As we suggested in the previous chapter, policing in America is facing a crisis of confidence. Unfavorable perceptions toward police are a pervasive challenge for municipal agencies, particularly in communities impacted by high levels of gang-related crime where police departments are understaffed and under-resourced (Mock, 2017b; Police Executive Research Forum, 2019). In an era of 24-hour news cycles, social media activism, and community advocacy, there is growing public outrage due to perceived abuses by the police. Videos on social media depicting police-involved shootings have also led to increased scrutiny, and this has made the work of building community trust even more challenging (Maguire et al, 2017). Moreover, if there is a lack of support for police, residents will be unwilling to cooperate with the police and assist with investigations, and such attitudes can undermine the ability of police officers to do their jobs effectively (Wolfe et al, 2016). In order to understand attitudes toward police in the post-Ferguson era, in this chapter we discuss the rubric of procedural justice and police legitimacy perceptions. We then explore the historical roots of police–community conflict and the ongoing confidence gap in attitudes toward police, and conclude by discussing the impact of BLM and digital media in general as a tool for collective action and empowerment.

Police legitimacy and the confidence gap

Extant research on legitimacy owes much of its framing to Max Weber's work on political legitimacy and the role of legal norms in shaping the relationship between the individual and State. These ideas influenced the contributions of Tom Tyler and others in the field of psychology. These researchers conceptualized legitimacy in terms of subjective beliefs about right and wrong and the appropriate use of governmental power, and this has led to a large body of research on the determinants and consequences of police legitimacy (Tyler, 2006). Therefore, the influence an authority or institution exerts on people is not based on the capacity to use force but rather on the institution's decision-making and whether the rules it enacts are seen as proper and right, and whether, as a result, they ought to be followed.

Findings from fieldwork conducted with police, non-law enforcement practitioners, and justice-involved young men were presented throughout the previous chapters. We explored contemporary police–community relations and discussed the historical roots of racial conflict and social decay in America. Scholarly perspectives on policing and anti-gang strategies were also discussed, and challenges related to the policing of young men in disadvantaged communities were highlighted. In this concluding chapter, we summarize findings based on ethnographic research in a Southern American state and address the implications of navigating a post-Ferguson era largely characterized by divisiveness and acrimony. We note emerging issues regarding the policing of racial and ethnic minorities and suggest approaches to foster more procedurally just practices and improve police legitimacy perceptions. In addition, we reflect on lessons learned from previous police-reform efforts and provide recommendations for police–community reforms in troubled times.

Navigating the impossible mandate

Commentators have characterized the unique challenges of police work as “the impossible mandate,” or mission impossible, due to unrealistic public expectations (Manning, 1977; Goldsmith, 2005; Roelofse, 2010). In contexts where resources are scarce and personnel are stretched, police are expected to be effective at enforcing the law, maintaining order, and keeping crime at bay, while also garnering trust and partnering with communities. During times of crisis and social change, such wishes are even more difficult to fulfill, and given the lessons of the last hundred years it is not surprising that police often fall short of lofty ideals. For example, between the 1920s and 1940s, despite concerns about police brutality and civil rights abuses, there was an emphasis on managerial efficiency and adherence to the bidding of lawmakers (Walker & Katz, 2017); however, this was soon followed by significant developments related to the civil rights movement, as social upheaval and racial conflict took center stage. This ushered in a wave of civil and human rights campaigns comprising organized groups of racial minorities, political activists, civil libertarians, LGBTQI community members, and bohemians.

Civil rights campaigns were also launched in response to police abuses and government overreach, and they forced municipalities to reconsider the relationship between oppressed minorities and the State (Agee, 2017).

The confidence crisis of law enforcement is steeped in conflict and has caused great harm to the police and public. We are, unfortunately, in a period of continued decline marred by public inquiries into procedural justice and the questioning of law enforcement legitimacy. In this chapter, we report on the rise of a somewhat new phenomenon in policing. In doing so, contemporary policing is framed among developing countermovements that place law enforcement in the middle of oppositional belief systems. Against a backdrop of historical inequalities and a lack of law enforcement accountability, we consider the way some have questioned if the public are engaged in a “war” on police. We explore how public discord has had real consequences and been met with a somewhat galvanized de-policing response from law enforcement. The policing and crime costs of the Ferguson Effect, as this phenomenon is also known, are empirically explored. Though often framed through the words and lens of law enforcement, the semistructured interviews (of officers listed in Table 3.1) and participant observation field notes set the stage for alternative perspectives shared in later chapters.

The emergence of countermovements

Criticisms of police have occurred during a broader period of social and political unrest in the US. In fact, there has been an emergence of countermovements. The BLM movement, for example, was initially criticized for lacking inclusivity. While few questioned the experiences of Blacks with the police, many other groups have also been subjected to systematic police abuses. In particular, and following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Muslim, Arab, and Middle Eastern populations in the US experienced additional scrutiny (and at times harassment) from law enforcement (Fallik & Novak, 2013). This led Withrow to state that, “after 9/11 the rules changed and everything we had learned about the social costs and ineffectiveness of racial profiling was largely ignored” (Withrow, 2006, p 244). Concern over terrorism led the US DOJ to pressure state and local law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration laws. To this point, Nguyen stated that the border became, “a critical front in the war on terror” (Nguyen, 2005, p 92).

