One of the Black Lives Matter leaders commented that in order to solve this problem of racism and racial discrimination leading to unfair treatment of black people by police officers, we need more community policing. Sure, that makes sense, but could that really solve the problem? In the past, it has cleaned up crime, but it has also led to the capture of more criminals and thus a larger prison and prison population. Still, there has been quite a bit of research on this subject and I would like to point out a very smart book to read on this subject, the book is:

“From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime” by Elizabeth Hinton, Harvard University Press, Boston MA, 464 pages, May 2016, 978-0674737235. By the way, there is a great YouTube video with the author by the CSPAN TV Book Review Program, I definitely recommend it and then read the book after you see it.

In the book, Elizabeth Hinton reminds us of the romantic notion that the police live in the district, the community they police. We all think this is a smart policy, but one that is rarely used in our modern American society. Why? If it works, why aren’t we doing this? The truth is; in many cities in the United States we already are. In fact, the city of Baltimore does, and yet they still had a big problem there with the shooting of a black man, while he was on the run from the police. This book and recommended philosophy of community policing also directly relates to the Dallas shootings and the pot boiling over race relations, police robotics, gun control, Black Lives Matter protests.

The question remains; if community policing is the key, then why have a top-down set of federal government guidelines and federal government intervention every time someone claims a shooting was race-based and without motive? If we have community policing, shouldn’t it be the community that decides, not the media or the federal government?

Yes, that’s right, I offer more questions than answers, but these are the hard questions we need to ask ourselves before we allow the Administration or the media to overplay events and cause more protests, leading to more riots, more vandalism, more shootings. and more racial tensions in this great nation. I ask you to please consider all this and think about it.