essay on police accountability

How can we enhance police accountability in the United States?

Subscribe to governance weekly, rashawn ray rashawn ray senior fellow - governance studies @sociologistray.

August 25, 2020

The recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks spurred widespread protests against police brutality and racial injustices. Continuing the protests is a recent video recording of a policer officer in Kenosha, Wisc., shooting Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back multiple times as he entered his vehicle and his children watched from inside the vehicle. Federal and local law enforcement responses to the shootings and the protests have both come under fire – but these responses are characteristic of larger law enforcement policies and institutions.

In policing, people often talk about bad apples. Well, bad apples come from rotten trees , and the rotten trees are law enforcement agencies imbued with structural racism. Standard processes for holding police officers accountable, issuing civil payouts to victims of brutality, and rehiring fired officers are a few of the factors that contribute to the entrenchment of racism and police brutality.

A Closer Look

Black people are 3.5 times more likely than white people to be killed by police when Blacks are not attacking or do not have a weapon. George Floyd is an example. Black teenagers are 21 times more likely than white teenagers to be killed by police. That’s Tamir Rice and Antwon Rose. A Black person is killed about every 40 hours in the United States. That’s Jonathan Ferrell and Korryn Gaines. One out of every one thousand Black men can expect to be killed by police violence over the life course. This is Tamir Rice and Philando Castile.

After Rodney King’s beating by LAPD was captured on video by a home camcorder in 1991, a series of changes were made (e.g., dash cameras in cars, body-worn cameras, and police bias trainings). However, these changes have fallen short of holding police officers accountable. Typically, officers are not charged for killing unarmed Black people. Even if they are charged, officers are almost never convicted.

Why does it take so long for officers to be charged?

Prosecutors know that the barometer for what we consider to be criminal conduct for police officers is extremely high – both legally and in the public’s perception. Most people perceive that if a police officer did something, he or she was doing it for their protection or the greater good of society. So, the bar for charging and convicting police officers is higher than the bar for regular citizens. Prosecutors, then, often take more time to ensure that a case is solid before they bring charges.

In Minneapolis, the time it took for charges to be brought against the officers in the George Floyd case was abnormally short. In recent events — from Christian Cooper in Central Park to Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia to George Floyd in Minneapolis — smart phone video was collected by civilians. Once video evidence was disseminated on social media, the criminal process moved more expeditiously. Most of the time, however, police officers are allowed time to consult with the Fraternal Order of Police and a lawyer, and, at times, even review evidence before officials make public statements.

Why are bad-acting cops allowed to stick around?

Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed George Floyd, has been involved in at least 18 police misconduct cases. He’s been involved in police shootings, and he’s been involved in cases that most people consider to be police brutality. What’s important is that this is a pattern. The officers who killed Tamir Rice in Cleveland in 2014, and who killed Antwon Rose in East Pittsburgh in 2018—both Black teenagers—were dismissed from previous jobs as police officers. When an officer is dismissed, typically the Fraternal Order of Police has helped them resign quietly instead of being fired. This gives bad officers the ability to work for another department. This needs to change.

Complaints of misconduct within police departments often go to internal affairs. The complaint goes up the chain, and if it makes all the way up, it goes to a trial board that typically involves three officers who decide if the accused officers have engaged in misconduct. The trial board serves as judge and jury of their own. An officer must do something extremely egregious to be fired. But, there are other types of reprimand. Officers can be put on desk duty, paid or unpaid leave, or fined at a prorated amount in future paychecks. The problem is that all these actions are typically internal to policing. They are rarely known outside the department until long after the incident and the conduct decision. And, my research shows that Black officers are sanctioned more harshly than white officers for similar misconduct.

When does the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department get involved?

The Department of Justice often has to be invited in by the state. In the Ahmaud Arbery case, the local prosecutor invited in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation . The Georgia Attorney General then asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the behavior of two district attorneys previously assigned to the case. The U.S. Department of Justice also was investigating whether the killing was a hate crime. In the George Floyd case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated “to determine whether any federal civil rights laws were violated.” The murder case is also being prosecuted at the state level similar to the Arbery case.

When Dylann Roof murdered nine parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, federal authorities brought hate crime charges. And this is important, because there are states—Georgia, for instance—that don’t have hate crime laws. If hate crime charges are going to be brought in the Arbery murder, they must be brought at the federal level. In Floyd’s case, hate crime charges could be brought on the state and/or federal levels.

What reforms could change police accountability?

My research offers two major changes to law and practice to reduce police brutality. First, officers who have been terminated due to police misconduct should not be able to work in law enforcement again. This recommendation is receiving bipartisan support at the federal level. It is part of Trump’s recent Executive Order and the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that passed in the House of Representatives.

 Second, we need to restructure civilian payouts by moving them from taxpayer money to police department insurance policies. This is starting to occur in some ways at the local level. New York state lawmakers proposed that individual officers carry liability insurance .

Eventually, there will be a large civil payout for the death of George Floyd. The Floyd family’s taxpayer money will be used to pay them for his dehumanization and killing. Due to qualified immunity—the legislation that often prevents officers from facing civil culpability—officers are typically immune from the financial impacts of these civil payouts. Since 2010, St. Louis has paid over $33 million and Baltimore was found liable for about $50 million for police misconduct. Over the past 20 years, Chicago spent over $650 million on police misconduct cases. In one year from period from July 2017 through June 2018, New York City paid out $230 million in about 6,500 misconduct cases. What if this money was used for education and work infrastructure ? Research suggests that crime would decrease.

In health care, mistakes happen. But, physicians and hospitals have malpractice insurance. In law enforcement, when there is a mistake, the city is typically on the hook. Even though the city (and thus its taxpayers) would cover the police department’s malpractice insurance premium, when the city’s malpractice premium goes up, the city will know which police officers, like which physicians and which hospitals, are responsible. This gives cities and departments a market-driven approach to weed out bad apples so they don’t continue to rot the trees of law enforcement agencies.

This was adapted from a podcast interview with the author.

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Current state of police accountability in the usa, obstacles to police accountability, where do we go from here.

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Police Accountability in the USA: Gaining Traction or Spinning Wheels?

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Carol A Archbold, Police Accountability in the USA: Gaining Traction or Spinning Wheels?, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice , Volume 15, Issue 3, September 2021, Pages 1665–1683, https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paab033

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Police accountability has long been a topic of discussion and debate among police practitioners, politicians, and scholars. This topic re-emerges every time there is highly publicized police shooting or incident of police misconduct. This article provides an overview of the current state of police accountability in the USA. This overview includes several examples of the ways in which police accountability has been enhanced in recent years at the local, state, and federal levels. Next, several obstacles to the progression of police accountability in the USA are discussed including a lack of ‘buy-in’ by some police personnel; limited research on the efficacy of common police accountability tools; lack of financial resources; lack of support and guidance by the federal government in recent years; and police unions. Finally, the article concludes with suggestions for overcoming some of the impediments associated with police accountability in the USA.

The last 5 years have been marred with violent police–citizen encounters that have resulted in the deaths of many Americans. According to the Washington Post , there have been 5,929 fatal shootings of people by on-duty police officers since 2015, with approximately 1,000 of those shootings occurring in 2020 ( Washington Post, 2021 ). While half of the people shot and killed by the police are White, people of colour are killed by the police at a disproportionately high rate ( Washington Post, 2021 ). Non-lethal acts of police misconduct have also drawn public attention in recent years. In June 2020, USA Today published an article detailing the contents of a national database of approximately 200,000 cases of police misconduct based on records from police agencies, prosecutors’ offices, and other state agencies. While many of the cases involve minor infractions, a portion of the cases involves more serious acts including 22,924 cases of excessive force; 3,145 allegations of rape, child molestation, and other acts of sexual misconduct; and 2,307 cases of domestic violence ( Kelly and Nichols, 2020 ). Even though the previously described police–citizen encounters represent a small fraction of the millions of police–citizen contacts that occur annually in the USA, the actions of police officers during those encounters resulted in serious injuries, death, as well as an unquantifiable amount of diminished trust and legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

Many deadly shootings and acts of police misconduct have been recorded by officer body cameras or people using their personal cell phones. These recordings have been made available for public consumption through various social media platforms and media outlets. Increased media attention focused on these encounters has led to peaceful protests and social unrest in cities across the USA, along with a renewed call for accountability-based police reform.

Accountability occurs when police officers and police organizations are held responsible for effectively delivering services to their community, while treating people fairly, with dignity, and within the boundaries of formal law ( Walker and Archbold, 2020 ). This issue is important to citizens because they expect the police to act in a manner that reflects their purpose in society—that is, to promote public safety and uphold the rule of law. When officers fail to meet public expectations and take actions that fall outside of what formal law dictates, citizens must have some process available to them to report such behaviours. Accountability also has important implications for police personnel. Police officers need to feel confident that their colleagues will conduct their work in a lawful manner that does not jeopardize their safety or the safety of others; that does not result in people questioning their professional integrity or expose them or their police agency to costly litigation, and that allows them to maintain a trusting, cooperative relationship with the community they serve. Thus, it is in the best interest of both citizens and the police to make police accountability a priority in the USA.

During the last decade, there has been some effort to increase police accountability at the local, state, and federal levels in the USA. For example, many municipalities have implemented civilian review boards to increase police accountability. Review boards vary in composition, size, and function; however, a shared element across all civilian review boards is that citizens are actively involved in the oversight of the police. Over half (61%) of the 100 most populated cities in the USA have a civilian review board, with 22 boards created since 2014 ( Fairley, 2020 ). In December 2020, the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement Website (2020) listed 131 civilian review boards located in cities across the USA (this count does not include jurisdictions that utilize police auditors/monitors). The number of civilian oversight boards fluctuates over time as new boards are created and others are revamped, suspended, or abandoned.

Many municipal police agencies have also employed body cameras to increase officer accountability. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 47% of police agencies utilized body camera technology in 2016 ( Hyland, 2018 ). Early intervention (EI) systems are another common accountability tool used by some police agencies. EI systems are data-driven programmes that track problematic performance by police officers so that supervisors can intervene before officers’ problematic behaviours result in citizen complaints, costly litigation, incidents resulting in serious physical harm or death to citizens or officers, or police officers losing their jobs ( Walker et al., 2000 ). Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) data indicate that 44% of all reporting police agencies utilized EI systems in 2007, with larger police agencies adopting EI systems at twice the rate as small police agencies ( Shjarback, 2015 ).

Many police executives across the USA have changed use of force policies, and now provide specialized training to reduce the likelihood that officers will use (or misuse) deadly force. A recent study using shooting data from the Dallas (TX) Police Department found that a policy which requires mandatory reporting of firearm ‘pointing’ was associated with a reduction in ‘threat perception failure’ shootings (when officers mistakenly shoot someone because they believed that the person had a weapon) ( Shjarback et al. , 2021 ). In addition to the use of force policy changes, some police agencies provide officers with de-escalation training to reduce the use of force during encounters with community members. In 2017, 16 states across the USA had mandated de-escalation training for police officers; however, many states have no minimum number of hours set for this type of training ( Gilbert, 2017 ). The statistics associated with each of the previously mentioned accountability strategies indicate that some municipal-level community leaders and police executives are taking steps to increase accountability within their organizations and communities.

Many state political leaders are also responding to the renewed call for police reform by passing legislation meant to increase police accountability. According to the Vera Institute of Justice, 34 states and the District of Columbia passed 79 bills, executive orders, and resolutions making changes to laws associated with police accountability in 2015 and 2016 ( Subramanian and Skrzypiec, 2017 ). This is a notable increase as there were approximately 20 changes made to laws associated with police accountability from 2012 to 2014.

Some recent examples of state-level police reform include the following: In July 2020, Connecticut passed a police reform law that makes it easier for citizens to file lawsuits against individual officers in state court ( Polansky, 2020 ). The catch is that officers will only be held financially liable if it can be proven that they knowingly broke the law. This law does not erase qualified immunity; instead, it creates a more thorough review process, which can result in the decertification of officers involved in misconduct. In December 2020, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, signed legislation that included the creation of a new civilian-based panel that can revoke officers’ licenses for involvement in misconduct, and requires police officers to intervene if they witness fellow officers using unnecessary or excessive force ( Stout, 2020 ). In January 2021, the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation that requires every police officer in the state to eventually be equipped with a body camera ( Petrella, 2021 ).

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo initiated state-wide police reform when he issued an Executive Order in June 2020 requiring all 500 police departments across the state to create and submit accountability plans by spring 2021 ( Villeneuve, 2020 ). Each agency must create a formal accountability plan using guidelines provided by the Governor’s Office which includes changes related to community engagement; increasing transparency by making agency data and policies accessible to the public; civilian oversight of the police; utilization of accountability-based technology within police agencies (such as EI systems and body cameras); strategies to reduce racial disparities in police–citizen interactions; and changing the culture within New York police agencies, to name a few ( New York State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative: Resources and Guide for Public Officials and Citizens, 2020 ). Any police agency that does not submit an accountability plan to the state will no longer be eligible for future funding ( New York State Governor’s Website, 2020 ). This executive order increases the likelihood that police agencies will take the necessary steps to increase accountability because their funding is contingent upon it. Another benefit resulting from this executive order is that police reform will occur within hundreds of police agencies all at once, instead of just a few agencies choosing to make changes.

During the last decade, the most significant step taken to increase police accountability at the federal level took place in 2014, when President Barrack Obama created the President’s Task Force on 21stCentury Policing. The purpose of this Task Force was to examine police-related problems and recommend actions resulting in police reform. The Task Force made several recommendations aimed at repairing fractured police–community relationships. Specifically, they recommend that police officers utilize procedural justice strategies when interacting with residents in their communities. Procedural justice involves police officers treating citizens in a way that makes them believe that they have been treated fairly, with respect, and that they were given an opportunity to explain their actions during encounters with the police ( Tyler, 1988 ). This strategy is based on the idea that citizens will view the police as a legitimate group if they believe that the police treated them fairly.

