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Anti-police sentiment

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Anti-Police Graffiti in Athens, 2008

Anti-police sentiment is defined as a hostile attitude and stance against police officers. It involves hateful rhetoric in the form of protests or abuse with the intent to challenge police legitimacy and integrity.[1]

Many factors can contribute to forming an anti-police sentiment. The history of law enforcement's employment of coercive measures that lead to instances of police brutality involving underprivileged communities is paramount to our "understanding of the substantial race gap"[2] between the two social groups. As such, members of minority groups in disadvantaged neighborhoods that are heavily policed typically consider police in a pessimistic light due to an absence of trust.[2] This distrust has paved the way for the questioning of police legitimacy as it threatens public “compliance and cooperation”.[2] Furthermore, fear has also become a contributing factor to the anti-police belief that is particularly common with disadvantaged social groups due to the knowledge that “the law is not on their side”[3]. Despite race being a driving aspect, the domineering nature of the police pertaining to the restriction of youth freedom has also perpetuated anti-police sentiments among young people.[4]

History

Resistance against authority figures has existed since the formation of police departments which was present in England and Wales during the late 1790's where anti-police views were based on grounds of the possible obstruction of the magistrates’ power and skepticism in placing trust upon an unfamiliar organisation.[5]

The police’s controversial history of inhumane treatment of offenders has caused the department to develop a negative stigma of participating in “dirty work".[6] Wesley has identified the taints that define this stigma of police officers as they “work in dangerous conditions (physical taint), ... [engage] with stigmatised others (social taint) and the trail of historic and recent policing scandals evidences unethical practices (moral taint)”.[6]

1 Year Commemoration of the 2014 Murder of Michael Brown , 2015

Despite fear and distrust in the police exists quite prominently in the United States due to the history of institutionalized discrimination, it was not until the 1970's that the law enforcement department acknowledged the presence of threatening anti-police beliefs.[1] However, a turning point that brought anti-police views and a theorised "war on cops" [7]into the global limelight in modern society was the 2014 unjust shooting of unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri. This public outrage granted further momentum to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) social movement, which had originally emerged in 2013 after the shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012[7]. As such, the growth in the anti-police sentiment that can be observed in our modern world is a symptom of the string of police shootings of unarmed members of the African American community with the BLM movement being at the “forefront” of this hostile social dialogue criticising police.[7]

See also: Police Brutality


The United States

An anti-police atmosphere is specifically prevalent in America due to the underlying discrimination that has perpetuated the police brutality epidemic wherein the authoritarian structure of the police department take advantage of underprivileged communities. The police’s racial bias is demonstrated in the general statistics in the United States wherein there were 1,147 victims of police gunfire in 2017, 25% of which were of African American descent despite only representing 13% of the American populous.[8] Furthermore, "African Americans are 3 times more likely"[8] to be targets of police shootings when juxtaposed to Anglo-Saxons.

In the Trumpian scope of contemporary America, there has been a political recognition and condemnation of the growing anti-police sentiment. In August of 2016, U.S. President Donald Trump posited in a speech that “the war on our police must end and it must end now… the war on police is a war against all peaceful citizens”[9]. Moreover, Trump’s administration released a statement in January of 2017, “the dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America in wrong. The Trump administration will end it”.[10] The issuing of this statement was in response to the riots with an anti-police undertone, occurring across the nation demanding that police face the consequences of shooting innocent African Americans. As such, Trump has made clear, his stance against the protests against animosity towards police as “the ends essentially justify the means”.[11] Additionally, President Trump tweeted on the 20th of August in light of the far right’s Free Speech Rally where there were simmering tensions with leftists groups, “Looks like many anti-police agitators in Boston. Police are looking tough and smart”.[12]

Examples

Emerging from the Black Lives Matter campaign that champions the worthiness of African American lives against the backdrop of alarming statistics of police brutality, is the protests that have formed in different American cities.

