WEBVTT

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When people meet me
for the first time on my job,

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they often feel inspired to share
a revelation they've had about me,

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and it kind of goes something like this.

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"Hey, I know why police chiefs

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like to share their deep,
dark secrets with you.

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Phil, with your PhD in psychology,

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and your shiny bald head,

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you're basically
the Black Dr. Phil, right?"

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(Laughter)

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And for each and every person
who's ever said that to me

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I do want to say thank you

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because that was the first time
I ever heard that joke.

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(Laughter)

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But for everybody else,
I really hope you'll believe me

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when I tell you no police chief
likes talking to me

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because they think
I'm a clinical psychologist.

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And also I'm not.

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I have no idea what your mother
did to you, and I can't help.

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(Laughter)

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Police chiefs like talking to me

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because I'm an expert on a problem
that feels impossible for them to solve:

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racism in their profession.

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Now my expertise
comes from being a scientist

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who studies how our minds learn
to associate Blackness and crime

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and misperceive Black children
as older than they actually are.

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It also comes from studying
actual police behavior,

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which is how I know that every year,

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about one in five adults
in the United States

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has contact with law enforcement.

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Out of those, about a million
are targeted for police use of force.

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And if you're Black,

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you're two to four times more likely
to be targeted for that force

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than if you're white.

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But it also comes from knowing
what those statistics feel like.

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I've experienced the fear
of seeing an officer unclip their gun

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and the panic of realizing that someone
might mistake my 13-year-old godson

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as old enough to be a threat.

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So when a police chief,

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or a pastor,

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or an imam, or a mother --

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when they call me after an officer
shoots another unarmed Black child,

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I understand a bit
of the pain in their voice.

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It's the pain of a heart breaking
when it fails to solve a deadly problem.

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Breaking from trying to do something

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that feels simultaneously
necessary and impossible.

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The way trying to fix
racism usually feels.

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Necessary and impossible.

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So, police chiefs like talking to me
because I'm an expert,

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but I doubt they'd be lining up
to lie down on Dr. Phil's couch

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if I told them all their
problems were hopeless.

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All of my research,

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and the decade of work
I've done with my center --

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the Center for Policing Equity --

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actually leads me to a hopeful conclusion

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amidst all the heartbreak
of race in America,

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which is this:

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trying to solve racism feels impossible

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because our definition of racism
makes it impossible --

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but it doesn't have to be that way.

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So here's what I mean.

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The most common definition of racism

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is that racist behaviors are the product
of contaminated hearts and minds.

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When you listen to the way we talk
about trying to cure racism,

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you'll hear it.

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"We need to stamp out hatred.

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We need to combat ignorance," right?

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It's hearts and minds.

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Now the only problem with that definition
is that it's completely wrong --

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both scientifically and otherwise.

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One of the foundational insights
of social psychology

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is that attitudes are
very weak predictors of behaviors,

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but more importantly than that,

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no Black community
has ever taken to the streets

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to demand that white people
would love us more.

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Communities march to stop the killing,

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because racism
is about behaviors, not feelings.

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And even when civil rights leaders

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like King and Fannie Lou Hamer
used the language of love,

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the racism they fought,

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that was segregation and brutality.

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It's actions over feelings.

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And every one of
those leaders would agree,

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if a definition of racism
makes it harder to see

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the injuries racism causes,

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that's not just wrong.

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A definition that cares
about the intentions of abusers

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more than the harms to the abused --

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that definition of racism is racist.

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But when we change the definition
of racism from attitudes to behaviors,

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we transform that problem
from impossible to solvable.

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Because you can measure behaviors.

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And when you can measure a problem,

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you can tap into one of the only
universal rules of organizational success.

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You've got a problem or a goal,
you measure it,

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you hold yourself accountable
to that metric.

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So if every other organization
measures success this way,

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why can't we do that in policing?

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It turns out we actually already do.

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Police departments already practice
data-driven accountability,

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it's just for crime.

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The vast majority of police departments
across the United States

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use a system called CompStat.

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It's a process that,
when you use it right,

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it identifies crime data,

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it tracks it and identifies patterns,

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and then it allows departments
to hold themselves accountable

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to public safety goals.

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It usually works either by directing
police attentions and police resources,

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or changing police behavior
once they show up.

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So if I see a string of muggings
in that neighborhood,

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I'm going to want to increase
patrols in that neighborhood.

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If I see a spike in homicides,

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I'm going to want to talk
to the community to find out why

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and collaborate on changes on police
behavior to tamp down the violence.

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Now when you define racism
in terms of measurable behaviors,

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you can do the same thing.

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You can create a CompStat for justice.

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That's exactly what the Center
for Policing Equity has been doing.

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So let me tell you how that works.

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After a police department invites us in,

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we handle the legal stuff,
we engage with the community,

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our next step is to analyze their data.

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The goal of these analyses is to determine

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how much do crime, poverty,
neighborhood demographics

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predict, let's say, police use of force?

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Let's say that those factors predict

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police will use force
on this many Black people.

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There?

