December 9, 2014

The tragedy of deaths such as Eric Garner, and the subsequent refusal of a Grand Jury to indict the officer involved in his death, highlights several related systemic problems we have in the United States. Until we address all of these issues, tragedies like Garner’s will continue to happen.

Garner’s death happened due to a culture of police brutality combined with inherent racism, a known lack of consequences for police who do brutalize citizens, and an ever increasing number of laws and regulations that make criminals out of the majority of citizens.

Eric Garner died while being arrested by police in Staten Island

Eric Garner died while being arrested by police in Staten Island

While police brutality can and does happen to any person or any race or social-economic status, people of color are far more likely to be arrested and imprisoned. In fact, police are more likely to respond with force, even for very minor offenses, than they do against the population as a whole. This doesn’t mean Caucasians are safe, or can sit this issue out. While they are less likely to experience police brutality, a look at current headlines should convince you this is a problem for all Americans.

A closely related issue is police know they are rarely be held accountable for their actions. Even when officers are caught using excessive force, they know they’ll be placed on paid leave while they are investigated by their fellow police officers and their case will be presented to a grand jury by prosecutors, who are their colleagues. So it’s no surprise that while Grand Juries vote to indict civilians at an average rate of 99%, they indict police slightly less than 6% of the time. In Garner’s case, the only person indicted was the civilian who recorded the entire incident on his phone. With our present system, it is almost impossible to punish police for bad behavior and so far, the decent, dedicated cops have been unsuccessful in policing their own.

Over-criminalization, in which the State makes even small activities like selling individual cigarettes or raw milk or children running a lemonade stands, illegal or highly regulated, gives the minority of overaggressive and often racist police officers ample excuse to target people. Called ‘broken window policing’, police are encouraged to strictly enforce each and every regulation or law, no matter how minor or silly. However, this problem isn’t the fault of police, but lays with citizens putting pressure on elected officials to win the War on Drugs or clean up the neighborhood or reduce violent crime. The irony is, even as crime levels dropped, the War on Drugs is increasingly recognized as worse than a failure, and concerns over police brutality rise, the public’s appetite for broken window policing increased.

So what can be done?

First of all, we have far too many laws and regulations and are adding more every single day. The public at large needs to realize that every time you call for some action or thing to be made illegal, you are asking for police to use force on people to stop them from doing that action or possessing that thing. That force will sometimes result in tragic deaths. The question people need to ask themselves is, “Am I willing to personally kill someone to stop them from doing or owning that?” If the answer is no, don’t ask police to do the killing for you by creating new laws and regulations. Most police officers don’t want to live with the emotional pain of killing fellow human beings any more than you do.

These laws that create opportunities for tragic interactions, such as the one between Garner and police, impact poor and minorities to a higher degree than they affect those who are more affluent or are white. Wealthier people can afford sin taxes, like those on cigarettes and are far less likely to be confronted by police because they don’t fit certain racial profiling or class stereotype. Nanny state laws, which are laws that focus on changing your behavior, also target poor and minorities. They were created on the premise that people are too stupid to live their lives the way they see fit. As Libertarians, we reject such a notion.

Citizens should demand their elected officials repeal broken window laws. As Libertarian Party’s National Chair has said, “When police focus on crimes with victims, everybody wins.”

It’s equally evident that the grand jury system, with its multiple conflicts of interest, is also not a workable system of justice when police are defendants. Special independent prosecution for police carried out by the state’s Attorney General, would give the independence needed than the current conflict of interest a local prosecutor’s office presents.

Another significant step in the right direction is restructuring how police are held accountable who engage in brutality and excessive force. It’s evident that police are unable to police themselves. Specifically, we call for individual cities to require police officers to carry personal liability insurance comparable to malpractice insurance for those in the medical profession. This would in effect, punish bad cops and get them off the street. A city, such as Minneapolis, would cover the base rate insurance premium for all officers, but police would be individually responsible for any additional insurance premium increase due to violent or improper conduct. Instances such as tasering a handcuffed subject, beating someone as a punishment, arresting someone without cause, or conducting an illegal search or seizure, are examples of actions that are beyond the scope of an officer’s employment and would be personally liable for. Currently, taxpayers have been on the hook and are the ones’ ending up with the bill. In Minneapolis alone, $20 million has been spent in the last 7 years on cases won or payouts for police misconduct. The Committee for Professional Policing outlines in detail the benefits and offers a FAQ for this solution.

Individual insurance would get these cops off the street, but not after wrongful offenses outside their line of duty already occur. So now we come to the thorniest of problems and the most difficult to solve, how to fix police who are racists and use their positions of authority to brutalize persons of color. Sensitivity training, personal trainers, and diversity workshops will not make racist cops no longer racist. Getting rid of broken window policing and Nanny State laws, which target minorities, is a step in the right direction. Having police officers liable for violent and improper conduct by personally carrying insurance would significantly incentivize them to “serve and protect”.

But to get to the root of eradicating racism in our police departments is the same as what needs to happen in our society – we need to change our culture. That can’t be legislated, trained, or punished. Racism is an idea. A very bad idea, but still an idea. There’s only one remedy for a bad idea – a good idea.

Libertarians don’t resort to using force, or asking the government to use force on our behalf to change peoples’ minds. Using force may appear to be a quick-fix to a problem like racism, but it can never truly change what’s in peoples’ hearts and can rarely even change their outward behavior. The only solution is to peacefully and firmly engage with those who express racists ideas or who don’t yet understand the challenges minorities face.

As blogger Spectra wrote in an article encouraging white allies to stop unfriending each other on social media, “ask yourself which choice would be easier: unfriending the guy who attended your birthday party last year because he posted support of the non indictment OR responding to his post with an open ended question to begin a (likely long and strenuous) conversation?”

That isn’t the fast and easy answer we Americans enjoy. Eliminating broken window laws, Nanny State laws, and holding police accountable for excessive force are issues we can tackle right now, while we take on the longer task of continuing to change our culture to improve race relations over time.

Concerned about the expansion of government control and the erosion of individual liberty? Please consider joining and becoming active with the Libertarian Party of Minnesota. Libertarians support liberty on all issues, all the time! Libertarianism is a philosophical and political movement to promote personal freedom, strong civil liberties, a genuinely free marketplace, and peace.