The first is getting rid of qualified immunity. Federal InterventionĪt the federal level, Congress should focus on three objectives. Here is a blueprint for what they should do. It reflects political cowardice or actual acquiescence in the violence of policing.” It’s time for that to change. As the University of Colorado law professor Ben Levin recently wrote, “Feigned powerlessness by lawmakers is common & frustrating. Elected officials at all levels-federal, state, and local-need to commit attention and public resources to changing the legal, administrative, and social frameworks that contribute to officer misconduct. America needs to do more than throw good reform dollars at bad agencies. What we desperately need, but have so far lacked, is political will.

But it is not just the Minneapolis Police Department that needs reform it is American policing as a whole. The hyperlocalized nature of policing in the United States is one factor here the country has more than 18,000 police agencies, the majority of which (more than 15,000) are organized at the city or county level. Graham: The police can still choose nonviolence But knowledge and good intentions are not nearly sufficient.ĭavid A. And across the country, most officers are well intentioned, receive good training, and work at agencies that have good policies on the books. It knows how to provide police services in a constitutionally lawful and morally upright way. As an industry, American policing knows how to create systems that prevent, identify, and address abuses of power. The problem America faces is not figuring out what to do.

As public attention shifts, politics moves on and police-reform efforts wane.

These groups have developed well-reasoned conclusions and pointed suggestions that are widely discussed and enthusiastically implemented-but only for a time. Prior tragedies have resulted in a string of independent, blue-ribbon commissions-Wickersham (1929), Kerner (1967), Knapp (1970), Overtown (1980), Christopher (1991), Kolts (1991), Mollen (1992), and the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2014)-to make recommendations for meaningful change that could address police misconduct. Police abuse has targeted people of every race and class, but members of vulnerable populations and minority groups, particularly young black men, are especially at risk. G eorge Floyd’s death is the latest in a long series of brutal encounters between the police and the people they are supposed to serve.

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