Ferguson, Missouri

Main article: Shooting of Michael Brown
A commemoration for the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, 2014

The shooting of unarmed African American Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson on the 9th of August 2014 catalysed public rage throughout the country, renewed a global dialogue condemning the police use of force against the marginalised.[9] The days from the 9th of August to 25th of August following Brown’s murder sparked the Ferguson unrest that demanded police accountability, further straining the African American community’s level of trust in law enforcement.[1] The protest against police continued throughout the year with protesters participating in anti-police chants such as “How many kids did you kill today?”.[13] Additionally, the anger was significantly re-ignited after Wilson's failure to be indicted by law, triggering further anger within the community and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. Culhane, Boman and Schweitzer have pinpointed that in our post-Ferguson era, there is a greater preconceived assumption among the public that the police are the perpetrators of unjustified violence rather than the offender being at fault in incidents of police brutality.[9]


Oakland, California

The Oakland Protest on the 7th of July 2016 contributed to the nation wide conversation against law enforcement in support of the victims of police brutality. This protest was a reaction to the shooting of Philando Castile in Minnesota, on the 6th of July 2016 and another police brutality victim Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[14] Police headquarters were subject to vandalism such as covering it with red paint[15] to symbolise the unjustified blood shed and there was attempted violence towards police officers by protesters.[14]

Dallas, Texas

Main article: 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers

The 2016 shooting of Dallas Police officers in Texas killed 5 officers whilst leaving 9 as casualties.[16] The shooting was conducted by Micah Xavier during an anti police-brutality protest with the political motivation of expressing his aggression towards police officers following the deaths of police brutality victims Philando Castile and Alton Sterling which according to US attorney general Loretta Lynch, developed a pervasive national "feeling a sense of helplessness, of uncertainty and of fear".[17]This radical anti-police act caused Xavier to be shot by U.S. Law enforcement after the incident.

2016 Dallas Police Shooting Memorial Service


St. Louis, Missouri

Main article: 2017 St. Louis Protests

The 2017 St Louis Protests which occurred on the 15th of September 2017 encompassed the aim of demonstrating outrage towards the legal clearing of police officer Jason Stockley after the police brutality incident that killed Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011.[17] There were several actions against during this protest including banners that capitalised on anti-police rhetoric, the damaging of police cars, verbal abuse and severe property damage such as breaking windows. [18] All in all, 10 officers were injured during the violent protests.[17]

Popular Culture


The development of technology in our modern digital world has played a pivotal part in extending the anti-police sentiment.[7] Smart phones have become instruments to spread awareness across cultural borders by recording confronting incidents of police brutality, providing real time evidence.[11] As such, the accessibility of videos online via social media, especially content concerning a social issue as topical and controversial as police brutality, spread online at an "unprecedented scale and speed".[19] Moreover, mass media often encompasses a political agenda through the omission of facts to portray a certain narrative.[20] As such, forms of mass media such as social media websites and the news significantly influences the public’s negative perception of the police force[21] as it reinforces an “us vs them mentality”[22] that is detrimental to the relationships between the two groups.


An anti-police sentiment also manifests in popular culture through hip-hop, a genre that is “key to political expression and voice for a new generation of excluded youth”.[23] In doing so, it has become a platform to echo the unstable ties, underpinned by racial inequalities, between oppressed communities and the authority.

Examples

Public Enemy

The late 1980's was a significant year for the hip-hop industry with the release of music that was explicit in its sadistic social commentary on the corrupt morality of authorities.[24] As such, anti-police views began to be expressed by hip-hop groups such as Public Enemy who released “Fight the Power” in 1989, holding a harsh mirror to the police force to recognise their racial prejudice and becoming an “anthem for the kind of resistance that rap music had already begun to embrace”.[24]

N.W.A

Another notable example of anti-police rhetoric existent in popular culture is N.W.A’s song “Fuck tha police” released in 1998. Born from their personal encounters with discrimination by law enforcement, the reception by authority figures was utter discontent, causing the proliferation of tensions between the rap group and the police.[25] On the other hand, its reception with the African American community was powerful as it “struck a nerve for many people, especially the marginalized communities. They wanted justice, too, but only in fictional songs like ‘Fuck tha police’ could they seem to find it".[25]Its provocative lyrics has influenced other artists such as Mayhem Mal who utilised the same title and received backlash for its anti-police undertones.[25]