De-escalation training and changes to department use of force policies are also specifically mentioned in the action steps of the Task Force Report. Even though there is no consensus on a definition of de-escalation within the context of the policing profession; in general, it has been described as training that teaches officers to slow down, create space between themselves and the citizen involved in the interaction, and to use communication strategies to defuse volatile situations that could otherwise result in some use of force ( Engel et al. , 2020 ). The Task Force report also advises police agencies to change department policies to mandate that officers use de-escalation techniques when they encounter potentially dangerous situations. Some police agencies now require officers to file formal reports describing how they utilized de-escalation techniques during volatile situations. After the death of George Floyd during the summer 2020, the Minneapolis (MN) Police Department changed its use of force reporting policy to require all police officers to document how they utilized de-escalation techniques during dangerous encounters, regardless if they ended up using force or not ( Forliti, 2020 ).

In addition to procedural justice and de-escalation, the Task Force recommends that police agencies operate in an open and transparent manner to increase trust and legitimacy with the public. An example of this includes the police providing public access to information, such as citizen complaints filed against officers, police–citizen contact data, arrest data, as well as public access to department policies (including use of lethal and non-lethal force policies). A simple way that transparency can be achieved is by police agencies posting this information on department websites (perhaps included in annual reports), where it is easily accessible to community members. Furthermore, the Task Force suggests that police agencies involve citizens in the development and alteration of department policies. This collaborative effort allows public voices to be heard and it also signals to the public that the police value their input.

Another central theme found within the Task Force report includes increasing police accountability. Task Force members believe that increased accountability contributes to police legitimacy by ensuring that officers will do their job based on police training, department policies, and taking actions based on formal law. Increased accountability also means that officers will be properly supervised while on duty, by police supervisors on the streets and in some cases, also by virtual supervision using technology, such as body cameras and EI systems to monitor officer performance.

Despite efforts to increase accountability at the local, state, and federal levels, we continue to see media accounts of police-involved shootings and acts of police misconduct. These incidents also continue to involve people of colour at a disproportionately high rate. It would be naïve to think that these incidents would completely stop after police agencies begin utilizing accountability strategies; however, it is reasonable to expect that we would see fewer of these incidents over time.

Currently, it is difficult to identify specific trends associated with acts of non-lethal police misconduct on a national level, because police agencies are not required to track and report these incidents in any systematic way. In addition, American police agencies only recently started reporting police-involved shootings to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBIs) in 2019. Unfortunately, only 41% of all federal, state, local, and tribal police agencies voluntarily submitted shooting data for 2019, and participation only increased to 42% in 2020 ( Federal Bureau of Investigations Website, 2021 ). To be able to accurately assess how and if police accountability strategies influence the prevalence of police-involved shootings and acts of police misconduct, all American police agencies would have to be required to report these incidents to the FBI annually. In addition to the lack of systematically collected data, there are several factors that may impede the progression of police accountability efforts in the USA.

The decentralized nature of American policing, which consists of over 18,000 independent local and state police agencies, makes police reform on a national level difficult and slows the progress of reform down to a snail’s pace. It is likely that we are not yet seeing any significant changes related to police accountability on a national level because some police executives have not taken any steps to make accountability a priority in their organizations. The police executives that have taken steps to increase accountability or are planning to take those steps in the future, face several barriers both before and after implementation that can hinder the success of these accountability strategies.

Lack of ‘buy-in’ by police personnel

A lack of ‘buy in’ by police personnel is a potential roadblock to increasing accountability within American police agencies. Some patrol-level officers and supervisors may not support the use of accountability strategies and technology. For example, research conducted on police officers’ perceptions of body cameras has generally found that officers have positive or neutral feelings towards the use of body cameras, and in some cases, officers’ perceptions of this technology became positive over time ( Maskaly et al., 2017 ; Lum et al., 2019 ). There are also studies that found some officers are resistant to the use of body cameras as they believe it will increase the likelihood of them being disciplined for minor policy violations, reduce their ability to use discretion, and create issues regarding officer safety and privacy ( Headley et al., 2017 ; White et al., 2018 ; Young and Ready, 2018 ). There is also some evidence that command staff and police supervisors do not fully support the use of body cameras ( Smykla et al., 2016 ; Snyder et al., 2019 ). To increase ‘buy-in’ for any police reform strategy, officers and supervisors should be given an opportunity to provide input prior to implementation, and police leaders should be prepared to answer questions that police personnel have regarding proposed changes within their organization ( Rosenbaum and McCarty, 2017 ).

The lack of ‘buy in’ by police personnel may also be influenced by the culture found within police organizations. Police culture involves officers’ attitudes associated with cynicism and mistrust of citizens and supervisors, authoritarianism, loyalty to fellow officers, resistance to change, aggressive enforcement of the law, and secrecy ( Paoline, 2003 ). Many of the Task Force recommendations, such as an increase in the oversight and accountability of officers, transparency of organizational data and operations, and increased collaboration with members of the public, diametrically conflict with many of the attitudes associated with police culture.

Limited research on the efficacy of police accountability strategies/tools

When making the decision to implement strategies to increase officer accountability, police executives should seek out practices and technology that have been deemed effective through scientific evaluation. Unfortunately, police executives will find limited research (and in some cases conflicting research) on the effectiveness of many of the accountability tools/strategies recommended by the Task Force.

For example, limited research has been conducted on the efficacy of EI systems. The few evaluations that have been conducted on this accountability tool produced mixed findings. A systematic review of research on EI systems identified only seven studies conducted in the USA during the last two decades ( Gullion and King, 2020 ). Walker et al. (2000) conducted one of the earliest evaluations of EI systems in police agencies in Minneapolis (MN), Miami-Dade (FL), and New Orleans (LA). All three police agencies reported reductions in use of force and citizen complaints filed against officers after the implementation of an EI system. An evaluation in the Pittsburgh (PA) Police Bureau found a reduction in use of force and search and seizures a year after the EI system was implemented as part of a consent decree agreement ( Davis et al., 2005 ). Similar findings emerged from an evaluation within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Researchers discovered a reduction in use of force, citizen complaints, officer-involved shootings, and litigation related to use of force ( Bobb et al., 2009 ). Research in a northeastern police department found a reduction in citizen complaints, but also discovered that arrests (including proactive arrests) also decreased after an EI system was utilized, suggesting that police officers may have been avoiding contact with citizens ( Worden et al., 2013 )—this is sometimes referred to as de-policing or no contact, no complaints policing.

Two of the seven evaluations reviewed by Gullion and King (2020) discovered problems with the accuracy of EI systems. Specifically, an EI system in a southern police department did not flag police officers with the highest number of force incidents ( Lersch et al., 2006 ). This is problematic as the purpose of an EI system is to identify officers exhibiting poor work performance, and alert police supervisors so they can intervene before officers’ behaviours result in something more serious (such as serious injuries or death, or loss of employment for officers). Another study analysed LEMAS data from 2003 and 2007 to see if police agencies that utilize EI systems experienced a change in rates of citizen complaints of force ( Shjarback, 2015 ). This study also looked for any differences in the success of EI systems in police agencies that voluntarily use EI systems compared with agencies that were mandated to use this technology as part of a consent decree agreement. The findings revealed no statistical differences in the mean rates of citizen use of force complaints after EI systems were utilized by police agencies or differences in the mean rate of force complaints when comparing police agencies that voluntarily implemented EI systems with agencies that were mandated to do so.

A study published shortly after the review by Gullion and King (2020) also found problems with the effectiveness of an EI system. James et al . (2020 ) analysed a random sample of police–citizen incident reports for officers who were flagged by an EI system, along with reports for officers who were not flagged by the EI system to determine if there were differences in officer performance. In general, they discovered that officer performance was similar when comparing the two groups. This means that the EI system was not able to distinguish officers with problematic performance from those who were not flagged by the EI system. The only differences found between the two groups of officers were that officers flagged by the EI system performed slightly better during the ‘observe and assess’ phase of crisis situations, and were slightly more likely to use reasonable force against suspects when compared with officers who had not been flagged by the EI system (James et al. , 2020). Also, women were over-represented in the group of officers flagged by the EI system in this police agency.

When considering the mixed results produced from the limited number of EI system studies, police executives may be left wondering if EI systems will help them increase accountability within their organizations, and if implementing an EI system is worth the financial investment. Additional research is needed to better understand the complexities associated with this accountability tool.

The Task Force report also recommends that police executives provide de-escalation training for officers to reduce the use of physical force, keeping both citizens and officers safe. But, does this training influence officers’ attitudes and behaviours during dangerous encounters with citizens? Robin Engel et al. (2020) recently conducted a systematic literature review of published evaluations of de-escalation training. They identified 64 publications that fit the criteria for inclusion in their review. They discovered that there are no publications featuring an evaluation of the efficacy of de-escalation training in the criminal justice discipline. Most of the evaluations were conducted on de-escalation training in the professions of nursing and psychiatry, and only 3 of the 64 evaluations used adequate research designs that could draw out any meaningful conclusions regarding the impact of the training ( Engel et al. , 2020 ). The fact that there is no scientific research on the efficacy of de-escalation training within the context of policing leaves police executives in a situation where they must make decisions about utilizing this type of training without any real evidence that it will work.

Civilian oversight boards are also mentioned in the action steps of the Task Force report as a mechanism to increase police accountability. Community leaders will struggle to find research on the effectiveness of oversight boards, even though they have existed in the USA as far back as the 1920s ( De Angelis et al., 2016 ). Researchers have struggled with evaluations of civilian oversight boards because there are several types of boards with varying composition, structure, and operational differences ( Ferdik et al., 2013 ). There is also difficulty in deciding which outcome measures to use to determine effectiveness.

A few researchers have examined the impact of civilian review boards on police outcomes using sustained complaints against police officers as a measure of effectiveness. In 2006, Matthew Hickman analysed citizen complaints of police use of force drawn from the 2003 LEMAS dataset. He discovered that police agencies located in jurisdictions with civilian review boards had a higher rate of force complaints (11.9 per 100 officers) compared with police agencies in jurisdictions without civilian review boards (6.6 per 100 officers). He also found that the overall percentage of sustained complaints was lower in jurisdictions with civilian oversight (6%) compared with jurisdictions that did not have civilian oversight (11%) ( Hickman, 2006 ). Police agencies that used internal affairs to investigate complaints of force had a slightly higher percentage of sustained complaints (8–9%) compared with police agencies in jurisdictions with civilian review boards (6%). This finding is surprising since a common reason that jurisdictions implement civilian review boards is because of the perception that citizen complaints will less likely be sustained if the police (internal affairs) are policing themselves.

Several years later, Terrill and Ingram (2016) analysed citizen complaint data from eight cities across the USA. They found that citizen complaints were 78% more likely to be sustained in jurisdictions where the disposition decisions of complaints made by internal affairs were also reviewed by an external civilian oversight board ( Terrill and Ingram, 2016 ). There are many contextual factors that could explain the differences in the findings from the Hickman (2006) and Terrill and Ingram (2016) studies including the local political climate within individual jurisdictions, the composition and structure of the oversight boards, and the presence and strength of police unions, to name a few. Additional research is needed to better understand the impact of civilian oversight boards on the accountability of officers.

There is one accountability tool that has received a significant amount of attention from researchers—police body cameras. A recent study identified 119 published reports and peer-reviewed studies on police body cameras as of the end of December 2019 ( Gaub and White, 2020 ). Many of these studies examine the extent to which body cameras influence the behaviours and attitudes of officers and citizens. The early studies looked for behavioural changes using outcome measures such as use of force incidents and citizen complaints. Many of the early studies found positive results—specifically, a reduction in the use of force and citizen complaints (see Maskaly et al., 2017 for an overview of early literature).

Two recent reviews by Cynthia Lum et al. (2019 , 2020 ) produced less positive assessments of this technology. After conducting a review of 70 studies, Lum et al. (2019 : 93) concluded that body cameras ‘have not had statistically significant or consistent effects on most measures of officer and citizen behavior or citizens’ views of the police’. Lum reviewed 30 body camera studies for her 2020 publication—this time only including studies that utilized randomized controlled trials or quasi-experimental research designs, and that measured police and citizen behavioural outcomes ( Lum et al. , 2020 ). They concluded that body cameras do not have significant effects on officers’ behaviours including use of force, making arrests, and other activities. However, they did find that body cameras reduced citizen complaints filed against police officers, but were unsure why complaints declined ( Lum et al. , 2020 ).

The conflicting assessments of the efficacy of body cameras could leave some police executives wondering if they should invest or continue to invest in this technology. A recent report by the Police Executive Research Forum (2018) noted that the most common reason given by police leaders to deploy body cameras was to promote accountability, transparency, and legitimacy. If police executives are unsure that body cameras will help their agency promote these items, their decision to implement body cameras becomes difficult.

Limited resources

Police executives interested in utilizing accountability strategies within their organizations must find resources to pay for that expense. Changes made to department policies and training often require additional expenditures of agency resources. All the accountability tools/strategies previously discussed in this article require a significant financial commitment. For example, in a June 2020 memo, Police Chief Williams of the Phoenix (AZ) Police Department stated that ‘costs for a new EI system ranged from $952,000 to $2.08 million, which does not include personnel or additional hardware costs needed to support a new system’ ( City of Phoenix - Office of the Police Chief, 2020 ). A report by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) lists the total annual cost for one body camera ranging from $1,125 up to $2,883, which includes the cost of the camera, data storage, equipment maintenance, and staff ( PERF, 2018 : 52). These prices may be manageable for police agencies employing a small number of officers; however, the costs will add up quickly as the size of the police agency increases.

