Discussing the problems with Policing and Bettering Policing Practices
April 20, 2022
On April 4, 2022, 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya was fatally shot in the back of the head by an officer from the Grand Rapids Police Department (GRPD) in Michigan. When I assess what I’ve done throughout these chapters, I’ve chosen to discuss similar instances and matters of injustice in the Black community through a reflective lens, in most cases refraining from prematurely speaking on these situations before an investigation is completed and all the facts are publicly available. Even when it’s clear that a situation is a matter of injustice, this has been my practice because there are always details that either complicate or provide greater clarity to what we already know. Although this will remain my approach, I truly believe some form of discussion is necessary to shed light on the glaring issues within law enforcement practices, much of which can be discussed based on the video evidence presented.
From the video footage released, we saw a traffic stop that began with Lyoya stepping out of his vehicle prior to being approached by the police officer. The officer instructed Lyoya to “stay in the car.” Lyoya didn’t adhere to this command, and when approached by the officer he began walking away. As a result, the officer ordered him to put his hands behind his back in an attempt to arrest him. This resulted in an attempt to evade arrest through a scuffle, during which the officer seems to deploy his taser twice, both times failing to make contact with Lyoya. Much of this scuffle is caught on the officer’s body camera. However, the body camera footage abruptly stops when the officer is on top of Lyoya—an occurrence that seems extremely convenient and questionable given the outcome of this struggle. Despite the gap in the officers body camera footage, dashcam footage caught the officer telling Lyoya to drop the taser before ultimately pulling out his gun and shooting Lyoya in the back of the head.
As I mentioned earlier, the recency of Lyoya’s death means that there are a number of questions we don’t have the answers to, given that a full investigation hasn’t been completed. We don’t, and may never, know why Lyoya exited his vehicle when he was pulled over. It may have been out of fear. It may have been ignorance owed to cultural differences and understanding. Maybe he was intentionally attempting to escape the arrest. Or maybe it was something else. But at this time, we simply don’t know.
We also don’t know the officer’s name or history. And because of this, we don’t have the answers to whether he has a history of using lethal force in similar situations. We don’t know if there are numerous complaints in the officer’s file with a disproportionate number of complaints from Black people, or if the officer has been disciplined for misconduct or excessive use of force in the past. We don’t know what sort of training he has received, and most importantly, we don’t know if he intentionally turned off his body camera. The answers that will address these gaps are certainly relevant to this investigation, not because they will somehow convince me, or you (depending on your perspective) that the officer was justified in shooting Lyoya. I can’t be convinced of this. From what I saw, it truly does present as an execution of an unarmed Black man. Irrespectively so, these answers are important because they will shed light on the policies and structure of GRPD’s system, and if it validates the officer’s actions. It will also tell us if this action was racially motivated. Although I do consider this information essential, I don’t consider it relevant to our current discussion on Lyoya’s death and policing practices at large. In saying this, my main concern here is the result of the officer’s actions, and the steps that led to this situation.
The most logical argument to diminish the purpose of this discussion is, had Lyoya not exited his vehicle and merely cooperated with the officer, then this situation would have been very different. And theoretically, one could argue that based on the overwhelming data we have on traffic stops that have not ended in deaths, this is true. Nonetheless, it serves no purpose to work with hypotheticals of how Lyoya should have behaved. Our focus should then be, was Lyoya a significant threat to the officer to warrant a lethal shot? Here, I believe the clear answer is no for a number of reasons. Lyoya didn’t attempt to use the taser against the officer. Lyoya was unarmed. And when he was shot, he was in a vulnerable position where the officer had control of the situation. So the significance of Lyoya’s death shouldn’t be understated. By effect, it reinforced how current policing policies, practices, and trainings have failed, and how these things have negatively impacted Black communities.
As such, I believe Lyoya’s death leads us to a larger discussion on law enforcement policies and practices. With this in mind, I use this piece to discuss the problems with police training and policies to identify areas for improvement, doing so using the American context as a foundation for this discussion.
The Weaknesses in Current Police Training and Practices
The Substandard Training of Police Officers and the Overreliance on Tasers
When it comes to being a police officer, the scales and balances of rewards and risks aligned with the job are highly contingent upon the region. In safer jurisdictions, the risks associated with the day-to-day police work are extremely low as the work largely consists of traffic stops and complaint responses, creating a greater incentive to become a police officer, especially if it’s in a high paying region. On the other hand, in low-income and high-crime environments the incentives and pay dissipate, while the risks increase. As a result, because there is a disincentive in these environments, police officers are subsequently disincentivized to do the job well. The absence of incentives thus adds fuel to an already explosive situation considering that a major issue with current policing in the U.S. and Canada is police training.
In many cases, the training received in tactical combat and de-escalation techniques are inadequate, leading police officers to rely on their taser or firearm to control escalating situations. This was the case with Lyoya. Consider this video that discusses the training of some police officers where they are over-relying on tasers to control situations. This video exposes two issues: 1) often tasers are used in unnecessary situations, and 2) deploying a taser outside of a controlled environment (where the person tasered can fall safely) presents a high likelihood that the suspect will suffer major injuries. It can be argued that once the situation escalates beyond the threshold of hand-to-hand combat, that deploying the taser in any environment is essential, irrespective of the harm it will have on the individual, because the primary responsibility of the police is to protect the public and themselves. In this regard, the safety of the suspect or victim is an afterthought. Although this may be true, the threshold for use of a taser and the disregard for human safety becomes an issue when tasers are used on innocent people, which may be determined after the fact. Considering this, it becomes essential to manage the scenarios in which tasers are used. I recognize that this is easier said than done in intense situations; but more stringent requirements for its use is necessary considering that it has become a primary function of de-escalation.
