NEW LAPD USE-OF-FORCE POLICIES FOCUS ON DE-ESCALATION
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Police Commission approved 12 recommendations from the Inspector General for revising the LAPD’s deadly use-of-force policies to prioritize de-escalation tactics.
Under the revisions officers attempts at de-escalation in a violent situation will be taken into consideration when determining the reasonableness of a particular use of force.
Deadly force, the IG’s report says, should only be used when non-lethal alternatives have been exhausted. And before engaging with mentally ill and homeless populations on Skid Row, all officers assigned to the Resources Enhancement Services and Enforcement Team will complete specialized training.
Some of the recommendations will likely be amended as LAPD officials work through them with the IG and commission.
KPCC’s Ashley Bailey has more on the changes and reactions from law enforcement, advocates, and criminal justice experts. Here’s a clip:
“Changes to policy are not done lightly or often so the intention is to build something that will work not just for today, but going forward,” said Police Commission President Matt Johnson at Tuesday’s meeting.
Johnson, along with Commissioner Robert Saltzman authored the recommendations, which are a skeleton framework for policy changes the commission, LAPD officials, and the Inspector General will hash out in the coming weeks.
Commissioners indicated that three of the most controversial recommendations will be amended as those talks go on. Those items deal with determining whether an officer’s use of force was reasonable, whether they used deadly force only as a last option, and limiting the use of rifles and slug ammunition.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said he supported revisiting the use-of-force policy, but cautioned against creating policies that might put police officers at risk.
“I understand what the commission wants to do–they want to emphasize some of the things that the police department is doing to minimize use of force,” Beck said. “And one of those things is deescalation.”
“We’re not asking (officers) to endanger their lives, but if these strategies are implemented correctly, it should keep both our officers and the community safer,” Johnson said.
SANTA CLARA SHERIFF GETS TO WORK ON FIXING TROUBLED JAILS
On Tuesday, Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith proposed a package of important reforms to reduce the use of excessive force within county jails and improve mental health care for inmates.
The 13 reforms include appointing an inspector general, creating a permanent civilian oversight commission, boosting mental health training for guards, bolstering education programs for inmates, and beefing up background checks and minimum qualifications for prospective guards.
A recent report on conditions within Santa Clara County jails found numerous allegations of excessive force, delayed medical and mental health care, a broken grievance-reporting system, unchecked jail personnel misconduct, and other systemic problems. The report was commissioned by a blue ribbon panel formed after three guards were charged with the murder of a mentally ill inmate, Michael Tyree.
Sheriff Smith even installed an interim camera system for the jails after hearing that implementing new security cameras would cost $20 million and take until 2018. Smith took a trip to Costco, spending $761.24 on 12 security cameras to test in the Main Jail.
San Jose Mercury News’ Tracey Kaplan has the story. Here’s a clip:
In her jail reform plan, Smith lays out 13 goals, including significantly beefing up training to help guards cope with an increasingly mentally ill population of more serious offenders, improving inmate education programs, and increasing minimum qualifications and background checks for prospective guards. For instance, correctional deputies currently only have to have the equivalent of a high school diploma; Smith now wants to require they have some combination of college course work and/or experience in criminal justice work or mental health. She also wants to upgrade background checks on applicants, including by having them take two polygraph tests instead of one.
Only one other major urban county in California — Los Angeles County — has an inspector general and citizens commission to supervise the jails. An inspector general monitors custody operations and facilities, including medical and mental health care; issues reports, including on use of force; and makes recommendations for improvement.
“Before the death of Michael Tyree there were many reforms and initiatives being worked on to improve custody operations,” Smith said. “Michael’s unfortunate death accelerated these efforts.”
Reaction to Smith’s plan Tuesday was mixed. The head of Santa Clara County’s jail-improvement commission and one of the attorneys who filed the class-action suit against the jails both noted that Smith was being reactive, not proactive, but praised her for quickly moving ahead. Many of the sheriff’s recommendations echo what the commission has been urging, including support for an independent inspector general. The group’s formal recommendations are expected to come out in April.
“These are things every correctional system should be doing,” said attorney Kelly Knapp of the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office. “But she’s headed in the right direction sooner than most, unlike many institutions that need to lose a court battle to make changes.”