It has been suggested that local and county-level governments could cover the costs (or some of the costs) associated with accountability-based police reform by using resources that are otherwise used to pay for costly litigation. Some municipalities and counties across the USA include a line item in their annual budgets devoted to anticipated payments for liability and litigation cases involving police personnel ( Archbold, 2005 ). In New York City, the Office of Management and Budget set aside $697 million in 2019 and $733 million in 2020 to pay for liability and litigation-based payouts associated with city employees ( Carrega, 2020 ). Payouts specifically associated withNew York Police Department (NYPD) officers include $237.4 million in 2018 and $220.1 million in 2019 ( Carrega, 2020 ). Los Angeles (CA) county also sets aside funds for anticipated litigation and liability payouts annually. For fiscal year 2018–19, the budget included $148.5 million for anticipated litigation/liability claims; $91.5 million of that was used to pay for settlements and judgements involving employees of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department ( Carrega, 2020 ). It could be argued that the resources set aside for anticipated litigation and liability payouts should be used to invest in accountability strategies that could ultimately reduce litigation and liability incidents involving officers in the future.

There is limited information on the cost-savings resulting from the implementation of accountability-based strategies and technology, and most of this research focuses on body cameras. A 2017 study conducted within the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department revealed a cost-savings associated with the use of body cameras. Specifically, the researchers discovered an annual estimated cost savings of $2,909–$3,178 per user, due to fewer complaints of misconduct and having to use fewer resources to investigate allegations of misconduct ( Braga et al., 2017 ). The Police Executive Research Forum (2018) conducted a cost–benefit analysis looking at lawsuits and body cameras. They found a reduction in litigation costs after body cameras were implemented in Mesa (AZ), Phoenix (AZ), but not in Dallas (TX). The researchers noted that caution should be taken when interpreting these findings because litigation data are sensitive to outliers and the outliers may be independent from effects of body cameras ( Police Executive Research Forum, 2018 ). Additional research is needed to fully understand the extent to which accountability strategies and tools reduce liability and litigation costs.

Finding extra resources to cover the expense associated with the implementation of accountability tools is likely to be a challenge in most jurisdictions across the USA and would likely be even more challenging in jurisdictions where local governments are defunding the police. In the past, the federal government has made resources available to police agencies to ease the financial burden associated with police reform. In 2015, President Obama worked with the Department of Justice to provide $20 million in competitive grants to police agencies interested in utilizing body cameras ( Fritze, 2015 ). In 2016, the Department of Justice provided $12 million to support the Collaborative Reform Initiative for Technical Assistance (CRITA) programme. The CRITA programme was a voluntary process by which law enforcement agencies could request help from the federal government to evaluate and suggest changes to policies and practices with the goal of improving their relationship with their community and ultimately increasing accountability, without the worry of financial costs ( Charles, 2017 ). Unfortunately, the focus of the CRITA programme dramatically shifted away from accountability and towards crime control in 2017 after the change in presidential administration ( Barrett, 2017 ). Fewer resources directed towards accountability-based police reform by the federal government in recent years have likely contributed to the slow progression of police accountability in the USA.

Lack of support from the federal government

Earlier in this article, the creation of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015) was identified as one of the most influential steps taken by the federal government to increase police accountability in the USA. The Task Force report continues to serve as a valuable guide for police executives interested in making changes within their organizations today. In addition to creating the Task Force, the Obama administration also provided financial resources for police agencies interested in implementing technology meant to increase accountability (such as body cameras), and also supported federal oversight of police agencies involved in controversial shootings and that have been accused of civil rights violations ( Faturechi, 2020 ). The federal government played a significant role in leading the effort to reform policing in the USA from 2008 to 2016.

With the change in administration in 2017, many of the accountability-focused reform efforts that started during the Obama administration were radically altered or discontinued. As discussed in an earlier section of this article, significant changes were made to the CRITA programme in 2017 when the accountability-based focus of that programme was redirected towards crime control ( Barrett, 2017 ). The decision to shift the focus of the CRITA programme was heavily criticized by people involved in police reform during the Obama administration. Ronald Davis, former head of the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office, suggested that the changes to the CRITA programme no longer make it collaborative reform as there would no longer be any in-depth assessment of police policies and practices by a neutral third party ( Mallonee and Watkins, 2017 ). Instead, police agencies receive training and strategies centred on crime reduction, which is something that the COPS Office already provides police agencies.

Another accountability-based practice that receded under the Trump administration is the use of pattern or practice investigations by the Department of Justice. Pattern or practice investigations are used to reform consistent practices of excessive force, biased policing, and other unconstitutional practices by police officers ( Civil Rights Division—US Department of Justice, 2017 ). These investigations are conducted to ensure that police agencies lawfully and fairly provide services to people in their communities. In instances where there is evidence of a pattern of police misconduct, police agencies work to resolve the issues using an order enforced by a federal court called a consent decree. Twenty-five consent decrees were initiated during the Obama administration, while just one investigation was initiated during the 4 years of the Trump administration ( Valverde, 2020 ). The lack of interest in federal oversight of police agencies was confirmed when then US Attorney General Jeffrey Sessions proclaimed that ‘it is not the federal government’s responsibility to manage non-federal law enforcement’ ( Valverde, 2020 ).

With the most recent change in administration at the federal level in 2021, the pendulum could swing back to the place where police accountability is held at a high level of importance by the federal government. While on the campaign trail, Joe Biden hinted at this change when he committed to properly funding the COPS programme so that it can play a role in the reformation of American police departments, and he vowed to empower the US Department of Justice to hold police agencies accountable for abuses or acts of misconduct ( Joebiden.com, 2021 ). We will likely learn more about President Biden’s plan to reform American policing in the near future.

Police unions

Prior to the 1960s, police unions had little influence in police governance in the USA. An increase in public criticism directed towards the police during the 1960s led to the emergence of legally recognized police unions ( Walker, 2016 ). Early on, the work of police unions centred on activities typical to most unions, such as securing fair salaries, benefits, and safe working conditions. As police unions gained strength in the 1970s by increasing their membership and creating strong political connections, the scope of their work expanded beyond the typical activities of unions.

Today, police unions are considered an influential force in many American police agencies. They influence operational elements within police organizations, which in turn, limit the authority of police leaders. Some police unions have become deeply entrenched in politics. This involvement is demonstrated by them creating political action committees to make financial contributions to candidates running in elections at the local, state, and federal levels ( Perkins, 2020 ). Records from the US House and Senate indicate that police unions have spent approximately $47.3 million at the federal level for lobbying and campaign contributions in recent elections ( Perkins, 2020 ). Campaign contributions provide police unions with leverage to influence decisions made regarding city charters and state legislation, which ultimately impact the work of police officers. Police unions also use their resources to shape public perceptions of political candidates. For example, some police unions sponsor advertisements which suggest that a candidate is ‘soft’ on crime, which in turn, can influence whether the candidate will win his/her political race ( McCorkel, 2020 ). The ability of police unions to influence political leaders has led to the creation of contractual and legislative barriers that can thwart police reform efforts. As a result, police unions have been identified as a major impediment to the progression of police accountability in the USA ( Walker, 2012 ).

Police unions use the collective bargaining process to negotiate contracts that include myriad restrictions related to investigations and disciplinary actions involving police officers, as well as general oversight of the police ( Rushin, 2017 ). It is common for union contracts to contain requirements allowing officers to challenge adverse personnel decisions made by their superiors ( Rushin, 2017 ). In some jurisdictions, union contracts override city charters, state laws, and have even stalled the enforcement of federal consent decrees in several cities across the USA ( Emmanuel, 2016 ; Barker et al., 2020 ). Police union contracts are negotiated in private settings in all but eight states in the USA, which leaves no opportunity for scrutiny or feedback from the media or community members ( McCorkel, 2020 ).

Police leaders struggle to hold officers accountable when restrictions are placed on the procedures used to investigate officers accused of misconduct. Collective bargaining agreements dictate how investigations will be conducted including the time of day that officers can be questioned, how long officers are questioned, as well as the number of investigators that can be present during questioning ( Bellisle, 2020 ). It is also common for police officers to review all the evidence against them prior to them being questioned ( McCorkel, 2020 ). In some jurisdictions, police officers involved in deadly force incidents are given a specified period before they can be questioned about the incident and can have a union representative or attorney present during questioning ( McCorkel, 2020 ). Many collective bargaining agreements include restrictions requiring that only sworn police personnel can be involved in the investigation of police officers. This means that it would be next to impossible to create a civilian oversight board in these jurisdictions, or the oversight board would be severely limited in its involvement in the investigation of officer misconduct (which defeats the purpose of having an oversight board).

Police unions also have a say in the process citizens use to file formal complaints against police officers. Some jurisdictions require citizens to notarize their complaints before they are turned in for investigation, and in some cases, citizens are required to provide sworn statements or videotaped testimony to accompany formal complaints ( Honolulu Police Department Website, 2021 ). Union contracts also determine how long citizens have to file a complaint after an incident has occurred. If they fail to file a complaint within the specified period, their complaint will not be investigated ( Levinson, 2017 ).

Collective bargaining agreements also influence the use and handling of officer employment records, including disciplinary records and recordings of officers on duty. ‘Purge clauses’ make it difficult to identify which officers have a history of misconduct allegations because police unions require police agencies to destroy disciplinary records after a specified period of time (typically 2–5 years; McCorkel, 2020 ). Purge clauses also make it difficult for police agencies to implement EI systems, as it is typical to use a variety of officer records as measures to track problematic work performance. Also, police departments interested in utilizing body cameras would have to negotiate who would have access to body camera footage, and how long the footage will be stored by the police agency.

Another way that police unions exert control over accountability efforts of police leaders is to require that police officers have the right to appeal decisions made in disciplinary cases to an arbitrator or arbitration board. In some jurisdictions, police unions get to choose which arbitrators are included in a pool that is used when officers file appeals of decisions made by their superiors ( Burger, 2017 ). This has led to some police chiefs choosing not to take any disciplinary action against officers who deserve it, or allowing officers to resign (instead of being punished or fired), which means that officers leave the agency with a clean record allowing them to seek employment in another police agency without any problems ( Barker et al. , 2020 ).

Arbitration can also lead to the rehiring of police officers who have been previously fired, often with retro-active pay ( Bellisle, 2020 ). This makes it difficult for police leaders to permanently remove officers involved in acts of misconduct and misuse of force. This issue was highlighted during the summer of 2020 after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN. The Star Tribune revealed that over the last 20 years, approximately half of the 80 police officers who were fired by police agencies across the state of Minnesota were rehired after they appealed to an arbitration board ( Bjorhus, 2020 ). Rehiring fired police officers is not just a problem in Minnesota. In 2017, the Washington Post reported that police chiefs from 37 of the largest police agencies across the USA were required to rehire approximately one-quarter of the officers they previously fired ( Kelly et al., 2017 ). The Washington Post article noted that officers who were rehired after being fired were involved in serious acts of misconduct including sexual abuse, lying, being drunk on duty, and driving a gunman from the scene of a shooting where someone died. Police leaders also have the option to negotiate a financial settlement to convince previously fired officers not to return to their position. This was the case for a St Anthony (MN) police officer who fatally shot Philando Castille during a traffic stop in July 2016. After the officer was acquitted of criminal charges, the city agreed to pay the officer $50,000 not to return to his position in the St Anthony Police Department ( Barker et al., 2020 ). These are just a few examples that demonstrate how police leaders face many restrictions resulting from police union contracts when they try to hold police officers accountable for their actions.

Much of what is known about American police unions is the result of investigative reporting by media outlets. In general, there has been limited research on police unions in the USA ( National Academy of Sciences, 2004 ). This is surprising given the level of influence that police unions have had in American police agencies for decades. Some of the research on police unions focuses on the content of collective bargaining agreements/contracts and how those provisions restrict police leaders from holding officers accountable.

Campaign Zero, is a non-profit group that analyses police practices in the USA to identify solutions to end police violence, increase police accountability, and develop legislation to reform the police ( Campaign Zero Website, 2021 ). In 2016, this group reviewed police union contracts in 81 of the 100 most populated US cities and discovered that 72 cities allow police officers to appeal disciplinary decisions to an arbitrator or arbitration board. This review also found that union contracts in 63 cities have three or more provisions that act as barriers to accountability.

In 2017, Reuters conducted a similar analysis of 82 police union contracts in large US cities and found that most of the contracts require police departments to erase officer disciplinary records (in some jurisdictions after 6 months; Levinson, 2017 ). The review also discovered that in 18 cities, records of officer suspensions are purged after 3 years (in some places less than 3 years). Approximately half of the union contracts allow officers being investigated for misconduct to review the entire contents of their investigative file prior to their interrogation ( Levinson, 2017 ). Written consent provided by police officers is required before police agencies can provide public access to documents associated with internal investigations and prior disciplinary actions taken against police officers in 18 cities. Union contracts set time limits for citizens to file complaints of misconduct against officers in 17 cities.

Stephen Rushin (2017) analysed 178 police union contracts from the largest police departments across the USA and discovered that 88% of the contracts included at least one provision that limits police leaders’ ability to hold officers accountable. His review revealed that many contracts ban civilian oversight of the police; place restrictions on interrogation of officers facing allegations of misconduct; require police agencies to destroy officers’ disciplinary records; prohibit the collection and investigation of anonymous citizen complaints; and limit the timeframe of internal investigations ( Rushin, 2017 ).

