Police Should Live In The Community They Serve

How would you feel if we imported our police officers from foreign countries -- and didn't require them to become citizens or even become a part of the community they worked in. Do you think they would treat you fairly? Would they understand the problems you face, or the problems affecting the community at large? Probably not -- since they would have no personal investment in your community. And any problems that arose would be compounded if they happened to be of a different race or ethnic culture.

That might sound far-fetched to you, but it really isn't. Something very similar is happening in cities and counties across this nation. The chart at left, from fivethirtyeight.com, shows that many cities in this country are served by police officers who do not live in that city. In fact, the percentage of police officers who live outside the city they serve is more than 50% -- and if you just look at White police officers, that figure climbs to slightly over 60%.

You may not think this is a problem, but it is. When a police officer doesn't live in the community they serve it becomes much easier to view the citizens where they work as being different from themselves. It helps to create an "us" against "them" attitude among the officers -- and that kind of attitude can infect a whole department, and engender a situation where police profile and harass citizens and citizens don't trust the police (much like what has happened in Ferguson, Missouri).

The problem is only compounded when the police are White (and live in a mostly White city), but work in a different (mostly minority) community.

I'm not saying it is impossible for a White policeman to adequately and fairly serve a minority community -- only that it can encourage those with a propensity to view those of another race or ethnicity as being different (and unfortunately, there are many) to act on that view -- making it easier to profile, harass, beat, or even murder those "different" people.

Too often Whites expect all communities to be like the one they live in, and don't understand or recognize that different communities have different problems. It is simply easier to understand the problems of the community where you live, and have a stake in seeing those problems solved appropriately.

I believe police officers should live in the community they serve -- and the the department serving a community should generally have the same racial or ethnic make-up of that community. That wouldn't solve all the problems with policing in America -- but it would certainly be a good start.