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1342 An American Dilemma
Though nearly all responsible Negro people want better police services in their com-
munities, they do not commonly agree that the picking up of people for trivial offenses
is desirable. They expect the police officers to be quite discriminating and perhaps to
use more insight than they have, for from the white policeman’s point of view, Negro
gangs must be broken up upon sight or there is likelihood that banter will be challenged
by heavy threats, and somebody fatally wounded with a razor, ice pick, or pistol.”*
“It is a common belief of many whites that Negroes will respond only to violent
methods. In accordance with their theory of the ‘animal-like’ nature of the Negro, they
believe that the formal punishments of fines and imprisonment fail to act as deterrents
to crime.”*’
“Much of the beating of Negroes by the police is based on the general belief that
formal punishments by fine or jail sentence fail to act as deterrents to Negro criminals.
This belief is combined with the feeling that legal technicalities frequently prevent
Negro lawbreakers from being punished through the courts. Thus, the police tend to
revert to direct action and to administer punishment themselves. They claim that their
action is justified because it reduces crime.”®
2* Raper, of. cU.y p. 35.
In the North, there is much killing of Negroes by the police, but it seems to be
more a part of the regular warfare against criminals than it is an expression of race
prejudice. It is the present writer’s impression that brutality other than killing is much
less common in the North than in the South. It is to be regretted that no quantitative
information is available on police brutality other than killing.
Raper, of. cit., pp. 52-53. Compare i^td.y p. 35.
For substantiation, see ilid.y pp. 41-52.
md., p. Si.
W. E. B. Du Bois sums up the situation thus:
“These districts are not usually protected by the police—^rather victimized and
tyrannized over by them. No one who does not know can realize what tyranny a low-
grade white policeman can exercise In a colored neighborhood. In court his unsupported
word cannot be disputed and the only defense against him is often mayhem and
assassination by black criminals, with resultant hue and cry.”**
^®U.S. Bureau of the Census, ’Negroes in the United States: jg2o^igs2y pp. 322-
324; and Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Pofulatiany Vol. IV, Table 13.
The census figures for the South do not include Negro women officers who are, how-
ever, few in number,
Raper, of. cit.y p. 27.
^^lhid.y p. 18.
“The Universities of North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and perhaps other states
sponsor institutes for police officers.” {Ibid.y p. 18.)
I have been made aware that this recommendation seems utopian. Even most
Northern police systems are far from reaching this standard. But considering both the
very large proportion of all young men who go through college and the high crime rate
which makes the police so particularly important in America, it seems to the foreign
• Ihid.y pp, 22-23.
**
Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit.y p. 46.
® Ibid.y p. 502.
^ Dusk of Dawn (1940), pp. 182-183.
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