With all the talk now about the desperately necessary reforms needed in policing, it’s important to understand, going in, the major obstacles to that reform. Here are the five main structural systems that make police reform so difficult.
SYSTEM NUMBER ONE: Police are often policing themselves:
Internal Affairs Divisions are part of the department, and they tend to be charitable toward their own.
Example: In Minneapolis in 2010 an officer held a man down with his knee on his neck for over four minutes, killing him. After an IAD investigation, not only were the officers not disciplined, but the Police Chief even praised them.
SYSTEM NUMBER TWO: CIVIL SERVICE PROTECTIONS
Civil Service Protections give police officers the ability to appeal punishments or firings to an “independent body.”
According to a study done by The Pioneer Press, the Minnesota Board reinstated law enforcement officers 46% of the time. One of the reasons is because they say that prior examples of an officer doing the same thing didn’t lead to punishment. So if cops got away with it before, they’re more likely to get away with it in the future.
SYSTEM NUMBER THREE: Civilian Review Boards have little to no power
While many cities now have Civilian Review Boards with the power to call witnesses and review evidence, they can usually only make recommendations, which are almost always overruled or just ignored.
SYSTEM NUMBER FOUR: The power of police unions
Most experts say that police unions are the single biggest impediment – in all jurisdictions – to police reform.
The mission of the police union is to protect police jobs at all costs. They’re usually led by old-school types who are often the biggest opponents to any accountability. In Minneapolis, the Police Union president, Bob Kroll, is a very controversial figure. He is already vowing to fight to get the 4 officers involved in the death of George Floyd reinstated, and he, himself, has had 29 complaints against him as a cop. Blamed by the last Chief of Police for being the major obstacle to reform, he is a Trump booster and is loudly and proudly one of the biggest opponents to cleaning up the department.
SYSTEM NUMBER FIVE: the doctrine of “reasonable fear”
The doctrine of “Reasonable Fear” is a legal concept that makes holding police criminally accountable for their actions exceedingly difficult.
What the doctrine means in practice is that if an officer can make an argument that a reasonable officer would have been afraid for their life or the life of a fellow officer in that moment, then the jury must acquit the officer.
That’s just a very high bar, even once you can find a prosecutor willing to prosecute what most consider “one of their own.
Those are the systems we’re up against, but we can overcome them. Together we can imagine something better and more just. Gaining knowledge about what we’re facing is always a smart place to begin.