The juxtaposition of a presentation on homelessness in the Forest Park business districts by Police Chief Ken Gross on Oct. 14 and the behavior of ICE agents in the Near West Suburbs provides us with a striking case study regarding how to balance the firm enforcement of the law with compassion.
I could not find the word compassion in any of the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) documents available to me online. The closest I found was in an ICE document: “ICE detention standards ensure that detainees are treated humanely; protected from harm; provided appropriate medical and mental health care; and receive the rights and protections to which they are entitled.”
According to the front page Review article last week, Mayor Hoskins contends that in this neck of the woods, ICE agents are not walking that talk. He accused the ones operating in Bellwood of being “poorly trained,” “shattering constitutional norms,” and “causing irreparable damage.”
I’ve always been a fan of the way our FPPD does business and the presentation by Chief Gross confirmed that opinion. The second of 12 slides said that the Chief would emphasize safety, compassion and legal compliance.
And the word “compassion” here does not mean lenience. It means officers will cite or arrest you if you break the law, but they will do so with professionalism, courtesy and respect. The 20 merchants present in village hall seemed to agree that the Chief’s talk was matched by the way FPPD officers walk.
Here’s an interesting thing about the law: In our society many laws are designed to prevent perpetrators from endangering the safety of citizens while other laws protect the rights of suspected perpetrators.
The American legal system is realistic about human nature in the sense that we don’t expect everyone to treat everyone else humanely and have compassion out of the goodness of their hearts. That’s why we have codes like the Bill of Rights which gives people who are not being treated humanely legal recourse.
Far too often parents don’t treat their children humanely and with compassion. That’s one of the reasons we have DCFS.
Unfortunately the laws created to protect citizens are misused by those who are appointed or elected to enforce them.
The story in the Review last week is one of literally thousands we’ve seen in the media or online documenting abuse of power by ICE agents, their supervisors and those who appoint them, going all the way to the Oval Office.
Chief Gross noted that laws, no matter how well intentioned, can tie the hands of the police and prevent them from intervening in situations where harm is being done. For example apparently many of the homeless population around here have become a nuisance to merchants trying to run their businesses. The problem, the Chief explained, is that the law has erected so many hurdles to jump over that it restricts the ability of law enforcement to do that job.
Say a homeless person is loitering for hours in a store on Madison Street and their behavior is discouraging customers from patronizing the business, so the owner calls the police. Before officers can legally remove the person, they will ask, “Have you posted a no trespassing or no soliciting sign?”
Next step, sign a written complaint.
Next, be willing to show up in court.
We’re all for due process, right?!
Another problem, in Chief Gross’ opinion, is that legislation like the SAFE-T Act goes too far on the compassion side of the balance. For example, the elimination of cash bail might be meant to uphold the rights of poor people, but what frustrates police officers is that they can’t detain bad actors when the law allows them to be back on the street hours after, sometimes committing the exact same crimes.
Sometimes teachers face a similar challenge.
When I was in teacher training, we were encouraged to read a book titled, Don’t Smile Till Christmas, in which author Kevin Ryan collected the first-year experiences of high school teachers, as they pit their ivory-tower idealism against the harsh realities of teaching.
One commentator, who agreed with Ryan in principle, wrote, “Establishing your authority within the classroom does not require coldness and lack of positive emotion, though I accept it requires a degree of professional distance and the recognition that the focus has to be a productive working relationship and not a friendship. These young people have their friends — they don’t need another.”
That term professional distance is really important. Teachers can and should at some point reveal some of their humanity to their students, but the goal is not intimacy.
The same holds true with cops. I don’t want or need Chief Gross to be my buddy in the name of compassion or treat me differently because I’m in a wheelchair. That kind of relationship would compromise his ability to do his job.