Over 2.3 million people are incarcerated, 7 million are on probation or parole, and almost every family in America has been touched in some way by mass incarceration. Just as anger over mass incarceration has spread, turmoil over the police arrests which lead to fatalities have permeated the news media.

Rather than increasing the to the point of racial warfare,community conscience citizen groups have turned to police authorities to gather the truth, Thus attempting to avert anger based manipulation of facts from merchants of chaos and hate-based organizations in all forms of media to a disposition of inquiry and community building.

Although Attorney General Holder’s report on Ferguson uncovered some disturbing practices and violation of constitutional rights; he and President Obama proposed, “ a National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice to a historic new Task Force on 21st Century Policing – which will provide strong federal support to law enforcement at every level, on a scale not seen since the Johnson Administration. These aims have also led me to travel throughout the country – to Atlanta, Cleveland, Memphis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Oakland and San Francisco – to convene a series of roundtable discussions dedicated to building trust and engagement between law enforcement, civil rights, youth and community leaders from coast-to-coast.”

In Kenner and Jefferson Parish Louisiana, citizens, civic, community faith-based organizations have the opportunity to learn the positive role of the policing and how they go about in their attempt of protecting the citizens of the communities they serve. Thanks to the wisdom of our local sheriff, building trust in the local policing authority has been systematically offered through a series of courses and seminars. These seminars are open to all citizens and hopefully will be attended by people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds to increase affinity between the law enforcement officers and law abiding citizens. Our local policing authorities may not be perfect, but their realization of opening a dialogue between the public and the police predates the current national attention on the problem. Their model of Citizen’s Academy should be reviewed and modeled as one method to increase public awareness.

All rights reserved Copyright © 2015 Jamillah M. Grant