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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFerguson police force lack of racial diversity is typical of all America's police forces.....
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119070/michael-browns-death-leads-scrutiny-ferguson-white-policeFergusons Police Force Is 94 Percent WhiteAnd Thats Basically Normal in the U.S.
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By Rebecca Leber
The Ferguson, Missouri police department has faced criticism for its response to an officer shooting dead 18-year-old Michael Brownits riot gear, how it has protected the officers identity, and that it reportedly neglected a key witness to Browns death. And many of these critics, including Vox, Mother Jones, and the editorial board of the New York Times, have pointed out the lack of racial diversity of Fergusons police force: Fergusons population is 67 percent black, but African Americans make up just 5.6 percent of the police force. Consider this number in the context of St. Louis deeply segregationist and discriminatory historytoday, the city is still the sixth-most segregated in the country.
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But Fergusons police department is also more or less average in its diversity. A 2007 survey of local police forces across the country from the Department of Justice showed that the average for a city of Fergusons size21,000is an 87.5 percent white police force, and 5.6 percent black. The national average for all local police stands at 75 percent white.
pennylane100
(3,425 posts)However, there is another very important criteria that needs to be observed in policing our communities. The people we arm and send out to keep us safe should be psychologically capable of handling this responsibility. Many of them are not.
The prolific videos that cell phones have provided show a scary vision of those that are supposed to protect us. Often they do not know the laws they are enforcing and if they do, they can ignore them with impunity. They can shoot and kill innocent people with no consequences. They are answerable only to themselves. This is a recipe for disaster unless we start changing the criteria for whom we hire and stop allowing them to investigate themselves when things go wrong.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)the *systemic* racism in our so-called justice system trumps all of that. Police officers of all skin colors perpetuate this type of systemic racism.
The New Jim Crow.
leftstreet
(36,116 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)many more Fox News robots as chiefs of these police forces?