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On the Verge of Civil War: the Need for Scholarship on Police in an Era of Rising Extremism

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On the Verge of Civil War: the Need for Scholarship on Police in an Era of Rising Extremism VOLUME 22, ISSUE 2, PAGES I – V (2021) Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society E-ISSN 2332-886X Available online at https://scholasticahq.com/criminology-criminal-justice-law-society/ On the Verge of Civil War: The Need for Scholarship on Police in an Era of Rising Extremism Foreword by Randy Blazak Historians will likely spend countless pages current events. With the advent of the internet, comparing 2020 to 1968. Both years saw large scale countless “news” websites have emerged, catering to urban protests, some violent, as America wrestled with every conceivable niche interest group, include neo- its journey to both maintain and dismantle its own Nazis. The rhetoric of extremist right wing ideologies internalized racist culture. Importantly, 1968 was also proliferated on both easily accessible websites as well the year the Johnson Administration released the as the “dark web.” As legitimate news sources were report of the Kerner Commission. The report, The branded “fake news,” Americans sought out Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (President’s information outlets that reinforced their pre-existing Commission, 1968), found that the catalysts for the narratives, often legitimizing stories authored by self- “race riots” that took place in 159 cities during the proclaimed journalists. These news silos ended the “long, hot summer” of 1967 were primarily police common frame of reference and replaced the news brutality and racism. Both years were also marked by landscape with competing narratives. This was most a presidential election in which the rhetoric of “law evident in 2020 when the reporting around the and order” was utilized to rally the support of racially coronavirus pandemic was transformed from a public fearful white voters, as suburban white voters were health story, affecting all Americans, into a political urged to support crack downs on America’s “urban issue, leading many conservative news consumers to jungles.” proclaim the virus a “hoax” and the vaccine effort a While 1968 and 2020 had many parallels, “socialist power grab.” like political pundits pitting civil rights protesters The other component of the media difference (“Black lives”) against the police (“Blue lives”), there is the predominance of social media platforms. There were many differences as well, two stand in glaring was no Twitter, Facebook, Parler, Gab or Reddit in contrast to the dramatic upheaval of the 1960s. 1968. The ability of anti-government conspiracy The first difference is the nature of the media theories to spread has exploded as people share landscape. In 1968, news seekers had three television evidence of the “stolen election” or proof that climate networks (and PBS) and their local newspaper to change is “liberal hysteria” on their Facebook pages. consume daily events. The flow of daily information This global web of individuals opened the door for came mostly through Walter Cronkite’s nightly manipulation by foreign actors, like Russia, and the broadcast on the CBS Evening News. Whether it was rapid dissemination of QAnon-like disinformation. reporting from the war in Vietnam or the riots in The combination of news silos and social media Watts, Americans had a common frame of reference to spreading disinformation, misinformation, and wild © 2021 Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society and The Western Society of Criminology Hosting by Scholastica. All rights reserved. ii BLAZAK conspiracy theories has created both distrust in persistence of racial inequities in policing has ignited mainstream institutions and increased political calls to “defund the police” and shift resources to polarity in the populace. Walter Cronkite’s “and that’s community crime prevention, including funding the way it is,” has been transformed into “and that’s mental health and homeless services. This campaign the way I say it is.” to “re-imagine” policing has been framed as a conflict The other major difference from 1968 is the between “Black lives” and “Blue lives” by the right social and cultural evolution that occurred in those 52 and brought back the demands for “law and order” years. One of the recommendations from the Kerner policing that were championed by Richard Nixon in Commission was that police departments reflect the 1968. communities they police. President Johnson had Comparisons between Richard Nixon in 1968 signed the executive order launching Affirmative and Donald Trump in 2020 aside, the social conflict Action (EO 11246) in 1965, but Kerner pushed police around race in policing has generated similar issues departments to hire more minority officers. In 1970, with regard to extremism. While we think of the 1960s African-Americans made up only 6 percent of all as the era of the “new left” and the student anti-war sworn police officers. By the early 2000s, 18 percent movement, the decade also saw the rise of George of officers were Black. And in larger cities, 20 percent Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party. The