Police Reform

"There are more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country. Law enforcement is a demanding, rigorous, and - at times - dangerous profession. The vast majority of men and women who police our communities do so with professionalism, respect, bravery, and integrity. But as we have seen around the country, when police departments engage in unconstitutional policing, their actions can severely undermine both community trust and public safety. Today, our country is engaged in a critically important conversation about community-police relations. This report describes one of the United States Department of Justice's central tools for accomplishing police reform, restoring police-community trust, and strengthening officer and public safety - the Civil Rights Division's enforcement of the civil prohibition on a 'pattern or practice' of policing that violates the Constitution or other federal laws (the Department's other tools are described later in this document). Pattern-or-practice cases begin with investigations of allegations of systemic police misconduct and, when the allegations are substantiated, end with comprehensive agreements designed to support constitutional and effective policing and restore trust between police and communities. The Division has opened 11 new pattern-or-practice investigations and negotiated 19 new reform agreements since 2012 alone, often with the substantial assistance of the local United States Attorney's Offices. The purpose of this report to make the Division's police reform work more accessible and transparent. The usual course of a pattern-or-practice case, with examples and explanations for why the Division approaches this work the way it does, is set forth in this report."

From the Document: "In May and June 2020, protests erupted nationwide after the publication of video footage of a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee into the neck of George Floyd, leading to his death. That incident and its aftermath have sparked heightened interest in Congress's ability to implement reforms of state and local law enforcement. As a companion to this Sidebar outlines in greater detail, congressional power to regulate state and local law enforcement is not without limits. The Constitution grants the federal government only certain enumerated authorities, with the Tenth Amendment reserving all other powers for the states. The regulation of state and municipal law enforcement is an area that the Constitution generally entrusts to the states. However, Congress possesses some authority to legislate on that subject, primarily through statutes designed to enforce the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment and legislation requiring states to take specified action in exchange for federal funds disbursed under the Spending Clause. This Sidebar provides an overview of existing federal statutes intended to prevent and redress constitutional violations by state and local public safety officials. It then presents some recent proposals that would change federal regulation of state and local law enforcement."

From the Introduction: "In establishing the task force, the President spoke of the distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities--the sense that in a country where our basic principle is equality under the law, too many individuals, particularly young people of color, do not feel as if they are being treated fairly. 'When any part of the American family does not feel like it is being treated fairly, that's a problem for all of us,' said the President. 'It's not just a problem for some. It's not just a problem for a particular community or a particular demographic It means that we are not as strong as a country as we can be. And when applied to the criminal justice system, it means we're not as effective in fighting crime as we could be.' These remarks underpin the philosophical foundation for the Task Force on 21st Century Policing: to build trust between citizens and their peace officers so that all components of a community are treating one another fairly and justly and are invested in maintaining public safety in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Decades of research and practice tell us that the public cares as much about how police interact with them as they care about the outcomes that legal actions produce. People are more likely to obey the law when they believe those who are enforcing it have the right--the legitimate authority--to tell them what to do. Building trust and legitimacy, therefore, is not just a policing issue. It involves all components of the criminal justice system and is inextricably bound to bedrock issues affecting the community such as poverty, education, and public health."

"Over the past eight years we have witnessed an unprecedented effort to advance the civil rights of--and justice for--lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ+) people living in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, paving the way for its 2015 ruling that denying same-sex couples the right to marry was unconstitutional. [...] With these groundbreaking court decisions and federal statues, same-sex couples and LGBTQ+ victims of crime are now provided the same protections under federal law as different-sex couples and non-LGBTQ+ victims of crime. But despite these successes, LGBTQ+ people living in the United States still experience discrimination in education, employment, and housing--and in the justice system, including policing, arrest, and incarceration. Sometimes this discrimination results from the biased enforcement of the law. [...] To address these issues and to explore their importance to policing, the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), in collaboration with Strategic Applications International (SAI), hosted a forum in Washington, D.C., on July 21, 2016. The forum was attended by law enforcement and representatives of LGBTQ+ advocacy groups. This publication, which summarizes that meeting, is based on input provided by participating subject matter experts and law enforcement agencies during the July forum and pre-forum interviews."

From the thesis abstract: "This thesis examines the issue of police reform and considers whether a causal connection exists between the reforms being implemented by law enforcement agencies and the issue of police disengagement or de-policing. The two most salient reforms, the 'Final Report of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing' and the 'Police Executive Research Forum's Guiding Principles on the Use of Force', are currently in the process of being adopted and implemented in many law enforcement agencies, which is a process that will take many months if not years to complete. To provide some insight into how these reforms will affect these agencies, three case studies examined police departments currently under federal supervision from either the Department of Justice or the federal court to determine how they impacted officer activity. These studies considered the reform process along with the individual reforms adopted in each agency and examined the levels of officer activity to determine how they were impacted by these reforms. These results were then examined in the context of current research and officer surveys to assist in interpreting the reported declines in officer activity. These findings have possible implications for law enforcement agencies that adopt the reforms in the 'Final Report and Guiding Principles.'"

"Several high-profile police shootings and other law enforcement-related deaths in the United States have sparked intense protests throughout the country and a fierce debate in Congress concerning the appropriate level of force police officers should wield in a society that equally values public safety and the lives of each of its citizens under law. These incidents have been the subject of several congressional hearings, have prompted the introduction of various legislative measures, and have catalyzed a new civil rights movement in the United States aimed at reforming the criminal justice system. Reformers claim that police work too closely with local prosecutors resulting in insufficient oversight and have called for greater involvement by the federal government. The law enforcement community and its supporters have countered that these recent deaths are anomalous in otherwise exemplary police conduct, and that placing the federal government in direct regulation of state and local police would present an unwarranted intrusion into state and local affairs. To provide legal context for this debate, this report will address three overarching questions: (1) what are the constitutional rules governing an officer's use of force; (2) what role has Congress played in providing a remedy for a violation of these rules; and (3) what are the potential reforms to these rules and remedies?"

"On December 18, 2014, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13684 creating the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. The task force was composed of 11 members, including leaders from law enforcement, police unions, academia, youth movements, and civil rights organizations. The mission of the task force was clear: 'The Task Force shall, consistent with applicable law, identify best practices and otherwise make recommendations to the President on how policing practices can promote effective crime reduction while building public trust.' Over three months, the task force conducted seven public listening sessions across the country and received testimony from more than 100 witnesses representing a wide range of law enforcement officials, civil rights advocates, community and faith leaders, academics, and others to ensure their recommendations would be informed by a diverse range of voices. The task force also considered more than 200 written submissions. […] Following extensive discussion and analysis of the testimony, the task force identified best practices and recommendations under each of these pillars and compiled the 'Final Report of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing'."