Business Insider India has updated its Privacy and Cookie policy. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the better experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we\'ll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on the Business Insider India website. However, you can change your cookie setting at any time by clicking on our Cookie Policy at any time. You can also see our Privacy Policy.
Baltimore's cops don't come close to reflecting the racial makeup of the city, and that's a big problem
Baltimore's cops don't come close to reflecting the racial makeup of the city, and that's a big problem
Ryan GormanMay 2, 2015, 00:07 IST
Like many big cities in the US, Baltimore has a police force that doesn't come close to representing the racial composition of the general population, according to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI). The city's officers are 50% white despite the population being only 28% white, according to CPI data. Meanwhile, officers are 47% black even though blacks make up nearly 64% of Baltimore citizens. This disparity comes despite efforts to diversify the department's ranks, according to the CPI.The CPI noted the disparity between the racial makeup of major cities and their police forces on Thursday, a day before it was announced that six Baltimore cops were charged in the death of Freddie Gray, a black male living in a crime-ridden neighborhood in Baltimore.Boston and Milwaukee also have similar disparities, but Detroit has the least representative police force. Race riots in the 1960s caused many whites to flee urban centers like these for the suburbs. Many cities including Baltimore, Detroit and Newark are still struggling to recover from the devastating effects of the mass migration.Property values in many cities plunged as blacks and other minorities moved in to take their place. City police forces, however, remained largely white."Police have come to symbolize white power, white racism and white repression," the 1968 Kerner Commission report on policing tactics that led to the race riots found. "[The] abrasive relationship between police and the minority communities has been a major-and explosive-source of grievance, tension and disorder."This acrimonious relationship only became worse as the war on drugs ramped up during the 1980s, resulting in the mass incarceration of minorities.The current US prison population is 37.6% black while blacks make up only 13.2% of the general population. Blacks also made up 30.4% of drug arrests for 2013, according to FBI crime statistics."It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact - the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks," said the hip-hop artist Tupac in the hit song "Changes."Tupac had a point, as black inmates made up 49.4% of those behind bars in 1996, the year before "Changes" was recorded.These comments also come from the Kerner Report:
The Kerner Report also recommended that cities actively recruit minorities to have a police force their citizens can relate to.
The report's words ring as true today as they did nearly 50 years ago.
