The Balancing Act: Policing, Technology, and Racial Disparities with Dr. Thaddeus Johnson

Season 5 - Episode 107 - The CopDoc Podcast

Imagine having a front-row seat to an insightful conversation on the pressing issues in policing with Dr. Thaddeus Johnson, a former police officer turned educator and scholar at Georgia State University. Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn about evidence-based decision-making, striking a balance between social services and policing, and the importance of community engagement in law enforcement.

Hear from Dr. Johnson as he shares his unique perspective as a Black man and former law enforcement officer, shedding light on the complexities of police reform and community investment. We discuss the role of technology, such as facial recognition, in exacerbating racial disparities and the need for human interaction, training, and oversight in the use of AI in policing. Delve into the power of partisanship and its impact on investments and communities, exploring topics like police trust, brutality, and racial disparities in policing.

Join us as we reflect on the heartbreaking incident in Memphis, discussing the potential of diverse policing to make a difference in reducing violence and improving community relations. Tune in to hear Dr. Johnson's thoughts on how we can create a more just and equitable future for all. Don't miss this chance to gain valuable insights from a true expert in the field of policing and criminal justice.

Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

Transcript

Intro : 0:02

Welcome to The Cop Doc Podcast. This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas. The cop doc shares thoughts and ideas as he talks with leaders in policing communities, academia and other government agencies. And now please join Dr Steve Morialli and industry thought leaders as they share their insights and experience on the Cop Doc Podcast.

Steve Morreale: 0:32

Well, hello again everybody, Steve Morreale, coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts, and I'm chatting with a colleague that I met many years ago at ACJS, thaddeus Johnson, dr Thaddeus Johnson, good morning to you, thad.

Thad Johnson: 0:44

Good morning Steve. Thanks for having me again.

Steve Morreale: 0:45

Nice to have you. You're moving around. You're in Arneck of the Woods, you're in New York visiting this week, but you're in Chattanooga, you're at Georgia State University and you have become very, very vocal. And just before we got on Thad, you were a pracodemic, as I am. You were a police officer, a lieutenant and acting captain in Memphis Police obviously were going to talk about what happened in Memphis, but you've now found a second career as an educator and a scholar at Georgia State, and you come to it, as I do, with experience in the business And it sounds to me, and it looks to me like you are not afraid to say your piece, that you are not afraid to weigh in, but, like many of us that are trying to move towards evidence-based decision making, you're doing just that. Talk about that. Talk about your leaving Memphis. We've talked about it on previous episodes, but I want you to bring me up to date on what's going on with you.

Thad Johnson: 1:40

No, thanks so much, steve. And you know there's a fire when you know you're kind of getting the game a little bit late, having a career kind of seeing these things, and let's not forget out now I'm a black guy, right, and so You're kidding.

Intro : 1:52

No one would ever tell right Like so.

Thad Johnson: 1:54

as a police officer, i understand I don't speak for the black community, but I have some understanding of how, you know, black people feel about police and how they feel about policing And so, for instance, when the Fonda Police movement came out, i was like who the hell are they asking? Because if you ask people in the black community, who are they the most? they're not asking for the Fonda Police or for less police.

Steve Morreale: 2:12

Yeah, they're asking don't ignore us, Protect us, but treat us respectfully. I understand. Yes, yes, yes.

Thad Johnson: 2:18

No, absolutely Steve. I think some of the narratives they get hijacked The voices of the people who ask about doing the work or experiencing these things, like the police officers, the police leaders who are dealing with it, who are receiving crap from both the bottom and the top right How sometimes impossible it is to be a police leader. You wonder why so many leaders leave the job. It's a really hard job if police chiefs and police leaders don't have unilateral authority. They have city governments, they have business leaders, they have unions, and so you have all of these things, and so what I try to bring into the workspace is how can we have actionable results, like not pontification and not things that are short-sighted and just simply advocate for things that they feel are right, politically right? I just saw a post this morning. We're saying that we have some side when it talks about reducing violence. Oh well, you need more policing and more smart policing, absolutely, but what you also need is community investments, And so you have to think about it in short term, midterm and long term.

Thad Johnson: 3:11

And then also the thing is is that, as I sit back and then I'll shut up it's the fact that when we talk about evidence base and talk about who are the gatekeepers of what good evidence is, and do we have time for random control trials when people are dying in the streets every day? And so how do we assimilate this whole body of knowledge and how do we start thinking about, how do we categorize evidence? Because if I have a body of literature that for the past 50 years have been saying a certain thing, then to me that's good. Evidence is just as good as an RCT. And so what we need to start realizing is that a lot of things, evidence will be limited in what we can get and how we can do things, because you can't do RCTs with integrity all the time, because it's not ethical, for instance, if you want to do a research on police education, where you can't deny some cops education and then allow others to have education. So it's just some things are impossible, and so it's just really trying to get people thinking about what can we do today, what can we plan for the future, but not just one of the crime rates in half? What about when they cut in half, how do we move forward?

Thad Johnson: 4:06

So some people are saying that we don't need to make any investments in these social services and these social conditions And I'll say, yes, we need cops. But I'm saying if black people have been more likely to be victims of a homicide five to six more times in our white counterparts for the past 20, 30 years, then why the hell don't we need these things as well? So we need to think about justice is not just policing, courts and corrections. It's community side. You have social services is not step on anybody's shoes. It's just making the weaponry bigger and less lethal in many regards.

Steve Morreale: 4:33

I mean, certainly one of the things I've been saying, and I know you too, is that so many things are thrust on the backs of police that have little jurisdiction and little authority, but still they're the only people, for the most part, besides fire and EMS, that are there 24 seven, because you don't have clinical workers 24 seven, you don't have child workers 24 seven. You don't have. I mean, in many cases you can't get people into houses And, by the way, the police don't control the houses or the halfway houses or the. It's just amazing And I think society is doing themselves a disservice by thrusting on the police, blaming the police, and not looking at the root cause and the potential root solutions.

