The criminal justice system is a biased system, and, in fact,
it's a broken system.
And given the fact that we have for years and years
incarcerated individuals in this nation
at a higher rate than any other civilization
and, the fact that the over-representation
of individuals of color in our criminal justice system
holds no truth to the number of people who are actually
committing crimes in this nation indicates it is, in fact,
broken and needs repair.
Imagine if you will, that technology
in the age of policing we look at a big map and we say,
OK, where's the crime occurring in our city or in our nation
or in our state?
And we identify certain areas and say OK, that's
obviously where we are going to put more police officers.
And this has been called many different things--
intelligence-led policing, police on dots.
I mean there's all kinds of fancy acronyms for it.
But, in essence, we are putting police officers
at a higher rate in certain neighborhoods
because of what is perceived as criminal activity.
As our officers go and engage the community,
I don't care what community it is,
and Patricia mentioned that she actually did-- a little comment
in one of her classes that she said, all right, if we've
got police dogs in here, and everyone sniffed everyone
in here, how many of you would end up
going to jail this evening?
Well, I will argue that the same activity,
the same criminal activity, especially when we talk
about possession of drugs, domestic violence, alcohol
abuse, drug use and abuse, that exists and is, in fact,
borne out as true in all communities,
regardless of race, regardless of ethnicity, regardless
of socioeconomic class or status or whatever other category
you want throw out there.
That problem is widespread.
Why then do we, as police officers in the United States,
encounter and incarcerate people of color and, specifically,
people who find themselves in poverty at a higher
rate than anywhere else?
And I will, in fact, say it's because we respond
as to what the perception of crime is,
and we throw more police officers there.
There's more encounters, and so naturally the progression goes,
and we start introducing people into the criminal justice
system unfairly.
And once you are introduced to the criminal justice system,
the chance of recovering from that is very small.
In fact, recidivism in this nation hovers around 67%.
67% of the time, when we arrest people for crimes,
once they leave jail or the incarceration,
the criminal justice system, they
are that likely to re-offend in the exact same category
of crime in most cases.
That is not success, and, in fact,
that is not rehabilitation.
That is perpetuating a problem.
When we look at programs designed as alternatives
to incarceration as addressing the underlying cause of drug
and alcohol abuse or addiction, mental health issues,
we see recidivism drop to around 30%, 43%.
Now, while it doesn't solve the problem,
it certainly reduces the problem and the likelihood
that someone is going to continue down that path.
We have developed, in essence, a fatalistic system,
in which we introduce people into the criminal justice
system and have no avenue for them to find their way out
of that system.
That doesn't even take into account
the fact that we all have within us bias, experience
that we have grown up with.
There's not a single person in law enforcement-- in fact
in fact, law enforcement officers
are simply a microcosm of society.
I would love to say that I'm able to recruit
police officers from this magic area, where there is no bias.
There is no hatred.
There is no negative life experience.
But, in fact, I don't know that they would be good police
officers either, because we are made up of our experience.
And a good police officer is able to take their life
experience and to set those things aside and interact
without bias.
If we take the example of Homeland Security,
the true mistakes that we have made in this nation,
and we have made our nation safer-- and, in fact,
the question and the debate now is
after 15 years, all the money and the resources
and energy that has gone into the fight against terrorism--
we were talking about this at dinner.
I equate it to the big dog in your front yard.
If you buy a bit German shepherd,
you put him in your front yard, and you're never burglarized,
is it because of the German shepherd that
resides in your yard, or is it just simply
because you weren't the victim of that crime?
I don't know, and I don't know that we
have a good way of measuring whether or not
that's successful.
But as we look at it, and if believe-- and, in fact,
I could ask several people in the audience to stand up,
and I would ask you, which one, as you look around the room,
would you think is a terrorist?
Now, we've all seen TV, and we could certainly
identify those in the room that we were thinking.
In fact, we can go right down the list
because we know from all our life experience and especially
that of the TV and what's portrayed on the evening news,
that the people from Mexico are more than likely the cocaine
dealers.
Black males are more likely crack dealers.
We have the bikers that sell all the meth, or, in fact, the guy
who looks like a school professor is now
the meth dealer.
In fact, it is so pervasive-- we all laugh
at how ridiculous this is.
But there is no such thing as blue math,
and blue meth is not more powerful.
And, in fact, when we saw blue meth hit Salt Lake City,
and it sold for a much higher price,
we grabbed a little of it and analyzed it, and, in fact,
they were just dying it blue because it made more money.
But all we know is from TV, and so, of course,
everyone wanted blue meth, which is the more powerful.
This idea that we know what a terrorist looks
like, and if we start stopping people
based on what they look like or where they might be,
we miss what is the fundamental basis of law
enforcement and the practice thereof,
and that is observable behavior.
That is what probable cause and reasonable suspicion,
the standards in the Constitution and in the law,
is based upon.
And think for a moment, if, in fact,
we wander down the stereotypical road,
and we believe that someone who looks
the part-- so for a terrorist, it's
a Muslim male between the age of 18 and 30, turban, beard.
We can get very stereotypical.
Would they dress the part, in fact,
if they were intent on committing crime?
And would we, if we believe that 'those people' were
the ones responsible for this horrible act
or the potential horrible act, who better than to give us
information than those people who worship,
live, and play with them?
But when we paint with a very broad brush,
and we say that any anyone who falls into this category
is subject to our suspicion, is certainly a danger to society,
we, in fact, alienate those very people
that might give us information if, in fact, that
were to be true.
