The Case for why Truth & Reconciliation is the Best Idea Ever right now…really!

By Ben Calica
As San Francisco & other cities put these into play, why T&R commissions are also the sneaky/best way to keep people safe while we figure out what to do next.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

― James Baldwin

San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston are all doing something that is a lot smarter than even they may realize. They are setting up Truth & Reconciliation commissions, that if done right, have a number of other benefits, including sneaking in many of the critical changes that keeps people safe, and buying us the time to actually make the permanent changes we are striving for. While they are active, they inadvertently create shield of transparency and accountability, force avoidance of systemic bad behaviors, provides a specific map of problems and gives a chance to learn from them while providing the cover and time needed to figure out what to do next. It also creates time and the facts needed for the majority to reconcile their experiences with those who have had to live in fear. So can we make the case that they are actually the most important and first thing every community should be doing next?

Truth & Reconciliation commissions are basically a fancy title for a blend of external oversight about what is going on now and trying to get an honest history of what has happened previously.

There is a lot of reflexive resistance to the idea of a commision from both sides that needs to be addressed. For people who feel like the time for “investigating the problem” is past, the idea of a commission to reveal what for them is beyond obvious feels like a bonus to be done after change is made, and just ends up being yet another delay,when they are just done with waiting.

For the cops, it feels like a witch hunt. A bunch of people who don’t understand what they go through, looking over everything they do, trying to find justification for what feels like an unfair judgement of who they are. No one wants to go under that kind of scrutiny, particularly if they feel like they don’t deserve it, especially if they feel like that group is coming in with pitchforks and torches ablazing.

What is a Truth & Reconciliation Commision anyway?

The TJRC defines what they are doing is trying to “…process and address the injustices of the past that simply were not given the time, attention, and dignity that they deserved.” What I’m talking about for a truth and reconciliation commission, is an external group that both sides feel will be fair, that is given three jobs.

1. Truth Now: Figure out what is going on now. Identify and investigate both individual incidents as well as how they are handled by related groups (peers, superiors, unions, etc.). Looking for both specific bad actors, as well as figuring out if there are any patterns or other systemic issues either creating or defending that.
2. Truth Back Then: Figure out what has happened historically. Again, both looking at individual incidents as well as trying to figuring out why they happened, what was done about them and look for what happened, or didn’t happen from a system or pattern of behavior.
3. Reconciliation: Create a transparent window into both issues to be dealt with and what has or has not been done to deal with it.
   Publicly identify those patterns so the reality of what may need to change is known publicly, or exonerate those who have been wrongly accused. Create a safe way for people’s stories to be both validated and heard both by the public and by those who may have done those wrongs. If wrongdoing is discovered, both report that to those in charge of change and track and report out publicly. Individual names need to be treated with care, but types of incidents/frequency and frequency of confirmation/disapproval should be public.

For the purpose of this essay, this is the group that looks at body cam footage, that reconciles police reports with that footage, that listens to and investigates complaints, as well as just arrests and detainments to try and identify problems, either with individuals or with policy. Basically, this is the group that is looking at what the hell is and has gone on to figure out where the problems really are, because if we are trying to fix or build something new, we need to really know what has happened before so we can learn from it…

The Commission as The Big Sneaky Temp Umbrella:

So here are the reasons that we need to do these now, before any other big changes and why I’ll do anything I can to try and help this to happen. The commission may be aimed at helping us learn what happened to help us build the future. But just by existing (again, if done right), it will create the following temp protections to keep the vast majority of the incidents we all want to see stop from happening. (BTW…this only works if the commision is providing public transparency on a frequent basis, including things like number of incidents, preliminary findings, etc. Basically, they are the public eyes on what is going on now.) These things are all major end goals of any real police reform or restructure, but they come about magically for as long as the commission is investigating and active.

1. Accountability: Because the committee will investigate any complaint, or arresting incident, by comparing body cam with incident reports, the vast majority of incidents will likely stop while the commission is functioning. Departments and individual police officers will not want to give fuel to those who they feel are looking for reasons to show why a department should be defunded/replaced.
2. Transparency: While figuring out how to have departments be transparent internally, the commission acts as that window, reporting out the number of incidents, and the outcomes in terms of validated, disproven or under investigation.
3. Bodycam usage: With the majority of arrests, complaints and other incidents being reviewed, patterns of body cam usage and what officers do not use them can be externally verified. Any incident that can not be shown to be appropriately handled by a bodycam becomes flagged for extra investigation, so the officers become strongly motivated to both have those cams on and make sure that anything they do is something they are ok being seen by someone outside the department.
4. Encourage & Reward Good Cop behavior: Let’s put aside the “there can’t be a good cop inside a bad system” debate (that I’m constantly having with my kids). We are just talking about encouraging and observing good behavior. And there is value to that with the last item.
5. Break bad systemic habits: If having mom in the bathroom every night for a year to make sure you brush your teeth ends up creating that habit, it may not have been fun, but the habit is there. If a year goes by where every police report needs to be accurate, where unnecessarily aggressive behavior is not used, and if any institutional behaviors that protected or encouraged that have to be hidden away and not used, how much do the new ways of doing things end up actually replacing any old bad stuff? It’s naive to believe that is a full solution, but it is a way to see for a while what doing the right thing feels like for those who don’t already do it.

