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FREEDOMWAYS FIRST QUARTER 1968 open conflict between blacks and whites. A check of the numbers from each group who are arrested in a conflict situation should make one doubt the claim of police impartiality. Public policy determines the kind of recruitment, the nature of screening of prospective candidates, the intensity of police officer training. Police departments are actually instruments of public policy. Where the Negro is strenuously and overtly controlled, police suppression is open, direct and unmasked. Where control of Negro needs to be subtle and sophisticated, police activity is likewise camouflaged. This public policy directly shapes and affects the behavior of the policeman and dictates to some degree the kind of treatment he will mete out to suspects and the ways he will deal with citizens. in time of stress The influences discussed on the behavior of the policeman are always present. If there is any doubt about the powerful effect of these influences on the policeman, the expressed attitude of officers of a Northern urban force have been made the subject of study. Almost 52 per cent of the white patrolmen studied in the Kephart report of the University of Pennsylvania stated that they were stricter with Negro suspects than with whites. The police rationalized their treatment because the Negro subjects "were more belligerent," "because Negroes commit crimes of violence against people," "because Negroes are usually under the influence of liquor," "because Negroes can't be trusted," and "because Negroes are congenitally thieves and are very troublesome." The most hostile white police officers believed that the whole white community shared their racial feelings. John Milner, professor of social work at the University of Southern California, found that prejudice was quite common among police from all parts of the U.S., with those working in major cities more fearful than those in smaller communities. In his class, "Human Relations for Police," he has found that some policeman insist that "the Negro is a subhuman being." The Negro policeman in Kephart's study, and also in Elliot Rudwick's study, The Unequal Badge, feels morally indignant about the high rate of Negro crime, and therefore, the Negro policeman is often stricter with Negro suspects than with white suspects. Not only were Negro policemen stricter with Negro suspects, Negro police tended to perceive white police as not unduly strict. Kephart offered as an explanation the notion that since: 54
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-13 11:02:36
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-13 11:25:00
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Reopened for Editing 2024-02-13 11:36:59