‘All of that’s gone now’
| Author | Elena Broaddus,Stephanie V Caldas,Shristi Pandey,Peter Winch,Allyson Nelson,Gia Rivera,Yumeng Wu,Rachel Turkel,Madeleine Beebe |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X17694373 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
‘All of that’s gone now’:
The failure to sustain
police-youth programmes
in Baltimore City
Stephanie V Caldas, Rachel Turkel, Allyson Nelson, Shristi
Pandey, Yumeng Wu, Elena Broaddus, Madeleine Beebe, Gia
Rivera and Peter Winch
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA
Abstract
Extra-curricular programmes that unitepolice officers and youth (hereafter:‘police-youth
programmes’)have long been recommended to ameliorate the often-strained relationship
between these groups. Baltimore’s history of police-youthprogramming includes initiating
and discontinuing a variety of programmes. Researchers conducted in-depth interviews
and focus group discussions among diverse stakeholders to identify barriers to sustaining
police-youth programmes. Stakeholders described lack of political will, conflicting policing
philosophies,and negative police-community dynamics. Participants were optimistic about
the potential impact of quality programming, despite these barriers. Police-youth pro-
grammes have the capacity to improve police-youth relationships in Baltimore. Strategies
to ensure sustainability and increase impact are discussed.
Keywords
Police, youth, Baltimore City, police-youth programmes, attitudes toward police, system
justification theory
Introduction
The relationship between police and the communities they serve has long-term impli-
cations for the quality of life of both parties (Allen and Parker, 2013; Kubrin and
Corresponding author:
Stephanie V Caldas, MS, Research Coordinator, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N.
Wolfe St., Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Email: svcaldas@gmail.com
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2018, Vol. 91(2) 150–172
ªThe Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X17694373
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Wietzer, 2003). Distrust of law enforcement reduces the ability of the police to control
crime (McCluskey et al., 1999; Tyler, 2004) and leads to heightened cynicism toward the
legal system (Sampson and Bartusch, 1998). In the United States, recent anti-police
sentiment, fuelled in part by outrage at racial injustice, has been associated with riots,
looting and fatal shootings (Lowery et al., 2014).
Previous research has described animosity between police and black urban youth
(Allen and Parker, 2013; Hurst et al., 2000), a population that has a disproportionate
amount of contact with law enforcement (Piquero, 2008). Minority urban youth tend to
be less trusting of police than are other populations (Borrero, 2001), likely due to
differences in policing based on neig hbourhood and race (Bass, 2001; Brunson and
Weitzer, 2009). These youth tend to be disproportionately subj ected to unwarranted
stops and searches (Brunson and Miller, 2006; Eith and Durose , 2011; Weitzer and
Tuch, 2005), verbal abuse by police, (Mastrofski et al., 2002), arrests (Piquero, 2008)
and use of force (Smith and Holmes, 2003; Tirrill and Reisig, 2003; Worden and Shep-
hard, 1996).
Police-youth relations in Baltimore City
The current situation in Baltimore City, Maryland is emblematic of the historical issues
surrounding police-youth relationships. Similar to other American cities, during the post-
World War II era black urban youth in Baltimore City were blamed for the city’s crime
and poverty (Wilson, 2012) and were subsequently targeted through policies and poli-
cing tactics (Beckett and Sasson, 2004). Thomson (2010) describes this as the ‘crim-
inalization of the urban space’. Civil rights movements in the 1960s further pitted law
enforcement against them (Erez, 1984; Smith and Holmes, 2003), as black high school
students organised against segregated schools and unequal treatment of black students
(Rury and Hill, 2013). As Baltimore City Public Schools and Baltimore City became
more demographically black, Baltimore City newspapers began to publish stories of
racial conflict between high school students, adding to the fear that schools were unsafe
(Berkowitz, 1997). The highly publicised civil rights activism led to the introduction of
armed police in Baltimore schools in 1967 , and increased police targeting of youth
(Thompson, 2010).
In the 1970s, Baltimore’s violent crime rates began to trend upward (Trettien, 2006),
leading to implementation of the ‘broken windows’ or ‘zero tolerance’ policing strategy
(Wilson and Kelling, 1982). This strategy is based on the theory that aggressively arrest-
ing loiterers and minor offenders will reduce the neighbourhood disorder thought to
breed crime (Collins, 2007). However, studies demonstrate that it unjustly criminalises
certain groups (Howell, 2009), particularly low-income black youth (Fagan et al., 2010;
Tyler et al., 2015), who are the most likely to fit the ‘criminal’ stereotype, and who often
spend leisure time in public spaces (Brunson and Weitzer, 2009; Harcourt, 1998).
Implementation of ‘broke n windows’ policing in Baltimor e entailed targeting areas
heavily populated by minorities and, according to Collins (2007), resulted in thousands
of illegal arrests each year. These aggressive police tactics further harmed Baltimore’s
police-youth relationships (Harcourt and Ludwig, 2006), and are highlighted in the
Caldas et al. 151
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