You mean not start with hostility?
Efforts to reform policing in this country usually involve reworking the training, more of it, eliminating qualified immunity, or technical solutions like body cameras. Mona Charon offers a novel start at police reform that requires politeness.
The first thing the Memphis “Scorpion Unit” did when it stopped Tyre Nichols before beating him to death, Charon writes, was to curse at him. Over alleged reckless driving. Why?
In a society as gun-saturated as ours, I can understand an order like Let me see your hands, or if the police are planning a roadside sobriety check, a request to Step out of the car. But there is no reason that both of those orders cannot be preceded by Sir or Please or both. Our judicial system is founded on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Yet our police interactions with citizens too often seem grounded in the opposite assumption.
Obviously, in the Nichols’ case, the profanity was the least of the offenses the cops (and others) committed, but it seems that some police lapse into profanity with citizens regularly. Some departments actually encourage cursing as a way of asserting control. They call it “tactical language.” A 2017 poll found that one in five Americans has been cursed at by a cop. That means, at the very least, that 20 percent of Americans were treated disrespectfully and given cause to dislike and suspect the police. We don’t get cursed at by firefighters, or clerks at the department of motor vehicles, or sanitation workers. And if we were, we’d be outraged.
They’d be reported and maybe fired. Not police officers.
Charon argues that profanity is a form of aggression that begins the interaction on the wrong foot. Or tongue, as the case may be.
That, in turn, can provoke a heated reaction from the citizen (especially if said citizen has alcohol, or, worse, testosterone coursing through his veins). Is it too much to ask that in normal interactions with citizens, police should not verbally assault the people they are paid to protect and to serve? Shouldn’t the template be one that assumes most people are law-abiding and the police are there to ensure everyone’s safety—including the person who might have been driving recklessly? Is it crazy to imagine a scenario in which police say, Sir, you were driving unsafely. We’re issuing you a ticket. Or if the person seems disoriented, Ma’am, you were driving erratically. Is there someone you can call to drive you home?
But no. Refraining from cursing at citizens is not just a matter of politeness. Cursing affects public perception of officers’ commitment to fairness and equal treatment under law. The latter has suffered eggregiously over the last 15 years, both from the lack of legal accountability for banking bigwigs after the financial collapse, and from the delay in seeing Donald Trump arrested for actions that would have landed the rest of us in handcuffs in a blink.
It turns out there is research that shows that the public views police profanity as a lack of self control.
Across the political spectrum, 77 percent of Americans (including high percentages of both Democrats and Republicans) believe police should not curse. Unsurprisingly, men were twice as likely as women to report that police swore at them (23 percent versus 12 percent) and young people more commonly experience this (22 percent) than those over 55 (13 percent). Blacks had more negative experiences (26 percent) than whites (15 percent) or Hispanics (22 percent).
This can change. Mayors, police commissioners, and other local officials can implement a courtesy policy for their police departments. They can do this tomorrow. No new laws are needed. No new funds required. They can explain it this way: Our job is to keep the peace. Foul language degrades and angers. Therefore we will set a good example of politeness, self-control, and respect.
Maybe it is the little things.