This week’s presenter was Detective Edward Gillespie, of the education and training division who gave us a bit of background into the historical practices of the department.

“They were individual arrests, and oftentimes of the same people again and again and again,” O’Malley said. “We achieved the biggest reduction in . . . crime of any city in America, and none of it was easy. All of it was hard. But there were very few people who want to return to those violent days of 1999.” — Washington Post

Zero tolerance and broken windows policing are police strategies first used in New York, and widely used in the 1980’s and 1990’s in Baltimore, and the U.S. in general. At its peak, over 100,000 people were arrested per year in Baltimore, which was almost 20% of the population. These police methods are still used in some cities but are highly controversial, leading many cities to enact reforms. The general premise behind these methods was that that if we are able to arrest people for minor infractions such as vandalism, loitering and public intoxication, we can help enforce an atmosphere where there is respect for the law, and larger crimes like homicide, assault, and robberies would be reduced.

The quote from above was from Martin O’Malley in 2015 when he was running for president. He was a huge proponent for zero tolerance policing, and while there was a positive impact on the homicide rate in the city during that time, there were many unintended consequences that ended with the city, and the nation, moving away from zero tolerance.

One of the biggest issues is that it pits the police against the community. As an officer, you basically have no discretion to decide whether to give a kid a ticket for jaywalking, and are seen as the bad guy looking for a reason to issue a ticket or make an arrest. Think about it from the officer’s position: they are getting pressure from the department and then getting hate from the community at the same time. What a terrible situation to be in.

It also colors an officer’s view of the community when their job is to act as the bad guy and treat everyone like a criminal. Policing then becomes less about making the city a safer place through community policing and partnering with citizens, and more about ‘us vs them’.

Methods like this also have lasting effects on communities and families. Our presenter, Detective Edward Gillespie, told a story about a teenager caught for possessing drugs, but who was very nonchalant about being arrested because the situation was such a normal way of life for him. If everyone in your family has been in and out of jail for small infractions, over and over, then being arrested is no longer a big deal. That is a terrible situation for our community to be in.

There was a reduction in violent crime, but that reduction continued after zero tolerance ended. Detective Gillespie cited a policy that reversed it, but I could not find an official order or statement.

Detective Gillespie ended with an anecdote illustrating the kinds of interactions he would prefer to have. He was called to a house because the parents couldn’t get their kids out of bed, and when he arrived, there were kids walking around with full diapers and a dirty house. The point he was trying to make was that as an officer, he could have just left the call as there was no crime being committed (he did not indicate that the children were neglected or abused). Instead, he used that as a situation where the police were able to assist the community, and have a positive interaction. He said that is the direction the department wants to take toward better community relations.

My Takeaway

It’s easy to take Detective Gillespie’s comments as empty promises that things have changed. It’s also easy for someone who was caught doing something wrong to say they’ve been rehabilitated. Honestly, I am not sure how we measure these changes, as I am not sure how you measure the goodwill between the community and the police force. If arrests are down since the 90’s, does that mean crime is down, or does it mean that the police are looking past people dealing drugs and carrying guns?

Additionally, there are probably BPD officers with deep-seated racism that they bring to work. Police are given a lot of leeway while working in the community, and the prejudices of some police and the mistrust within the community can be very much at odds.

I am hopeful that the backing away from official zero tolerance policy, coupled with the consent decree, will make a significant change in the department. However, I am also worried there might be enough widespread corruption that makes real change hard to enact.