Kayla Washington

Reflective Writing Portfolio

Professor Hampton

March 22, 2018

Police Reform

In order to find a way to stop police brutality, the history of policing in America must be

understood first. The police system that we have today has its roots in slave patrols and night

watches. Both of these forms of policing were created to control the behaviors of minorities.

Slave patrollers were referred to as “patter rollers” which were organized groups of white men,

who enforced discipline upon black slaves. The patrollers duties included: "apprehending

runaways, monitoring the rigid pass requirements for blacks traversing the countryside, breaking

up large gatherings and assemblies of blacks, visiting and searching slave quarters randomly,

inflicting impromptu punishments, and as occasion arose, suppressing insurrections."1 All of

these duties sound similar to the duties of modern police when it comes to dealing with suspects

of a crime, but reveal the sinister nature of policing in American culture. Understanding African

American history and American history, in general, gives insight on the current predicament of

policing in America and how it can possibly be reformed.

The first instance of policing slaves were slaveholders during chattel slavery. According

to Many Thousands Gone, by Ira Berlin, “Slaveholders discovered much of value in supremacist

ideology. The inferiority of black people confirmed the necessity, if not the benevolence, of

mastership.” Berlin goes on to say that slaveholders promoted the “most humane—place for

1
Hadden, Sally E. (2001). Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. Harvard University Press.
black people was under the watchful supervision of a white master.” This “supremacist

ideology” created the idea and standard that it was a necessity for blacks to be policed because

they were thought to be sub-human compared to whites. The culture Berlin describes only

continued through slavery and manifested into other forms of policing that are embedded in our

policing system today.

Patrollers did not stop once slavery ended and continued post-Civil War. White

Southerners were still worried about the black population and particularly those that were

resistant. Instead of these groups being called patrollers, they morphed into the infamous Ku

Klux Klan, known for terrorizing African Americans. From the perspective of white Southerners,

who just had lost a war to the North, private citizens were needed to take matters into their own

hands, since the North refused to prosecute freedmen who broke laws.2 Although it is assumed

that this form of policing only occurred in the South, the Northern police departments were

formed on the same model pioneered by the South. Most officers were taught to maintain order

through the use of violence, which is why there was extreme brutality perpetuated against the

black community. This brutality has manifested into the police brutality we see today, which is

why it is a necessity for America to recognize the racism that built our police system.

Proving that any instance of police brutality is directly linked to officer prejudice can be

difficult; however, implicit bias plays some role in the disparity between police interactions with

blacks and whites. Studies from the University of Colorado in 2007 placed officers in

simulations that requested them to identify the objects white and black subjects were holding.3

2
Carter, Stephen L. "Policing and Oppression Have a Long History." Bloomberg View. October 29, 2015. Accessed
January 13, 2017. http://origin-www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-29/policing-and-oppression-have-a-
long-history.
3 James, Tom. "Can Cops Unlearn Their Unconscious Biases?" The Atlantic. December 23, 2017. Accessed March

24, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/implicit-bias-training-salt-lake/548996/.

Once they decided, the officers then chose whether to shoot or not. After repeated trials,

researchers found officers were quicker to decide to shoot black subjects than armed whites and

took significantly longer to spare unarmed blacks. Racial bias crept into these officers’ minds,

despite many denying they possessed any at all. In order to reform the police system, implicit

bias training would play a significant role. This training would consist of not only

acknowledging that prejudices exist, but training enforcement to not act on these subconscious

prejudices.4

The current state of police brutality in America is a social epidemic. Many may question

how our country has gotten to this point, but the reality is America has always been built on the

oppression of racial minorities. The superior ideology whites embedded in the foundation of this

country beginning with slavery, morphed into the terrorism the Ku Klux Klan perpetuated, and

now the implicit bias police officers have. The direct link police brutality has with implicit bias

makes it evident that police brutality will take diligence and hard work to stop. Although there is

no simple solution to erase officers of their prejudices, discussing the history of policing in

America and making officers aware of the implicit bias they have, in hopes of not acting on said

bias, is a start.

4
Chuck, Elizabeth. "'Implicit bias': Can you retrain the brain not to act on prejudices?" NBCNews.com. October 01,
2016. Accessed January 13, 2017. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/can-implicit-bias-training-stop-police-
officers-acting-hidden-prejudice-n656071.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hadden, Sally E. (2001). Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas.
Harvard University Press.

Carter, Stephen L. "Policing and Oppression Have a Long History." Bloomberg View. October
29, 2015. Accessed January 13, 2017. http://origin-www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-
29/policing-and-oppression-have-a-long-history.

James, Tom. "Can Cops Unlearn Their Unconscious Biases?" The Atlantic. December 23, 2017.
Accessed March 24, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/implicit-bias-
training-salt-lake/548996/.

Chuck, Elizabeth. "'Implicit bias': Can you retrain the brain not to act on prejudices?"
NBCNews.com. October 01, 2016. Accessed January 13, 2017.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/can-implicit-bias-training-stop-police-officers-acting-
hidden-prejudice-n656071.