How engaged are community members in how justice is administered in communities across the American landscape? The answer to this question depends on society’s perception of the status quo in their community compared to how justice appears to exist and play out in other communities. The answer also depends on the individuals within the community and their engagement with and acceptance of the conditions of their communities. Several general gauges on how society functions within a community may offer clues to the residents’ willingness to engage in processes related to the delivery of criminal justice. Some examples—in no particular order—of these general gauges regarding community involvement are discussed below.

PERCEPTION OF THE POLICE

There are myriad ways that people obtain information in the modern world. Fifty years ago, an event that today would make instant headline news might not be heard about in nearby communities for days if not weeks. It took longer for interest groups of that time to gain basic information and to develop strategies to disseminate news of an incident or general news to keep their constituents informed. Today, through the wonders of technology, images of incidents in real time, crime scenes, police behaviors, and more can be uploaded and viewed by tens of thousands of viewers in seconds and potentially millions in a day or two. However, through social media and the evening news, these video clips are often shown without context and can be widely misinterpreted. There can be no mistaking that there are certain incidents that involve excessive uses of force. Such examples further expand the distrust of police, their tactics, and the operational motives of some officers. When this occurs, the social contract between the police and the community is quickly eroded.

Regaining trust is difficult if not impossible in some cases. At the extreme end, calls for defunding the police may occur. This phrase may have many varying interpretations and implications. What may be intended as taking practical steps to move money from the police budget to address concerns about police priorities and taskwork related to more sociological or mental health issues is interpreted by some community members to mean “take away the entire police budget.” In many cases, redistribution of some funding, as well as assignment of duties to deal with mental health issues to dedicated mental health staff, makes sense. While there is evidence in some communities that abolishment of the police force was in fact the intended consequence, the almost immediate uptick in crime statistics in some locations demonstrates the need for a continued police presence of some sort.

Even the uniformed appearance of police has to some degree alienated certain parts of the community. A stated goal of police agencies is to be approachable by those they represent in the community. People should feel comfortable approaching an officer for help, directions, or other needs. Changes in uniform design and wear has to some extent interfered with achieving this goal. Because the police are responding rapidly to serious and sometimes violent calls for service, such as active shooters in schools or businesses and highly charged domestic violence incidents, their personal protective devices have changed. Uniform duty belts were originally designed to carry firearm holsters, ammunition pouches, and handcuffs. The defensive equipment and preparedness of the officer has evolved to also include carrying a portable radio, collapsible baton, chemical agent, patrol knife, and flexible handcuffs. Added to this is the weight of soft body armor (SBA), which includes a ballistic plate made of ceramic or steel. Officers began to suffer debilitating back injury in large part from carrying these items mostly around the belt. Some officers have transitioned to suspenders to better support the heavy weight of their defensive equipment. Other departments have moved to external body armor patterned to mimic or take the place of the upper uniform garment. The external body armor package has numerous pockets, holders, clips, and loops that permit items normally carried on the belt to move to the chest area. In the view of some fearful community members, this has created an aggressive or militaristic look that in their minds makes the police less approachable (Norris, 2017).

APATHY AND MORALE

If enough people within a community decide to withdraw from processes such as voting, it can have a resounding effect on the quality of criminal justice services they can expect. On the law enforcement side, there are many reasons why front-line responders suffer from low morale and apathy (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2018). The combination of frequently being dispatched to dynamic, rapidly changing, and often dangerous situations is a contributing factor. A feeling of constantly being disrespected may stem from police having to often interact with the public immediately after the officer has responded to a difficult or gruesome call. It can also come from the addition of legislative mandates that seem at times to hinder police responses and effectiveness. Officers may endure death threats as well. The officer may feel as though they never have adequate personnel, equipment, or direction to carry out basic enforcement tasks safely and efficiently. They may also react harshly as a result of fatigue brought on by mandatory overtime requirements. These conditions and others, such as sleep deprivation, may lead to psychological burnout and low morale (James, 2024). It can also lead to an “us versus them” mentality among frontline officers and first-line supervisors that can be corrosive to the relationship between the police and their community.