Uncle Murda & Maida

Uncle Marda & Maida make an assertive statement that encapsulates a pervasive sense of hostility towards the police through the release of their song “Hands Up” in 2014, becoming “a parable about what happens when a marginalised community simply can’t take it anymore”.[22] Its anti-police lyrics and the music video’s confronting imagery of power inversion caused controversial media attention due to challenging the common narrative wherein “‘black make” and “criminal” have become synonymous in the minds of so many Americans".[22]

Police Response

A byproduct of the severe criticism of police has been radical protests and hate crimes threatening their occupational identity and safety. These abusive actions against police which are underpinned by social movements such as Black Lives Matter are divisive in nature[3], “widening the gulf between the police and the community”[3]. Moreover, the intersectional identity of police as powerful figures who enforce the law combined with stigmatised individual factors such as racial background, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or disabilities also causes police to be subject to hate crimes.[6] In a recent study of “Police Officer's Experiences as Victims of Hate Crimes”[6] conducted in 2018 by Mawby and Zempi, a police participant emphasised the encounters with non-compliant individuals within the community, stating “you sense they're anti-police by watching their bodylanguage, by how they look at you, you can feel it”.[6] Similarly, Herbert posited that the Los Angeles Police Department officers take safety precautions that in turn, shapes their reactions to particular cases of danger when in suburbs that they have identified to be anti-police areas.[26] Additionally, law enforcement officers have placed a large amount of blame on the media for fueling this anti-police sentiment. Chuck Cantury Howard Safir identified “a war on police” in his letter to President Barack Obama, “Those spewing this hatred and those calling for violence are having an impact. They have been given a platform by the media to convey the message that police officers are their enemy and it is time to attack that enemy … there is a very real and very deliberate campaign to terrorize our nation’s law enforcement officers". [7]


As explored, the anti-police sentiment is most strikingly present in the United States. The sense of resentment and abusive rhetoric that has been directed towards police wherein members within the law enforcement department also recognise the “war on cops”.[7] The microscope that the police have been placed under due to the instances of police brutality was an observation that Former FBI Director James Comey addressed in 2015 by positing that “a chill wind [is] blowing through American law enforcement over the last year… and that wind is surely changing behavior”.[7]


This “changing behaviour”[7] that Comey identifies is the theory of de-policing that academics have theorised to have emerged in recent years due to the significance of the Ferguson shooting in 2014. De-policing is a police response to the sheer outrage expressed by minority groups and refers to “refusing to offer proactive policing and related services to the community”[9] due to the fear of facing the damaging consequences of mistreating a historically oppressed racial group.[7]This possibility of de-policing similarly aligns with the theory of the Ferguson Effect, developed by Doyle Sam Dotson III[27] whereby there is a degree of hesitation out of fear before action, “potentially endangering them [police officers]”.[7] However, the Ferguson Effect and de-policing as a reaction to the anti-police sentiment in America still remains an unproven theory due to insufficient evidence. [7]

