Bias Free Policing

Addressing racial/ethnic/religious discrimination, both between officers and citizens and within the CDP itself, has been a major concern in the past for those trying to reform the Cleveland Division of police, and it was the impetus for the federal investigation that brought about the 2015 Consent Decree.

In the 1922 Survey on Criminal Justice in Cleveland, the problem of ethnic religious discrimination is discussed. At that time the disputes within the CDP were between Catholics and members of Masonic Lodges, as groups vied for power within individual precincts. This reflected border conflicts between Protestant Americans and newer, mostly Catholic, immigrants. The 1931 Wickersham Commission found that Cleveland police officers regularly abused and extorted immigrants.

Though initially this discrimination was directed at ethnic whites, there was a shift in who bore the brunt of biased policing. Cleveland did not have formalized segregation prior to the Great Migration, and for much of Cleveland’s history Black Clevelanders faced proportionately less discrimination than Blacks in other Northern Cities or the Jim Crow South. However, after the Great Migration, Black Clevelanders faced increased discrimination and police bias.

To combat this, Eliot Ness implemented the policy of having Black officers patrol predominantly Black Neighborhoods, a policy that was as controversial then as it is now. He also attempted to have police intervene when there was white-on-Black violence, though this was unsuccessful.

During the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, several reports were issued, both on the national level, such as those by the Kerner Commission and the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement, and focused specifically on Cleveland, such as the US Commission on Civil Rights.

These recommendations included: hiring more officers of color and integrated them better into the police force, provide adequate policing services in communities of color, include civilians in the complaints process and ask for citizen input for ways to mediate conflicts between officers and citizens of color, and train all police officers on the history of Black Clevelanders. They also recommended establishing formalized structures for civilian oversight of police officers.

Problems between the police and Cleveland’s communities of color persisted into the 1980s and 1990s; there were additional recommendations made to recruit Black police officers and other officers of color, be employing affirmative action and increasing recruiting efforts in majority minority schools. These were largely unsuccessful, and Cleveland’s police officers are not as reflective of the community as either the community or police officers would like it to be.

As we enter the present era of U.S. Department of Justice involvement Bias-Free policing has become an integral part of the the mandated reforms including significant training. Yet, several years into Cleveland’s Consent Decree on May 30th of 2020 another uprising against police brutality and the murder of George Floyd left Clevelanders wondering how much progress has really been made when it comes to policing and the issue of race.