Statement of NAACP New Bedford Branch on Criticism of Police Profiling Report
April 23, 2020
The NAACP New Bedford Branch was pleased to be one of eight community co-sponsors of the unveiling of Citizens for Juvenile Justice’s report on racial profiling by the New Bedford Police. It is not surprising that the report coincided with the conviction of George Floyd’s killer in Minneapolis. Americans have had enough of bad policing, and that includes New Bedford, a city that paid out $1.4 million in settlements for two wrongful police killings.
Although it is clear to a growing number of Americans, Black, white, and brown, that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way American cities are policed, there are still those who defend an indefensible, broken system.
We were disappointed, but hardly surprised, at the usual suspects circling their wagons around the police. Certain critics were predictable voices accusing CFJJ researchers of being “outside agitators.” But CFJJ’s researchers, with their long history in the state and with deep connections throughout the Gateway Cities, are thoughtful, careful researchers. Earlier this Spring the NAACP New Bedford branch took the time to verify the results of a study by CFJJ on youth discipline. CFJJ has offered to share their data on police stops, and we do as well.
Predictably, the New Bedford Police issued a quick denunciation of CFJJ’s report which was based almost entirely on an objection to CFJJ extracting almost 5,000 individual’s observations from slightly over 2,000 field reports. CFJJ was entitled to extract whatever useful data from the field reports they could. But the NBPD might also have provided more precise data in the first place. A 2018 organizational study that Mayor Mitchell commissioned faulted the NBPD for sloppy data collection and, as an institution, for chronically downplaying the importance of data. Apparently, little has changed.
Nor are CFJJ’s research findings really all that surprising, given that a 2015 ACLU study of policing in New Bedford came to precisely the same conclusions. Moreover, CFJJ’s findings provide confirmation of hundreds of similar studies done across the country that all come to the same conclusion: American policing is fundamentally racist and unnecessarily violent. And New Bedford is hardly an exception.
The New Bedford Police also criticized CFJJ for soliciting comments on their completed study from only a few young people. Whether the number was five or five hundred is irrelevant because the 5,000 individuals in the field observation data also had a voice. We must add, does the NPBP’s criticism of the reports methodology mean that they believe there’s no profiling of Black youth? No one has said so and, in fact, several civic leaders have pointed out that issues of methodology notwithstanding, it’s clear that the NBPD has a problem and that this problem demands to be addressed.
All over the country tens of millions of young people cheered and prayed and breathed a sigh of relief when Derek Chauvin was convicted. And surely the New Bedford Police remember that there were more than a few local young people in the streets joining national protests when George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were murdered. The NBPD’s rather flimsy arguments will only ring true to people who refuse to actually read the CFJJ report.
We have a long way to go until there is any semblance of racial justice in this country. We know what the problems are. And we know the solutions. But change requires facing up to facts, not discounting and disparaging them. Change requires honesty, not “gaslighting.” Change requires that denial to be transformed into compassion, and compassion turned into legislation and action.
Americans want better policing and better institutions of the police. In case you hadn’t noticed, we are in the middle of the most powerful Civil Rights movement since the establishment of the NAACP itself. Join us in working to create a just society.
