36 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: SEPTEMBER 2017 Continued from page one what behaviors they expect of each other, how to score points and what it means to be considered a “good” player. Policing also has rules and logic that makes cer- tain actions the right things to do and other actions the wrong things. Sociologists like the in- fluential French thinker Pierre Bourdieu argue that the game itself, rather than innate personality traits, shape the worldviews of the players and make them act in a way that fits the logic of the field. This suggests that to understand the behaviors of American police, one must uncover the logic of the “game” they’re playing – policing. In our book, The Vio- lence of Hate: Understanding Harmful Forms of Bias and Bigotry, Jack Levin and I describe how the game of law enforcement produces, in many police officers, a worldview and disposition that puts them at odds with the community. Many police officers remain strangers and ad- versaries to residents rather than partners in keeping neighborhoods safe. Officers are highly suspi- cious of strangers, hyper- vigilant of danger, fixated on sorting the good people from bad and uninterested in the long-term harms to individuals and communi- ties that result from their law enforcement efforts. Police and government leaders wrongly view the current law enforcement practices as a natural way of policing rather than a socially constructed game that can be changed. So what do we know about the way the game is currently played? I worked as a police of- ficer for 13 years and then a sociologist studying police behavior for another 13 years before undertaking a year-long research project in 2014 at my old police department in Wilmington, Delaware. On my return to the profes- sion, I no- ticed that aside from having bet- ter technol- ogy, things had not changed much in terms of what the police were doing. What had grown notice- ably worse, however, were the relationships between the police and minority communities, a situation mirroring the underlying racial tensions in Ferguson, Baltimore and Cleveland, among other U.S. cities at the time. Through the lens of so- ciology, it was clear that Wilmington was focused on the old “law enforce- ment” game. This long tradition was exacerbated by the war on drugs among other poli- cies that overemphasize street-level arrests as a way to improve the quality of life. Status and power in the department were tied tightly to street arrests, gun and drug seizures, and the heroics of “running and gunning,” a catch phrase for chasing down armed criminal suspects. In this hardcore version of the law enforcement game, well-inten- tioned and highly competent officers seemed blind to the consequences of their actions and indifferent to harm it caused. It didn’t seem to matter to them whether a neighbor- hood was ultimately safer following police action, or whether convictions were won in court. It also didn’t seem to matter whether serious crimes like robbery or burglary were ever solved, or whether families and communities would suffer from widespread police sweeps and the disruption of mass arrests. Worse, nobody worried that the broken trust in the police would contribute indirectly to more killings. These things were not part of the logic. The only thing that mat- tered was that “lockups” were made and that guns and drugs were seized. “Community policing” meant placating the com- munity with a few friendly Some people consider the conflict between police and citizens to be a fact of life and something that we can’t change. Others aren’t so sure. Status and power in the department were tied tightly to street arrests, gun and drug seizures, and the heroics of “running and gunning.” Changing the game Changing the game Continued on next page