Commodifying Policing: A Recipe for Community-Police Tensions

Deadly police-citizen encounters do not occur in a vacuum.They reflect our times and our society. Since the fatal shooting ofMichael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the nation's attention hasbeen riveted on police killings. In small towns and large cities,virtually all of the victims have been African-American. In somecases, the fatal encounters led to riots.

Large-scale investigationsby the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division have providedinsight into some of the incidents.Deadly police actions against citizens can be viewed as aninternal police problem,' as a symbol of larger societal challenges,especially racism, or as a function of failed criminal justicepolicies. On a yet larger scale, police actions, and the ensuingcommunity response, are intimately tied to the dominant politicaland economic climate. In many parts of the country decreasedfunding for vital governmental functions, especially since therecession of 2008, has shaped police enforcement goals and tactics.Those have contributed to the deterioration of community-policerelations and the civilian death toll at the hands of police.