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FREEDOMWAYS  FIRST QUARTER 1968

William Brink and Louis Harris found that white Americans held deeply racist feelings about Negroes in relation to crimes, which would affect a policeman's perception and treatment of Negroes. In a 1963 study, Brink and Harris found that 55 per cent nationwide and 80 per cent in the South maintained Negroes had looser morals than did whites. Even 39 per cent of those who had previous racial contact with Negroes felt the same way. Nationwide, 35 per cent and 46 per cent in the South thought that Negroes breed crime, while 21 per cent of those who had previous contact with Negroes thought they wished to live off handouts whiles 26 per cent of those who had social contact with Negroes maintained the same position.  By 1966 this racist belief structure of whites had not significantly changed and the hard core of stereotypes had been reinforced by a deliberate propaganda effort to build an association in the public mind of Negroes with crime ("crime in the streets") so that the police treatment of Negroes could be deemed justified.  Recruitment of suitable "policemen types" from the areas outside of the urban localities where the numbers of Negroes are increasing further serves to reinforce negative pictures. The basic structure of society from whence policemen are usually drawn is deeply racist and it is logical to expect that this segment of society would produce individuals who as policemen would tend to act on their basic feelings, especially in times of stress.  While racist attitudes and prejudices make the ordinary citizen a bigot, such feelings make a public servant a tyrant and tend to make an armed official a menace. 

the department and the nature of police work itself

The police departments and police work itself tend to affect the attitudes of the policeman and his job.  The police department of many cities tends to scorn talk of courses in human relations.  Many cities possess no courses of training for police officers or if there are such courses, they are given only by departmental staff rather than by experts in the human relations field.  Of even greater importance to the policeman's behavior are the expressed attitude and example of high ranking officers who speak in moralistic terms about history and current events, who are obsessed with the notion of the international subversion and who fill their subordinates with the notion that they, the police, are the world's last hope for survival ("a breakdown of fear and respect for the present system would lead to socialism"). 

The subordinate in the police department is shown by example

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Transcription Notes:
"the department and the nature of police work itself" is Italicized and in bold.