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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VI. Justice - 25. The Police and Other Public Contacts - 4. Trends and Outlook
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544 An American Dilemma
4. Trends and Outlook
There are, however, some encouraging signs of change in the police
systems of the South. The civil service system seems to be on the increase
even in the South. This will tend to lower the age level and raise the
educational level of persons appointed to the police force. It will also
increase the independence of the police officers. Another factor is the grow-
ing influence of the federal police system.
The F.B.I. is giving real stimulus to better-trained police personnel; many of the
larger communities which have not yet set up training schools report that members
of their staff are now taking the F.B.I. training course and upon their return will
develop a local training school. This approach will in the course of a few years
include all the cities of any size.^®
The increase and improvement of the state police systems likewise tends
to raise the standards of Southern policemanship and to set patterns for
local police systems. The general influences of education, urbanization, and
industrialization also are tending to modernize the administration of local
governments in the South. Finally, the new functions of the policemen
—
answering questions for tourists, helping school children cross the streets,
and so on—may serve as a humanizing force tending to counteract the
stultifying effects of catching and beating criminals.®
The present writer has, from his contact with the Southern police system,
become convinced that it represents a crucial and strategic factor in race
relations. Could standards be raised—of education, specialized police train-
ing, independence of local politics, salary, and social prestige—some of the
most morbid tensions in the South would be lessened. Legislators now
take it for granted that teachers and social workers ought to have a college
degree 5
a college education should be even more urgently required for
fulfilling the duties of a folice officerJ“^ The policeman needs, besides
a general education, a special training to make Kim a professionaJ. This
training should not be directed only on the technicalities of crime detection.
Even more important is an understanding of the wider aims of crime
^ Ibid.y p. 19.
, . assistance in crossing streets is provided for Negro school children in scarcely 10
per cent of the communities in such representative Southern states as Arkansas, Mississippi,
Alabama, Georgia, and the Carol inas, as reported by 88 Negro high school principals in these
states. We noted above the friendly relations that develop between the school child and
the policeman. When the typical chief of police was faced squarely with the question why it
would not be a good thing to provide this avenue of understanding for Negro school
children, who come from the highest crime sections in the city, the only answer was that he
had not thought about it. Some rather haltingly suggested it could not be worked out because
the Negro child would not be accepted in the same cordial fashion as the white child. One
wonders, however, whether this is true. If it is, it further emphasizes the need for Negro
policemen.” {Ibid.^ p.
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