same of officers were Black and 14 percent were Latino. In decade saw the right-wing John Birch Society position 2005, for the first time, the majority of new officers in itself against everything from hippies to sex-education New York City were from minority racial and ethnic and water fluoridation, framing each as a “communist backgrounds (Sklansky, 2006). While some of the Bull plot.” In America, the Ku Klux Klan were burning Conner tactics that were common in 1968 may still Beatles records and in Britain the (not initially racist) remain, police departments were demographically skinheads were forming as a hyper-masculine different 2020. working-class response to the youth counterculture. The civil unrest that followed the 2014 police All set the stage for the street conflicts between Proud killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri also Boys and Antifa we’ve experienced so far in the resulted in massive calls for police reform. A 2015 2020s. federal investigation found that the Ferguson Police In the realm of scholarship there are also stark Department regularly engaged in unconstitutional differences with 1968. As researchers turned their stops and arrests of Black civilians and engage in attention to the role reform plays in communities excessive force in those communities. The ripples of plagued by crime, the practice of policing became the reform included an end of the “stop and frisk” tactic subject of much analysis. For example, research on de- by New York City police the routinely targeted Black escalation was employed by police on Portland, and Brown people. Additionally the report, completed Oregon during the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in March, 2015, highlighted what has become known in 2011, providing a dramatic contrast to the tactics as the Ferguson Effect. This refers to the increase in used by Chicago police at the 1968 Democratic violent crime rates resulting from community distrust Convention. Other areas of research that have been and hostility towards local police departments arising folded into policy by law enforcement departments from histories of discriminatory practices. include community policing, use of force, use of body Reforms in law enforcement, including the cameras, community-police engagement, and police, utilization of community policing and the recruitment guardian and Crisis Intervention Team training. The of female officers (12.8 percent of all officers in 2020), utilization of this scholarship, long with efforts to had their roots in the unrest of the 1960s. Municipal, address DEI issues within police departments, provide county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies evidence of the changing nature of the culture of now have institutionalized diversity, equity, and policing (Helfgott, 2020) stands in contrast to the inclusion (DEI) practices in their policies and “Bull Connor” tactics that were common in 1968. practices. In 2020, Texas required all officers in the While the research that has encouraged state to receive training on implicit bias. As a result of moving police practices to towards more community President Obama’s 2015 Task Force on 21st Century responsive approaches became the focus of much Policing, twenty-nine states now mandate de- public attention in 2020, the work on the relationship escalation training for all police (Stockton, 2021). One between law enforcement and extremism remained an of the six pillars of the reform supported by the task understudied area. This issue began to receive more force, “Office Training and Wellness,” included a attention before the events of 2020. In 2019, in one of recommendation for mandatory Crisis Intervention may similar cases, the Philadelphia police department Training (CIT), which would prepare officers to put seventy-two police officers on leave (and appropriately deal with individuals in crisis, including dismissed 13) because of racist Facebook posts those needing mental health resources. However, the (MacFarquhar, 2021). The presence of officers Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society – Volume 22, Issue 2 ON THE VERGE OF CIVIL WAR iii subscribing to right-wing beliefs was normative in novel written by white supremacist William Pierce. 1968. (The Georgia town I grew up in had police The book follows a small band of “racial patriots” as officers show where known members of the Ku Klux they launch a second American revolution to wrestle Klan.) The current social climate rejects extremist America from global Jewish control. McVeigh, activity in law enforcement as contrary to the public followed the Diaries playbook, intending the mission of contemporary policing. This was evident in Oklahoma City bombing to inspire his “brothers in the response to the presence of sworn police officers arms” in the white power movement (as he described who participated in the storming of the U.S. Capitol them shortly before his 2001 execution) to rise up and building in 2021. begin a race war. McVeigh has served as an inspiration to other Gaging the Threat of Extremist Violence like minded racial patriots. His devotees include, The January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S.
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