Most recently, Harris and Sweeney (2021) examined police union contracts from 47 of the largest cities in the USA. They discovered that all 47 contracts had at least one provision that would impede the investigations of officers involved in acts of misconduct. Restrictions are placed on citizen complaints of misconduct in 39 union contracts. The restrictions include time limits on filing complaints, the names of complainants are provided to officers who are named in complaints, not allowing anonymous complaints to be filed, and the legal penalties for filing false complaints are printed on complaint forms. Provisions related to police interrogations were included in 29 union contracts. The restrictions include a mandatory waiting period prior to interrogations, as well as restrictions on the length of interrogations before officers are allowed a break. Finally, 45 of the union contracts include provisions related to discipline, such as expungement of records after a specified period, the use of sick leave days to offset suspension, and impose statutes of limitation on discipline ( Harris and Sweeney, 2021 ). All the provisions found within police union contracts in this study are threats to police accountability. All of the previously mentioned obstacles to police accountability create challenges for police executives and community leaders who want to increase accountability within their organizations and communities. Many of the impediments can be overcome if police executives, community leaders, and political leaders work together to come up with feasible solutions.

The title of this article includes a question regarding the progression of police accountability in the USA—gaining traction or spinning wheels? On one hand, it could be argued that police accountability is gaining traction in the USA as several police leaders are taking steps to increase accountability within their organizations, whether it be changing policies, increasing and improving training, or implementing strategies and technology meant to hold officers accountable. It could also be argued that we currently have the highest level of police accountability in the USA than any other time in our country’s history. On the other hand, there is also some evidence of spinning wheels, as there is currently limited research on the efficacy of most of the police accountability tools and strategies suggested by the Task Force report; there is a lack of systematic data collection of police misconduct incidents (on a national level); there has been less support and leadership provided by the federal government in recent years to advance police accountability forward; police unions continue to negotiate contracts that contain provisions that stymie accountability efforts of police leaders, and there are still many police leaders who have not taken any steps to make accountability a priority in their organizations.

So, where do we go from here? Based on the assessment of the current state of police accountability in the USA presented in this article, we still have work to do. Advancing police accountability further in this country will only be possible through the actions and commitment of political leaders, police leaders and police personnel, researchers, and American citizens. This is a complex issue that warrants input and action from a variety of groups—this is not something that police leaders can do on their own.

The US federal government must step back into a leadership role by providing support and resources to help police agencies make changes that will enhance accountability. Government leaders must require police executives that have not taken any steps to increase accountability to do so now. It has been said that making meaningful changes within American police organizations is challenging—in fact, it has been compared to ‘bending granite’ ( Guyot, 1979 ). However, resources and support from federal and state government could make this process less difficult.

Results from a recent survey indicate that some police leaders are looking to the federal government for help. In November 2020, the PERF analysed surveys completed by 375 police executives asking about their views of priorities for the next presidential administration. Here are some significant findings from this survey:

Police executives identified the top two concerns for the next presidential administration as increasing public trust in the police and addressing the call for police reform. This finding suggests that some police leaders are thinking about issues (such as strengthening police-community relationships) that can be partially solved by enhancing police accountability within their organizations.

When asked which areas they would like to see federal grant assistance available in the future, the top three answers included training, research on ‘what works’ in policing, and grants for police equipment. Police executives identified de-escalation training, bias-free policing/community engagement, and training to help officers respond to mental health calls as the top three choices of training. Body cameras and less than lethal technologies were the top two types of technologies they would like to see government funding for in the near future (EI systems also made the list but was mentioned less frequently by police executives).

When asked which strategies they consider to be most effective in improving the police-community relationship, police leaders identified increased face-to-face contact with citizens; educating the public about policing; utilizing strategies associated with transparency, accountability, and legitimacy; and holding listening sessions on difficult topics with community members.

When asked about their greatest hopes for help from the next presidential administration, the most common responses included federal support for law enforcement; reform measures (many identified reforms listed in the Task Force report); healing the current divide in our society between democrats and republicans, as well as between the police and their communities; become more educated about how the police conduct their work; and enhancing accountability by giving police executives the power to fire officers involved in acts of misconduct. They mentioned that they would like to see limitations placed on police unions and arbitrators, so that these groups cannot reverse their decisions related to the discipline or firing of problematic officers ( PERF, 2020 ).

The findings from this survey create a list for the Biden administration identifying specific resources and support that police executives need to strengthen relationships with their communities and to advance police accountability in this country.

Another way that political leaders can help police executives increase accountability within their organizations is to work with police unions to remove provisions within union contracts that prohibit police leaders from holding their officers accountable. As noted earlier in this article, collective bargaining agreements often usurp city charters, state legislation, and in some cases court orders that are enforced at the federal level (consent decrees).

In the past, police unions have been unwilling to give up the protections that come along with provisions typically included in collective bargaining agreements (such as provisions that restrict police executives’ ability to discipline or fire officers involved in misconduct). A recent article in the University of Chicago Law Review proposes federal legislation that would encourage police unions to make much-needed changes to collective bargaining agreements. Specifically, Mogck (2020 : 4) proposes that ‘police unions should receive tax-exempt status only if they implement certain indispensable accountability measures in their collective bargaining agreements. Tax exempt status is important to unions: because union dues, donations, and investment income would otherwise be taxable income, losing tax-exempt status would dramatically shrink unions’ operating budgets’. This legislation would give police unions 1 year to renegotiate collective bargaining agreements. Police unions that are unwilling to renegotiate union contracts would forfeit their tax-exempt status ( Mogck, 2020 ). To some, this proposed legislation may appear to be a bit extreme. However, it is important to remember all the ways that provisions within collective bargaining agreements can hamstring police leaders who try to hold their officers accountable.

Currently, American police agencies are not required to track and report incidents of police misconduct in any systematic way. This means that there are no national statistics on police misconduct. There is no way to know the extent of officer involvement in such acts, which in turn, means that it would be difficult to determine if accountability strategies/technology influence or change officer behaviour in any way. It is impossible to come up with potential solutions to the problem of police misconduct if we do not know the scope of this problem. Most of what is known about police misconduct in the USA is currently generated by media outlets or independent groups. It is time for the government to play a central role in the systematic collection of police misconduct data. Similar to the collection of police shootings, federal and state government officials must encourage police leaders to collect and submit police misconduct data (annually) to a national depository (such as the FBI).

Police executives ultimately determine how important police accountability is in their organizations. There are some who have taken several steps to enhance accountability by implementing strategies and technology meant to monitor officers’ work performance, increase transparency, and hold officers accountable if they choose to become involved in misconduct. These individuals need to continue their efforts. There are, however, other police leaders who have not done anything to make accountability a priority in their organizations. It is critical that these leaders act now. Police leaders should include police personnel from all ranks in the decision-making process related to the adoption of technology and strategies meant to hold officers accountable. This collaborative effort with others in the police organization could increase police personnel buy-in.

To study how and if police officers are being held accountable for their actions, police leaders need to be open to building collaborative partnerships with researchers. The only way to figure out which police accountability strategies are effective is if researchers are allowed access to data. The Police Data Initiative (PDI) is a good example of collaboration between police agencies and researchers. PDI was launched in response to recommendations in the Task Force report. This initiative is a cooperative effort by the Police Foundation, the US Department of Justice/Office of COPS and 130 law enforcement agencies across the USA ( Police Data Initiative Website, 2021 )). This website contains datasets provided by law enforcement agencies across the country, which are accessible to the public. There are datasets that include citizen complaints, use of force incidents, assaults on officers, traffic stops, citations, and arrest, to name a few. Police agencies voluntarily upload their data to this portal. By providing data to this initiative, police agencies are demonstrating their commitment to transparency and accountability. The Police Open Data Census is another website where police agencies make their data available to researchers. This website contains datasets on a variety of topics including response time, use of force, citizen complaints, officer involved shootings, pursuits, traffic and pedestrian stops, and citations ( Police Open Data Census, 2021 ). More police agencies need to be willing to participate in open data projects. And it is critical for researchers to take advantage of the access to datasets to continue to study a variety of issues associated with police accountability. As noted earlier in this article, additional research is desperately needed on this topic.

People living in the USA also play a critical role in the progression of police accountability in this country. Many Americans want police reform, officer accountability, and stronger community–police relationships. A survey distributed a month after the death of George Floyd revealed that many (74%) Americans supported the peaceful protests and demonstrations occurring in response to that incident ( Ipsos, 2020 ). That survey also revealed that most (over 90%) Americans support the ideas that police officers need to intervene when they witness acts of police misconduct by their peers, that police officers should be required to wear body cameras, and that there should be independent investigations of police agencies that exhibit patterns of misconduct ( Ipsos, 2020 ). It is imperative that people living in the USA continue to push for police reform. They must continue to vocalize their concerns regarding the lack of police accountability by participating in peaceful protests and demonstrations. They must empower and encourage police leaders in their communities to implement accountability-based strategies and technology. And finally, they must encourage political leaders to draft legislation that will create optimal conditions for real police reform to occur.

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Police governance and accountability: overview of current issues

• Published: 10 February 2011
• Volume 55 , pages 61–86, ( 2011 )

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• Dermot P. J. Walsh 1 &
• Vicky Conway 2  

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Most noticeable in the policing of narcotics, gangs, terrorism, sexual violence and young offenders. See, for example, [ 149 ].

Terms such as: ‘police service’, users/clients, performance indicators and league tables are now standard. See [ 34 , 84 , 104 , 202 , 240 , 243 , 255 ].

Both professional standards units and internal affairs units have become commonplace in efforts to combat police corruption. They can be found across police forces in most western liberal democracies. See, for example, [ 75 ; ch.8, 180 , 257 , 260 ].

For essays on accountability in criminal justice generally, and policing in particular, see [ 228 ]. For a wider perspective, see [ 64 ].

Lawrence Lustgarten’s seminal text The Governance of the Police in 1986 appears to be the first to use the term prominently in the policing context. It now features much more regularly. See, for example [ 30 , 68 , 72 , 73 , 112 , 117 , 120 , 125 , 139 , 163 , 203 ].

It has been argued that this occurred in England and Wales during the 1980s, particularly with the policing of the miners’ strikes when it was alleged that the police were heavily politicised; see [ 207 , 236 , 237 ] and, more generally, [ 32 ]. For consideration of similar issues elsewhere, see [ 168 , 239 ].

For discussion of the challenges facing the establishment of the liberal democratic model in a range of developing countries, see [ 102 ].

A topical example is the British government’s policy on the retention of DNA profiles on its database of all persons suspected of crime, in the name of enhancing the capacity of the police to fight crime. Its approach was found by the European Court of Human Rights to be in breach of the Convention right to privacy in S and Marper v. UK 30562/04 and 30566/04 (4th December 2008). Also worth noting are the British anti-terrorist police powers of stop and search which the European Court of Human Rights also found to be in breach of the Convention right to privacy as they were too broad and indiscriminate in nature; see Gillan v United Kingdom 4158/05 (12th January 2010).

For a discussion of this debate in the Irish context where law and order politics have prevailed in the context of growing concerns over so-called gangland crime, see [ 51 , 95 , 151 ].

The major examples in recent years have concerned: the false confession cases of the Birmingham Six , Guildford Four and Maguire Seven ; the corrupt activities of the West-Midland Serious Crime Squad, racism in the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation by the London Metropolitan Police; and the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by a firearms unit of the London Metropolitan Police. See, generally [ 183 ; ch.5].

Police in France have been the subject of serious claims of abuse and violence, with Amnesty International expressing concern, in particular, over the treatment of ethnic minorities in the country. See http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/police-abuse-goes-unchecked-france-20090402 accessed on 11 May 2010.

New York has seen the Knapp Commission in the 1970s and the Mollen Commission in the 1990s. Drug corruption has been found in Cleveland, New Jersey, Texas and Detroit. In the late 1990s the Rampart scandal in LA centred on its anti-gang unit. See also [ 183 : ch.3; 221 ].

Western Australia appointed a Royal Commission in 2002 to investigate the death of a youth in custody. In the mid-1990s New South Wales was hit by a corruption scandal which resulted in the establishment of the Wood Commission.

The cyclical nature of police corruption has been documented; see [ 166 , 184 ].

Ireland, for example, has seen a doubling of complaint numbers since the establishment of its police Ombudsman Commission in 2007. England and Wales has reported similar increases since the creation of the Independent Police Complaints Commission

The difficulties posed for policing by modern and post-modern society are well documented [ 13 , 21 , 159 , 185 ].

The body of scholarly work on this topic is particularly large but some key readings can be identified [ 16 , 85 , 89 , 105 , 134 , 144 , 149 , 224 , 225 , 256 , 257 ].

Chan has outlined in detail the need for police reform to be on ongoing process [ 44 ]. McLaughlin and Johansen have suggested that in the light of the failures of traditional mechanisms, it may be worth considering the use of restorative justice practices in the resolution of complaints against the police [ 160 ].

This often arises in relation to the policing of ethnic minorities in a country, the policing of young people, or in some conflict societies, such as Northern Ireland, the disproportionate policing of one religious sector of the community [ 26 , 27 , 41 , 43 , 96 , 148 , 165 ].

Much stock is placed in the ability of Tribunals to unearth the truth and expose wrongdoing through independent means. See [ 33 , 135 , 250 ].

The Morris Tribunal in Ireland acknowledged that one of the precipitating factors in the establishment of the tribunal was the inability of the existing complaints mechanism to deal with the scale and nature of the abuses which were occurring [ 194 ].

See, for example, [ 24 ].

For an account of reliance on the traditional internal disciplinary model in American police forces, see [ 18 ; pp.500–509].

W.A. Kerstetter classified the options as civilian review, civilian input and civilian monitor [ 128 ]. A. Goldsmith identifies a broad range of categories including: traditional (internally dealt with), civilian in-house, civilian external supervision, civilian external investigation, civilian external investigatory/adjudicative and police investigatory on behalf of civilian external agency [ 85 ].

The Office of the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland conducts all investigations itself [ 76 ].

