Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations: BPD Edition
On last week’s Conservative Refuge Radio, I mentioned this story from the Baltimore Sun about Baltimore City Police Commissioner Kevin Davis pushing to change the state police regulations excluding potential officers who have repeatedly used marijuana. As the Sun summarized it:
You read that right. Keeping people from serving as police officers who have used pot over 20 times is too onerous according to the BPD Commissioner.
Two things struck me about this story which I will discuss in turn.
Trending: President Trump Must Be Reelected
First, was the perpetuation of an idea I first wrote about in 2014 in the Baltimore Sun:
It seems Commissioner Davis subscribes to the idea that the repeated use of marijuana, envisioned in current police regulations, is simply a rite of passage for young people and that it shouldn’t necessarily ruin their chances of enforcing the law themselves. As Davis puts it:
Now keep in mind, the use disclosed in these interviews is self-reported by the applicant. It isn’t some documented usage that anyone can really verify. Rather, to be disqualified the applicant is admitting to committing over 20 misdemeanors. And don’t mention the recent decriminalization in Maryland. Davis still wants to disqualify any applicant who has used marijuana in the last three years, which covers the decriminalized period. Again, Davis wants to change the regulations for admitted marijuana use when it was still a criminal offense.
It is hard to imagine a more outrageous statement. Think if some elected Republican made the statement that most young people in Baltimore City habitually use marijuana. They would be, properly in my opinion, decried as a racist and perpetuating the worst stereotypes about Baltimore’s residents.
Even if you don’t see this as overtly racist, it fall squarely within the famous Michael Gerson inspired, Bush concept of the “Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations” which simply states that minorities cannot, and thus should not, be held to the same standards of others.
This “slow bigotry” of Davis is even more apparent when he implicitly refers to the citizens of Baltimore as, essentially, a culture of drug use. After all, Davis reasons, hiring officers with a history of repeated drug use makes sense since:
Wow. So smoking pot illegally less than twenty times makes one “unlike” the people living in Baltimore City. I am not a resident of Baltimore but if I were it would be hard to imagine a more offensive indictment of my community.
Which brings me to my second point. These lower standards, again, would permit the hiring of more people as police officers who have no problem admitting they habitually broke the law in taking illicit drugs. In a city with a police culture that struggles with public confidence and a persistent belief in the community that police don’t follow the rules or respect the rights of those they serve, is this change in policy really a good solution?
Wouldn’t hiring more officers who have demonstrated a respect for the rule of law, even if they personally disagreed with it, a better way to improve police culture?
And even if you believe that everyone in the city uses pot regularly, wouldn’t hiring officers who follow the law despite the peer pressure or cultural persuasion be more likely to result in honest cops who challenge the omerta that keeps police misconduct secretive and insulated?
Whatever your views on marijuana or its legalization, I would hope that we could agree that hiring law enforcement officers who obey and respect the rule of law is a better first step to building trust and confidence in our police rather than lowering standards based upon a soft bigotry of low expectations.