The changes come after increasingly large jury awards and settlements that cities and insurers must pay in police use-of-force cases, especially since the 2020 deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
Browsing: Policing Reform
Thanks to deliberately stoked fears of rising crime, the political liabilities of three years ago have become the campaign strategies of today, warns author and activist Raina Lipsitz.
Advocates say the law doesn’t go far enough and that successful accountability also requires civilian review boards with subpoena power, public disclosure of internal affairs reports and ending qualified immunity.
The law attempts to lower police misconduct by banning chokeholds and adding fines and penalties.
The executive order, on the second anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, requires federal police to reexamine use of force policies, create a database to track officer misconduct and restrict the flow of surplus military equipment to local agencies, among other things.
While the politically disastrous rallying cry to “defund the police” may be dead, dozens of cities and towns in red and blue states have become active laboratories for intriguing experiments in reform.
Despite a growing consensus that police are asked to do too much, arguments for devolving many law enforcement responsibilities to civilian agencies rely “on a faulty understanding of the police role,” according to a recent paper published in Criminal Justice Ethics.
The Justice Department is creating a comprehensive online portal and resource center, called the “National Law Enforcement Knowledge Lab”, as an attempt to compile a one-stop shop of information and best practices for police departments seeking to implement reforms.
Larry Thompson sued officers under an 1871 federal civil rights law allowing citizens to sue state officials, including police officers, over violations of constitutional rights.
In Brownsville, one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods, Brooklyn NY District Attorney Eric Gonzalez has agreed to forego prosecution for certain nonviolent offenses and give community leaders responsibility for dealing with offenders. He argues it has improved public safety.