In the previous post, I explored the role of the police in society. One of my main conclusions was that policing is an inherently controversial profession, because: a) the police are positioned as a violent other, and b) they must arbitrate and allocate violence between groups. In this post I will be expanding on how media affects the relationship between the police and the public in a democratic context.
It is generally accepted (I think) that the oversight generated by the media is good: the police are ‘kept honest’ by the possibility of duplicitous actions being reported. However, though having oversight via media is probably net-positive, there are also costs, and it is these costs that shall be the focus of this post.
Before getting into the meat of the article, I would like to start three preliminary points. First, it is important to note how media has changed significantly in recent years. No longer is media the sole domain of companies, now citizen journalism and social media play a crucial role. Of particular importance in regards to policing is the ease at which members of the public can photograph or record police activity at a moment’s notice. The police now work in an environment of constant potential scrutiny. Second, despite the fact that this post focuses primarily on problems that arise from the police-media-public dynamic, it is not intended to be anti-media. Like the police, the media serve an important function in society. I will be highlighting some problems that the media causes in regards to the police, and some ways in which scrutiny goes awry, but I do not intend to thereby argue against the importance or value of media in general. Third, this post is not intended to be nostalgic. I am not arguing that we need to return to some old way of doing things, but rather exploring new challenges in need of new solutions.
The underlying issue with scrutinizing the police via media is that the public, and therefore the press, are not really interested in the nuances of good policing. Rather, the public eye is drawn to dramatic figures and events. This dynamic creates a significant number of interrelated problems which I shall now explore in no particular order.
Problem 1: Anecdote overload
Humans are generally not very good at using stats to understand reality. We find anecdotes much more influential than data (links at end). In line with this, there is data that suggest that fear of crime increases with exposure to media violence (links at end). By the same token, modern media and social-media create a steady supply of examples of police violence. This phenomena is particularly acute in regards to the police’s relationship with many minority groups, such as the ongoing relationship breakdown between police and the black community in the USA. The ready supply of stories of police-on-black violence continuously erodes trust between the two groups. This is not to say that there are not justice issues, because there are. Rather, my argument is that the dynamic of public outrage over anecdotes does not foster positive reform.
When incidents of violence result in an uproar, the public voice a very reasonable desire – they would like the police to utilize violence in as proportional and just fashion as possible. One of the problem with this dynamic is that it encourages the police to be insular and secretive. The public as a body is not particularly capable of acknowledging the inevitability of tragic moral transgressions by the police, or of forgiving such transgressions. The police therefore close ranks, protect their own, and occasionally sacrifice individuals to the public’s thirst for justice. This acts as a barrier to reform because it blocks real, nuanced analysis from taking place.
Another issue with the proliferation of anecdotes is that it can break down trust between the police and some of the community’s they serve. When knowledge of racist incidents and tragic mistakes spread very quickly on a national scale, it ratchets up the tension between minorities and the police. This, in turn, decreases trust and communication between police and minorities and increase the probability of further incidents (link to article examining the impact of video on police-black relations).
Problem 2: Playing to the numbers
I have already discussed this problem in great detail in the first part of this series, but media, politicians, and the public utilize statistics in a very shallow way to try and bring about accountability. This simplistic accountability by numbers incentives the police to game the system, while discourages them from meaningfully dealing with problems. Please review part 1 for a longer account of how crime statistics are problematic (link).
Problem 3: The police are held accountable for factors that are beyond their control
There are a number of ways in which the police are held accountable for societal failings. I am going to focus primarily on how this is true in regards to disadvantaged minorities in order to show the particular dynamic I am trying to describe.
When you look at statistics regarding most police forces, their track record regarding minorities and the disadvantaged usually look pretty damning (e.g. articles like Black people far more likely to be arrested, racial disparity audit shows). However, though it seems quite clearly true that most police forces have significant issues when it comes to justly policing minorities, societies tend to disavow their own part in the story. Many factors are at play that generate systematic disadvantage, including wealth differences, systematic discrimination, varying cultural practices, and access to networks of power. Further, the very function of the police in society, in regards to who bears the brunt of police scrutiny and those who are considered ‘upstanding citizens’ is shaped by those in power. Finally, it is important to remember that the police themselves do not usually inhabit the upper echelon of power in society. The police can certain contribute to oppression and discrimination, but they do not do so in a vacuum. My contention is that we must remember all the other factors that contribute to some groups having more contact with the police than others.
Problem 4: Priority soup
Police organizations, like all organizations, must set their priorities. It is impossible for them to do everything. However, the public are not usually very sympathetic to this reality, particularly because the prioritization decisions of the police can be matters of life or death. Given the negative press that can result from disasters occurring in non-priority areas, it is difficult for the police to transparently make prioritization decisions. Consider cases such as human trafficking, sex workers, terrorism, and knife crime. In all of these cases it would reflect very poorly on a force if a disaster occurred in one of these areas, even if there was no particular reason to think that they were areas of concern in a force area. Police forces, at least in the United Kingdom, therefore do not so much prioritize as list all possible problems that may arise so that they do not get in trouble with politicians and the public when something goes wrong. For a more in-depth analysis of this issue I would recommend reading the Police Foundation’s article Prioritisation in a changing world: seven challenges for policing.
Problem 5: Simplistic narratives
Media can promote simplistic causal narratives (e.g. immigrants are taking our jobs). This is not a problem specific to policing, but it does have a significant affect on policing. Consider the dominance of ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric. Such simplistic narratives promote the idea that policing takes place in a vacuum, while decoupling crime from wider social circumstances. On the other end of the spectrum, narratives that describe the police as oppressors fail to engage with the importance and complexity of police work. These narratives undermine public and political appetite for nuanced problem analysis.
Problem 6: The silver screen
One factor that contributes to simplistic narratives is our popular depictions and cultural understanding of what police work entails. Police are glorified as heroic crime fights and vilified as vulgar bullies in movies and TV shows, and it is these sources that inform a great deal of public and political understanding of what police work entails (links at end). This produces a dynamic whereby the police are forced to pursue an idealized model of themselves in order to satisfy the public that they are doing what they ought to be doing.
In this post I have explored a variety of problems that accountability via media poses for policing. As I said at the beginning, my goal here is not to be anti-media, but rather to investigate problems posed by media.
In my next post I will be exploring the nature and importance of police officer discretion.
Articles on how we find anecdotes more persuasive than statistics:
Articles on how fear of crime increases with exposure to media
Articles on how movies and television affect our understanding of the police:
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