Thad Johnson: 5:11

No, absolutely, and I think you have to take that holistic approach right, because think about it in these communities you have a replacement effect. So if I'm an officer and I go arrest the dope boy, arrest the gang leaders, well, guess what? Somebody's going to replace them, and so it's going to for me to do the job correctly. I have to incarcerate a lot of generations of people, because there are certain conditions and certain cultures in these environments that glamorize this behavior, that people are so desperate, and so we have to make sure that we hold people accountable. But justice is not just holding people accountable. It's the sprinkle of mercy and the sprinkle of grace. But accountability comes first, and I think that's even not just for when we talk about people who we arrest and offenders, but even how we treat and deal with officers. We have to leave room for officers to make mistakes right. It can't be a job where you walk on eggshells. It's not an exact science, but what we can do is reduce the level of force that we use by taking certain taxes and looking at it like a dance, and when we focus on the dance, when it comes to use of force, we focus on the dance. What they started engaging. That's a different type of dance. There's a whole dance before we get to the part where they're really entangled. And so my part is, when we look at reform is how can we reduce that? How can we both protect officers and citizens and put them unnecessarily in adversarial positions when they don't have to be?

Thad Johnson: 6:23

Well, many of these things that officers, that we want officers to do, that we reward them for doing, are really their fault in policy, you know. That's why I say, when you see officers doing certain things, we have to stop making officers escape. Go because they had leadership. There was a culture, these things were permitted, and so if you want to kill a snake, you cut it off out of the head, you don't tap it in the body.

Thad Johnson: 6:43

And so we have to start not just looking at police chiefs. Let's look at these mayors, let's look at these state officials, because these are the ones who dictate how things get funded and really how and who we police, but no one talks about it. And so I think no one talks about the state certifying bodies. But it talks about what are their role in reform, how can they start enforcing rules and standards to make sure we have the top quality officers, not just from who we hire, but that they're trying correctly. And so it's so many things. We've underinvested in criminal justice and social services for so long And we've forced police officers, teachers and others kind of atone for the sin of our past government policies.

Steve Morreale: 7:19

I really like hearing that.

Thad Johnson: 7:20

Underinvested, Underinvesting man.

Steve Morreale: 7:22

That's the term which I think is so, so important. You know, it's interesting. I got a call from somebody who's doing a podcast out in LA and he called me and he was going to be doing something. He said Steve, I can't even believe what a shit show the other day was. We had Juneteenth and we were out there and this is a major city in California And basically they were told just stand by. He said the young people took it over, The old people were looking at me, saying why aren't you doing something? And he was saying and his colleagues were told not to cause any problems, not to start any shit. We're told to stand on the sidelines. So we're caught in the middle. The politicians are saying don't, don't create a mess, And then they're letting. It's happened in city after city. Just let them go, Let it go, Let it go, They'll run out of steam. I think that is so ridiculous, especially in an area where we believe in the rule of law at least we think we do But then police officers are told stand down.

Thad Johnson: 8:13

So, steve, look, i just tell the truth right, And I get it from both sides. And what you're saying that's in both blue cities and blue states and red states and red cities, and so it's not a political issue, it's an American issue. And I think cities are also even afraid. They don't want to be the next city on the news and these things, right, and so it's scary. But this is the absolute thing You have to empower both communities and empower the police, and what we have done is is that I would not want to be a police officer because you have to walk on eggshells. You damn if you do, you damn if you don't.

Thad Johnson: 8:44

And then we talk about procedural justice and the rule of law. If you can fire from a job, there's a due process. Oftentimes, when it comes policing, it's like it's just at the whim of whoever and they're ready just to get the political pressure off the higher ups. And so again, those officers on the ground are left to deal with it, those patrol officers who can't move and do anything. They've lost legitimacy from not only the people who are law abiding but the ones who want to be rabble rousers. They have lost legitimacy and people who are law abiding, lose faith.

Thad Johnson: 9:11

Review your communities that are dealing with crime And we tell our officers not to go in. That's a disservice, the one thing that many of these communities don't have. They don't have proper housing, they don't have proper incomes and all these things Hell. The air they breathe in these communities is dirtier than other parts of the country. You're gonna take away security. We have a million people all over the body. You think about it? in places like Philadelphia, where a report came out that 1% of the entire population is responsible for 70% of the serious crime. So we know who these persons are.

Thad Johnson: 9:39

But not only they need accountability to be loved, but we need to empower our communities and our police to get the job done. Empower our police to be able to engage people without having to think about arresting them. Just engage people like human beings is the issue. When police officers talk to people, they know police officers are watching. You don't have to lock everybody up for petty things. You don't have to do these things. You have to build up trust And we have to stop looking at this as if this is a one-time deal. This is a generational issue that we have to think about. What we do today Not only impacts tomorrow, but impacts our grandkids and their great grandkids, and we do not think in those terms and that's so problematic And that's why you see things like telling officers to stand on the side, because they're thinking about today and not about tomorrow.

Steve Morreale: 10:18

That's great, I mean. I think in so many ways a police department that is in tune with the community can help improve the quality of life for everybody there, And I think that's really neat. Your perspective and your point of view is good. One of the things that I watch from afar and very proud to call you a colleague is the work that you're doing, both in writing, and you're being called on to speak because you're willing to speak what you believe is the truth, and so let's talk about those kinds of things You've written. You're involved in a number of things, from chapters to books, to interviews and such. What are people calling on you to hear?

Thad Johnson: 10:54

I think people are calling on me to hear a balanced approach. I think my background gives me and my lack of political affiliation or even political leaning.

Thad Johnson: 11:04

Leaning is at some points I've been called a liberal Other times. Oh, you're definitely a right winger. Right, and that's good. People want to hear actionable things and things about both higher level but on the ground, and what I find is is that look, in academia we have the privilege of having journals like CREM, american Criminal Justice and all these things. Many of the politicians, many of the community members, nonprofit leaders they don't have access to it, and so a big part of what I do is I distill that information for them, i point them to the information. That's why I just don't write book chapters, that's why I write op-eds, i mean.