Another recent explanation for apathy and low morale among officers and supervisors is the phenomena known as pandemic fatigue (PERF, 2021). It is not unique to the police. Public safety and service employees including, but not limited to, firefighters, EMS, hospital staff, caregivers, mortuary workers, and others have demanding duties, responsibilities, and job stressors under normal conditions. Add to these burdens the three-plus years of relentless response and associated heartbreak of losses emanating from the COVID-19 pandemic. They are not alone as each of us has had to adapt to a new normal brought on by a long-term pandemic.

In extreme cases, the mental impact on highly functional, service-motivated law enforcement personnel became so severe that for risk purposes, administrators had to take officers off patrol duties. While such an action may be well-intentioned for the health and safety of an officer, having no psychological, family, or spiritual intervention can put a suffering officer at greater risk. In some cases, it makes sense to have a fallback position that allows the officer to transition from their current duties to a position that permits them to use their talent, skills, and experiences and enables them to remain part of the departmental team. For many officers, the psychological impact associated with their duties or loss of a position they loved were too severe to endure, leading them to leave employment or, in extreme cases, commit suicide (National Officer Safety Initiatives, 2020).

THE GUARDIAN vs. WARRIOR MINDSET

One concept that comes up in current discussions about how the police can better serve their communities is the guardian vs. warrior mindset. Since the beginning of time, mankind has had to address threats to their safety and security. Some menacing behaviors—exhibited by wild animals, wartime foes, and violent criminals—rose to such magnitude that it became a family member’s or peacekeeper’s priority to stop all threats. In recent years, military members have returned from theaters of conflict where the foe was not always easily identifiable. Additionally problematic for these military members were incidents where the rules of engagement were not always consistent with one’s moral or cultural values. As a result, police officers, especially those who had previously served in the military, have become overly suspicious of civilians with whom they interact during their patrol duties (Hussey, 2020). These officers are sometimes hyperalert to the constant potential of threat to their safety and thereby constantly suspicious of a civilian’s presence in the area, as well as any actions or activities the police officer believes are inconsistent with what is normal. By contrast, the citizen may believe the officer is intruding into private affairs without reason, violating their constitutional rights, or otherwise interjecting themselves unnecessarily into their personal lives. This leads to friction and often improper policing because the officer sees the civilian population as a threat and not to be trusted. In other words, “As a profession, we have veered away from Sir Robert Peel’s ideal where ‘the police are the people, and the people are the police,’ toward a culture and mindset more like warriors at war with the people we are sworn to protect and serve. (Rahr & Rice, 2015, p. 1)

Law enforcement officers are responsible for the protection and safety of their constituents. The officer’s badge serves as a symbol of public trust and confidence in their abilities to be fair, unbiased, and nonjudgmental. They are not “at war” with the community, the exception being in some isolated circumstances where certain criminal factions may individually or collectively target officers. While recognizing that officers who are simply doing their job may be the target of violent individuals or extremists, clearly the police officer must always be vigilant, alert for potential confrontation, and tactically prepared. Striking a balance between the need for community protection tactics with that of training officers for survival is a shared responsibility of the police training academies and the departmental policies of the officer. Preparedness levels, however, must be effectively balanced with the public service mission and empathetic functions expected by the vast majority of the community served. One key to achieve this balance is through situational awareness. The police officer must be keenly aware of their environment at all times and capable of instantly switching from friendly and approachable to a higher level of tactics when perceiving and acknowledging a threat. In that way, the police can contribute to the service of safety, protection, and stewardship of the public peace.

THE “US vs. THEM” MENTALITY

In the civilian world, turf wars by street gangs or other criminal groups often mimic what is seen in military experiences. Officers operating in intense, seemingly relentless shifts in areas where criminal activity is the norm and contacts are routinely high-risk affairs often believe that the conditions they experience fosters an "us vs. them" attitude. This perception reinforces in police recruits that they are supportive of the police and that they do not identify with the rest of the population (Boivin et al., 2020). This mindset often creates in police officers a dominance posture over the marginalized populations they serve. If allowed to flourish, the “us vs. them” mentality may evolve into shortcutting or disregarding policy, alienating constituents and, in extreme cases, extending into criminal activities or ethical breaches. Police administrators must take great care in effectively managing and correcting these behaviors in order to prevent the “us vs. them” attitude from gaining a foothold in the department’s patrol operation. To be clear, an “us vs. them” mentality has no place in civilian policing.

