Green: We need to change how police are recruited, trained before the video starts recording

Video footage has been a major component of national conversations about police violence, race and justice in recent months, as evidenced by the controversy over the deaths of Eric Garner and Walter Scott. As a result, this legislative session South Carolina joined dozens of states in considering bills that would eventually put body-cams on its officers.

But in addition to recording police violence, we should prevent bad actors from perpetrating it.

To do this, we must fix how police perform and are trained, hired, monitored and disciplined. Police departments nationwide should make available their recruitment strategies, training manuals, hiring practices and discipline protocols, and seek public input — and professional guidance in improving them if need be. It is in the public interest to better understand how cops become cops and stay cops, and it’s also in the public interest to make more cops better.

Many in law enforcement will balk at sharing such information, but what’s more important: preserving a public agency’s secrecy about the way it operates, or improving its ability to truly protect and serve all of us equally?

Behaviors other than the rampant killing of the unarmed suggest that some police departments could use better recruitment, training, discipline and transparency. I personally have received dubious advice from police, my favorite being,“If you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about” (advice that perhaps law enforcement should itself take). Not only is that certifiably untrue when it comes to black men, women and children, but even if we have done something “wrong,” it rarely warrants death on sight — and certainly not by 19 bullets (Amadou Diallo), or a bullet to the back of the head (Rekia Boyd), or via a chokehold maneuver prohibited by the New York Police Department.

I commend and thank those officers who police with respect and good judgment without being watched. I also applaud the lawmakers who recognize the utility of new technology (although in order for body-cams to function in the administration of justice, the devil will be in the details: What good is the camera if a police officer can shut it off at will?).

But I’d also like to see us address police violence before it even starts, let alone gets recorded. If a camera captures my innocent, unarmed child being killed by police, it’s too late.

Columbia

This story was originally published May 13, 2015 at 7:50 PM with the headline "Green: We need to change how police are recruited, trained before the video starts recording."