Message by DC General Karl Racine
Police Relations in DC
Thankfully, we have avoided some of the troubling
situations that are occurring in the country. The truth
is, the trust between the community and police is
extremely fragile. What’s important to know is that in
the 1990’s, DC had more shootings and more officer
involved killings than any of the larger cities in
America; more than Los Angeles and even Chicago.
During that time period, there were very significant
concerns. The department of justice came in and
brought a lawsuit against the District of Columbia.
That required the District of Columbia to have an
outside monitor, a person who would monitor the
police and impose certain training requirements and
other requirements. As it turns out, that particular
period of difficult times in the 90’s and how the
District of Columbia reacted to it, set the stage for
better relationships with the community relative to
other cities and towns in the country that we have
today. It’s really important to go back and look at
what was going on in the 90’s and to ask ourselves
whether we are still focused on the change and
progress that occurred in the 2000’s and into today.
We need to focus on a renewed way of making
sure that all citizens feel that law enforcement is
being fair and equitable, that they are being treated
as everyone else. That African Americans or
people that are brown and of color are not being
treated in a discriminatory fashion and that when
there is misconduct on account of the police, it is
investigated fully and we are appropriate. We need to
insure that steps are taken to bring the police officers
to account.
Effects of Mass Incarcerations of the
1990’s
In the 80’s, 90’s and into the early 2000’s there were
policies in criminal justice that resulted in mass
incarcerations. Sociologists and scientists [both]
debate whether policy in fact was the main cause in
the decrease in crime. I’m of the view, that those
policies were certainly not the cause of the decrease
in crime. I share the view with President Obama
that those mass incarcerations policies where drug
offenders who were caught with crack cocaine
powder were treated disproportionately to people
who were found with pounds of cocaine. In fact,
[those laws] were unfair to the criminal defendants,
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Fall/Winter 2016 | NURAMagazine.com