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1967 C.R. Dig. 1 (1967)

handle is hein.civil/newprspc1967 and id is 1 raw text is: U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS SEPTEMBER - 1967 Police-Community Relations Atlanta Police Walk New 'Poverty Beat' (Police Departments are criticized fre- quently for the poor relationships which exist between policemen and minority residents of the community they serve. This is a report of the program adopted by the Atlanta, Georgia, Police Department aimed at creating a posi- tive image for its law enforcement officers, particularly those assigned to low-income neighborhoods.) Bureau officers wear regulation uniforms while working at their unconventional police duties so that the public recognizes them as policemen. Leaving police headquarters are (1 to r) Patrolmen Louis Graham, Henry Bolden, Harris, A. L. Cardell, and Walter Nefloms. tacked him with a sickle. The youth had been identified as the suspect in an assault on a woman. Nothing said to Harris before or since then has impressed upon him so sharply the dis- trust and disrespect many ghetto dwellers felt for Atlanta policemen. Harris wondered if his six children also believed that police- men are men who go around shooting people. When Harris spoke to the fourth-graders that day, he had just been assigned to the Atlanta Police Department's Crime Preven- tion Bureau. This unit was formed in Janu- ary 1966 in an attempt to improve relations between policemen and residents of the city's economically distressed areas. A day after beginning his new assignment with the Bureau, Patrolman Harris, whose working day is typical of that of the seven other police community relations specialists assigned to poverty neighborhoods, was con- fronted with another example of the break- down in communications between citizens and police. continued on page 4 Patrolman Harris briefs Bureau commanding officer Captain Morris G. Redding (r) on community problems in Perry Homes area. The Atlanta, Georgia, elementary school teacher concluded her introduction of Patrol- man A. A. Harris with a question. What do policemen do?' she asked her fourth-grade class. Policemen are men who go around shoot- ing people, answered a youngster, matter- of-factly. The child's words were particularly unset- tling to Harris, because months earlier he had shot and killed a teenage boy who had at- In its study of Racial Isolation In the Pub- lic Schools, the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights found that a Negro youngster's belief regarding his ability to affect his own destiny is an important factor in his achievement as a student.* This finding demonstrates the im- portance of a sense of self-determination as a factor in the Negro American's fully achiev- ing his civil rights. Its special significance is the indication that this feeling of control over one's destiny is a vital preliminary to achieving that control. The way of stating this is to say that while * Volume I, pages 84, 114, 204 and Volume II, pages 62-65. the fact of discrimination clearly limits the self-determination of Negro people, the abil- ity to overcome those limits is dependent upon a belief in self-determination. Understanding the implications of this apparent paradox is vital for those in government who are re- sponsible for developing programs to promote equal opportuniy. This is especially so in the case of those who legislate and administer programs designed to have special impact upon Negro people who live in inner-city ghetto neighborhoods. For it is in those neigh- continued on page 7 Civil Rights Digest Feeling of Control Over Destiny Vital To Ghetto Progress

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