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission could potentially handle all investigations itself, but a large number are being ‘leased back’ to the police to conduct the investigations. The Commission can choose whether or not to supervise such investigations [ 50 , 253 ].

It should be noted that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that where Convention rights have been breached it would also be a breach of the right to an effective remedy not to hold an independent investigation: Govell v. UK [1998] EHRLR 101.

This is the case in countries such as: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania and the Netherlands.

See C. Foote [ 80 ]. While it may be dated in terms of when it was published many of the critical observations are still very pertinent today.

These helped instil the principle of policing by consent in the foundation of organised police forces in Britain. They were adopted in similar terms by the early Commissioners of Ireland’s Garda Síochána when it was first established in 1922; see [ 29 ; pp.80–81 and 117 ].

The Rules were also adopted in Ireland and Australia, but have since been replaced in the United Kingdom by the Codes in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and related legislation.

384 US 436 (1966). See [ 77 ]. For a comparator of these two systems, see [ 122 ].

The Code provides an outline of the role of the police, their basis in the rule of law and guidelines on their organisation and structure, on police action and intervention, on accountability and control of the police and on research and international cooperation.

Many police forces now specifically employ human rights officers for the purpose of developing these codes and training new recruits and officers on their content and importance. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has, for example, a page on its website dedicated to human rights and on which they have published the Human Rights Plan of Action for each year from 2006 to 2010 http://www.psni.police.uk/index/about-us/human_rights.htm accessed on 12 May 2010.

The UK Courts have clearly stated that the purpose of the exclusionary rule is specifically to protect the rights of the accused, not to punish police officers or deter the use of unlawful methods. See [ 124 ].

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabularies continues to conduct independent inspections of all police forces and policing activities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They also chair the Police Performance Steering Group. A separate Inspectorate of Constabularies exists in Scotland. Northern Ireland is further subjected to inspections by Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland.

Inevitably these can vary from society to society. The focus in these essays is on western style liberal democracies. For a comparative selection of different models of policing across the world, see [ 156 , 157 ].

For discussion of the sources, characteristics and tensions at the heart of these conflicting police roles, see [ 159 ]. More generally, see [ 25 , 36 ; pp. 69–82].

This was highlighted as particularly important by the Patten Commission; see [ 107 ].

In Ireland, the reports of the Morris Tribunal of Inquiry into police corruption offer a rich resource of materials on the negative impact of internal police culture on the maintenance of discipline; see [ 49 , 194 ].

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Walsh, D.P.J., Conway, V. Police governance and accountability: overview of current issues. Crime Law Soc Change 55 , 61–86 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-011-9269-6

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Police Accountability and Reform

Introduction.

The police are entrusted to enforce the law and ensure the safety of citizens. However, in the United States, policing has been marked by straining relationships with people, especially from minority communities. Police officers have killed many people under controversial circumstances. The political climate regarding policing in the country changed dramatically following the August 2014 tragic event in Ferguson (Walker, 2018). Several similar events have been witnessed, including the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 (Dolly, 2022). There has been an increasing demand for police reforms that foster a good working relationship with the police. The police are increasingly expected to act in a lawful and legitimate manner to reduce crime while serving the community’s needs.

The core principle of any democratic society is that the police should account for all their actions. According to Walker (2018), the new conversations in the matter integrate several principles, practices, and policies that offer a roadmap for reforming the police in future. There are no certainties that any of the proposals will guarantee a better future due to a lack of evidence. The focus of this paper is to discuss a single practice in each of the three areas. Specifically, the selected best practices include the use of force reporting policy, provision of all the necessary training to gain standards of professionalism, and principle of greater openness and transparency in police departments. Although there have been crises and a clash between the law enforcement officers and the public, if the suggested reforms are implemented, it will stir reconciliation and foster good working relationships.

Policy: Use of Force

The use of excessive, lethal and non-lethal force remains a central concern. Worse still, there has been a trend in which minority groups are disproportionately falling victims and even dying from such vices. For instance, a Chauvin, a police officer, knelt on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes despite the pleas that he was unable to breathe (Subramanian & Arzy, 2021). The incident led many states to reevaluate and clarify the kind of force that the police officers are authorized to use in various circumstances. Remarkably, the police were advised to use force as a last resort upon exhausting all the nonviolent options.

Moreover, Colorado banned apprehension of suspects of nonviolent or minor offences using deadly force, and five states now prohibit shooting to prevent escape (Subramanian & Arzy, 2021). These measures are intended to ensure minimal or total avoidance of injuries and fatal incidences by the police. Thus, it is now upon police officers to think of all alternatives they have in handling citizens, suspects, or criminals before they decide to apply force.

The other trend in regards to this policy is the recommendation for police officers to post statistics on the use of force online. Traditionally, the persons responsible for the administrative data have ensured that such information remains classified, with only a few people having access (Dolly, 2022). There are potential risks to making the reform because emotions can easily move the public without understanding the circumstances that led to an increase of such data where the police had to use force. Moreover, it is vital for police administrators to apply prudence when posting such information to ensure that the public understands aspects such as relativity, percentage, and probabilities when analyzing the data. Essentially, there is a need to strike a balance between the openness to the people about such information and enabling the police to do their work without fear.

Standardization of the data collection process and reporting of the use of force needs more clarification in this policy. The intention of such documentation is to check the discretion of the police officer (Walker, 2018). Notably, the definition and constituents of the phrase “use of force” varies significantly within the law enforcement departments (Dolly, 2022). Moreover, reporting formats are often restrictive such that important details about the use of force is omitted. Without a proper universal reporting style, the challenges are bound to escalate.

One of the strengths of the use of force policy is that it instils discipline to the police due to the restrictions. Furthermore, it prompts the police to think critically before deciding on the best course of action. The policy increases transparency with the public due to the need to share information online. Notably, the reform will shift power to the policed populations, which is reparative to the minorities (Simonson, 2020). Resultantly, it may restore trust and avoid most of the strikes and boycotts from the public following random video clips of police using force.

However, there are some drawbacks to implementing the policy, such as the difficulty in standardizing the mode of collecting data and reporting. The other disadvantage is that the officers may fail to file a complete and accurate report (Walker, 2018). The entire reform is at the discretion of the police, to be honest, yet they may be tempted to live out parts that implicate them. Worse still, the officers understand the language that they can use to justify their use of force and avoid further scrutiny.

The success of the police is limited and may create more challenges in the future. For example, if the police agency is required to give their report, which will implicate them before the justice department and the public, they will try to conceal and omit facts. The reports and online statistics may not be the actual representation of incidences but a cover-up to appear good. The only suggestion to make the strategy work in the future is to have a separate watchdog to oversee if the information being provided is accurate. Otherwise, the vices will continue, and the reform gives a platform for incongruent and inconsistent data, creating a lack of accountability.

Practice: Police Training for Professionalism

Improper training of law enforcement officers is one of the primary causes of the national police crisis. Particularly, the instructions that police receive under-emphasize de-escalation techniques while highlighting self-protection, development of technical skills and using firearms. In addition, the teachings overestimate the danger of being exposed to a black suspect relative to other ethnic groups (United States Commission on Civil Rights, 2018). As a result, the police are often ready to use any means to protect themselves because their thinking is based on these assumptions. The United States police need an implicit bias training.

The police need a wide range of training regarding the use of force issue. For example, the police who knelt on Floyd’s neck showed unprofessionalism in handling a suspect. The officer training should be informative on less lethal weapons such as rubber bullets, tear gas, and paper sprays instead of bullets (Subramanian & Arzy, 2021). The police should avoid neck restraints and manhandling suspects and instead use handcuffs. Other training should involve social and communication skills to achieve friendly conversations with the citizens. The training should make an effort to end the modern-day discrimination. Furthermore, it will ensure that African Americans restore their trust in the police.

There is no denying that the work of police officers is often stressful, especially in the United States, where citizens have access to guns. The police put their lives at risk every time they go to handle a crime scene. In turn, it is vital for the police to get training on stress management so that they do not displace their anger and frustrations on innocent people. Other skills such as emotional intelligence and behavioral psychology should be mandatory in enhancing reformation of the police officers.

Professional training reform may be effective in ending the police crisis in the short-term, but more measures are needed for permanent impact. Evidence suggests that the racial biases in the country are ingrained in the society, so it is impossible to alleviate them through training alone (United States Commission on Civil Rights, 2018). To break the habit of police having a bias against the black community, it is necessary to integrate a reinforcement strategy of rewards and punishment. The ultimate goal is for the officers to be able to recognize their unconscious biases and not act on them when handling a crime scene with potential suspects.

The advantage of training reforms is that it increases the competencies and skills of the police, making them to behave professionally. For example, during the training, the officers are taught different tactics, de-escalation techniques, handling people with disability, understanding cultural differences, and anti-bias mechanism (Walker, 2018). The implication is that the dignity of the police profession will be restored. Moreover, the police will be proud due to the positive image and branding that they receive. The other strength of training is that it is result oriented and easy to assess its successes. When employees are well trained, they improve work quality and create innovative ideas to help solve problems.

Regarding the drawbacks, training can be expensive, especially if it is done for all police agencies. The government may not be able to offer a high level of training unless it comes with a good budgeting strategy so that other sectors are not deprived of resources. When staff receive training, they often expect a pay rise because of the achievement, which maybe is hard for the government to achieve. In addition, training may be disadvantageous because it is time-consuming, and the police need to be at work.

Training reforms have high chances of success when done strategically from the managers to the junior officers. There is evidence that training increases competencies and professionalism for the law enforcement agencies. It is important that the training happens on an ongoing basis because humans have a tendency to forget. Moreover, the police officer should be encouraged to continuously look for opportunities to learn through reading quality materials, attending relevant workshops and mentorship programs. Thus, training reform may have a few challenges but has the potential to endure the challenges of an undetermined future if done progressively.

Principle: Greater Openness and Transparency in Police Departments

The principle of openness and transparency is intended to ensure that the public gain additional insights into the activities that the police are doing and builds good relationships. One of the way of practicing the principle is through the use of monitoring teams reports. For example, California recently established OpenJustice initiative, which is intended to implement transparency in all their data (United States Commission on Civil Rights, 2018).

In addition, the principle can be implemented through external and independent oversight. A different agency is employed to oversee all the activities of the police to establish whether they are acting appropriately.

The other way of integrating the principle in police reforms is through allowing external review. The department of justice agency now relies more on open information that they receive through media sources rather than getting the data from the police alone (United States Commission on Civil Rights, 2018). For example, if there is a mass shooting and the police file a report of ten casualties and a credible media source gives a different statistic, then they decide which source is telling the truth and clarifies the same to the public. The media companies serve as informal reviewers as they can follow up on a story, critic and discuss the actions of the police even when the case is ongoing.

One of the strengths of this principle is that it promotes trust with the public. The police become ready to be asked questions about their actions and decisions. In so doing, they accept the consequences for their actions and enhance the integrity of their profession. The drawback of the principle is that it can potentially create chaos because the public has not been trained to handle classified information. The secrecy of the police officer is a fundamental aspect of its effectiveness in enhancing safety to the citizens.

Reforms practices that focus on enhancing openness and transparency can succeed despite the unprecedented future, but only when limited. There is evidence that the police agencies that have worked on the principle by instituting external reforms are have a positive result (United States Commission on Civil Rights, 2018). People are longing for the police to be more accountable in their dealings, given that they have been given significant authority. Particularly, openness and transparency allow the voice of community members to act as watchdogs and add value to the police agencies (Dungca & Abelson, 2021). However, the police should be keen and ensure that they retain some classified information. The data that is given should be necessary and limited to what is beneficial to the public.

Conclusively, the police are experiencing a crisis that has made them be under scrutiny and pressure from the public to make reforms. The citizens have lost their trust in the police and now perceive them as enemies of the society. Such division is dangerous both to the people and the police officers. A key demand is for enhancement of accountability and transparency, equal treatment to all, and professionalism. To achieve this goal, it is vital to implement policies, practices and principles that are evidence-based and proven to improve the services of law enforcement agencies. Walker (2018) suggest many best practices, each having strengths and weaknesses. However, more research is needed to understand the most effective implementation strategy and prioritization of the most effective approaches.

Dolly, C. (2022). Determinants of police department change: An institutional theory approach (29167203) [Master’s thesis]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Dungca, N., & Abelson, J. (2021). When communities try to hold police accountable, law enforcement fights back . The Washington Post.

Simonson, J. (2020). Police reform through a power lens. SSRN Electronic Journal .

Subramanian, R., & Arzy, L. (2021). State policing reforms since George Floyd’s murder . Brennan Center for Justice.

Walker, S. (2018). Not dead yet: the national police crisis, a new conversation about policing, and the prospects for accountability-related police reform. University of Illinois Law Review. , 1777-1842.

United States Commission on Civil Rights. (2018). Police use of force: An examination of modern policing practices : Briefing before the United States Commission on civil rights, held in Washington, DC (Briefing Report 1).

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The Price Of Police Misconduct Claims In Honolulu Is Going Up

Experts say large payouts, like the $12.5 million settlement approved in March, do not usually lead to systemic change.

Honolulu’s payouts for settlements, judgments and claims — mostly related to police misconduct — have risen steadily over the past decade.

A recent record $12.5 million settlement with a man injured in a 2021 police pursuit crash in Makaha will likely cause the city’s liability insurance premium to rise. 

But even as the cost of police misconduct goes up, lawyers and advocates say it may not be enough to prompt police officials to crack down on bad practices and policies. 

The city has paid out $17.3 million in settlements, judgments and claims so far this fiscal year, which ends June 30, according to a city budget document. And while that also includes other municipal matters, the majority is for police-related settlements, according to council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, chair of the Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee.

By comparison, the city spent $11.9 million on settlements, judgments and claims last fiscal year and $7.7 million the one before. 

