Click to go to the Subscriber Log In Page
Go to menu with buttons for all pages on BC
Click here to go to the Home Page
Est. April 5, 2002
 
           
September 07 & 14, 2017 - Hurricane Irene Combo - Issue 711

Bookmark and Share

Racial Support for Proposed
New Jersey Police Class (A1114):
Analysis and Discussion



"Prior to and during the creation of this lawmaking,
there were no town hall meetings held to solicit input
from constituents... Since it was passed unanimously
by the New Jersey Assembly during the early summer
of 2017, AB1114 has generated controversy
throughout the nation with numerous publications
weighing in against it."


The Farrell Report spent the month of August 2017 polling in New Jersey Counties with size able concentrations of people of color--Essex, Passaic, Bergen, Camden, Hudson, Mercer, and Union--and communicating with key informants who lead grassroots community organizations and a cross section of rank-and-file minority and majority citizens on their assessments of the proposed legislation for the class, AB1114, which is designed to instruct K-12 students on how to act when they have encounters with police. This is a response to the escalating number of police shootings and assaults of males (and females) of color. There was a special emphasis on cities where these events have been most frequent--Newark, Irvington, Atlantic City, Trenton, Bridgeton, Camden, and Paterson.

The findings indicate that minorities feel blindsided by the seven Democratic African American and Hispanic Assemblywomen who are the primary sponsors of this odious bill. Prior to and during the creation of this lawmaking, there were no town hall meetings held to solicit input from constituents in any of the aforementioned counties and cities. Since it was passed unanimously by the New Jersey Assembly during the early summer of 2017, AB1114 has generated controversy throughout the nation with numerous publications weighing in against it. However, police officers and their devotees overwhelmingly endorsed this effort across the nation and in New Jersey where two major police organizations were recruited to assist in developing the curriculum. The results are presented below along with a discussion of their implications.

Figure 1 shows that among New Jersey’s major racial groups, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians all registered approval levels of eight, six, and five percent, respectively. Comparatively, eighty-five percent of Whites backed the bill which is consistent with their overall support of police officers irrespective of their questionable actions in the line of duty.


This stark contrast between Whites and minority groups can be explained in part by the fact that more than ninety percent of all disputed police attacks and killings have been experienced by males and females of color throughout New Jersey. Therefore, there was little reason for Whites to have concerns about these issues. Moreover, the prevailing view in the majority community is that minorities are primarily at fault for their victimization by police officers who are seen as always acting in good faith. Thus, the predominant opinion among many is that a good way to ameliorate these situations is to teach K-12 students, mostly students of color, how to interact with police, total deference if you will, largely ignoring their own rights during these conflicts. In other words, instruction of students, not improved training of police officers to become culturally and socially competent, is the answer to this accelerating police-community crisis.

Lawrence Hamm, Chairman of Peoples Organization for Progress (POP), New Jersey’s premier grassroots advocacy group for social justice, believes this legislation indicates that “… it would be the fault of teachers if police continue to kill and assault our youth because they would have failed to provide effective instruction for students to show the proper respect and deference.” Hence, teachers would be assigned yet another task in addition to already being held accountable, via Student Growth Objectives (SGOs) and PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) tests, to provide high quality education to overcome poverty, hunger, neighborhood violence, family dysfunction, homelessness, etc. Figure 2 was constructed based on focus group reactions. In addition, in response to ongoing police brutality in New Jersey, Chairman Hamm and his POP members have led demonstrations in remembrance of Abdul Kamal, Jerome Reid, Kashad Asford, Radazz Hearns, and others for eighty-five straight Mondays to bring attention to these targets of problematic police behavior.

 

Several respondents viewed AB1114 as giving police officers the license to engage in any behavior that popped into their mind. They also felt that President Trump encouraged rough treatment of people in police custody during his July 29, 2017 comments to the Suffolk County, New York Police Department (SCPD), saying that, “When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, like don’t hit their head? They just killed somebody, don’t hit their head? I said you can take the hand away (sic).” Nonetheless, to their credit, police chiefs in New York and around the world condemned Trump’s remarks, calling them unprofessional and stating that they sent the wrong message to law enforcement and the general public.

Despite solid Assembly backing of AB1114, it is unlikely to pass into law before 2018, if ever. The reason for it being delayed and/or scuttled in the New Jersey Senate is that the state’s gubernatorial election is only two months away, November 7, 2017. Phil Murphy, the Democratic candidate for Governor, quietly used his influence in the Senate, controlled by his Democratic colleagues, to sideline the planned statute whose lead sponsor is his Lt. Governor running mate, Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver. Murphy was concerned that the growing controversy around AB1114 could negatively impact minority voter turnout among Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians given their robust opposition to the bill as noted in Figure 1. As a consequence, he wants to keep it out of public discourse.

Irrespective of his double-digit lead over his Republican opponent, current Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, and a projected certain victory, Murphy could be in danger of losing in the last days of the campaign as did Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. A Democrat cannot win a statewide election in New Jersey unless s/he receives the overwhelming share of the minority vote with a turnout commensurate with the statewide average. Nevertheless, Murphy has been helped by Guadagno’s refusal to condemn Republican Assemblyman Parker Space for recently posing with his wife in front of a Confederate flag. Murphy accused Guadagno of failing the test to lead by equivocating in her response to Assemblyman Space’s action.

It remains to be seen, however, whether negative minority attitudes toward AB1114 will affect minority turnout in the November 7th election. Hillary garnered the overwhelming share of the African American, Hispanic, and Asian vote in 2016, but she did not get corresponding minority turnout in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania which would have made her Madam President.

On the other hand, this legislation should never have been introduced in the first place.


links to all 20 parts of the opening series


BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Walter C. Farrell, Jr., PhD, MSPH, is a Fellow of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado-Boulder and has written widely on vouchers, charter schools, and public school privatization. He has served as Professor of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and as Professor of Educational Policy and Community Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Contact Dr. Farrell. 


Bookmark and Share

 
 

 

 

is published every Thursday
Executive Editor:
David A. Love, JD
Managing Editor:
Nancy Littlefield, MBA
Publisher:
Peter Gamble









Perry NoName: A Journal From A Federal Prison-book 1
Ferguson is America: Roots of Rebellion by Jamala Rogers