加拿大犯罪学教授谈美国警察的种族歧视文化

张澜波

編者按：2020年5月25日，美国明尼阿波利斯市警察长时间跪在黑人脖子上导致其死亡事件，激化了美国种族割裂的社会伤口，导致全美多地发生骚乱，甚至导致该市市政委员会考虑解散并重组警察部门。

近日，加拿大曼尼托巴大学一位有着四十余年研究和教学经验的著名犯罪学教授，在和中国朋友的私人信件中，对美国明尼阿波利斯市发生的白人警察蓄意造成黑人青年死亡事件进行了愤怒谴责。其文有理有据，言词犀利，对个别美国警察的卑劣行径进行了毫不留情的批判，并将话题引申至美国警察体系中长期存在的种族歧视传统。经其同意，我们将信件内容进行翻译并发表，以供参考。

这个问题（本文译者请教其对以上案例的看法）可以用一句古老的口号来简单回答——任何时候，文化都会战胜战略。战略可以用训练、筛选或其他任何活动替代。

美国的种族主义历史悠久，这一历史可以追溯到与原住民的接触以及奴隶制时期。这两种情况导致黑人与原住民长期处于贫穷和教育低下的状态。

我记得，美国南方各州为黑人和白人分设洗手间，黑人职业棒球运动员被迫住在和白人运动员不同的酒店，在不同的餐厅就餐。虽然这些明显的障碍已经解除，但许多美国白人仍然希望那些所谓的美好旧时光能回来。美国现任总统以及他的党派中的很多人，都明确无误地让白人至上主义者感觉得到了支持。

在美国，警察一直被用于让黑人循规蹈矩。由于贫穷和歧视，黑人的总体犯罪率高于白人，因此他们与警察有更多的机会打交道。大量研究表明，整个司法系统都存在歧视黑人的事实 （最近在加拿大哈利法克斯的一项研究发现，黑人在街上被警察盘查的可能性是白人的四倍——这项研究导致了该城市取消了街头盘查）。在20世纪60年代，犯罪率的上升（部分原因是婴儿潮）导致美国政客积极对犯罪宣战，鼓励警察和司法系统的其他部门积极打击犯罪行为，其中许多被打击者是黑人。这滋长了针对黑人的种族主义态度和行为的固化。同样，这种情况也有很多案例记录为证。

警察文化中的“蓝墙”加剧了这一点，这意味着警察的不当行为通常不会被其他同事举报，任何违反这一“潜规则”的人都会因此而拥有悲惨而短暂的职业生

涯。

行为不端的警察很少受到纪律处分。在本案中，该警官案发前曾遭到18起投诉，其中只有两起受到轻微的纪律处分。一些警局有跟踪纪律问题的计算机程序，这样上级就可以提前处理，而不是等待这种事件发生，但显然明尼阿波利斯的情况并非如此。

警察的上级主管通常都赞同警察的粗暴行为。即使上级主管不赞同，警察工会也总是会支持警察，并出资聘请优秀的律师为被控使用非法暴力的警察辩护。在很多城市（如纽约、明尼阿波利斯和多伦多），警察工会拥有很大权力，以至于他们在实际上掌控警局。而在美国，许多警察工会领导人及成员都是特朗普的支持者，因为他们知道他支持他们的虐待行为。由于过度的暴力问题，一些警察部门一直迫于联邦法律的压力作出改变，但当特朗普上任后，他至少取消了一些相关法律，也许全部都被他取

消了。

如果当前的事件会带来改变，那就太好了，但由于文化的力量，任何实际改变都要经过很长时间。

原文：

For a simple answer as to why this happened， there is an old slogan： Culture beats strategy any day of the week. And for “strategy” you can substitute training， or selection， or almost any other activity. The U.S. has a long history of racism—a history that goes back to contact with indigenous people， and then to slavery. In both these cases， the result was ensuring that blacks and indigenous people stayed poor and uneducated. I can remember when the southern states had separate washrooms for blacks and whites， black professional baseball players had to stay in separate hotels and eat in separate restaurants. While these obvious barriers have now been lifted， many white Americans still hope those good old days will come back， and politicians like the current president and many in his party make sure the white supremacists know they are supported.

Police have always been used to keep blacks in their place， and because of poverty and discrimination they have also had higher crime rates than whites， so they have more contact with the police. There have been lots of studies documenting the fact that the entire justice system discriminates against blacks （one recent study in Halifax found that blacks were four times more likely to be stopped on the street than whites—this study resulted in the end of street checks in that city）. In the 1960s， rising crime rates （partly because of the baby boom） led U.S. politicians to declare war on crime， which encouraged the police and other parts of the justice system to crack down on offenders， many of whom were black. This helped to perpetuate racist attitudes and behaviours directed at blacks. Again， examples are well-documented.

This is compounded by the ‘blue wall of police culture， which means that police misconduct is often not reported by other officers， and anyone who violates the code will have a miserable and very short career.

Police who misbehave are rarely disciplined. The officer in this case had 18 complaints， of which only two led to minor discipline. Some departments have computer programs that track disciplinary issues so supervisors can deal with them early rather than waiting for this kind of episode， but obviously this wasnt the case in Minneapolis. Chiefs often agree with police abuses—and when they dont， unions will always support their officers， and usually have the money to hire very good lawyers to defend officers accused of illegal violence. In many cities （New York， Minneapolis and Toronto are examples）， the unions have so much power that they effectively run the department. And in the U.S.， many police union leaders and their members are big Trump supporters， because they know he supports their abusive behaviour. Some departments had been under federal orders to change because of excessive violence issues， but when Trump took over he cancelled at least some of these， and possibly all of them.

It would be nice if the current events led to change， but because of the strength of the culture it will be a long time before anything actually changes.

（本文譯者曾就职于武汉市公安局特警支队，现为先丰服务集团莫桑比克公司安全安保经理。2009～2010年曾参加利比里亚维和任务，2010～2011年在公安部国际合作局礼宾处工作）

（责任编辑：古静）