In this opening chapter, we set the scene for the book by referencing the contextual backdrop of increased accountability and change in American policing, the challenges around police–community relations, and the political and public concern about gang-related criminality as a related symptom of these issues across the United States (US). We introduce the research methods underpinning the empirical work and conclude by providing an overview of each of the subsequent chapters.

Cops in crisis? Ferguson, police legitimacy, and de-policing

The words of James B. Comey are one example of the numerous discussions and debates that have emerged within American law enforcement contexts in recent years. Moreover, Mr. Comey raised several themes emerging in recent discussions on policing, police–community relations, and youth violence that will be introduced in this chapter and explored further in subsequent chapters of this book. It is suggested that police officers are now “under siege,” have become afraid of getting out of their cars, have regularly become the stars of “viral videos,” and that a “chill wind is blowing through American law enforcement.” Another observation that Comey made at the time is that gang-related violence, predominantly among young men who belong to racial minority groups, has continued to escalate within disadvantaged communities.

In this chapter, we build on the previous discussion by exploring the “warrior” mindset in policing. This mindset is reflected in the highly controversial militaristic strategies that have characterized contemporary policing in many of America's disadvantaged crimeprone communities. Residents in these locations are often the recipients of disorder-enforcement, SQF, and zero-tolerance crackdowns. The conceptualization of warrior policing underlines the concern that officers who see themselves principally as warriors ignore the inherent consequences of forcible approaches in these communities. Here we define the contrasting roles of police as guardians and as warriors, followed by a critique of warrior policing and the impact of aggressive, and often reactive, enforcement strategies. We also explore the history of militarism and aggressive enforcement in the US, along with further insights from interviews with our sample of police officers and from our participant observation during deployments.

The warrior/guardian framework

In the 1960s, psychologist Abraham Maslow stated that “it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” (Maslow, 1966, p15). Maslow's hammer refers to a form of confirmation bias involving an overreliance on a familiar tool. When someone acquires a tool or a skill, there is a tendency to be influenced by its function and utility, which leads one to see opportunities to use that tool or skill everywhere. There is also a tendency to see the world through the narrow lens of one's profession. Policing is not the only occupation that is susceptible to this bias, but due to the high stakes associated with police work, the overreliance on the use of force is an ongoing concern. This heavy reliance on force also recognizes the role of organizational culture in shaping norms and sustaining the practices that influence the behavior of personnel (Paoline, 2003). Within this framework, police leadership may tacitly encourage officers to adopt behaviors that are consistent with the guardian or warrior policing orientations (Stoughton, 2016).

The overreliance on force can be understood within this context. Research suggests that the warrior mindset is a main catalyst for the problematic police–citizen encounters that have elicited increasing public outrage (Pyrooz et al, 2016b; Wolfe & Nix, 2016; Nix & Wolfe, 2016, 2017; Shjarback et al, 2017; Nix et al, 2018; McLean et al, 2019).

In this part of the book we turn our attention to practitioner and youth perspectives on policing and police–community relations in the post-Ferguson era. In this chapter we begin by placing the spotlight on the voices of non-police practitioners who worked closely with racial minority youths in one of the counties studied. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews, we outline the insights we gained into the current challenges faced by young racial minority males in local communities and the relationship between some of these issues and gang-related violence and crime in their neighborhoods. Insights are presented into the type of community-centered interventions in place within the county to prevent violence and to re-engage disadvantaged young men (including those involving law enforcement), as well as practitioners’ reflections on their nature and impact.

The prominent role or apparent absence of police in these interventions is considered, drawing on the perspectives of practitioners, and supplementary insights from youth focus groups shed light on justice-involved young men's continued distrust of law enforcement. We draw implications from practitioners on the challenges stemming from the policing of young men located in gangaffected neighborhoods, and how this may have evolved in the post-Ferguson era. Given the prominence of street gangs in the locations where fieldwork was conducted, we begin the chapter with a brief overview of some of the existing literary insights on gangs in the literature. Specifically, we focus on the literature on gang involvement among racial minority males and their relationships with the police.

Racial minority men, gangs, violence, and the police

Since the time of the early work conducted by Frederic Thrasher (1927) and the Chicago School of Sociology, many academics have analyzed and described how poverty, unemployment, social disorganization, and oppression can help to stimulate gang culture among groups of young men (Shaw & MacKay, 1942; Whyte, 1943; Cohen, 1955; Cloward & Ohlin, 1960; Anderson, 1999; Decker et al, 2013). Some contemporary scholars (Anderson, 1999; Alonso, 2004; Hagedorn, 2008) believe that young Black men are the most prominent casualties of advanced marginality in American towns and cities, and that this may stimulate their violent offending (see Wacquant, 2008; Deuchar, 2013, 2018).

