Reinforcing Police Neutrality in Civil Rights Confrontations

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Abstract
This paper reports a one-week program designed to prepare a group of police officers for mediating contemplated interracial conflict in the public streets. Participants were 45 of the department's most capable uniformed policemen. The training staff included a team of behavioral scientists from a community research field station set up by the National Institute of Mental Health in a Maryland county adjacent to the District of Columbia. The immediate occasion was the 1963 Rights March on Washington and concern that an overflow into the county would result in massive protest against segregated public establishments. The contribution of the behavioral scientists was to provide lectures and to facilitate open discussion of feelings, including anxieties over new role demands. The author concludes on the basis of observation that the program seemed to bolster the professional self-image of officers called upon to enforce a social change not necessarily in line with their sympathies or sentiments.

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