The disproportionate numbers of black, brown and disenfranchised Americans that are over-policed fundamentally will not change if we only focus on tactics and training without acknowledging the structural and systemic racism that policing in America is responsible for.

The over-incarceration of black and brown Americans and ostensibly criminalizing being poor are inequities ingrained in American policing that cannot simply be trained out of the hearts of the 1.5 million plus law enforcement officers that work in over 19,000 different police agencies across the United States of America.

I would submit to you that after 33 years in law enforcement; I joined the Detroit Police Department at 19 years old with the noblest of intentions as I would opine that the millions of Americans that have served in that capacity have done and will continue to do as they heed to the call of serving their communities.

At the age of 52 I realize that even with the noblest of intentions of police officers in America; we are surreptitiously the instrumentation that enforces the structural and at times exacerbates the social inequities of systemic racism that starts with the first organized police forces in America; slave patrols to Bull Connor to the War on Drugs; the Omnibus Crime bill to the seminal moment in our history where America witnessed a tipping point moment when George Floyd was murdered by four Minneapolis police officers right in front of what had been for 401 years our proverbial lying eyes.

Any meaningful reform of the criminal justice system as it relates to the engagement protocols for police and communities of color to address the disproportionate contact and over-policing of these communities minimally must address and correct the following:

These measures are in no way all-inclusive of comprehensive criminal justice reform, however, structurally reframes how in a meaningful way the disproportionate benefit of the doubt that has been extended to law enforcement over the persistent and righteous calls to equitable treatment of people of color and the disenfranchised by police.

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Matthew Henson

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