PUSHING BLACK GIRLS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM AND INTO THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
Black girls frequently receive more severe punishments than white girls for the same offenses at school, despite not being any more likely to act out than their white counterparts, according to a 2014 report from the National Women’s Law Center and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
According to Dept. of Education data, black girls make up just 17% of enrolled female students, but receive 31% of girls’ referrals to law enforcement, and comprise 43% of school arrests of all female students.
In an interview with The Atlantic’s Melinda Anderson, author and co-founder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute Monique Morris discusses her new book, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, the racial and gender bias fueling the pushout, the victimization behind the “delinquency,” and the “healing power of the narrative.” Here’s a clip:
Melinda D. Anderson: The shocking statistics you cite in the opening chapter—on poverty, dropouts, incarceration, and homicide—paint a chilling picture of the plight of black girls and women today. Can you briefly discuss some of the complex dynamics, the social and economic factors, triggering this situation?
Monique W. Morris: The dynamics here are, indeed, complex. I believe it’s important for us to understand that the negative socioeconomic conditions for black women and girls are related to how race, gender, class, sexual identity, ability, and other identities interact with each other to undermine equal access to opportunity. Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality,” which captures this idea. Black women and girls must often navigate through a landscape that reinforces multidimensional stereotypes and debilitating narratives that negatively impact how black femininity is understood. Implicit racial and gender biases may also inform how we read the behaviors and actions of black girls and women, and how all of this comes together to guide whether black girls are safe in their communities and whether they have access to quality employment, food, housing, and education.
Anderson: You write that black girls are frequently marginalized and criminalized by institutions that should be safeguarding their well-being. Talk about some of the ways that institutional racism, classism, and sexism overlap to portray black girls as “delinquent,” and in the process impede their hopes and aspirations?
Morris: The book talks about educational institutions as “structures of dominance” that can either reinforce negative outcomes and ghettoize opportunity or actively disrupt conditions that render black girls vulnerable to criminalization. Black girls are 16 percent of girls in schools, but 42 percent of girls receiving corporal punishment, 42 percent of girls expelled with or without educational services, 45 percent of girls with at least one out-of-school suspension, 31 percent of girls referred to law enforcement, and 34 percent of girls arrested on campus. Too often, when people read these statistics, they ask, “What did these girls do?” when often, it’s not about what they did, but rather, the culture of discipline and punishment that leaves little room for error when one is black and female.
Black girls describe being labeled and suspended for being “disruptive” or “defiant” if they ask questions or otherwise engage in activities that adults consider affronts to their authority. Across the country, we see black girls being placed in handcuffs for having tantrums in kindergarten classrooms, thrown out of class for asking questions, sent home from school for arriving in shorts on a hot day, labeled as “truant” if they are being commercially sexually exploited, and labeled as “defiant” if they speak up in the face of what they [identify] to be injustice. We also see black girls criminalized (arrested on campus or referred to law enforcement) instead of engaged as children and teens whose mistakes could be addressed through non-punitive restorative approaches.
For girls, education is a critical protective factor against involvement with the juvenile and criminal legal systems. Our first priority should be keeping them in schools, not finding new ways to render them “delinquent.”
I actually worked it Celeste, saw a girl bite another one’s ear almost completely off one day. She took it out of her mouth as her victim lay screaming and said, “here’s your ear piece”. You would have gone to bat for this poor misunderstood waif and done nothing for the other would you? Debate me, Celeste, bring it. What are you afraid of?
When I hear hard statistics about the plight of young black girls in institutional settings, followed by anecdotal quotes of “too often” this or that, it seems like more hard statistics would better serve the argument than unfounded suppositions. Every kid is entitled to a quality education, and if a teacher has to spend an inordinate amount of time with one disruptive child, then the other children suffer the consequences as well – an inferior educational experience.
The bigger picture is lost when concepts like “intersectionality” are tossed around, yet contributing, if not determinant, factors in the disruptive child’s culture are beyond being resolved in an educational setting. The schools are not designed to make up for a child’s lack of stable family structure, positive peer and role models, and basic life necessities. If I were to point to factors that influence the outcome, institutional racism would be far down the list.