. Lincoln can’t do it all by itself, it is going to require a large number of HBCU’s to sign on and develop their own curriculum to provide nationally accredited police academies. If they can do that, then they can literally flood the job market in the United States with highly qualified, academy ready mostly minority police officers.
Most major metropolitan police departments are woefully underrepresented by minorities. If HBCU’s can start cranking out fully qualified, associate degree candidates for police academies, they can turn the tables. If they can do that, then they can turn the tables, because they will be bringing in candidates committed to the profession of policing, and not their brother officers. These officers will not stand idly by while racist white cops abuse the very citizens that they got into policing to protect.
As I said, this is one HBCU to take a stand to make the situation better. But they can’t do it alone. It is going to take a host of HBCU’s to come to the fore to provide the kind of numbers of qualified black applicants to turn the tide, as well as to get police departments away from their instinctual desire to settle on veteran MP officers. But at least it’s a path forward.
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
Great idea! That would make a big difference.
A ray of hope in what has seemed an intractable situation. I hope it and others like it succeed!
What a wonderful solution, Murph! Every community should have a police department that reflects the neighborhoods they patrol.