City attorneys estimate Honolulu will need $20 million to cover civil litigation and claims next fiscal year. In a budget document, they cited two unresolved police cases that may result in large payouts — one filed on behalf of a passenger injured in the Makaha crash, and another filed by the widow of Lindani Myeni, fatally shot by Honolulu police in 2021. 

Large payouts can motivate the city to enact better policies and promote more police training. But experts say civil litigation doesn’t usually lead to systemic change. 

Shielded from personal liability, officers are rarely sued as individuals. The money for settlements and judgments usually comes from the city’s executive budget, not the police department’s.

Police also don’t have to admit wrongdoing when agreeing to a settlement, said Jennvine Wong, of the New York City-based Cop Accountability Project , which maintains a database on law enforcement misconduct records.

“Officers are not necessarily disciplined or fired just because they are sued for police misconduct,” she said. “It’s kind of treated as the cost of doing business.” 

Liability Costs Going Up

Insurance premiums related to policing have increased for municipalities across the country, experts say. That includes Honolulu, where the amount the city is required to pay per claim before insurance kicks in rose from $2 million in fiscal year 2019 to $10 million in fiscal year 2022, according to the city’s corporation counsel.

City costs related to the Makaha police pursuit and crash alone are already more than half of what it spent on police-related litigation over a 10-year period, and two lawsuits related to the crash filed by the same plaintiff are pending in state and federal court.

The city has already settled with five occupants of the Honda Civic that crashed in September 2021 following the high-speed police chase — the $12.5 million approved for the driver of the vehicle, Jonaven Perkins-Sinapati, and $4.5 million approved last year for four passengers. (Perkins-Sinapati was arrested and charged this week on multiple gun and drug charges, according to court records.)

Of that total, the city paid $10 million, and $7 million was covered by insurance, according to corporation counsel. For context, the city spent a total of $18 million on police-related lawsuits from 2012 to 2022.

Other major settlements have included $5.25 million and $10 million to two families of victims killed in a fatal crash following a police pursuit in 2019. Of the combined $15.25 million, the city paid $2.9 million, with insurance covering the rest. 

Each year, the city pays about $4.6 million for liability policies through Boston-based Lexington Insurance Company and New Jersey-based Princeton Excess and Surplus Lines Company, city spokesman Ryan Wilson said in an email.

Wilson said the $12.5 million settlement will likely make the price of the policy go up, though he could not predict by how much.

Eric Seitz represents the last person injured in the Makaha crash that hasn’t settled, Dayten Gouveia . Seitz is frustrated the city hasn’t yet made an offer that he views as reasonable for his client’s injuries. 

Seitz said the city also has not made an offer in the case of Iremamber Sykap , a 16-year-old who was fatally shot by Honolulu police in 2021. Three officers were initially charged in the shooting , but a judge later ruled they should not be tried.

“We submitted a settlement demand of $10 million, which I thought was fairly small for the life of a boy,” Seitz said. “The city’s offered basically nothing up to now.”

The civil case is scheduled for trial in mid-2025, he said.

In an emailed statement, spokesman Ian Scheuring said the city’s decision to settle with other plaintiffs has no bearing on the Gouveia or Sykap cases. 

“As with any settlement the City considers, for both the Gouveia and Sykap matters, the City has engaged in negotiations in good faith, and will base its decisions on the facts of the case, the opinions of experts, the existing case law, and the rulings of the Court,” the statement says.

‘The Cops Don’t Have To Pay … The Taxpayers Pay’

Honolulu City Council member Val Okimoto, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, said while she voted to approve the $12.5 million for Perkins-Sinapati in March, she is concerned about spending taxpayer dollars on such large settlements. She wants to promote better police training practices to prevent future lawsuits. 

She has objected, though, to taxpayer funds being used to pay for legal representation of officers who have been fired from the police department. She was the only member to vote no when the council approved an additional $100,000 to represent Erik Smith and Jake Ryan Bartolome, two officers accused of being involved in the Makaha pursuit who were discharged from the police department in February. 

So far, about $300,000 has been approved for the representation of the four officers named in the lawsuits — Smith, Bartolome, Robert Lewis III and Joshua Nahulu, who was also discharged. Lewis remains employed by the department.

The officers, all facing criminal charges, are scheduled to stand trial June 3. But the city is only covering their legal fees in the civil matters.

Dos Santos-Tam said the city needs to set aside money for defending officers. If they knew they could be held personally liable, no one would want to do the job, he said.

“We don’t want it to be a regular occurrence, but this is a reality of running a very large city with many, many police officers,” he said. 

HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu did not respond to a request to interview Chief Joe Logan or another department official. She said in the aftermath of the Makaha pursuit and litigation the department’s motor vehicle pursuit policy is “currently being revised and will be finalized this summer.”

In January, another lawsuit related to a police pursuit was filed, this time by a man who said he was rammed and beaten by officers pursuing an armed suspect. The lawsuit is pending in federal court, and the incident is under review by the police department, according to Yu. So far, no officers have been placed on restricted duty. 

Seitz said city taxpayers should be angered by the amount spent on lawsuits and settlements related to the police. 

“The cops don’t have to pay, the cops don’t lose their houses and their pensions,” he said. “Which means the taxpayers pay. Why aren’t the taxpayers up in arms screaming at the police department to run their operations in a much better manner?”

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Man paralyzed after being hit with a Taser while running from police in Colorado sues officer

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A man who said he was paralyzed after being hit with a Taser while running from police in Colorado filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against one of the officers, seeking $100 million in damages.

Lawyers for Jacob Root, who was suspected of stealing a car, allege Officer Robert Comstock fired a Taser at his back without warning which incapacitated him and prevented him from using his hands or arms to break his fall to the ground. Root fell face first and broke his neck after falling off a sidewalk and into the street in the May 16, 2022 incident, according to the suit.

Root can be heard asking officers “I can’t move. Is that normal?” soon after the fall which was recorded on  police body camera footage  released by Root’s lawyers.

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What’s working: new colorado laws that address the financial burden of growing older, tesla’s autopilot caused a fiery crash into a tree, killing a colorado man, lawsuit says, historian patty limerick sues cu boulder over access to her scholarly work following her 2022 firing.

The Colorado Springs Police Department, which was not named as a defendant, only learned of the lawsuit when it was announced to the media. The department is in the early stages of reviewing the facts of the case and declined comment for now, spokesperson Ira Cronin said. Comstock is still working for the department and is “good standing,” he said.

Comstock could not be reached for comment and the police department’s union did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

According to the lawsuit, Root was being pursued by a stolen vehicle task force comprising officers from different agencies after he was spotted inside a 2017 Ford Fusion. The car was previously seen twice unoccupied and police were using a tracking device to follow it, it said.

After the car got away from police earlier in the day, police saw Root in the car later on at a gas station, according to the lawsuit. It said he then went into the station’s store and officers waited for him to come out to arrest him. Root was hit with the Taser while he was running away, the court papers added.

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33 arrested at George Washington University as D.C. mayor's congressional hearing is canceled

Police using pepper spray cleared a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at George Washington University and arrested dozens of demonstrators on Wednesday just as city officials were set to appear before hostile lawmakers in Congress to account for their handling of the 2-week-old protest.

What You Need To Know

The house oversight committee has canceled a hearing with the washington, d.c., mayor over a university encampment shortly after 33 protesters were arrested police have been clearing a pro-palestinian tent encampment at george washington university since dozens of protesters left the site and marched to president ellen granberg's home the district of columbia's metropolitan police department says arrests were made for assault on a police officer and unlawful entry mayor muriel bowser and mpd chief pamela smith were preparing to testify about the district of columbia's handling of the protest at a house committee on oversight and accountability hearing on wednesday afternoon before it was canceled.

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability canceled the hearing after the crackdown, with its chairman and other Republicans welcoming the police action. House Speaker Mike Johnson said “it should not require threatening to haul D.C.’s mayor before Congress to keep Jewish students at George Washington University safe.”

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said she and Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith decided to clear the camp based on shifting information about increased threats. Smith said there were signs “the protest was becoming more volatile and less stable.” Among them were indications that protesters had “gathered improvised weapons” and were “casing” university buildings with the possible intention of occupying them, police said.

Tensions have ratcheted up in standoffs with protesters of the Israel-Hamas war on campuses across the United States and increasingly in Europe. Some colleges cracked down immediately. Others have tolerated the demonstrations. Some have begun to lose patience and call in police over concerns about disruptions to campus life and safety.

Police also moved in Tuesday night to break up an encampment at the University of Massachusetts. Video from the scene in Amherst showed an hourslong operation as dozens of police officers in riot gear systematically tore down tents and took protesters into custody. The operation continued into early Wednesday. Police said about 130 people had been arrested after protesters refused orders to disperse.

D.C. police said officers moved to disperse demonstrators at George Washington because “there has been a gradual escalation in the volatility of the protest.” They said 33 arrests were made, including for assault on a police officer and unlawful entry. They confirmed they used pepper spray outside the encampment against protesters who were trying to break police lines and enter.

George Washington had warned of possible suspensions for continuing the camp on University Yard. Protesters carrying signs reading “Free Palestine” and “Hands off Rafah" also marched to school President Ellen Granberg’s home Tuesday night.

The school said in a statement that while it is committed to free expression, "the encampment had evolved into an unlawful activity, with participants in direct violation of multiple university policies and city regulations."

Throughout the roughly two weeks of the encampment, the scene had been largely tranquil.

The tightly organized demonstrators and pro-Israeli counter-protesters who stood along the edges interacted without serious conflict. Some of the most charged confrontations involved people objecting to the treatment of a George Washington statue, wrapped with Palestinian scarves and flags with “Genocidal Warmonger University” spraypainted on its base.

Since April 18, about 2,800 people have been arrested on 50 campuses, figures based on Associated Press reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies after this latest anti-war movement was launched by  a protest at Columbia University  in New York.

At other U.S. schools:

• A pro-Palestinian tent encampment was cleared by officers in riot gear at the University of Chicago on Tuesday after administrators who had initially adopted a permissive approach said the protesters had crossed a line. Hundreds of protesters had gathered for at least eight days until administrators warned them Friday to leave or face removal.
• The president of Wesleyan University, a liberal arts school in Connecticut, commended the on-campus demonstration, which includes a pro-Palestinian tent encampment, as an act of political expression. The camp there has grown from about 20 tents a week ago to more than 100. “The protesters’ cause is important — bringing attention to the killing of innocent people,” university President Michael Roth wrote to the campus community. “And we continue to make space for them to do so, as long as that space is not disruptive to campus operations.”
• The Rhode Island School of Design’s president, Crystal Williams, spent more than five hours with protesters discussing their demands after students started occupying a building Monday. On Tuesday, the school announced it was relocating classes from the building.
• New York City police arrested 50 people outside the Fashion Institute of Technology on Tuesday evening after protesters who had been rallying nearby arrived to support a student encampment. 

In Amherst, school Chancellor Javier Reyes said he ordered the sweep after discussions over a wide range of demands failed to yield an agreement to dismantle the encampment and engage in “constructive discussions.”

A week ago, the George Washington encampment was host to a somewhat chaotic visit from several Republican members of the House oversight panel who criticized the protests and condemned Bowser’s refusal at that point to send in police.

Bowser on Monday confirmed the city and police department declined the university’s request to intervene. “We did not have any violence to interrupt on the GW campus,” she said then.

But in the early hours Wednesday, hundreds of Metropolitan Police Department officers descended on the scene, reported The GW Hatchet, the university's student newspaper.

At least two officers deployed pepper spray on protesters, who then set up an impromptu medical area at a market near the campus, the paper said. Organizers ran to a convenience store to buy water to rinse their eyes.

The oversight hearing, now scrapped, was another pressure point in the fraught relationship between Republicans in Congress and officials in the heavily Democratic district. Trump, Republicans' presumptive presidential nominee, has threatened a federal "takeover” of the city, to control crime, if he wins back the White House.

The district is already a federal enclave, though with a measure of self-government and its own police department, which the federal government can already exert control over in some emergencies.

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Jamelle Bouie

What donald trump would do for $1 billion.

By Jamelle Bouie

Opinion Columnist

Not to spend too much time writing about Donald Trump this week, but I was struck by this report in The Washington Post on the former president’s recent overtures to oil executives. After hearing one executive during an event last month at his Mar-a-Lago club complain about supposedly burdensome environmental regulations promulgated by the Biden administration, Trump made a proposition.

You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation. Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people.

The rest of the story goes on to describe Trump’s plans to gut the federal government’s response to climate change and facilitate more and greater fossil fuel extraction.

Trump told the executives that he would start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a priority that several of the executives raised. He railed against wind power, as The Post previously reported. And he said he would reverse the restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.

This would be a generational setback on climate change, a large and disastrous mortgage on the future so that oil and gas giants could fill their coffers for just a little bit longer before they are overtaken by clean energy.

I’m obviously angered by the blatant disregard for the planet and its inhabitants. But I’m also struck by the in-your-face brazenness of Trump’s reported quid pro quo. This is more than the hint of corruption; it is the overpowering scent of the rotting corpse of corruption. It is influence trading of the sort that would embarrass a Boss Tweed or a Roscoe Conkling, whose “ honest graft ” came with at least the pretense of pursuing the public good.

Even more striking than Trump’s corruption, however, is the fact that we seem to be completely unfazed by the fact that the former president has apparently offered to sell his prospective administration to fossil fuel interests. That might be because, from the beginning of his term to its end, Trump was a font for corruption while in office . His hotel, located just down the street from the White House, was a clearinghouse for anyone who wanted to buy a favor. His daughter and son-in-law may not have accomplished much as presidential advisers, but they walked away from the administration with upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars in new wealth. And six months after leaving the White House , Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

If Trump’s latest instance of corruption isn’t a campaign-ending scandal, it may be because it is nothing new. Trump is corrupt to his bones and now that appears to be as noteworthy as the weather.