See also: De-policing and Ferguson Effect


References

  1. ^ a b c Reynolds-Stenson, Heidi (2017-09-22). "Protesting the police: anti-police brutality claims as a predictor of police repression of protest". Social Movement Studies. 17 (1): 48–63. doi:10.1080/14742837.2017.1381592. ISSN 1474-2837.
  2. ^ a b c Sharp, Elaine B.; Johnson, Paul E. (2009). "Accounting for Variation in Distrust of Local Police". Justice Quarterly. 26 (1): 157–182. doi:10.1080/07418820802290496. ISSN 0741-8825.
  3. ^ a b c Wahl, Rachel (2017). "No Justice, No Peace?: The Police, People of Color, and the Paradox of Protecting Human Rights". Human Rights Quarterly. 39 (4): 811–831. doi:10.1353/hrq.2017.0050. ISSN 1085-794X.
  4. ^ Lurigio, Arthur; Greenleaf, Richard; Flexon, Jamie (2009). "The Effects of Race on Relationships with the Police: A Survey of African American and Latino Youths in Chicago". Western Criminology Review. 10(1): 29–41.
  5. ^ Barrie, David G. (2008-10-01). "Patrick Colquhoun, the Scottish Enlightenment and Police Reform in Glasgow in the Late Eighteenth Century1". Crime, Histoire & Sociétés. 12 (2): 59–79. doi:10.4000/chs.359. ISSN 1422-0857.
  6. ^ a b c d e Mawby, Rob C.; Zempi, Irene (2018). "Police officers' experiences as victims of hate crime". Policing: An International Journal. 41 (5): 526–538. doi:10.1108/PIJPSM-12-2016-0176. ISSN 1363-951X.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Maguire, Edward R.; Nix, Justin; Campbell, Bradley A. (2016-09-29). "A War on Cops? The Effects of Ferguson on the Number of U.S. Police Officers Murdered in the Line of Duty". Justice Quarterly. 34 (5): 739–758. doi:10.1080/07418825.2016.1236205. ISSN 0741-8825.
  8. ^ a b "Mapping Police Violence". Mapping Police Violence. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  9. ^ a b c d Nix, Justin; Wolfe, Scott E.; Campbell, Bradley A. (2017-07-03). "Command-level Police Officers' Perceptions of the "War on Cops" and De-policing". Justice Quarterly. 35 (1): 33–54. doi:10.1080/07418825.2017.1338743. ISSN 0741-8825.
  10. ^ Balko, Radley (2017). "Trumps, cops and crime". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 May 2019. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  11. ^ a b DeVylder, Jordan E. (2017). "Donald Trump, the Police, and Mental Health in US Cities". American Journal of Public Health. 107 (7): 1042–1043. doi:10.2105/ajph.2017.303827. ISSN 0090-0036.
  12. ^ Trump, Donald J. (2017-08-19). "Looks like many anti-police agitators in Boston. Police are looking tough and smart! Thank you". @realdonaldtrump. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  13. ^ Paulson, Michael (2015-01-19). "Martin Luther King's Birthday Marked by Protests Over Deaths of Black Men". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  14. ^ a b "Oakland: Seven arrests in anti-police protest that shut down I-880". The Mercury News. 2016-07-08. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  15. ^ Lyons, Jenna (2016-07-08). "About 2,000 rally in Oakland in reaction to police shootings". SFGate. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  16. ^ Levin (now), Sam; Jamieson, Amber; Glenza, Jessica; Weaver, Matthew; Phipps (earlier), Claire; Kasperkevic, Jana (2016-07-09). "Dallas police shooting: Micah Johnson was 'lone shooter' – as it happened". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  17. ^ a b c Dart, Oliver Laughland Tom; Dallas, Jon Swaine in; Washington, David Smith in (2016-07-08). "Dallas shooting suspect stated he wanted to 'kill white officers'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  18. ^ Taylor, Alan. "A Weekend of Protest in St. Louis - The Atlantic". www.theatlantic.com. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  19. ^ Kulakowska, Malgorzata (2015). "THE ENGLISH RIOTS OF SUMMER 2011: CAN AN ETHNOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE BE JUSTIFIED? 1". Politeja. 31(2): 231–249.
  20. ^ Murphey, Dwight D (2017). "The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe". The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies; Washington. 42(1): 127–134.
  21. ^ Olson, Kathleen K (2001). "POLICING THE MEDIA: STREET COPS AND PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT". Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. 78 (2): 399–400.
  22. ^ a b c Steinberg, Robin G (2015). "Police Power and the Scaring of America: A Personal Journey". Yale Law & Policy Review, Inc. 34(1): 131–153 – via JSTOR.
  23. ^ Fernandes, Sujatha. (2011). Close to the edge : in search of the global hip hop generation. Verso. ISBN 1844677419. OCLC 711052051.
  24. ^ a b Nielson, Erik (2011-10-06). "'Here come the cops': Policing the resistance in rap music". International Journal of Cultural Studies. 15 (4): 349–363. doi:10.1177/1367877911419159. ISSN 1367-8779.
  25. ^ a b c Hosking, Taylor; Zaragoza, Alex (2019-03-07). "Rappers Are Defending Their Right to Anti-Cop Lyrics in the Supreme Court". Vice. Retrieved 2019-05-08.
  26. ^ Herbert, Steve (1998). "POLICE SUBCULTURE RECONSIDERED". Criminology. 36 (2): 343–370. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.1998.tb01251.x. ISSN 0011-1384.
  27. ^ "It's Official: Ferguson Effect Causing Police to "De-police"". www.thenewamerican.com. Retrieved 2019-05-08.


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