Thad Johnson: 11:35

I just don't write journal articles, i write op-eds, i write the book chapters, i write on blogs. Right, i'll do anything, because you don't know what we resonate. This to me is me just really being a walking talking journal To talk about. Here are the good parts about reform, but think about the unintended consequences. Here are the unintended consequences of what we're governing. Maybe we have to accept some unintended consequences and have conversations that people don't want to really talk about. These are the things that people are been willing to hear.

Thad Johnson: 12:00

I hadn't received much hate mail. I try to be very balanced. I don't demonize anyone, but if there's blame to cast, i cast it, but it's done so in a way of look, all hope is not lost, because most of these things are small tweaks. We have the tools in place. It's just the investments and the smaller tweaks and being in tune with the people that you're serving.

Thad Johnson: 12:18

And I think an audience has asked me oh well, what can we do as citizens to help the police scene and criminal justice is better, but one thing I say is you can always fill out the application and be the change that you see. No, there's not that everyone can do. But what people don't understand is that their vote is powerful Is that the partisanship levels and leanings of cities and who they vote for that really determines how police, police, how courts work right. It has a powerful influence on it. So it's not the quick microwave effect that people want, but voting voting for the right DAs, voting for the right judges, the right shares These are the things that you have power over and you can hold them accountable, and so it's like this is what the public wants.

Thad Johnson: 12:54

Non-profits what can we do? And this is the last thing. A bunch of people are doing good work on the ground from police departments and non-profits, but nobody really knows what the other is doing. Everybody's working in silos, and so one thing I also do is kind of connect them with information in each other to empower the projects and things that they're doing. So that's a big part of what I do.

Steve Morreale: 13:13

So you're in Atlanta, but you come from Memphis a big city for sure, and some of the things that I'm hearing you talk about become very valuable. but playing devil's advocate, it sounds to me like you're simply a police apologist. React to that.

Thad Johnson: 13:25

No, and I've heard that before, and that we can talk freely. I've heard things from both sides, right, well, you know, and oftentimes from this is just from my liberal friends and oftentimes even from the people who look like me where my opinions have had me call Uncle Tom, my opinions have had me call step infection, and I realized that that's just a lot of pain that they come from and so much pain that they can't really see the other side of things. And I always tell people I'm not a police apologist but I believe that I hate to turn police reform. We should use community reform, because using police reform means that the police are not part of the community, and so it's a changing of the mindset. And I believe that many police officers I've talked to that I work with, they want to do the right things. They don't know what to do. The people hate us. I'm afraid of the people, what can't be done? And so I'm not a police apologist, i'm a truth apologist.

Thad Johnson: 14:09

And one thing that gets me in trouble is that when I talk about to my black communities and brothers and sisters and I'm like, listen, i see police reform and this whole thing as like a marriage And let's say the police are the cheating spouse right, but the community says you know what, we want you, we want to work this out. If they're cheating spouse, those are counseling Gets all the knowledge, does all the work. At some point the spouse who's accepting them has to draw a line in the sand and say you know what? let's work this out and know that I have to give them move forward. That's hard for people to hear and to sell, but if we want to move forward we have to draw that line in the sand And my goal is to help us find that line in the sand.

Steve Morreale: 14:45

That's a great analogy. I appreciate hearing that. There's a few things. I've been working and looking at some documents And what I see. There's a lot of documents out there And you know what I'm about to say. I know you know all of them.

Steve Morreale: 14:56

There was the report on the 24th century policing that was initiated by President Obama And Chuck Ramsey did it. What was just recently released and I really was impressed is a renewed call for that 21st century report. In other words, hey, it's been since 2015. We really haven't turned the ship around too much. Let's talk about this and this and this.

Steve Morreale: 15:17

What I'm finding a role that I can play, a role that you can play, is to translate, that is, to synthesize that. Bring that down and say, okay, what is it saying and what can be done. But I see that for that. I see that for branding police agencies, because I think we do a horrible job of marketing our agencies, even those agencies like your own agency, memphis, that has a great co-response program but has a blemish on what happened with Tyree a while back, but they're still every day going out there and having to chase calls, even when everybody wants to shit on them.

Steve Morreale: 15:49

What option do we have in a democratic society except police. Your head's shaking a lot. There's a new training reform suggestion by Perf And there's something I just posted the other day what cops want in 2023 from police one. A lot of it has to do with community policing. A lot of it has to do with wellness of the community, dealing with mental health and wellness of our troops. So there's so many things out there. It's almost like information overload, right? How do we tell the populace not to rely on headlines only but to dig in and understand and see their role in helping their police department in every city in town?

Thad Johnson: 16:29

in America. You know, and that's a great point, and you know I always appreciate the work that you do, steve and because people say why so much misinformation out there? Because the knowledge and science is in the hands of a few. Right, i think it was a one to 2% of the whole entire population that holds a doctorate, And so that means that we, for the most part, have access to this knowledge And so a lot of emotions, sort of.

Thad Johnson: 16:49

And, mind you, when I talk to news media, often in times and they understand that and I'm talking to them that's a big part too There are a lot of academics we don't do We refer to talk to the news media. They are not our enemies, and so we have to learn the language. And how can we give them sexy sound bites and headlines that are loaded with truth and evidence? And so you have to play that game and understand branding and marketing. When the 21st century report, i got a chance to talk with Lori Robinson and Chuck And they were saying that they put these things down. They didn't have a lot of time, and the fact was, is that is, you have the work out there, but getting into the people was one thing. I was somewhat critical of that first report because it missed to me a critical part, and that was the rewarding and center structures to align with community-style policing, and they included that one in this particular one. So now that bridge is there.

Steve Morreale: 17:36

Let me interrupt because there was something that I saw that you were talking about and it was that St Louis Metro was beginning to document community engagement and in my mind and one of the things that I speak of you know, we're great bean counters. We arrested 68 people for this and 75 people for that and we these kind of arrest and we're counting beans. But what we don't do and what so many police departments do, if it is required or requested or encouraged by the culture of a police department to go out and make friends, go out and know your community, go out and go to meetings, we never do a good job of capturing it, so that the politicians don't know what we're doing with our time. and it seems to me, if that's what we want, i believe this reward what you want to see more of, but that doesn't seem to happen. But you've been talking about that, so give us your spiel.

