The relationship between Black people and the police is characterized as a schizophrenic one. Where schizophrenia is a mental health illness (based on an individual psychological diagnosis) that alters one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and relates to one’s genetics, environment, and brain structure and functions (National Institute of Mental Health, 2020; White, 2002), it is compared to the relationship between Black people and the police (based in social-psychology). Some of the symptoms of schizophrenia include the following:

While editing this book, I have addressed my very own pro-con perspective on policing. On one hand, I am a criminologist, specifically a Black female criminologist, and I have taught scores of men and women who become or are law enforcement professionals and I have been proud of their work. On the other hand, I have chosen not to call the police for service, especially when the call may involve assisting a person of color or is about a person of color. Lastly, while editing, I grappled with the pains of the George Floyd trial and ongoing police-involved deaths, making much of this process painful. This conflicted processing began very early, the “Officer Friendly” that visited my grade school enamored me, but I was frightened by officers in my neighborhood. I was thankful for the officer who found me when I was “missing” after leaving my first grade class for home during a half day, but I was afraid of them and their baton and gun when I saw one knocking on a neighbor’s door. As a young adult, I called the police once when I caught someone breaking into my car, but I did not follow through where I thought I was supporting possible racial profiling when the police presented a possible suspect to me. While studying and teaching in the criminology and criminal justice discipline, I’ve experienced police calls on me or family members for disputes related to fast food purchases, where ultimately, moments after the police call, the store clerk refunded the money as requested. I have also had several officers arrive at my home where a neighbor called the police because a teen driver grazed a lawn with their tire, after which the neighbor reportedly threatened the teen driver with a handgun. The police arrived expressing concern about the lawn but offered little to no direction regarding the threat of gun violence. Although the police have been called where either myself or a family member or guest were involved, the urge for me to call the police escapes me. I make calculated decisions about the possible harms and the necessity of calling the police for service. I ponder my encounters, the news of the day, and my Black male husband and brother’s negative encounters.

The socio-psychological relationship between Black people and the police is used to explain the dangers of calling the police on a mentally ill Black person, who experiences a mental health crisis or episode. The response of law enforcement to Black people experiencing a perceived or diagnosed mental health crisis or episode is documented as early as American slavery. The pseudo-scientific concept of drapetomania was introduced in 1851. Enslaved Black people who sought to escape slavery were thought to be experiencing a mental health crisis or episode. This drapetomanic behavior was characterized as an uncontrollable urge to wander. To suppress this urge, pseudo-scientists suggested severing the toe(s) of the enslaved and/or whipping the devil out of them (Cartwright, 1851; Finkelman, 1997; Halpern and Lago, 2002; Hunt, 1855; Pilgrim, 2005; Stedman, 1914).