And it holds true whether you talk about immigration issues,
whether you talk about homeless issues.
In fact, in Salt Lake City, there's
a nice little park that we classify as our open-air drug
market.
You ask anyone at the University of Utah,
where do you buy drugs in Salt Lake City,
they all say, Pioneer Park.
It is not because it's a lovely park to sell drugs in,
with a little shade and a nice lawn to sit upon.
But it's, in fact, very close to the homeless shelter,
and so we find a large number of our homeless population
reside in that park and consider the neighborhood home.
And the people who live in Salt Lake
have grown up with the attitude that that's
where the homeless hang out.
They're not bothering me.
I'm driving down the street.
So if someone can stand in and amongst that group,
and, in fact, force one of them to hold their narcotics,
because when the cops stop you, and you're
holding a big bundle, you lose all your drugs.
So you give it to somebody who's got
a little bit of an addiction problem,
and you say, hold this for me.
I'll give you a taste, but you steal from me,
I'll take you out back and stab you.
And then you have someone else hold your money,
and you're able to sell drugs and have people come and go
where nobody interferes with your activity.
In fact, because when we look at the homeless population in Salt
Lake City, these are the individuals that businesses
are calling out all the time; oh,
they're panhandling in front of my business.
They're drunk.
They're disorderly-- long list of encounters
with the police that are not positive encounters.
In
Fact, most of the time when the police are called,
it's the heavy hammer that, well, what have you
got to do with somebody?
You've got to them out of the way
because the neighbors are calling and complaining
or the businesses are, so you end up taking them
to jail for the evening.
The jail holds them for about two hours,
releases the back on the street because they're not a danger.
They walk away with a warrant, and they develop in the system
again, perpetuates this fatalistic nonproductive
environment.
So we end up victimizing people unnecessarily.
So how then do we address this problem?
Because it's not enough to stand up and complain.
It is not enough to stand up and say that the police are brutal,
and we need to change their behavior.
What we need to do is change what our expectation
of policing is in this country.
I am amazed how many people in this nation
are willing to sacrifice their very own personal right if we
can get someone else, and that's driven by fear.
Each and every day in this nation about 450 people
lose their lives to violence.
Every single day 450 people lose their life to violence.
Where is the public outcry concerning that?
I will not minimize any the mass shootings
that we've had in this country over the last few years,
but there's a difference when it occurs in a mall in Salt Lake
City or a school because we start to think, hey, wait
a minute, I shop at that mall.
My kids go to a school very similar to that.
This could happen to my family.
Imagine all the terrorists acts that have
occurred throughout the world.
Well, certainly America changed on 9/11.
It became "it could happen to us."
So as fear mounts, we start to sacrifice a few of our rights.
In fact, one of the most scary times
I had as a police chief was when we had a young man
walk into one of our malls, and he shot five individuals.
He was a young man from Bosnia, who was Muslim,
not practicing his faith, had no connection whatsoever
to any sort of radical group, played no video games
of violence, was not known for any anti-social behavior,
but somehow he took this is an outlet.
And there was no question in my mind,
and I said that very evening that I'm
going to round up everyone from Bosnia, contain them
and to ask them questions that a good portion of our community
would have applauded me.
That is not how we police America.
In fact, there is a better way to do business.
We need to recognize each and every individual
in our community.
The mistakes we make time and time again is it
is not us against crime.
It is all of us working to solve the disorder that
exists in society today.
When we allow police officers in our communities
to look at one another like the invading force
or the unruly mob, when our first response
to a gathering of individuals who
want to express their rights or dissatisfaction
with the government is helmets and riot gear,
we say, please, throw rocks and bottles at us,
and then it quickly spins out of control.
We need in this nation to change the debate to what
is our expectation of policing?
We need statistical information as
to the number of times that officers use force,
as to the race and ethnicity of those individuals that they
encounter, to each and every person
that they ask, can I search you tonight, to every home
that they enter and ask, do you mind if I look in the bedroom?
And then what is the result from that?
We have, for far too long, viewed
search and seizure, arrest policing interdiction simply
from how many people have to we have
in our community of this particular color,
and if we stop them or write them tickets, all right,
then we're good.
Bias and racism is very subtle.
In fact, it can be interjected in something
as simple as license plate violations.
We need to be more in tune with the communities that we serve.
I hold officers to an extremely high standard.
That cannot however be an impossible standard.
As we look at use-of-force encounters,
a good portion of those come from this unknown suspicious
circumstance sometimes that the neighbors call in,
sometimes that the police generate.
What, again, is our expectation when we call the police
or when we participate with them?
And until we in law enforcement develop a relationship
with all communities that we serve, one of trust,
one of transparency, we will be destined to repeat this.
In fact, as you look at the question,
how do we then stop this cycle that we have?
Well, it is time that we all be very brave,
and say that putting people behind bars
does not solve our society's problems.
That, in fact, we should look more optimistically
as to how we can help and assist people,
if only from a purely economic standpoint.
Three years ago in Salt Lake City,
25 individuals cost the city $1 million
in a single year for police service.
That doesn't take into account the number
of times the paramedics were called, the number of nights
they spent in the jail, the number of times they
went to the emergency room.
Imagine what kind of housing and drug and alcohol treatment
and mental health treatment those 25 individuals could
have received for $1 million.
We can do better, but it takes moving the dialogue
from angry and defensive to productive
and working together.
Discussions like this are exactly where we start.
So thank you very much.