Governing Magazine, in a lengthy article, does a great job this month of reviewing the state of policing in America — five years after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
In short, there are continuing staffing shortages, but improving, building trust is still a major goal, yet fewer women are serving. At the same time, national data show that the fear of crime is lessening.
One issue I would have liked Governing to address is what effect the new leadership in the FBI is having on local policing and what could happen when today’s government in Washington requires local police (and against their better judgment), to actively assist in the arrest of undocumented persons.
With the end of using consent decrees by the federal government to get control of police agencies with a pattern of civil rights abuses, I see little improvement in the near future of significantly improving police in America. While not the most effective way to improve an agency, it had some successes and definitely better than doing nothing!
Every year since the death of George Floyd, the number of citizens killed by police has increased. Today’s article noted “Police fatally shot a record number of people last year… officers killed more people each year since 2019. Racial disparities remain stark. The share of Black people confronted or threatened with force actually increased from 2020 to 2022, the period of peak scrutiny following the murder of George Floyd.” That is not good.
I’ve excerpted a few of the other major reports from the article.
After George Floyd. “After George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, protests against police brutality and racial discrimination sprung up all across the nation and indeed much of the world. Anti-police feeling ran as strong in Seattle as anywhere, where protesters took to the streets by the tens of thousands. Activists established a six-block police-free zone. Several functions — including emergency management and victim advocacy — were shifted away from the police department. In 2021, the City Council approved a police budget of $355.5 million, a notable drop from the department’s $401.8 million budget two years earlier…
Ending Consent Decrees and Defund the Police. “The political atmosphere around policing has shifted significantly in the years since, and not just in Seattle. The spike in homicides and other violent crimes during the pandemic put a new focus on public safety. The slogan ‘defund the police’ quickly proved politically toxic, blamed by many Democrats for some of the party’s losses in recent elections. Policies meant to curb the worst excesses of police activity, including bans on chokeholds and restrictions on qualified immunity from civil litigation, now are mostly dead letters. Within days of Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, the Justice Department ordered a halt to consent decrees and settlement agreements that required changes in policy in departments with patterns of misconduct. In March, President Trump called for the death penalty for anyone who kills a cop.
Public Support. “But even if police departments are facing less criticism and enjoying strong political support, that doesn’t mean their challenges are all behind them. The most glaring problem is staffing — not only the numbers but the quality, gender, ethnicity, and education of those who are hired.
Trust and Uses of Force. “Establishing trust is a long-term process; losing it can happen in a flash. There are still instances where officers turn anodyne encounters into something dangerous — ultimately shooting individuals, for instance, who were initially stopped for a speeding violation. Police fatally shot a record number of people last year. A group called Mapping Police Violence found that officers have killed more people each year since 2019. Racial disparities remain stark. The share of Black people confronted or threatened with force actually increased from 2020 to 2022, the period of peak scrutiny following the murder of George Floyd…
Pressure to Improve. “Police so far seem to have won the political argument over whether they need to be curbed due to excessive force or racism. Not only Seattle but other cities including Austin that initially cut police funding are now offering rich bonuses in hopes of hiring more cops. But now that the political pressures have eased, police departments still have to take care of the basics: Figure out how to hire more cops and solve more crimes…
Less Fear of Crime. “Regardless of the statistical evidence, Gallup found last October that a majority of Americans believe there’s more crime in their area than there’d been a year earlier. The share of Americans who said they’d be afraid to walk alone at night near their homes ticked down last year, but only after reaching a three-decade high in 2023….”
Overall, it’s what I have learned after 30 years in the field and another 30 years following police in America. Change comes slow, very slow and with much internal resistance and, for the most part, cannot be sustained. The end result is that police function much as they, and those who have served before them, have always done.
Read the full article HERE.
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 
Here you go again David, harping on use of force as the primary indicator of how well police reform is doing. Each and every use of force incident is unique and needs to be analyzed within the context that it occurred, as an indicator of the quality of policing, the number of use of force incidents is woefully inadequate and VERY misleading. This is especially true when you consider the number of use of force incidents where the arrestee did what they were told by the police, i.e., they complied with the officers direction. When you control for that one factor alone, a very different picture emerges immediately.
Every citizen who enjoys living in a free society has a basic responsibility to obey the law. When they don’t and are confronted by the police, they have a duty to comply with the officers direction. Their opinion that the law is unfair, disproportionality enforced against the marginalized, or a product of the tyrannical ruling class is not a valid excuse for promoting disobedience, violence, and further law breaking. The impact of that kind of thinking is on full view in Minneapolis as parts of that once great city falls into economic ruin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtBJHz0EOJs
The police exist to instill order and to control the uncivilized so that economic prosperity can flourish for everyone who wishes to participate in our capitalistic system. Disorder and crime result in economic misery.
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Yes. When people are being killed, I harp on it because I’ve been there, done that, and know these deaths can be prevented by better training, better technologies and better leadership. Tell it to the families of color that this doesn’t matter. In the meantime, I’ll keep “harping.”
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Actually, you don’t know that David. Again, you have to to consider the context of each incident to know if better training, technology, or leadership would have made a difference. What we know for certain is that very, very few people get killed by the cops on purpose when they do exactly what they are told to do by the police.
What we also know for sure is that far more white people are killed by the police than black people and every one of the killings is a tragedy. Laying this solely at the foot of the cops and demanding change does not help. We have to address the reasons why people don’t do what they are told to do by the police in these situations.
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Sorry, Pat. I know what I know. You have your informed opinions and I have mine. We seldom agree.
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