What I Wrote

My Tuesday column was on the litmus test Donald Trump has for anyone vying to be his running mate:

There is no need for Trump to say anything else; all the Republicans vying to stand by his side understand that they’ll lose their shot if they accept the basic democratic norm that a loss may not be overturned after the fact. When asked several times if he would accept the results of the 2024 election, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina — one of the leading contenders for Trump’s running mate — would repeat only a single, rehearsed statement. “At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be President Donald Trump.”

My Friday column was on the notion that Trump somehow benefits from efforts to hold him accountable (I told you I wrote a lot about Trump this week):

Trump does not gain strength with every attempt to place limits on his behavior. Accountability does not jolt him into political action. And just because you give him a stage, it does not mean that there will be an award-winning performance. Trump was not helped by either of his impeachments, and there’s no reason other than his own mythology to think that a trial and conviction will play out any differently.

Now Reading

Amia Srinivasan on free speech and the Gaza war for The London Review of Books.

Tiya Miles on the Jesuits, Georgetown University and slavery for The New York Review of Books.

Raina Lipsitz on the fundamental hollowness of “anti-woke” politics for The New Republic.

Dahlia Lithwick on originalism for Slate magazine.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on the campus protests for The New Yorker.

Photo of the Week

Last weekend, Virginia state police broke up a small encampment of students near the Rotunda at the University of Virginia. I went over with a camera and a notebook to document the confrontation, which turned chaotic as police officers in riot gear used pepper spray and physical force to subdue the students. By all accounts, and by my own observations, the encampment was peaceful and unobtrusive. But that, unfortunately, was not enough for the university’s administration. This photo was taken while the police advanced on demonstrators who gathered to protest the removal of the encampment and the arrest of the students.

Now Eating: Caramelized Zucchini and White Bean Salad

I did not actually make this as a salad. I used it as inspiration for a pasta, doubling the zucchini, adding a leek that I had languishing in the fridge, and loosening the caramelized zucchini, onion and leek mixture with pasta water to make it a proper sauce. I added beans (less than what the recipe called for) and tossed with pasta. It was great, and I highly recommend taking this approach. Having said that, I think this will work as a salad as well! I even imagine that you could add cold pasta and enjoy it as a more substantive pasta salad. The possibilities aren’t endless, but there is quite a bit you can do with this template.

Recipe comes from New York Times Cooking .

Ingredients

2 large zucchini, shredded on the large holes of a box grater

1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced

4 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

2 (15-ounce) cans white beans, like cannellini, rinsed

1 lemon, plus more if needed

½ cup roughly chopped mint

½ cup roughly chopped parsley, dill or basil

Wrap the shredded zucchini in a clean kitchen towel and gently squeeze it to remove excess moisture.

In a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, combine the zucchini and onion with 3 tablespoons olive oil, the red-pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of pepper. Cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, until the water has evaporated and the zucchini and onion have turned golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. You will have to stir more often toward the end of cooking to prevent burning.

Add the cooked zucchini mixture to a large bowl along with the beans. Zest and juice the lemon over the top and add the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil; stir gently to combine. Let the mixture cool to room temperature, then add the herbs and stir gently. Season to taste with salt, pepper and additional lemon juice, if desired. Serve at room temperature or cold.

Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington. @ jbouie

Police Accountability and Community Relations Essay

Citizens play a pivotal role in running the affairs of the government, including helping police officers to enforce the laws. The US police officers are obligated to serve and protect people within the US. This role is executed by patrolling communities, responding to calls, implementing arrest warrants, and enforcing the laws of the land. However, the state equally requires police officers to discharge their functions, while maintaining absolute professionalism at all costs, as reflected in the Police Accountability Act (PAC) of 2020. Contrary to expectations, the working of overtime police officers and regular police officers seems to differ, as the former is more hostile to the community.

Media outlets are emerging as the mainstream source, spreading what looks like the use of lethal force against the community. Police officers are accused of going to the extent of beating and maiming people before executing arrest orders. This happened quite often during the era of the former US president, Donald Trump. For example, lethal force was applied by the police in arresting George Floyd, which culminated in his death on May 25 th, 2020, and was vastly aired by various media firms (Christián et al., 2022).

In my view, the lethal force used to arrest Floyd was unnecessary and displayed the negligence of the Minneapolis, Minnesota police officers. Despite the strictness of the current government in protecting human rights, a few incidences where police officers harass people dictate their daily activities. As a result, police officers remain targeted for misrepresenting US values across all states. As a patriotic citizen of the US, I am aware that I could be at risk at any time and call for the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) to investigate the conduct of US police officers.

People need to go about their daily chores without thinking that police might come their way and threaten their peace. If found blameworthy, police officers should be guided to comply with professional ethical codes to restore the relationship between them and the community. Police officers must maintain professionalism to be trusted by the community (Braswell et al., 2017). Restoring the relationship between police officers and the community will benefit the duo. As of now, each party views the other as an enemy, leading to more probabilistic dangers that one can cause to the other. Today, police officers become targeted by the community when they wear their uniforms.

Braswell, M. C., McCarthy, B. R., & McCarthy, B. J. (2017). Justice, crime, and ethics. Taylor & Francis.

Christián, L., Erdős, Á., & Háló, G. (2022). The Background and repercussions of the George Floyd case . Cogent Social Sciences , 8 (1), 2082094. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, November 15). Police Accountability and Community Relations. https://ivypanda.com/essays/police-accountability-and-community-relations/

"Police Accountability and Community Relations." IvyPanda , 15 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/police-accountability-and-community-relations/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Police Accountability and Community Relations'. 15 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Police Accountability and Community Relations." November 15, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/police-accountability-and-community-relations/.

1. IvyPanda . "Police Accountability and Community Relations." November 15, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/police-accountability-and-community-relations/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Police Accountability and Community Relations." November 15, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/police-accountability-and-community-relations/.

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Trump told to pay up before rallying in N.J. town he previously stiffed

Alexandria Jacobson, Investigative Reporter

Investigative reporter, alexandria jacobson is an investigative reporter at raw story, focusing on money in politics, government accountability and electoral politics. jacobson joined raw story in 2023 with an extensive track record of social justice, business and tech reporting. her reporting has been published by numerous national outlets, including abc news, the chicago sun-times and the chicago tribune. jacobson's investigative work at raw story has been recognized with a sidney award, an ion award and honors from the society for advancing business editing and writing, chicago headline club and the illinois woman’s press association. her work has previously been recognized with a robert f. kennedy journalism award, peter lisagor award and honors from the chicago/midwest emmy awards, chicago journalists association and national federation of press women. she earned her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in journalism from northwestern university and has taught journalism classes at northwestern university and depaul university. she's also a skilled multimedia journalist, particularly in the realm of news and documentary video reporting and editing. jacobson serves on the board of directors for the chicago journalists association..

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Former President Donald Trump is returning to rally in a small New Jersey city that his campaign stiffed on a five-figure police and public safety bill in 2020.

Consider that a lesson learned for Wildwood, N.J.: This time, Trump's campaign needed to pay ahead of time for the rally Trump is hosting on Saturday at Wildwood Beach.

RELATED ARTICLE: Stiffed: How Trump's campaign visits cost local police departments

The Trump campaign paid $54,200 for public safety and clean-up costs ahead of Saturday's rally that's expected to draw thousands of visitors, NJ.com reported .

Lisa Fagan, public information officer for the city of Wildwood, N.J., confirmed to Raw Story that the Trump campaign paid $54,200 plus an additional $150 that "covers all event costs that the city might incur."

"We are working in tandem with the Secret Service who are running all security measures," Fagan said.

All city departments work together to support such an event, Fagan said.

“Take the politics out of it and people would bend over backward for this number of people to come to their town,” Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr., a Republican and Trump supporter, told The Philadelphia Inquirer . “We become national spotlight. They see the size of the beaches, they see the amusement parks we have to offer, our restaurants and hotels take a good hit.”

Trump's campaign was invoiced $33,900 after a rally he hosted on Jan. 28, 2020, prompting then-Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron to plead with Trump to pay up as the city of 5,000 dealt with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Center for Public Integrity reported .

Federal campaign finance records offer no indication that Trump's campaign ever paid the 2020 bill Wildwood sent, and Fagan confirmed that the City of Wildwood did not receive payment, which "has not affected the city," Fagan said.

“We’re a small, seasonal resort. It’s all a scary proposition,” Byron told the Center for Public Integrity back in 2020. “The president could help now.”

Trump's history of non-payment

Wildwood was one of 14 municipal governments across the country that implored Trump to pay up a collective $1.82 million in debts for security at his Make America Great Again rallies, the Center for Public Integrity reported .

Raw Story found that eight of Trump’s campaign visits in 2023 cost local taxpayers at least $100,000 in total — expenses that the local municipalities covered as Trump's campaign refused to pay.

ALSO READ: How Trump could run for president from jail

“They have no choice but to put personnel there and protect these events or police these events,” Justin Insalaco, who worked for the West Windsor Police Department in New Jersey for 11 years, told Raw Story in December. “It shouldn't fall on the taxpayer of those towns.”

Trump is campaigning while he is in the midst of a criminal trial in New York involving the falsification of business records over an alleged hush money payment to adult film director and actress Stormy Daniels . Trump faces three other criminal cases involving retention of classified documents, election interference and his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

In all, Trump faces 88 felony counts.

Trump was also found liable in civil trials for sexual abuse and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll , and he was ordered to pay more than $450 million in damages for fraudulently inflating property values for tax breaks and more favorable loans for the Trump Organization.

Spokespeople for Trump's campaign did not respond to Raw Story's request for comment.

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Should trump be allowed to run for office, 'mighty damn corrupt': senate likely to investigate trump’s 'quid pro quo' with oil barons.

Former President Donald Trump   recently made a controversial proposal to a gathering of oil executives and lobbyists at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida: favorable policy in exchange for $1 billion in campaign cash.

Now, it looks as if the U.S. Senate may launch an official inquiry into the ex-president.

That's according to the New Republic's Greg Sargent, who spoke to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about Trump's recent entreaty to the oil industry. Whitehouse said it was " highly likely " that the Senate Budget Committee would investigate the former president over his brazen offer.

"The phrase that instantly came to mind as I was reading the story was ‘quid pro quo,’" Whitehouse said, adding that he was also concerned about a series of proposed executive orders oil lobbyists drafted for Trump and to have ready to sign on day one should he win a second term in November.

"Put those things together and it starts to look mighty damn corrupt."

READ MORE: 'Undisguised corruption': Critics slam Trump for 'selling the White House' to Big Oil

Billionaire oil magnate Harold Hamm arranged the Mar-a-Lago event, which the Washington Post reported was designed to allow for the fossil fuel industry to be able to bring concerns over environmental regulations directly to Trump.

At the meeting, Trump reportedly promised to overhaul President Joe Biden's policies relating to electric vehicles and wind energy.

"The contrast between the two candidates on climate policy could not be more stark. Biden has called global warming an ' existential threat, ' and over the last three years, his administration has finalized more than 100 new environmental regulations aimed at cutting air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, restricting toxic chemicals, and conserving public lands and waters," wrote the Post's Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow.

"In comparison, Trump has called climate change a 'hoax,' and his administration weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules and policies over four years."

Whitehouse, who chairs the Budget Committee, said Trump's proposal to oil executives was "practically an invitation to ask more questions." He added that the inquiry would hopefully shed light on the myriad ways in which industries like Big Oil exploit the campaign finance system and find ways to make the system more transparent and accountable.

Noah Bookbinder, who is president of the anti-corruption watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that while Trump's offer was technically legal, there is still plenty of work to do in cleaning up the grey areas in federal campaign finance laws.

"There’s a clear legislative purpose in determining what happened at the meeting,” Bookbinder told Sargent. "If this really constituted “an attempt to link significant campaign contributions with specific policy promises, that suggests a huge loophole that needs to be closed.”

READ MORE: 'Corrupt': Jared Kushner's business deals under fire as Trump runs for president

Many of the environmental policies Trump suggested he would do away with in a second term are in the Inflation Reduction Act , which was the $485 billion bill Biden signed into law in 2022 that included a swath of clean energy infrastructure initiatives and incentives for electric vehicle development. Economists projected the clean energy development grants could generate roughly $1.5 trillion in new economic activity, and could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by five billion tons before the next decade.

Conversely, some of the executive orders the oil industry has prepared for Trump would undo the progress on climate Biden has made since taking office. Politico reported that some of the orders would lift Biden's pause on new natural gas export permits, open up new protected federal lands for more oil drilling and allow for more offshore oil drilling leases.

Trump casting Biden as an opponent of Big Oil is somewhat confusing, given that the United States officially hit record-high domestic oil production levels earlier this year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that in 2023, the U.S. produced 13 million barrels of oil per day on average, making the United States the world's largest oil producer.

Trump was trying to turn RNC into family business by making Barron party delegate: niece

Barron Trump’s aborted installation as a Florida delegate at the Republican National Convention was the latest attempt by his father to make the presidency and the Republican Party a “family business,” his niece said Saturday.

Donald Trump’s 17-year old son was announced to be entering politics and attending the convention in Milwaukee in July, where he would nominate his father as the party’s presidential nominee.

But just days after the news was revealed, the office of his mother Melania Trump shut it down in a statement which read: "While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments."

Trump’s niece Mary Trump , an outspoken opponent of her relative, speculated that it was the latest move to shore up control of the party — coming hot on the heels of his daughter-in-law Lara Trump being appointed as co-chair of the RNC.

“He is trying to make this another family business that would likely fail,” said his niece on MSNBC.