Thad Johnson: 18:20

Thanks, steven, you're absolutely right, and this is not to say that arrests are not important. Traffic stops are not important. We don't need those. You know, unfortunately we live in a country where we need armed guardianship. Unfortunately that's bigger than the police. But if no, community police has been around forever and it's a promising strategy but we haven't awarded the officers to do so. So if you're an officer and you know that I can get off the word shift and I mean the neighborhood will hire a crime on on a third shift, working overnight, and get to a better shift and better days, i can be around my family and that's through arrest and traffic citations and being highly productive, i'll give you what you?

Thad Johnson: 18:52

want Exactly.

Steve Morreale: 18:53

Exactly.

Thad Johnson: 18:54

But also think about this we have a hiring crisis and with the hiring crisis and lack of diversity and hiring is a lack of diversity and crisis in who we promote. And so we want guardian style policing, but we only promote those who are the epitome of warrior style policing. Who's going to be the chief 25 years from now? Why would a woman come and join the police force? if we can be more innovative, if it can be more community centered? Black people, people of color research has shown that this is a type of work millennials, genophiles, these are the type of work that they are drawn to, And so, if you want people in that regard, give them a pathway to promotion, Give them a career pathway and not just make them a B cop or community community policing unit or engagement unit personnel for their entire careers. And so I think we've done a bad job of aligning those things.

Thad Johnson: 19:39

You have a few states, like in cities like St Louis. They're a great job But also you have a state like New Jersey who said you can't include these counts of arrest and traffic stops in these in their police evaluations. And again, we've counted these beans for too long and it's got us in trouble, because what that does is it puts officers and citizens in adversarial positions unnecessarily. And so those are the things we think about when we think about police shootings or use of force, and particularly patrol officers. We're not catching serial rapists as patrol officers. That's an invest out there investigations. We're not necessarily catching homicide offenders So we can stop all the cars that we want and everybody has an anecdote. That's one thing.

Thad Johnson: 20:14

But community engagement getting grandma to feel safe talking about who the guys are on the corner who are terrorizing them. Having grandma to feel safe that if she calls the police, that they'll show up and actually do something, but not injure someone or hurt someone. We've heard stories about people not calling police on people because they don't want. They know what. Let them do their little petty crimes. We don't want the police to come here and kill them, Right, And so we have to reward officers for just engagement activities, because that's entailed, right. That's building trust. And the last thing think about the dare program. The dare program sucked when it came to reducing juvenile drug use, But the one thing it did it made juveniles and communities feel closer to the officers.

Intro : 20:51

They had better relationships.

Thad Johnson: 20:52

And so it shows that there is value in doing so. Imagine the whole generation of my type of people who have had good relations with police. What would that mean for my grandchildren? And we have to think about that, because we're not going to change it overnight with some big signatory event. It's a lot to be proven and a lot of hurt to be overcome, and that's on both sides.

Steve Morreale: 21:10

When you talk about those kinds of things and we're, by the way, we're talking to Thad Johnson. He is a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta and a former Memphis Tennessee police lieutenant and acting captain, so he's been at this for a long time Part of the resistance in a lot of ways the police departments and police officers begin to retract, saying wait a minute. If I'm going to be proactive, this ain't helping me, so I'll just react, and in some cases I think that's a big mistake. And so it seems to me that the more people that we can begin to understand what's your lived experience? How do you feel about police? Why do you feel that way?

Steve Morreale: 21:44

Some of the feelings that are in families go back centuries because of the way the great grandfather portrayed their experience with police and the misuse of police and the abuse of people by police back then, and that carries for generations. It seems to me that if we get to know what you just said, grandma, we're beginning to identify problems that concern them and that we can work on them together. So that goes back to that police community relations, because policing is really a helping profession And, thad, you did it for a long time And, i would dare say as busy a day as you've had, that maybe 10 to 15% of your entire time in policing put people in handcuffs. Is that a fair assessment?

Thad Johnson: 22:24

That is so fair And that's the one thing that I always say is that I about 10 to 15% of the policing job is a running and gun and the traditional crime fight that you're talking about. Right.

Thad Johnson: 22:32

The other 85% is community engagement. They're doing it already. They're talking about businesses, the gas stations, they're talking to people right, they're doing these things, but it goes unrewarded and there's no attention given to it. And one thing you don't want are your police officers to be afraid of the people that they actually serve, and this is what happens In many of these events you have. Police officers are totally afraid, and rightfully so. In many cases, the citizens are afraid.

Thad Johnson: 22:56

My mom had to talk to dad the talk that we have in black communities with me And she taught me to respect the police. Yes, you respect the profession, but it was more about I don't want you to come back home there. I don't want you to be on the news and you're the one who's been killed by an officer because you made some type of quick movement or something like that. You know, keep your hands on the wheels. This is the type of talks that kids and their parents are having. But this is the issue, and I learned this when I talked to the other side of it.

Thad Johnson: 23:19

I was teaching my wife, natasha, a police leadership course. It was about overcoming community barriers, and then the talk came up And one of the white lieutenants, i believe was in the back and he was said well, i get it, but what does that mean for me? If this is what's being taught in the households, will I ever be able to bridge that barrier, because there's already a prejudice against me? That's a hard conversation, because we know that Black mothers and fathers have to have their conversation with their kids. So sad, so true.

Thad Johnson: 23:43

But we also know that it does kind of prejudice us against police and even many of the issues that I deal with, like I've been mistreated by cops a couple of times, but nothing that you've seen like in these civil rights and these Jim Crow era type of things and stuff like my dad had to deal with. But I have these feelings Right to this day. If a cop gets behind me, i'm not doing anything wrong. Right, i am. Yeah, my heart is racing When I'm walking by the street and I see two police officers right to this. I force myself, i deal with that in real time, i force myself to speak to them because I know who they are. But it's these things that are ingrained in my DNA from a life lived where, just from things you see on TV, and so if I'm impacted by this and I know better, imagine what a junkie public who didn't have these experiences, who hadn't had a chance to work side by side with many of these officers.

