QOTD: The Ferguson Commission
by digby
“We know that talking about race makes a lot of people uncomfortable. But make no mistake: this is about race.”
That’s the conclusion of the Ferguson Commission set up by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon in the wake of the protests following the shooting of Michael Brown:
Assembled by an executive order from Governor Jay Nixon, the commission’s sixteen members have spent the past ten months compiling data, holding public hearings and listening to experts. Among their goals? Catalog the racial inequalities in the St. Louis region — which affect everything from income to life-expectancy to education — that place black residents in Jim Crow conditions and propose meaningful reforms.
It’s that last part where the Commission’s work has attracted cynicism and, in some circles, outright derision. And while today marks the release-date for the Ferguson Commission’s landmark report, its authors haven’t succumbed to delusion. “There is a limit to the influence over decision-making that we as a Commission can have,” the report states in its introduction. “No matter how sound our calls to action, they are calls — the Commission does not have the power to enact them.”
But that doesn’t mean the Commission pulled its punches. The 198-page report features the 47 “signature” actions culled from roughly 200 recommendations published in draft-form earlier this summer. Among the report’s policy suggestions are:
Creating a public, statewide database that tracks statistics on use of force incidents and police killings.
Increasing annual officer training by 24 hours, with a focus on “tactical, wellness, and anti-bias training.”
Institute statewide policies for dealing with protests and demonstrations that “prioritize the preservation of human life.”
Designating the Attorney General to prosecute police “use of force” cases that result in death, officer-involved shootings resulting in injury or death, and in-custody deaths.
Consolidating municipal courts and police departments.
The full slate of recommendations is dense but, in most cases, is written in layman’s terms. The task of digesting the report is made even easier by the simultaneous release of an interactive version of the report, located here, which weaves the commission’s findings with photos, personal accounts and summaries of the issues at play.
And this:
“What we are pointing out is that the data suggests, time and again, that our institutions and existing systems are not equal, and that this has racial repercussions. Black people in the region feel those repercussions when it comes to law enforcement, the justice system, housing, health, education, and income.”