When Zero is Number One
by John Kleinig
Zadok Perspectives Issue No. 63
Autumn 1999

Part 3

Aggressive police tactics, especially in poor or minority neighbourhoods, have led to tragic outcomes that have served only to confirm a belief that police are racially prejudiced. Zero tolerance policing is seen as just one more tool for racial discrimination.

Although the middle-class is most articulate about its concerns about crime, the greatest victimisation occurs in poor and minority neighbourhoods. Zero tolerance policing is most often practiced in high-crime areas-the very areas that are also economically deprived and populated primarily by minorities.

One would imagine that a lowering of the crime rate in poor neighbourhoods would be welcomed. Yet in these neighbourhoods, police tend to be despised. Why? Probably because zero tolerance policing does not take account of the longstanding racism that exists in the police department. It is not the naked racism of pre-civil rights days, but the 'institutionalised racism' that has recently been articulated so powerfully in the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry in England (Sir William MacPerson's report on the matter is available at: http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-00.htm).

Police organisations are strongly hierarchical. If the message from the top is that aggressive, quality-of-life policing is appropriate, then it will be aggressive because officers will have some assurance that their actions will be supported by superiors.
We have already mentioned the rise in complaints against this policing method. NYPD officials tend to explain such complaints as a predictable but uncriticisable outcome of the 'broken windows' approach: those apprehended for quality of life offences will naturally feel aggrieved, and can therefore be expected to complain about their apprehension.

Disturbingly, only a tiny percentage of complaints against police are officially substantiated. Even those that are substantiated frequently fail to result in serious penalties for those who have violated the public trust. Unfortunately, this is a historical reality. Officers tend to protect each other, and often there are no other witnesses. Furthermore, in New York, officers have the right not to be interrogated for 48 hours after an incident, thus giving them an opportunity to develop a coherent alternative story. So it is very troubling that the chances of rectification are so small for those who suffer the consequences of breaches of authority.

Because police resources are limited, they tend to be deployed in ways that are believed to be most efficient. An important dimension of this has been the use of 'profiles'.
For a long time 'profiling' has been used on the New Jersey Turnpike (a major North-South highway) and elsewhere as a strategy for stopping and checking the credentials of travellers. Racial characteristics have been included in the profiles: a young black male driving a late model car on the Turnpike is much more likely to be stopped than a young white male driving a late model car.

Police have often pointed to the benefits of profiling; to the drugs or weapons that have been confiscated as a result. However, little attention has been paid to the humiliation, harassment and felt-stigmatisation experienced by those on whom nothing is pinned.
In a country that must yet come to terms with the awfulness of its racist past-and the perpetuation of its burdens-a system of profiling that includes race as an 'indicator' (even if validated) fails at one of the most basic levels of civility. Unless police activity is directed at behaviour that is suspicious, rather than at human characteristics (such as racial identity) that are deemed 'indicators' of criminality, the prejudices of the past will be perpetuated.

There is a further concern about zero tolerance policing-its focus on 'street' rather than 'suite' crime. Zero tolerance policing is more about social order than crime and tends to be focused on the crimes of the poor rather than on the crimes of the well-to-do. In that way it contributes to the perception of some that the criminal law and those who enforce it are tools of a social élite determined to keep the masses under control.
Advocacy of 'zero tolerance' policing needs to be situated within a framework of social life and police work rather different from that which we presently have. If not, it will, in ways well-recognised by the sixth and eighth century prophets of the Old Testament, serve mainly to oppress those who are already weak and vulnerable.

There has, however, been a recent PR move by the NYPD. Perhaps building on the popularity of television shows such as ER and Chicago Hope, the new buzz phrase for the police is CPR-not, of course, cardio-pulmonary resuscitation but a renewed commitment to "Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect". So, it seems, when police brutality goes too far, officers should apply CPR. Which brings with it a bitter irony for police victims such as Anthony Baez. He received no courtesy, professionalism or respect and even the medical CPR, if it were indeed applied, was ineffective.

John Kleinig John Kleinig is the Director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics and Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Law & Police Science at John Jay College, City University of New York. He is also a founding member of the Zadok Institute.