Steve Morreale: 24:24

Well, you know better. You know better because not only do you study them, do you think about them, but you were them, and so I understand that if you're walking by a police officer, some of them want to be gruff and don't want to talk to you, they just want to, you know, stand aside, but to walk by and say, hey, officer, how you doing Now that can begin to to to allay their fears, and yours too, to create a more favorable interaction. It doesn't have to. You don't have to shake hands or such. So I'm. You have stepped up and have started to talk about the reality of AI in facial recognition and how it can cause problems. I did my homework, fed. I see what you're writing, but about facial recognition not necessarily working well with black men, i suppose, but with the black complexion. So talk about what you're finding and what you've talked about and written about.

Thad Johnson: 25:12

Yeah, now let me first say that I use the BGS Bureau of Justice Data that's out there. It's the best source, but it doesn't allow us to get some ground your thing. So it allows us to understand agencies who deploy this technology, and the one thing that we're seeing is that in our research is that agencies, that this is a 2016 data over 1200 cities and departments, and what we found was those agencies that deployed regularly deployed facial recognition technology had a 55% higher arrest rate of black people and roughly up 22% decreased in the rest of white people. And so, from the positive impact on black arrests and negative impact on white arrests, that's how you can start seeing that disparity gap growing. Now do we know exactly how the partners were using that data? No, but some things that we think may become.

Thad Johnson: 25:54

The play is, first of all, police officers. Police resources are heavily concentrated in black and brown community. They don't choose to do so. Statistics, crime rates, certain issues concentrate them there. So you already have using technology on top of the disparity already that really has nothing to do with the police. So now let's check one. Then you go out there and this technology it has improved over the years. Well, it doesn't recognize. It recognizes white male faces the best. Everyone else it can be a dice roll, and so the darker your skin is, the less likely it is to be accurate, and this is the thing they have made to be more accurate inside the laboratories. You put it out in the wild. It's a shit show, right. And so there are several things, and as part of it is the development teams that develop the software. Those are young, white, male And so unconscious bias where they transmit, where they're training using images based on their background that they're familiar with. But unfortunately, part is those white images don't translate well, translate some of shots Exactly.

Steve Morreale: 26:50

Yes, yes.

Thad Johnson: 26:51

Wow, and so that's one big issue. And then you wrote something. Yes, what was?

Steve Morreale: 26:55

the reaction to that.

Thad Johnson: 26:56

Man, so did a piece in Scientific America. So whenever I write an article, we always write a companion public opinion piece so people can have access to it. And so what it did was some people would like Oh, the system, the system is racist already, so we're not surprised. To other, who are able to apologize for saying was how they're using things. To others who were a police chief asked to reach out to me and said no, we were thinking about the phone, this technology, but can you send me a copy of your article? And so we've had from people who was like this has confirmed how they felt about things. Others have said well, the study has limitations. Every study has limitations right.

Thad Johnson: 27:28

And the one thing we refer to say was we're not saying that the departments that's using this data are racist or that this disparity even comes from a racist place. There are certain issues and places that compound and these things happen. So you have technologies that's less accurate. You have these psychological barriers that technology causes between the people that serve and the people that's using them. You have this automation of discretion, where we take these cognitive shortcuts, particularly in policing, where we're overworked, working over time, working double ships. all these things take these cognitive shortcuts unconsciously And we just blindly trust AI judgments. And so it's not that we should demonize and cast away with this technology. That's what I hadn't said. That might have gotten me in trouble with some people who were, you know, just totally against facial recognition and AI used in law enforcement. How do we use it? Do we have the right policies in place? Are we training the officers correctly? Are we calibrating these technologies correctly when we use them? So, are we having supervisors sign off and is there a graduated step process?

Steve Morreale: 28:26

And is there a? What I wrote down when you're talking about this is like anything else, raw intelligence is only that It usually takes some human person. You cannot rely solely on AI. It needs human interaction. I'm seeing your head shake. That makes sense, and it sounds to me like that's exactly what you're saying. Yes, you can use it as a tool, but don't rely on it 100%, right?

Thad Johnson: 28:49

Absolutely. This is the thing. We have a staffing shortage. This has been the case in policing, then just start yesterday. But this is a forced amplifier that can help police officers do more with less. But it's making sure that we train those officers, making sure that we use as a lead and not the end-all be-all, that we get some level of uniformity. So, absolutely correctly, there's no federal regulations in many state and local regulations for this type of technology in general, let alone by police. So it's things that police need to do, but again, there are things that super city police authority need to be in place and give them confines to work with them, and those things are not there. And so just really wanted to share light on. Don't focus on the racial difference in the finding. That is a symptom of a bigger problem. But how can we use this technology to keep people safer without exacerbating these inequities? And I think that's the larger part of the conversation that most people were able to grasp.

Steve Morreale: 29:35

Yeah, so help define, tune it by using more pictures of black males and black females in this particular instance to refine the accuracy. Absolutely, that's what I'm hearing.

Thad Johnson: 29:48

And also the similarity scores. People think that when They run through something through FACE automated facial recognition that spits out, here's a 100% match. That's now how it goes. It creates a list. It's like DNA. Yes it creates a list, And so you go in and you pick and if you don't have the right thresholds in place and have tried to find evidence of what the best thresholds are, then you open your room up for these misreadings and false positives and negatives.

Steve Morreale: 30:10

And think about things that you and I have worked on with forever and what the requirements are for a match of a fingerprint, right? Same thing. I know, i know, i know It's so rudimentary in many ways And you know, i think what we do is we try to push it out Before we get started. We were talking about AI and using AI, and I'm using chat, gpt, among other things, to synthesize articles and to create some reuse of information. That's very, very good And I'm beginning to use it now And we'll talk about this, because we started before we began recording.

