Dear future president,

Recently, a majority of news reports have been talking about a specific social movement. This movement is black lives matter. Multiple groups of people have prompted the movement, one of the most prominent being the police force. Police officers are being racially insensitive, handling situations with black people poorly, and using unnecessary amounts of force in tense situations with a black person.

At the moment, the U.S. police force is not making very good or sensitive decisions. In areas like Ferguson, it would make more sense to try and hire more black police officers, so that there would be less of an edge in the community. While the goal is to remove racial tension entirely, we need to be very careful to avoid further hostility and conflict.

Another aspect of racism in the police force is how police handle interaction with black people. It is not acceptable to pull over, investigate, or arrest someone due to skin color. This leads to black people being very uncomfortable around police, which can explain why they may try to get away from a cop if no interaction has yet occurred.

Finally, I’ll talk about the largest issue in the police force. The excessive use of force on African Americans is far too frequent. Black males are injured by police officers 6 times as frequently as white males, and 5 times as much for females. This cannot be an accurate representation of crime rates, as there are at least 50% more white people incarcerated than black people. Many black deaths by police are without a valid cause.

Upon looking at these interactions, there is undeniably a problem. But what may be even more difficult is finding a way to solve it. I feel that there should be a form of racism screening done to police officers. While this would be difficult to implement, between blatant racism, an inability to handle a job around minorities, and unnecessary use of deadly force, it is extremely reasonable.

-Wellsb