Essay: DOJ report on the Ferguson criminal justice system

The DOJ report shows not just a racist criminal justice system, but one in which the very act of being alive has been made a crime, and in which nearly every resident is wanted by the law at every moment of every day. The Department of Justice’s 102-page report is a rich source of damning facts about the Ferguson criminal justice system. But tucked halfway in and passed over quickly is a truly revelatory set of figures: the arrest warrant data for the Ferguson Municipal Court. It turns out that nearly everyone in the city is wanted for something. Even internal police department communications found the number of arrest warrants being “staggering”.
By December of 2014, “over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants that had been issued by the court.” The report makes clear that this refers to individual people, rather than cases (i.e. people with many cases are not being counted multiple times). However, if we do look at the number of cases, the portrait is even starker. In 2013, 32,975 offenses had associated warrants, so that there were 1.5 offenses for every city resident. That means that the city of Ferguson quite literally has more crimes than people.
James Knowles, the mayor of Ferguson, Missouri reportedly said at a news conference that authorities have planned to make changes to the police force that is ‘more reflective of the demographics of Ferguson.’ He also revealed that the police department would begin scholarship programs aimed at recruiting more black officers in an attempt to help ‘bridge the gap’ between residents ‘who feel there is a divide between them and law enforcement,’ the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. It would help bridge the gap between the community and the police force.
Community policing tends to turn all neighborhood problems into police problems. Across the country, community police programs have been based on the idea that the community should bring its various concerns about neighborhood conditions to the police, who will then work with them on developing solutions. The tools that police have for solving these problems, however, are generally limited to punitive enforcement actions such as arrests and ticketing. The DOJ report calls for increasing reliance on Police Athletic Leagues, positive nonenforcement activities with youths and getting to know community members. But there is little research to suggest that these endeavors reduce crime or address the larger problem of over policing faced by communities of color.
The report fails to address the major problems confronting communities such as Ferguson the war on drugs, the militarization of police and the widespread use of broken-window policing. Well-trained police, following proper procedures, are still going to spend much of their time stopping people for low-level offenses. The burden will continue to fall primarily on communities of color, not because of bias or misunderstandings but because that is how the system is designed to operate. A more respectful and legally justified arrest for marijuana possession could still result in unemployment, loss of federal benefits and social stigma.