As we reflect on policing in times of crisis, we acknowledge the frequent reminders of the need for difficult conversations about racial injustice. It may be a comforting notion that most officers do not intend to treat Black residents differently from their White counterparts, or to use force unjustly in neighborhoods that lack political efficacy, yet this does not diminish the pain that many feel in the aftermath of tragic encounters with police. Given the unabated grievances that stem from the shortcomings of the justice system, it is clear that racial conflicts in America's past cannot be treated as mere historical artifacts. It is lamentable that such conflicts seem to define life in America today as law enforcement continues to face scrutiny due to the conduct of officers in Black and Brown communities. This book draws attention to the undeniable fact that within geographical pockets of disorder and neglect in urban landscapes, police–community relations are shaped by a problematic racial history and a pervasive cognitive landscape of anger, resentment, and disillusionment (Brunson, 2007; Rothenberg, 2013; Cobbina, 2019). Moreover, the unshakeable reality of police violence on the streets reminds us of the likelihood that we will experience more “Fergusons” in the near future.

Throughout the previous chapters we have suggested that noble efforts by law enforcement to “mend the fences” are often undermined by recurring incidents of perceived excessive force by police officers. The movement against racial injustice has clearly resonated with millions of people around the world and drawn an unprecedented worldwide response, and during the time of writing, this fact has become abundantly clear. On May 25, 2020, a White Minneapolis Police Department officer killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by kneeling on Floyd's neck for seven minutes and 46 seconds, while he was handcuffed and pleading for his life with cries of “I can't breathe” (Kiang & Tsai, 2020; Nwonka, 2020). Floyd's plea seemed to echo the words uttered by Eric Garner back in 2014, whose life also ebbed away slowly and painfully while he was being restrained with a chokehold on the ground by police.

This chapter turns the spotlight away from practitioner perspectives and onto the views of those who are often most affected by law enforcement strategies – young men in communities of color, and specifically those with offending histories. The chapter draws upon insights from semi-structured interviews conducted in a county jail and in local neighborhoods, with young men with criminal histories or those who were on the periphery of criminality. We explore the collective challenges these young men had encountered, including the impact of adverse childhood experiences, social and economic disadvantage, and (where relevant) the influence of gang culture. We also chronicle the young men's lived experiences with racial discrimination from police interventions and the wider criminal justice system. Among the generally despondent narratives shared, we also draw attention to the cautious optimism expressed by some who had recently participated in police-initiated community-engagement programs. In so doing, we draw some conclusions about the young men's juxtaposed exposure to contrasting guardian and warrior police roles, and the continuing and cumulative disadvantage they experienced via law enforcement and – in some cases – the wider criminal justice system.

Moving beyond practitioner perspectives: Interviews with young men

As we described in Chapter 1, this part of the research firstly involved the implementation of semi-structured interviews with eight young racial minority men who were currently residing in the Queen County jail, often awaiting sentencing related to suspected crimes of violence associated with gang culture. Access to the jail was established through a formal application process to the Queen County Sheriff's Office, Department of Corrections, and once this was approved by senior officers, currently incarcerated young men were interviewed. The criteria for selection of the small group of young men was as follows: they had to be residing in the jail for offenses relating to gang-related and/or violent crime; they had to be over the age of 18; they had to be from an ethnic minority group (normally African American or Hispanic), and be willing, through a process of informed consent, to participate in an interview of up to 60 minutes in duration. Senior officers within the Department of Corrections subsequently facilitated meeting times for inmates (aged 22–35) over the course of two full days of fieldwork.

Across the next two chapters, we turn specifically to the issue of police–community relations as they pertain to predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. We chronicle the law enforcement approaches we uncovered during our fieldwork, and relate these to the guardian-versus-warrior debate. In this chapter, we draw on the context of gang culture as an illustrative context for our analysis, and begin by discussing the reactive and proactive approaches that have been used to police gang violence and criminality in minority US neighborhoods over the years. In the main body of the chapter, insights from participant observation of police deployments and interventions at our fieldwork sites are shared, complemented by the voices of law enforcement officers captured via semi-structured interviews and informal conversations. We illustrate how an increased conceptual awareness of procedural justice had emerged among these officers. Case studies of proactive, community-centered policing approaches are shared that illustrate the active attempts that officers were making to enhance positive relationships, particularly with young Black men, and prevent violence in gang-affected neighborhoods. These insights are used to illustrate the ways in which officers were increasingly viewing themselves primarily as “guardians” in their approaches to the policing of gangs and the remaining challenges.

Reactive and proactive approaches to the policing of gang violence

As we outlined in Chapter 2, racial animus between police and residents has long been a problem in the US, largely due to a “normative police practice that targets Black individuals” (Cobbina, 2019, p 5). Aggressive policing strategies are disproportionately concentrated in disadvantaged communities populated by Black and Hispanic populations, and young men often describe their repeated exposure to unwelcome police contact and report less favorable evaluations of the police in comparison to their White counterparts (Brunson & Weitzer, 2009; Solis et al, 2009).

As we noted in Chapter 1, young Black and Hispanic men are also twice as likely as Whites to self-report gang membership in adolescence, and two to four times more likely to do so in adulthood (Pyrooz & Densley, 2018a, and see Chapter 6 for further discussion on gang culture and racial discrimination).