Steve Morreale: 30:39

What I'm doing is I'm taking the transcripts, which are sort of dense because you have to read through them one at a time, but I would simply, i'm trying it out And I'm starting to push it out, and that is. I take that transcript and I say to an AI text generator to say please create an article based on it's the same idea we were just talking about helping me craft another way to get it out to other people, because we talked about this a minute ago. If it's in our head, it doesn't count. If it's in the classroom, we reach 50 people. If we can publish it, it has life, it has legs. It has opportunity for others to consider it, but none of that I cannot allow that chat GPT to write my article without human intervention.

Thad Johnson: 31:22

Talk about that, that you know, that's the thing. Artificial intelligence, things that are new, can be scary, right, that's just human nature, right, and chat, gpt and other forms of artificial intelligence. It's just a new way to come across. But in all of these tools that have come across over time, it has been there to help the human user, not to supersede the human user.

Thad Johnson: 31:41

So, whether it's chat, gpt, whether it's facial recognition technology, risk, terrain mapping, all these things, you still need an intelligent human to be able to decipher these things.

Thad Johnson: 31:49

What artificial intelligence does is able to process tons of information and bring it to a point where it's digestible, and you can make decisions based on these different buckets of knowledge and ideas and things that are spread out.

Thad Johnson: 32:00

But it's still for the human actor to understand what the legal parameters are, what the policy parameters are, where are the human consequences of these things that AI can do? so that human person, the operator, is so entirely important, and that's important, while those policies with AI and law enforcement, that these things are in place so that we don't automate their discretion, where the officer is just a vessel who's just speeding the output from the artificial intelligence. And so the human actor is important, because it has not meant to replace us. It's meant to empower us, and what you're doing you're using this AI and you're thinking of it to empower communities and policy leaders. So this is the prime example of how we can use these things. Instead of being afraid of and demonize it less, embrace it and make sure that we control the narrative on how it's being used. Yeah, that's great.

Steve Morreale: 32:45

So we've been talking to Thad Johnson, dr Thad Johnson. He is a professor at Georgia State University. I'm talking to him today in New York City where he is visiting, and we've been talking about a number of things, the things he's involved with. He's a former Memphis police officer. But, thad, one of the things that you brought up a minute ago and I think it's great, because we were talking about AI and you were talking about discretion Let's talk about discretion as it relates to police.

Steve Morreale: 33:10

I'm teaching an American judicial course and it happens to be all police officers And I know how we react to judges that seem to push away and arrest that a police officer makes and make a decision that is not necessarily in the best interest of the officer. Why are you letting this guy get off scot-free? He hit me, he punched me, he kicked me, he was a jackass, whatever it was. But I ask the students to think about the necessity for discretion in a judge that sees case after case after case and then makes decisions based on what is presented to them, what the person looks like, how the person behaves to them in court, how the person is represented. They have the right to discretion, as police officers have the right to discretion. How important is discretion? as you're teaching police officers, as you were a police officer, as you think about police officers, how important is that day-to-day discretion?

Thad Johnson: 34:04

Powerfully important, and the one thing I always start off with I tell them that the caught things are lawful. They still can be awful, and so you have a lot of discretion. And this is the thing when I talk about reward structures and policies, how they shape your discretion right. So if you're in the department that rewards arrests equally or a traffic stop equally, as you do a community type of engagement, then now it allows the officer to use their discretion. Well, i don't have to make this arrest right now or write this ticket right now. I've done my job. I've held them accountable, i've told them about their ways. What's unlawful and kind of gave them a warning about this, is what will happen next, and so you have the latitude for that. And then you also have the latitude that sometimes have to use discretion for things that may be lower level types of arrests to send a message. So oftentimes the person is broken along. This is just the truth.

Thad Johnson: 34:49

People may not want to hear that, but that's the honest to God truth that, because the tools are so narrow that officers often have, discretion is a powerful tool, and so we have to make sure that we provide them with the right training so they can use the discretion in a way that we want them to use it. I bet you they have the right tools on that person. Things from you can't have officers walking around with simply OC spray and then a firearm. They need tools across their belt to go in between those steps so they can use the discretion and move up and down the force continuum as necessary. So discretion is so powerful when it comes to police officer, particularly when we work along the lines of probable cause And, just to tell the truth, oftentimes reasonable suspicion to lead to probable cause And I often hear about from my students and just as an officer myself, they throw these cases out.

Thad Johnson: 35:32

I'm pissed off. I block them up and they went through the work of locking them up. Now the rest is not like a five minute thing. You have to arrest them. If you don't have a brief you have to drive across town to another hour or two.

Steve Morreale: 35:43

You know you didn't get down on the property You got to write the report. Yeah, so that's for hours.

Thad Johnson: 35:47

I know It's time, so that's a lot of work and effort, and officers feel like when they make arrests, that they are doing good to the community. That's the one tool we give our patrol officers. That's why they willed it. So What I tell them is that think about it When you get to court.

Thad Johnson: 35:59

These judges have more evidence, like you said, and in our broader research, what we're finding is is that let's just get only play the cards that they dealt, and they have to make decisions on the fly. When it happens, the courts are there to either affirm or to evaluate what the officers have done, and what we found is that in many cases that, even if there's disparities in arrests, the state analysis with the council on criminal justice, bill Sabal and I, and what we found is is that, even though there may be racial disparities and arrests, something is happening when they get to court, because in court, if there's disparities on either side, the court is able to mitigate that with decision making. What is diversion? what are these things? And so, as an officer, we can't be frustrated with what goes on with the other parts of the system. We're all part of a larger machinery and it's important that we focus on our role, but think about the impacts of our decisions downstream.

Steve Morreale: 36:46

Well, you know, what came to mind a minute ago was this discussion that we're having about discretion and police discretion, how important it is, and I remember being in a class a few weeks ago and you two were talking about discretion and this is what I brought up. I step up to your car and I say good afternoon, ma'am Officer Morieli. may I see your license and registration? and somebody says what the fuck? for What did I do?

Steve Morreale: 37:04

And what I said is, at that point in time, my latitude that I was going to grant you may be changed by attitude. And the student got very upset, saying that is just damn wrong. I said, well, wait a minute.

Intro : 37:17

Is it?