BIAS-BASED POLICING

Bias is a collection of attitudes, behaviors, and actions that are prejudiced in favor of or against one person or a group compared to another. What places implicit bias in a unique category is that it is based on an unconscious association, typically as a result of one’s life experiences and source of knowledge. People often impulsively react to or attribute certain qualities or characteristics to all members of a particular group without any rational or empirical basis. This is known as stereotyping. One outcome from stereotyping is labeling, which may be positive or negative depending on the label assigner’s bias viewpoint.

Bias has been the focus of research for many psychologists and sociologists. One famous psychological study of bias was conducted by Muller and Lyer, who created the well-known illusion below (Cherry, 2023). Look at the illusion  and decide which of the three lines is the longest.

You probably think the middle line is the longer of the three. In reality, all three lines are of equal length. The reason you may have concluded that one line is longer than the others is that you were influenced in a systematic manner by the arrows at the end of the lines (i.e., you are biased), even though you did not intend to be influenced or might have wanted to avoid being influenced by the arrows (i.e., the bias is implicit). Modern research on implicit bias expanded on this study by finding that people can be biased implicitly not only by arrows but also by social elements in our environments, elements indicative of the social group to which others belong (e.g., skin color). When viewed in this manner, implicit bias is a normal behavioral phenomenon. It happens to everyone all the time. (De Houwer, 2019, paras. 6-7)

Implicit bias involves the unconscious, unknowing differential treatment of other persons based on a number of discriminatory factors including, but not limited to, race, color, age, gender, nationality, disability and religion (Sunstein & Jolls, 2006). Associated with this are culturally learned associations that may compete, and even conflict, with our own conscious beliefs. From the point of view of morality, the topic of implicit social bias is controversial. Most of us do our best to demonstrate that we are free from implicit biases. For example, we hire the person best suited for the job. We might take steps to show we are not influenced by certain factors and would find it undesirable to be so swayed. Others argue that implicit bias is overrated and perhaps justified. Scientists are even in disagreement over how implicit bias is measured and what the foundational mechanisms of implicit bias are (De Houwer, 2019).

Some of the most cutting-edge work being conducted to reduce implicit bias in the police is taking place at Washington State University under the guidance of Dr. Lois James. Some critics of police responses that led to officer-involved shootings have pushed a narrative that the police by and large have unconscious biases against persons of color. In carrying out her studies, Dr. James identified cognition, threat recognition, and response speed in police officers suffering from fatigue (2024). She opted to conduct testing on a group of police officers selected after screening using Harvard University’s Implicit Association Test (IAT). In the study, the officers were subjected to a realistic stimulus in a high-definition use-of-force simulator designed to measure “shoot/no-shoot” decision-making. The study results indicated that the vast majority of officers, each with varying levels of fatigue and calls-for-service histories, showed implicit bias against African Americans when considering recognition of threats. An example of this was when an officer recognized a firearm in possession of a suspect in the simulator exercise. Dr. James also attributed cognitive dissonance to officer delays in responding to threats. Cognitive dissonance is a thought process in which information is provided that may be contradictory or inconsistent with existing information or patterns, causing a reevaluation of the existing information (Stark, 2021, as cited in James, 2024).

When multiple numbers of a work group, workforce, agency, or other collection of people engage in implicit bias, it can become institutional bias if permitted to continue. In the worst scenarios, conspiracies between two or more individuals are developed targeting individuals or groups at whom the bias is focused. In some cases, clandestine organizations or clubs are formed by like-minded individuals who intimidate or harm those who are selected as bias targets. Institutional bias has no place at any level of the administration of justice. It requires peers, supervisors, leadership, internal affairs, and the community to work toward its elimination. If the conduct rises to criminal behavior, prosecution and sentencing of those involved should be carried out swiftly with the purpose of demonstrating that bias will not be tolerated in public safety occupations so closely linked to their communities.

Attributions

1. Figure 7.4: Community Policing by Mike Dunford is released under CC BY-NC 2.0
2. Figure 7.5: Citizens Police Review Board Meeting by KOMUnews is released under CC BY 2.0
3. Figure 7.6: Muller-Lyon Illusion by Nicholas Malara, for WA Open ProfTech, © SBCTC, CC BY 4.0