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POLICE BRUTALITY WILSON that the system will protect him when he is threatened. If because of his individual shortcomings he is put on the carpet, members of the department will stick together and protect him. Few police organizations, except the courageous Negro Patrolmen Associations, have conducted discussions of police mistreatment. Instead the patrolmen's groups are outspokenly opposed to curbs on capricious use of police power when the police are dealing with minority groups. The John Birch Society, an influential right-wing organization, has infiltrated several municipal police departments and seeks to influence policemen by the personal "buddy-buddy" approach. Some members of the police departments of riot-torn cities have gone ahead on their own to purchase special weapons with increased firepower in case of trouble. Over and above the effect of the department and the people of the law enforcement apparatus, there is the influence of the job itself. The fear of being asked to police"a foreign land" (the recial ghettos) is a significant factor in police misconduct. If the individual policeman on the other hand pushed too hard on the organized narcotics and gambling industries which flourish on the ghetto communities according to one white detective: "You could get to be a D.O.A. [dead on arrival]. Next day there will be a small story about a detective dying form an overdose. That's how the big boys are in narcotics. Smart and tough. Or if you broke some one's area of protection, a detective might be busted [demoted]." Thsu somewhat guilt-ridden by the frustration in his power to stem organized crime the cop clutches his stick tighter and is ready to smash down savagely on the lone Negro. a product of public policy The question of law enforcement in relation to black people anywhere in the nation is fundamentally a matter of public policy. In the South, the legal suppression of civil rights demonstrations has ranged from brutal beatings, tear gassing, to studied police indifference to the beatings of black people at the hands of white hoodlums. In those areas the victims of police mistreatment aren't even permitted to complain of police misconduct. Jackson, Mississippi, is moving to file suits against individuals and organizations who even so much as charge "police brutality." In the North, the police try to establish the illusion of their impartiality in efforts to maintain order-a mask which disappears in any 53