What other value does a T&R have?

So beyond being this sneaky, effective way to keep everybody safe in the short term, what is the value of a Truth & Reconciliation

1. Find out what is really going on: This is for both sides. Settle, in an open and fair, and specific way where the problems really are coming from. To figure out what to do next, it is critical to look very carefully, not at what we think has been happening, but what has actually been happening and try and figure out what the real causes. And a big part of that is to give the cops a real chance to show that they aren’t as bad as portrayed. If they don’t have that chance, they have no reason to participate, and everyone needs to be open to truth, even if it messes with belief. To risk being taken out the wood shed by either side, I would say that both sides have gelled into very strong and fairly overly generalized beliefs. The truth is never that simple…it is always messy and complex and nuanced, but we’re about to try and make changes in public safety that we want to take the best from what has been learned and identify the potential dangers to be able to make something that lives for a long, long time. And serves us well.
2. Buy time to figure out what to do: The second, enormous value is that we are currently trying to rush this enormous, systemic change because we don’t want another day to go by with justified fear of another incident. We all know that it would be stupid as hell to rush a new system without really thinking it though, but are worried that if we don’t grab this transformational moment, that it will blow over without any real change, again. The commission has both the value of keeping people safe while we figure this out, and keeping the reality of the problem on people’s minds as the monthly or more frequent reports come out revealing the problems that are being uncovered.
3. Public Support: Connected to this, there are two very different set of experiences that the majority and minority have with the police. Unfotutuanty, the majority is just that, and it is up to them (us…my being a pasty white boy) to make sure that we make sure that we don’t let another day go by with our fellow citizens needing to live in fear from our universal protectors because of their skin. Not to take on the role of white person whisperer (ok..doing exactly that) but a lot of them will require both more time and more objective proof that it isn’t the “few bad actors” belief that is very hard not to use as the way to reconcile the difference between their experience with police with that of the minority community. Using the ongoing transparency into the public aspects of the T&R committees reports/testimonies, the problem is not only kept in the public’s mind, but the desire to come up with a solution that deals with the systemic issues grows. And you remove the panic fear of creating chaos while some unknown thing takes a while to reform in it’s wake.
4. “Self” Awareness Institutional Style: The effect in other countries when these kinds of things that has been most profound is when the individuals and institutions that have participated in these wrongs have had to have a chance to stare at the unvarnished truth of what has happened and had the time to internalize it. There are some people who can never accept it or change, but there are a great deal more that will and can. And not only do they deserve the chance, we are all better off with more transformed people instead of those who have been ostracized and end up swelling the ranks of the embittered dangerous.

How to make a Truth and Reconciliation Commision that works?

I don’t really know. I have some requirements and ideas, but I’m counting on the many smarter/more experienced than me to help smooth this out. (And I’m gonna get on a tiny general soapbox about part of that. Let’s all start the practice of trying to help each other build on our ideas, instead of trying to ridicule em. By all means, point out flaws, ideally with alternate suggestions. But if we add to each other’s thinking, we can create real solutions. And frankly I need all the help I can get. )

For these things to work it needs the following:

1. Everyone needs to think it is really fair: Both sides need to cooperate and to feel like they are not getting railroaded. And they need to be able to trust the results.
2. Each side needs to feel that someone is really representing them: They need to know that nothing suspicious, unfair is going on.
3. They need to be transparent: People need to know what is going on or it fades from public view/attention and the feeling of being delayed/stonewalled comes out.
4. Individuals need to be treated with care: Anytime an actual person is being discussed, that can’t be public just as the means of trying someone in the court of public opinion. If someone has done wrong, it needs investigation and follow through, but we are looking for Truth, not Mccarthyism.
5. Selection of members can be hard: It is important to pick people that are respected on both sides. If there is a sense of stacking the commission, it kills it’s credibility.

There are a couple of ways to do this. One is to get a neutral party/parties and hope everyone trust them. The problem with that is that we’ve gotten so tribale and there has been such a level of discrediting anyone who doesn’t jump in a tribe that becomes almost impossible. The way I like better is to have a panel with a decent sized neutral group (say 5) and one person who is absolutely trusted by the police an another who is similarly trusted by the BLM community. (Maybe two on either side, one good at advocating and another who understands the law.) Ideally those people act as advocates on either side, making sure that nothing improper happens and opening doors and trust to each community. They can also provide context and comment from each side to the public statements/reports. Ideally these people on either side should not be so stapled to their beliefs that they are unable to accept and shift their views as they find what is really going on. And they should all be dedicated and sworn to the discovery of the whole truth, not just that which supports a preexisting opinion. The other advantage to having a larger group is that they can split the review efforts, only bringing to the whole group issues that are uncovered during the review process.

So that is it. It is an action that will keep people safe while giving us the time we need to figure out how to do this next big change, while giving us a chance to really learn the specific lessons we need to do it. It gives those who feel misjudged a chance to have their truth come out. And it buys us the time to let that truth motivate and bring along the rest of the majority to make sure it is a change that really happens.

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