Steve Morreale: 37:17

wrong. You can't write me a ticket because I swore at you I'm not writing you a ticket. Your behavior, your attitude towards me just kind of tilted me towards you. All right, you want to be a jackass, i'll write you a ticket. I came up here getting ready to give you a warning.

Steve Morreale: 37:32

Now I understand, because we're human, we're responding or reacting. Your head is shaking, but once I explained that, i think she understood that. I said listen, you know, if there's a student who gives me a little bit of a hard time and they're not apologetic, i've got power of the pen, i've got the power of the B, the B minus, and I'm never going to say by the way, you got a B minus because you were a jackass in class, it's my discretion. You have discretion as to whether to hang out with a friend who's a jerk to you. You have discretion as to whether to take a job or work for a boss that's a jackass. We all have discretion, and so it becomes important but to try to explain discretion both to students and to the general public. We're all human in that uniform.

Thad Johnson: 38:13

And there you go, because that's the thing, because you may use your discretion and meet this same person. That's the same type of attitude to energy you know a million times in a week and just you may do it right And like you know what it rolls off like water or dust back, but it's that one time that you didn't do anything illegal. And perhaps if you're behaving that way, it may make me suspicious that maybe there's some type of contraband or something going on. Maybe I need to sharpen my eyesight in my sense of smell and hearing and things right. But you're absolutely right And if we want to deny that that's not real, that these officers are not human beings who deal with stresses. Also, it may have been upset with your child, you may have bills due to an infection letter, You may. You and your partner may be at odds And you don't know the stress and the other professionals do the stress that that you're coming in with. And so discretion is a lot to ask of officers to not make one single mistake. There's a lot to ask of officers to keep their cool every single time. Now it's a different now between giving somebody a tongue last in the heart of time, as opposed to just whipping their ass on the side of the street. We know that you draw the line somewhere, but if we don't realize that these officers are human and this goes even to, like you know, make sure that they have enough pay that they don't have.

Thad Johnson: 39:16

I look at them acting captain. I'm bouncing in clubs with a gold badge on, i'm working in grocery stores and I'm working double shifts. This is the thing Like we have to keep mental health at top priority Now make sure the officers are good to go in places like Dallas. They had to fight to see the Dallas tooth and nail the first responders to get mental health days, so they have vacation days, sick days and they have mental health days.

Thad Johnson: 39:37

Some departments have provided things like yoga, things like trauma, informed sessions for the officer to be able to debrief and talk about things that we have to treat our police officers like human beings and invest them as such, because if we are not sure that our officers are well or as safe are and the top quality shape that they can be in various dimensions of their lives, we can't expect them to use their discretion like we want them to. We can't expect them to keep their cool all the time like we want them to, because they are hurting themselves. But somewhere in this conversation officers have not become people. Officers cannot make mistakes where any other job in the world can.

Thad Johnson: 40:10

Well, we got a whole officers to a higher standard? Yes, we do, but they are still human beings who hurt, who suffer, whose feelings are hurt. Now shut up. Now. This is one last thing.

Thad Johnson: 40:19

I remember doing the protests, doing George Floyd. There was a black officer and all these protesters who look like him are right there. He has tears flowing down his face because he understands why they feel that way, but he understands the vital importance of policing and keeping our society safe And that, even if it's times where you believe you don't have a clueless plan rally, you need to provide security for them. Right, and so we can't start chopping up who deserves to be treated a certain way. We can't start thinking that nobody's less than human.

Thad Johnson: 40:45

Well, there's those groups that name, and particularly our police officers. So two of us told that many times it's an impossible job that goes underappreciated, underpaid, and they just kind of just. I couldn't imagine being a police officer now, because I think the general attendant is that they're a necessary evil And that has kind of always been the case. But it's been much more vocal, particularly when you have officers who have drawn the force for for for honorable reasons, a spirit of service, and it can be somewhat a shock to the system and to the psyche to be responded in certain ways, as you are, by our citizens.

Thad Johnson: 41:13

Is this bad all the way around? And that would make it so hard to do the job that we do. Because you can understand the pain and hurt on each side, and I think our job is to clear all the shrubbery of trauma and pain so they can see each other for who they are. And if we can get them to talking in that way, then the truth be told, steve, you and I job is done when it comes to that point And we just serve as consultants and counselors. But it's just a. It's a hard thing And it's always has been.

Steve Morreale: 41:36

So we're going to begin to wind down. There's two things that I want to discuss before I lose you And you know that we could be talking for hours And this is our second session And I appreciate your point of view and sharing with me and with the listeners One of the things that I want to talk about is what you're working on. I want to hone in on the event in Memphis, your police department, what you thought when you saw that, how you reacted to that, what you feel about that, how it is an agency bounce back from that horrible event of unsupervised police officers beating the crap out of somebody and ultimately having him die.

Thad Johnson: 42:12

Yeah, it was heartbreaking. You know I watched that video and you know I cried like a baby And I'm not that guy, but I know what it meant to the city of Memphis. I also knew what it meant to the narrative of the whole. I'm not that I'm glad that it happened. I'm not saying that.

Steve Morreale: 42:26

But I'm sure so many people just said here we go again. I thought it was done.

Thad Johnson: 42:30

Yeah, and it's just the fact that all the things we talk about potential stops the focus on traditional police cultures where it's running gun balls to the wall when we celebrate that type of style of work. It bought to me where the hell were the leaders? It bought up things like how are these people promoted and selected for these special units? It also bought back. I saw Tyree Nichols. He was fearful. He was afraid for his life when he ran the first time. You know, oh, black people define it when they run. No many times they're afraid for their lives And for me it was early heartbreaking, not just what the police officers did, but these are black officers And many people have advocated that you need, you know we need more diverse policing And I've been saying, yes, you need it, but it's more important about the race of the client and less about the race of the officer.

Thad Johnson: 43:12

When these things engage. You have minority threat hypothesis, where you know people can be more fearful of minority, of people belonging to minority groups. I mean, it's not just you know why people being afraid of black people. I tell my students if I'm walking down, it's with an Atlanta two in the morning And I see the Migos rap group coming down the street on the same side as I am, and I see the golden girls and I have to choose to cross the street from one of those groups. I'm probably not going across the street because of Sophia coming my way right, and so we have to be honest about these things.

