Black Lives Matter, the grassroots organization founded in 2012 after the heinous killing of Trayvon Martin by a white neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida has released a blueprint policy that will end police brutalities across the United States.
The policy dubbed Campaign Zero is a ten listed demands that hope to end police killings of citizens by limiting police interventions, improving community interactions, and ensuring accountability through collective efforts of all citizens.
The group is said to have been meeting some of the US’s Presidential hopefuls and has presented the following as a detailed policy to be implemented to end the recklessness of the law enforcement agencies in the US.
1. End broken-windows policing
Broken windows policing refers to the theory that if you do not go after minor crimes (i.e. broken windows), then it sends the community a message that they can get away with more serious crimes. Campaign Zero has it that this form of policing disproportionately affects minorities and that there are countless examples to prove this. The group says Police killed at least 287 people last year who were involved in minor offenses and harmless activities like sleeping in parks, possessing drugs, looking “suspicious” or having a mental health crisis.
The group states that less than 1 in every 12 complaints of police misconduct nationwide results in some kind of disciplinary action against the officer(s) responsible. They say communities need an urgent way to ensure police officers are held accountable for police violence. Therefore, Campaign Zero proposes establishing a civilian-run commission that can make recommendations for discipline following a civilian complaint of police misconduct. According to the group, this is better than allowing law enforcement officers to investigate themselves as such investigations are not independent.
Campaign Zero wants officers only to be allowed to use deadly force when there is an imminent threat to the officer’s life or the life of another person. Currently, officers can use deadly force when they perceive a deadly threat. The group gives a statistics that last year alone, police killed at least 268 unarmed people and 91 people who were stopped for mere traffic violations. They argue that this policy is a solution to restrict the police from using excessive force in everyday interactions with civilians.
4. Independent investigation and prosecution
Campaign Zero calls for state governments to establish independent prosecutors who will investigate instances of police violence and killings. This is to avoid conflicts of interest. Local prosecutors rely on local police departments to gather the evidence and testimony they need to successfully prosecute criminals. This makes it hard for them to investigate and prosecute the same police officers in cases of police violence.
The campaigners call for police departments to be more representative of the communities they serve by having proportional amounts of women and people of color on board as staff. They say while white men represent less than one third of the US population, they make up about two thirds of the US police officers. Therefore, the current police system is not reflecting the cultural, racial and gender diversity of the country.
6. Body cameras & filming the police
The activists say body cameras and cell phone video have illuminated cases of police violence and have shown to be important tools for holding officers accountable. They hold that every case where a police officer has been charged with a crime for killing a civilian this year has relied on video evidence showing the officer’s actions. Campaign Zero therefore wants all police officers to be equipped with body cameras and for police to be banned from seizing recording devices from civilians.
7. Training
The campaigners argue that police recruits spend 58 hours learning how to shoot firearms and only 8 hours learning how to de-escalate situations. Again, the intensive training regime needed to help police officers learn the behaviors and skills to interact appropriately with communities is missing. Campaign Zero suggests that police officers should be made to undergo training four times a year on a variety of issues including racial bias or prejudice, community interaction, crisis intervention, and de-escalation of situations.
Campaign Zero recommends police departments do away with quotas for tickets and arrests as well as limit fines and fees for low-income people and have stricter standards for civil forfeiture. They also advocate for the total ban of generating more than 10% of total municipal revenue from fines and fees from civilians.
The activists call for the end to the federal government’s 1033 program that provides military weapons to local police departments. The say that last year, militarized SWAT teams killed at least 38 people across the country. The group also says there should be greater restrictions on police departments attempting to purchase and use military grade equipment.
The campaigners say police union contracts have given police unions too much influence and give officers too much protection in the instances of misconduct. They suggest that officers should not wait for 48 hours or more before being interrogated after an incident, avoid preventing investigators from pursuing other cases of misconduct revealed during an investigation among others which will remove barriers that work against civilians.
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