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So our next question is,

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how many Black people
actually are targeted

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for police use of force?

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Let's say it's this many.

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So what's up with the gap?

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Well, a big portion of the gap
is the difference

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between what's predicted
by things police can't control

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and what's predicted
by things police can control --

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their policies and their behaviors.

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And what we're looking for
are the types of contact

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or the areas in the city

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where that gap is biggest,

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because then we can tell our partners,

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"Look here. Solve this problem first."

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It's actually the kind of therapy
police chiefs can get behind,

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because there is nothing so inspiring
in the face of our history of racism

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as a solvable problem.

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Look, if the community in Minneapolis
asked their police department

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to remedy the moral failings
of race in policing,

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I'm not sure they know how to do that.

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But if instead the community says,

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"Hey, you're data say you're beating up
a lot of homeless folks.

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You want to knock that off?"

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That's something police
can learn how to do.

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And they did.

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So in 2015, the Minneapolis PD let us know

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their community was concerned
they were using force too often.

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So we showed them
how to leverage their own data

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to identify situations
where force could be avoided.

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And when you look at those data,

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you'll see that a disproportionate number
of their use-of-force incidents,

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they involved somebody who's homeless,
in mental distress,

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has a substance abuse issue
or some combination of all three --

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more than you expect

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based on those factors
I was just telling you about.

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So right there's the gap.

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Next question is why.

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Well, it turns out homeless folks
often need services.

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And when those services are unavailable,
when they can't get their meds,

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they lose their spot in the shelter,

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they're more likely to engage in behaviors
that end up with folks calling the cops.

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And when the cops show up,

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they're more likely
to resist intervention,

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oftentimes because they haven't
actually done anything illegal,

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they're literally just living outside.

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The problem wasn't a need to train
officers differently in Minneapolis.

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The problem was the fact
that folks were using the cops

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to "treat" substance abuse
and homelessness in the first place.

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So the city of Minneapolis found a way
to deliver social services

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and city resources

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to the homeless community
before anybody ever called the cops.

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(Applause)

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Now the problem isn't
always homelessness, right?

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Sometimes the problem is
fear of immigration enforcement,

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like it was in Salt Lake City,
or it is in Houston,

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where the chiefs had to come forward

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and say, "We're not going
to deport you just for calling 911."

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Or the problem is foot pursuits,

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like it was in Las Vegas,

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where they had to train their officers
to slow down and take a breath

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instead of allowing the adrenaline
in that situation to escalate it.

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It's searches in Oakland;

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it's pulling folks
out of cars in San Jose;

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it's the way that they patrol
the neighborhoods

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that make up Zone 3 in Pittsburgh

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and the Black neighborhoods
closest to the waterfront in Baltimore.

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But in each city,

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if we can give them a solvable problem,

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they get busy solving it.

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And together our partners have seen
an average of 25 percent fewer arrests,

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fewer use-of-force incidents

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and 13 percent fewer
officer-related injuries.

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Essentially, by identifying
the biggest gaps

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and directing police
attentions to solving it,

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we can deliver a data-driven vaccine
against racial disparities in policing.

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Right now, we have the capacity
to partner with about 40 cities at a time.

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That means if we want the United States
to stop feeling exhausted

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from trying to solve
an impossible problem,

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we're going to need
a lot more infrastructure.

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Because our goal is to have
our tools be able to scale

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the brilliance of dedicated organizers

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and reform-minded chiefs.

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So to get there we're going to need
the kind of collective will

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that desegregated schools

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and won the franchise for the sons
and daughters of former slaves

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so that we can build
a kind of health care system

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capable of delivering our vaccine
across the country.

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Because our audacious idea

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is to deliver a CompStat for justice

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to departments serving 100 million people
across the United States

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in the next five years.

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(Applause and cheers)

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Doing that would mean arming
about a third of the United States

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with tools to reduce racial disparities
in police stops, arrests and use of force,

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but also tools to reduce
predatory cash bail

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and mass incarceration,

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family instability

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and chronic mental health
and substance abuse issues,

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and every other ill that our broken
criminal-legal systems aggravate.

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Because every unnecessary
arrest we can prevent

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saves a family from the terrifying journey
through each one of those systems.

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Just like every gun we can leave holstered

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saves an entire community
from a lifetime of grief.

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Look, each and every one of us,

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we measure the things that matter to us.

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Businesses measure profit;

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good students keep track of their grades;

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families chart the growth
of their children

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with pencil markings in doorframes.

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We all measure the things
that matter most to us,

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which is why we feel the neglect

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when nobody's bothering
to measure anything at all.

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For the past quarter millennium,

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we've defined the problems
of race and policing

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in a way that's functionally
impossible to measure.

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But now the science says
we can just change that definition.

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And the folks at the Center
for Policing Equity,

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I actually think we may have measured

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more police behavior
than any one in human history.

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And that means that once we have the will

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and the resources to do it,

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this could be the generation

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that stops feeling like racism
is an unsolvable problem

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and instead sees

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that what's been necessary
for far too long is possible.

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Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause and cheers)