The push to remake policing takes decades, only to begin again

John Sullivan Robert Klemko

June 10, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

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Response Location: United States, New Jersey

Three "historic firsts in policing reforms" show how attempts to root out systemic problems in policing can fail. In all three cases – federal intervention to curb civil rights abuses in Pittsburgh, a computerized early-warning system to spot abusive Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies, and rules put in place to reduce racial profiling in New Jersey traffic stops – bureaucratic and leadership failures, plus cultural resistance to change in police ranks, undermined early successes or good intentions. In all three cases, the problems persist decades later.

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Baltimore's top cop in demand as cities seek consent decree advice; some locally criticize cost, pace of reform here

Jessica Anderson

May 20, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

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Response Location: United States, Baltimore, Maryland

The Baltimore Police Department was the last agency to enter into a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice during the Trump administration. This is a process by which a troubled police department submits to federal oversight as a way to reform its practices and culture. Now that the Biden administration has signaled a willingness to use this tool more, police are looking to Baltimore as a model. A federal monitor cites multiple signs of progress in Baltimore. But local activists are frustrated with the slow pace of change and high costs of federal monitoring.

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Hong Kong Protests, Silenced on the Streets, Surface in Artworks

Mike Ives

May 20, 2021 |

The New York Times |

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Response Location: Hong Kong

Even though police silenced the 2019 pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, artists, writers, and filmmakers are producing work about the protests in more abstract and ambiguous ways to evade authorities. For example, the Goethe-Institut’s Hong Kong branch hosted a mixed show that included photographs of the 2019 protests that the artist had punched, ripped, or cut in order to hide protestors’ identities. Even though Chinese law criminalizes anything that the government deems as promoting “secession, subversion, or collusion with foreign powers,” several other exhibits are also featuring protest art.

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The FBI is supposed to track how police use force – years later, it's falling well short

Aaron Miguel Cantú

May 17, 2021 |

The Guardian |

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Response Location: United States

Five years after the FBI started tracking how often police use force, the majority of police departments still fail to comply and the FBI refuses to release publicly what information it has collected. The policy was enacted in response to the realization that no one had definitive data on how often the police kill people, use teargas, or other incidents of force. What little data exists showed racial disparities in whom police use force against. But compliance was made voluntary and the FBI made public release of the data contingent on 80% of police departments complying, a goal it's nowhere near.

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Is new California police deadly force law making a difference?

Laurel Rosenhall Byrhonda Lyons

May 11, 2021 |

CalMatters |

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Response Location: United States, California

More than a year after taking effect, California's law restricting when police can use deadly force has had some effects on police accountability and training, but a number of flaws illustrate how long and difficult the process of change will be. The Act to Save Lives, which limits the use of deadly force to cases when it is needed to defend a life, has been cited by prosecutors in two homicide prosecutions. A number of police departments have followed the law's training dictates. But many others have been slow to roll out the training, and the state is not requiring officers to take it to stay certified.

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Can police be taught to stop their own violence?

Douglas Starr

May 06, 2021 |

The Boston Globe |

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Response Location: United States, New Orleans, Louisiana

When Minneapolis police officers were videotaped standing by or trying ineffectively to intervene in George Floyd's murder by a fellow officer, horrified police departments nationwide rushed to embrace a peer intervention program called ABLE (Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement). ABLE is based on a five-year-old program that has helped transform the culture of New Orleans' once-troubled police department, cutting shootings, taser uses, and citizen complaints. Officers are taught how to overcome rank and cultural inhibitors with actions and language that stop brutality by their colleagues.

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‘The fight has to change': Why Ferguson activists ditched police reform

Rebecca Rivas

May 03, 2021 |

Missouri Independent |

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Response Location: United States, St. Louis, Missouri

Decades of advocacy for more effective civilian oversight of police-misconduct investigations in St. Louis finally resulted in a new oversight board created in the wake of the death of Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson. But that board has been rendered a "total failure" because the police found ways to keep steering investigations to their secret, internal investigative office and preventing prosecutors from working independently on investigations. A new mayor and a sympathetic prosecuting attorney promise to fix the structural flaws that have let the police continue to investigate themselves.

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American cities have long struggled to reform their police – but isolated success stories suggest community and officer buy-in might be key

Thaddeus L. Johnson Natasha N. Johnson

April 30, 2021 |

The Conversation |

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Response Location: United States, Cincinnati, Ohio

One police-reform program that outperformed and outlasted most cities' attempts was Cincinnati's "collaborative agreement," an unusual team effort focused on community involvement at every step. Sparked by a controversial police shooting of an unarmed Black man, the program went beyond federal government and court oversight to include other key stakeholders in the community and police unions. Changed policies on use of force, crime prevention, and police accountability led to lower crime, improved police-community relations, fewer injuries, and fewer racially biased traffic stops.

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Meet the influencers who are fighting the spread of online conspiracy theories

Christianna Silva

April 28, 2021 |

Mashable |

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Response Location: United States

Social media influencers are using “pre-bunking” -- the practice of exposing people to misinformation and offering expert-backed explanations of why it isn’t true before they see the misinformation in the wild – as a tool to fight its spread and increase media literacy. Hundreds of thousands of people follow accounts on TikTok and Instagram run by influencers whose goals are not to change the minds of staunch conspiracy theorists, but rather to provide tools for those who are either on the fence or want to learn to communicate with people in their lives who subscribe to false information.

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When communities try to hold police accountable, law enforcement fights back

Nicole Dungca Jenn Abelson

April 27, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

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Response Location: United States, Albuquerque, New Mexico

A favorite remedy for systemic police misconduct is a civilian oversight agency. More than 160 cities and counties have such agencies, some at the insistence of the U.S. Justice Department. But, as Albuquerque and multiple other cities have shown, a common set of factors often undermine the effectiveness of such agencies. These factors start with structural defects, limiting the agencies' independent investigatory and disciplinary powers, and extend to strenuous opposition from police unions and their political allies.

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