Thad Johnson: 43:37

And so when I saw that, i was like my God, the one tool we may have had that we could connect with people that has been tarnished because they realized it's about the color of the person being stopped, and so it was just really heartbreaking. And also what I saw was the culture among the first responders. Mind you, i grew up in Memphis. This is growing up Now. If you run for the Memphis police, they're going to tune you up, and that was the thing, as I was a police officer Now I'm just saying this to watch my hands clear I never worked with any officers with that mindset.

Thad Johnson: 43:59

I knew of officers with that mindset, but that's been the mindset of Memphis for a long time, so I'm not surprised by that. What I was surprised by was that it was a culture that I saw among the whole first responders community in Memphis. It wasn't just the police, it was the sheriff's desk, it was the EMTs, it was the fire department, and so it shows that when we look at these cultures and these issues, we have to look at. That's why I call on looking at the mayor because you have all these things going on in these different units.

Thad Johnson: 44:21

Nobody rendered an aid, nobody followed in protocol, but all people were focused on all those police officers. That's a bad mistake. And so those are the things that kind of jumped out at me When I first saw it. I was like I think the chief is a great chief, i think she has done great things and she's a really great, even symbolically, a policing. But I was like how can she leave after that? Because this happened under her watch, and so those are some of the things that really came out, And I realized that the trust that was already in tatters between in Memphis residents and police officers was further widened and further torn.

Thad Johnson: 44:53

And we've seen I'm not saying that there's a straight cause and effect, but many of the places we've seen murder rates and gun violence rate go down this year compared to the past couple of years not in Memphis, not in Memphis. I'm not saying it's a direct cause and effect, but I would be remiss to say if that didn't play a role in it when you don't trust your police, when you don't feel like even the police officers that are good ones, that they even have the resources to keep you protected, that's a bad place to be as a citizen. And so those are some of the things that immediately just jumped out. My heart went out And I'm going to tell you I thought about leaving academia that very day because that same morning I got a call about a student group and it was about a meeting, about some t-shirts that wanted to be made.

Thad Johnson: 45:27

I'm not saying that stuff's not important, but I'm hurting right now. I'm in pain, i'm suffering And I just want to go down to Memphis and be a resource, but I have to Swiss gears and talk about t-shirts. And it made me wonder, like man, it's academe, yeah, what's important, but talents are best used And those things come and go. I think anybody who does this work, in particular who's an academic, who does this work, they rouse with it every day. And then I realized, well, if I'm not part of academe, at the worst case I won't have access to the resources and materials that I have to steal for others And the voice that you've got, and the voice, yeah, and that's exactly right.

Steve Morreale: 45:59

So what's on your bucket list? What are you working on?

Thad Johnson: 46:01

Man. So working with the council on criminal justice and we just wrapping up this state level report on racial disparities, where we look at the impact of statutory statute reforms and law changes when it comes to penal code and things of that nature is the impact on disparities? So we've been working on that and we just about bringing that to an end. What we're finding in many cases is that law is not necessarily innovative, but law submits oftentimes to practices that are already in place. That's one thing.

Thad Johnson: 46:27

Another thing that we've been working on is understanding the role of partisanship on police behaviors and things like crime rates and using of county level data across all the states in the US to try to get an understanding of what a police doing. How does politics, community partisanship impact the role of the jobs of the police do and also how does it impact the type of investments that we make in communities? Because all this brings me back to the point. All my research when it's police and correction is that it's about the people and that it's about the laws and it's about the people who are in charge, but they are empowered by the people And research shows that the power of the vote, people's political leanings in the communities can really have an impact on what things look like for you in your everyday life beyond criminal justice And so those are just very few things that we're working on.

Thad Johnson: 47:09

We're looking at some more things on black gun culture and the code of the street, types of things, the lure of the street lifestyle. So we have a lot of things that's working on and unlike many people, I don't have a research agenda that's purely focuses on policing or focus on correction.

Intro : 47:21

I follow the rabbit hole.

Thad Johnson: 47:22

So one or two studies leads me somewhere else. Let's follow the rabbit hole, and all it has brought me back to looking at these community investments and things beyond the justice system and how they marry and coalesce together.

Steve Morreale: 47:32

Well, one of the things that I think scholars have common is a curiosity, willingness to be lifelong learners but, more important, to try to figure out what questions deserve to be answered, and that's something you're doing on a regular basis. So thank you very much for joining us.

Thad Johnson: 47:48

No, thank you for having me, Thank you for letting me around a little bit, and just, you know, just to say I met you, we automatically a vibe. I know we look like twins, you know, but we can look different in certain sunlights. But you know, we come from no different backgrounds And but the fact that we can connect on these things and find commonalities and truths shows that you know that maybe we're really talking about something, that we're on to something and that is worth at least listening to and coming together. So, man, I appreciate you and what you do. I listen to your show and just all the diverse voices that you bring on. You will talk to anybody And I think that's the spirit that needs to be had in this space. So just thank you, brother.

Steve Morreale: 48:20

But I very much appreciate your perspective, because it is so keen, it is so needed, and your willingness to be honest and forthright and be a leader and kind of put yourself out there, because you can't be a leader without taking risks And you certainly do that. But I appreciate it And that's why I keep coming back to a guy named Thad Johnson, dr Thad Johnson from Georgia State University. Thad, thank you so much for being with us. Thanks, the in attack, take care. All right, that's it. That's another episode of the Cop Doc podcast coming to you from New York City, but from Thad Johnson, and I appreciate his input and ask you to keep listening and please reach out. Let me know what you're thinking, let me know why I might be talking to. That can help you do your job better. Stay safe, have a great summer.

Intro : 49:03

Thanks for listening to the cop doc podcast with Dr Steve Moriali. Steve is a retired law enforcement practitioner and manager, turned academic and scholar from Western State University. Please tune into the cop doc podcast for regular episodes of interviews with thought leaders in policing.