“We must acknowledge racial inequities in our systems of law enforcement and criminal justice, and then work to eliminate them. This task force will address policies and procedures that disproportionately burden communities of color,” Gov. Roy Cooper said this past summer as he signed Executive Order No. 145. 

The order establishes a task force that will address and hopefully dismantle procedures and policies that disproportionately burden communities of color in North Carolina. Given our state’s violent history with race and criminal justice, it’s no wonder that the national spotlight on police brutality has come center stage, again, and forced many state legislatures to face the reality of massive racial disparities. 

These disparities can be traced back to slavery, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, post-Jim Crow and the massive undertaking that was the war on drugs. If this task force is meant to understand the plight of North Carolina’s communities of color, it must first come to grips with the foundation those communities were robbed of. 

The relationship between communities and their respective police departments continues to wear thin despite training that aims to “de-escalate” tense situations, as well as initiatives that do little to halt racial profiling. When protestors rightfully take to the streets to demand social and economic change — to demand an end to brutality — they quite often meet an arsenal fit for warfare.

Despite Charlotte City Council banning chemical agents after the night protestors were bombarded with tear gas, they still approved a budget that saw 40% of its spending on law enforcement. Within that same planned budget, less than 3% will be spent on housing and neighborhood services.

The story is similar for the city of Raleigh, which will see over $111 million spent on police and just $5.6 million on housing and neighborhood services in FY21. They’ve noted, however, in their adopted budget that they are “reprioritizing positions from the Housing and Neighborhoods Department to a newly‐created Office of Equity and Inclusion which will support human relations, civil rights, community health, and equity and inclusion services.”

These spending disparities add to the already mounting concerns neighborhoods, schools and community organizations feel with regard to police reform. Limiting local law enforcement arsenals should not be the end point but rather a place to build on a much larger discussion of police accountability.

What preventative measures will this task force implement to be proactive in protecting civil rights under the law? How will it hold police accountable for events like John Neville’s, which result in the untimely death of Black men or women? With regard to the several recommendations the task force put forward for North Carolina law enforcement, how will it take action against police who continue to exercise violent force?

Above all, how will the task force address the decades-long abuse of power by the state against communities of color at disproportionate and alarming rates? The governor’s press release regarding the task force and its executive order ended with several statistics about the criminal justice system and the disparities within it, detailed as follows:

• Black adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than white adults.

• Hispanic adults are 3.1 times as likely to be incarcerated than white adults.

• Black drivers are approximately twice as likely as white drivers to be pulled over by law enforcement for a traffic stop.

• Black defendants are more likely to be jailed before trial than white defendants.

• The murders of white people are more likely to be solved than the murders of Black people.

• When Black men and white men are convicted of the same crime, Black men receive a prison sentence that is 20% longer.

• Black women are imprisoned at twice the rate as white women.

• Black men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement than white men are, and Black women are 1.4 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement than white women are.

The task force must recognize its existence plays a greater role than it could imagine. Progress can only start when institutions and structures of power acknowledge their complicitness in the disparities and historical trends that continue to play out in the streets today.