The release of footage showing Memphis police officers fatally beating Tyre Nichols has prompted renewed calls for widespread police reform.
More News
Guests on Greater Boston said the solution doesn't lie in policy changes alone.
Rahsaan Hall, founder of Rahsaan Hall Consulting said, "The real root of the problem is the nature of policing itself." Hall explained that no amount of training will change the ideologies that inform policing.
He said communities need to invest in underlying issues such as substance abuse disorders, mental health issues and trauma. Hall said crime could go down if those complex problems are addressed.
Jody David Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California, agreed that the nature of policing is a problem, and anti-Black bias and systemic bias can come into play even if officers are Black, which Memphis officers were.
"When people put on that blue uniform, that identity seems to drown out all of the other identities they came to that blue uniform with," Armour said.
Without abolishing the police, Armour said, we could do things like taking them out of traffic stops and channeling those resources into solving violent crimes.
Watch: Police policies didn’t stop Memphis officers from killing Tyre Nichols. What would?