ALSO READ: Mike Johnson is speaker because Hakeem Jeffries allows it

“If that is the case, it’s another way in which Donald is always putting himself first. Barron is 18 years old and has not graduated from high school yet. He needs to be out of this.

“Thankfully somebody came to their senses and pulled the idea. It never should have happened in the first place.

“We can get the sense of where Donald is heading and making sure all of his family members are in key positions politically.”

Mary Trump also talked about the criminal trial Trump has been sitting through, particularly the salacious revelations he had to listen to this week as adult movie star Stormy Daniels took the stand.

The former president is accused of business fraud involving hush money payments that were allegedly made to hide a sexual relationship he had with her.

“Donald Trump is incapable of shame or embarrassment,” his niece said.

“He is capable of humiliation, but the kind of details that were revealed in the courtroom are not really the kind of details that bother him. He has no problem being seen as somebody who is sleazy and does not treat women well.

“Unfortunately, he takes it as a badge of honor.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

'Unfazed': Columnist flabbergasted by reaction to latest 'campaign-ending' Trump scandal

Allegations that Donald Trump offered a $1 billion quid pro quo to oil barons sickened a New York Times writer Saturday — but not as much as the lackluster reaction the news received.

New York Times writer Jamelle Bouie described an event at Mar-a-Lago in April in which Trump reportedly left gathered oil execs “stunned” when he suggested he’d slash environmental regulations if they raised $1 billion to get him back in the White House.

"I’m obviously angered by the blatant disregard for the planet and its inhabitants,” Bouie wrote.

“But I’m also struck by the in-your-face brazenness of Trump’s reported quid pro quo. This is more than the hint of corruption; it is the overpowering scent of the rotting corpse of corruption. It is influence trading of the sort that would embarrass a Boss Tweed or a Roscoe Conkling, whose “ honest graft ” came with at least the pretense of pursuing the public good.”

The Washington Post reported that Trump had, "Vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden ’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation."

ALSO READ: ‘Lord of the Flies’: Inside MTG’s effort to oust Speaker Mike Johnson

But, Bouie said, even worse than Trump’s reported conversation, was the fact that it wasn’t immediately career ending for him.

“Even more striking than Trump’s corruption, however, is the fact that we seem to be completely unfazed by the fact that the former president has apparently offered to sell his prospective administration to fossil fuel interests,” he wrote.

“That might be because, from the beginning of his term to its end, Trump was a font for corruption while in office . His hotel, located just down the street from the White House, was a clearinghouse for anyone who wanted to buy a favor. His daughter and son-in-law may not have accomplished much as presidential advisers, but they walked away from the administration with upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars in new wealth.

“ And six months after leaving the White House , Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

“If Trump’s latest instance of corruption isn’t a campaign-ending scandal, it may be because it is nothing new. Trump is corrupt to his bones and now that appears to be as noteworthy as the weather.”

How Republican plans will make us sicker

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Columbia Law School's Blog on Corporations and the Capital Markets

Faculty governance requires faculty accountability: a response to david pozen.

In a recent Balkinization post , my colleague and friend Professor David Pozen critiques the power held by the office of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik and argues for a more “ democratic model of internal governance .”  Alongside his broader critique of the powers of Columbia’s presidency, David raises questions concerning the removal of the encampment at Columbia and clearing of Hamilton Hall.

Along with my research and teaching on corporate governance, I have closely advised Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia over the past year, and I serve as faculty adviser to the Law Students Against Antisemitism group, which was initially denied funding and recognition by the Columbia Law School student senate for adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism .  So I have some familiarity with these issues.

My reply here to David is two-fold.  First , shared governance requires a shared set of facts, and David left a few out — like the multiple documented episodes of antisemitism on campus and the takeover, occupation, and vandalism of Hamilton Hall, which included threatening a janitor.  Second , faculty governance requires faculty accountability.  The events of the last few weeks have shown that many tenured faculty at Columbia lack incentives to internalize the preferences of other university stakeholders and at times were even active participants in rule-breaking.  Until there is meaningful accountability, faculty governance is a recipe for chaos and institutional collapse.

Shared Governance Requires Shared Facts

The events of the last few weeks did not occur in a vacuum.  Since October 7, Jewish students at Columbia have been subject to appalling episodes of antisemitism both on campus and just outside the campus gates, which intensified with the establishment of the encampment.  As documented in an open letter signed by hundreds of faculty and thousands of community members , these included chants like “Go back to Europe” and “You have no culture” and the display of signs like “Al Qassam Brigade’s next target” with an arrow pointing to Jewish students.  The list is too long to write in its entirety but there are ample video compilations and documented evidence online.

If that is not hostile-environment harassment, I am not sure what is.  If the KKK were to set up an encampment and chant that Black students should “go back to Africa,” it seems unlikely that one would “fiercely contest” whether this was “public-spirited advocacy.”  Why is the conclusion any different when one substitutes “Europe” for “Africa” and “Jewish” for “Black”?  Surely the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no excuse — certainly no more of an excuse than the Rwandan genocide or Darfur would be.  As Columbia’s task force on antisemitism noted in its first report, “ speech or conduct that would constitute harassment if directed against one protected class must also be treated as harassment if directed against another protected class .”  Indeed, even if David is correct that there has never been “another instance where one group’s asserted experience of discriminatory harassment corresponds so closely with another group’s asserted expression of political protest” (though many believe this distinction is illusory and the product of an antisemitic double standard), it remains self-evident that if Columbia defers to some protected classes in determining which statements are biased or hateful, the university should be consistent in applying that standard to Jewish and Israeli affiliates as well.  In its most recent May 7 letter , the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education (OCR) issued guidance reaffirming the importance of “different treatment analysis.”

David doubly misstates the standard for a hostile environment under Title VI as it has been interpreted by OCR.  He writes: “ the discriminatory harassment must be so severe and pervasive as to prevent an individual from participating in educational programs .”  But OCR has stated consistently that harassment qualifies if it is “ so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the recipient’s education program or activity .”  There is a difference between “preventing” and “limiting” a Jewish student from participating in educational programs.  The OCR guidance holds that discriminatory harassment must be either severe or pervasive, whereas David suggests that the harassment must be both.  To be fair, David might be subtly echoing some far-right commentators in suggesting that OCR’s guidance in this respect is unconstitutional , notwithstanding the extensive case law cited in the footnotes to the OCR’s May 7 letter .  But regardless, it would be imprudent for the university to simply disregard the Department of Education’s guidance, no matter what the courts end up deciding years from now.  OCR’s May 7 letter gives the example of a single statement by a professor that “Israelis don’t even deserve to live” as an example of conduct that is sufficiently severe to “interfere with or limit” Israeli students’ access to university activities.  OCR similarly emphasizes that a “college’s failure to investigate allegations of harassment based on Israeli national origin, while investigating allegations of other forms of harassment, may reflect college officials treating similarly situated individuals differently” in violation of Title VI.

Of course, I am sure that David agrees that episodes of antisemitism are just that: antisemitism.  I read his essay as trying to sidestep the point by characterizing the Title VI dispute as over the encampment itself rather than the antisemitism that accompanied it.  But at Columbia, one could not be separated from the other.  Many of those antisemitic episodes occurred on College Walk, within feet of the tents .  Might there also have been protected expression that occurred alongside harassment and intimidation?  Of course.  But just like I tell my six-year-old, good behavior does not offset bad behavior.  Any amount of antisemitism is too much — and can rise to a level that violates Title VI.

In addition, David’s essay makes no mention of the fact that just before President Shafik called the NYPD for the second time, pro-Palestinian protestors had not only established multiple encampments, but had forcibly taken over Hamilton Hall and vandalized the building.  Rather than attacking a faux Title VI justification for the police raid, one could simply reference the university’s public statement: “ after the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice. Columbia public safety personnel were forced out of the building, and a member of our facilities team was threatened .”   Masked, hooded individuals from outside of campus were filmed sneaking into undergraduate dorms at John Jay Hall .  That is why the university called the police.  It is not particularly complicated.

Another argument in David’s post is that Columbia “conceded liability” by acknowledging a potential Title VI violation.  I find this a bit confusing: By taking affirmative steps to remedy a hostile environment for Jewish students, the university would be curtailing its liability under Title VI, not conceding it.  This highlights a curious omission from David’s narrative about the president, namely, the role of lawyers .  (I say curious because we both train future lawyers.)  After all, presumably President Shafik did not personally conclude there might be Title VI violations, but rather the university’s counsel did.  It is the fiduciary responsibility of the general counsel to make sure an organization follows the law.  Not all lawyers are litigators — some try to avoid liability in the first place!

Faculty Governance Requires Faculty Accountability

Getting the facts right is not just a quibble over details.  It goes to the central thesis of David’s essay: the role of tenured faculty in university governance.  Over two decades ago, Henry Hansmann pointed out the basic flaw with democratic governance in enterprise : “because participants are likely to have radically diverging interests, making everybody an owner threatens to increase the costs of collective decision making enormously.” For this reason, Henry pointed out, “one of the strongest indications of the high costs of collective decision making is the nearly complete absence of large firms in which ownership is shared among two or more different type of patrons, such as customers and suppliers or investors and workers.”

Thus, if the university did nothing more than pursue teaching and research, faculty governance would be straightforward.  But universities also pursue social policy goals and engage in political activism — what former President Bollinger called the university’s “ Fourth Purpose ” — over which faculty may hold diverging opinions.  Consider what it takes to run a modern university, and just how many stakeholders are implicated.  Students and faculty need classrooms and offices.  Facilities need to be maintained.  Research budgets have to be replenished.  No dean can run a school without raising money — lots of it.  And the same is true for the president.  Without endowment returns, the university cannot fund not only endowed faculty chairs, but also “ financial aid, research, capital projects, schools, departments, institutes, centers, and more .”

I agree with David that the growth of these non-faculty stakeholder interests poses a challenge for university leadership.  We also seem to agree that (1) donations benefit students, faculty, and the university community more broadly, and (2) in an ideal world, the views of tenured faculty would trump other constituencies — after all, research and teaching are the lifeblood of the university.  For this reason, I am inclined to agree that if tenured faculty took these competing interests into account in a thoughtful and reasonable way, it might be possible to entrust governance of the university to them.

Unfortunately, the events of the last few weeks have shown that the institutions by which tenured faculty are involved in university governance — chiefly, the University Senate as well as the AAUP and other faculty organizations — fail to act with the responsibility necessary to govern an institution like Columbia.  None of these institutions have strongly condemned the obvious episodes of antisemitism on and surrounding campus.  Nor have they systematically considered the perspective of Jewish and Israeli students and faculty whose daily experience at Columbia is one of a fundamental lack of safety.

This should come as no surprise.  Early each semester, my corporations students learn that organizations are better off when the incentives of stakeholders and decision-makers are aligned.  But what are the incentives of tenured faculty?  Perhaps in some remote sense faculty have an interest in preventing a total fiscal collapse of the university, because tenure does not matter much when your employer cannot pay its bills .  Other than that, faculty incentives are largely non-responsive to these constituencies.  Consider Mario Torres, a janitor who has worked five years at Columbia and found himself in Hamilton Hall the moment the protestors invaded.  When describing the experience of being “ swarmed by an angry mob with rope and duct tape and masks and gloves ,” Torres shared a gut-wrenching message from the heart: “I was freaking out. At that point, I’m thinking about my family. . . . When it comes to the public safety, the workers’ safety, people don’t feel comfortable walking through a mob to punch in to get into campus.”

Where was Torres’ voice in the University Senate’s deliberations?  The painful truth is this: Tenured faculty do not hire or negotiate with janitors.  That work is left to the administration.  It is the administration, not the faculty, that has to contend with a possible lawsuit by the union representing building custodians for failing to protect those workers  during the takeover of Hamilton Hall.  The same can be said about ensuring campus safety for Jewish students or balancing the university’s budget or investing in the future of the institution more broadly.  My salary as a faculty member does not increase when the university’s finances are well-managed.  By contrast, members of the administration can be hired, fired, and compensated based on performance.

Beyond incentives, there is the obvious difference in competency.  Cas Halloway, Columbia’s newly appointed chief operating officer, had a long history in city government and the private sector.  When it comes to responding to credible threats of violence on campus, I would much rather have the former Deputy Mayor for Operations of New York City calling the shots than the chair of literature humanities ( who likened student protest to the goddess Athena ).  No matter how good the chair’s intentions, expertise in the Greek classics is hardly adequate preparation for the sort of complex challenges to public safety that we saw at Columbia in recent weeks.  Running an institution is time-consuming, too: Research has found that boards of private firms spend more than 50 days a year making difficult decisions involving complex tradeoffs . Though different in many ways, the decisions involved in operating a major university are similarly challenging and would leave little time for faculty to teach students about the Greek classics — or any other topic — much less write papers.

A parting thought.  I am genuinely curious what faculty who oppose the police raid believe the university should have done in response to the encampments and takeover, occupation, and vandalization of Hamilton Hall.  I am not aware of a single university — from Harvard to MIT to Yale — that allowed encampments to remain indefinitely, much less building takeovers.  The conclusion that encampments endanger student safety is a near-universal consensus.  The university attempted a week of negotiations with protestors (without Jewish and Israeli students at the bargaining table).  When that process failed, the university’s next step was not to call the police, but to suspend the relevant students. In response, protesters escalated by “taking over” Hamilton Hall, leaving the university with just one way to restore order and safety to campus: calling the NYPD.  A faculty veto might have led to crippling inaction and deterioration in campus safety to the point of violence ( as occurred at UCLA ).

In short, David’s vision of a democratic model of internal governance is well-intentioned and theoretically appealing.  However, without a fundamental shift in the incentives of tenured faculty, faculty governance is a recipe for chaos and institutional collapse.

This post comes to us from Joshua Mitts, the David J. Greenwald Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

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