A police department that is representative of the community matters, according to experts who study police-community relations.

“One of the most fundamental principles of policing is that the police are the public and the public are the police,” said Craig Futterman, a clinical professor of law at the University of Chicago and founder of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project at the university’s Mandel Legal Aid Clinic. “When you have a police department that doesn’t look like the public they serve that dramatizes the police-community divide.”

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For the past four years, Futterman has been talking to high school students, many of them African-American, about their experiences with police officers. “Those who spoke most positively about the police were those who feel the officers could identify with their experiences,” he said. “We saw some build positive relationships based on their ability to understand and empathize … Some students even saw [the police officers] as role models.”

The departments that reflect the community send a message of equity and fairness, said Futterman, and that “promotes legitimacy and principles of justice.”

Read more at The Chicago Reporter