The Gap in Hand-to-Hand Combat Training and Expertise
At large, the overreliance on tasers can be attributed to a lack of hand-to-hand combat training. With this area being an issue, the glaring gaps that this overreliance doesn’t account for are when the taser doesn’t make contact, malfunctions, or is ineffective in weakening the suspect, leading police officers to panic and hyper-escalate the situation. The consequences of this can be serious and can be seen in this video where police officers tried to conduct a traffic stop arrest. Although in this scenario, the police refrained from pulling out their guns until the suspect retrieved his gun (which they didn’t know he had), in other cases once the taser has failed, the lack of preparation and panic leads them to use their guns whether the suspect has a weapon or not. And once their gun is drawn, what we have seen is that the intent is always shoot to kill. Again, I believe this was the case with Lyoya.
In many cases, because officers aren’t provided best-practice techniques to minimize the use of weapons, they rely on weapons such as their taser or firearm. A number of studies emphasize this point. In one study, researchers that evaluated police training found that officers are allotted a significant number of hours for firearm training with far less time spent on de-escalation tactics and crisis intervention strategies for interactions with homeless and mentally ill people and other difficult situations. A second study by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) from 2015 found similar results. In particular, they found the following points:
- the largest component of recruitment training was firearms, which accounted for a median of 58 hours;
- a median of 40 hours of training is spent educating recruits about constitutional law and legal issues related to use of force; and,
- a median of 8 hours of training on electronic control weapons like tasers is also provided.
A third study surveyed precincts to assess whether they provided a balanced and holistic training approach. They found the following: 93 percent of the responding agencies provided in-service training on firearms, 69 percent provided crisis intervention training, and 65 percent provided de-escalation skill training.
So, a clear gap in the training can be seen here. But I want to clarify that I’m not suggesting that all law enforcement institutions train their officers inadequately. I believe this argument absolves police officers of ethical values when it comes to deciding whether they should use their firearm on a suspect. And I’m also not suggesting that in all situations where police officers chose to use any level force which results in death, that they did so because they were unable to control the situation or had no other choice. I can say this because this wasn’t the case for victims such as Lyoya. And it certainly wasn’t the case for George Floyd, or Philando Castille.
If we think of what was displayed in the video above, we saw that two officers were required for a failed attempt at apprehending a suspect. Having multiple officers struggle with a single suspect isn’t unique to this situation. In fact, I’ve seen a number videos where multiple police are needed to outnumber and control one suspect. I’m sure you have as well. So the question is, why are multiple officers required to apprehend (or fail in apprehending) a single suspect? And here, how can a suspect be outnumbered and still get away? The answer to this question is that in many cases officers have a clear weakness in these moments. And a key part of this is improved training in hand-to-hand combat and de-escalation techniques without the use of a weapon. This doesn’t mean that it’s not the duty of the police to become skilled martial artists and to engage in street fights to control unarmed suspects. But at the very least, a single officer or two should be able to effectively control a single unarmed suspect. I stress this because, as seen in previous chapters, overall, the use of force in policing disproportionately impacts Black people. Although more information is needed, Lyoya’s death may represent the materialization of this.
It’s likely that shifting away from the emphasis on firearms training, or simply balancing the time between firearms and hand-to-hand combat would be an effective improvement. This would take the form of an equalized focus on de-escalation tactics accompanied by the recruitment of well-tempered police officers, especially considering that the primary activities of policing involve providing services to the community. In the grand scheme of things, this translates to a small amount of time where policing activities may actually involve the need for lethal force or use of force in general.
All of this sounds good. It sounds ideal to say we should transform current police practices. I recognize it’s not this simple. But some form of transformation is required to alter the current climate. A simple change may begin with the perception of what the policing priorities are. Consider, for example, a study by PERF from 2015 indicating that many supervisors told their officers that their “most important job is to get home safely” to their families at the end of their shift. But is this the priority? Surely by virtue of being human, part of their job is to survive and make it home each day. They too have families. They too have goals, plans, struggles, and ideas. But again, I ask, is this their priority?
I’m of the mindset that presenting this idea as the priority could be problematic. If an officer believes that their priority is to make it home, the message communicated is that their duty is to survive. This is likely to foster a survival of the fittest mentality where anything perceived as a threat is subject to some form of force. And while always being prepared and having some level of a guard of is necessary to ensure they’re not surprised, there needs to be an increased balance towards being a civil servant, where protecting citizens and valuing human life is at the forefront.
The Use of Force Continuum and the 21-Foot Rule
The reliance on weapons and the current culture of policing is at odds with the true requirements of the job. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department recognized this dissonance and subsequently created a policy stating that, “The department respects the value of every human life, and the application of deadly force is a measure to be employed in the most extreme circumstances.” I appreciate that this policy creates a mechanism to hold police officers accountable for their actions. Surely, if this policy had been in place in Michigan we would say that the officer’s decision to use deadly force on Lyoya doesn’t qualify as an “extreme circumstance.” However, this policy operating in isolation without the practical supports and enforcement mechanisms to actually hold police accountable functions as shallow words. So, this is a start. But true accountability mechanisms require us to go further. Removing outdated concepts of a “use of force continuum,” which provides guidelines for how to address specific levels of resistance by a suspect with weapons or other tactics is one of the components that can aid in this transformation.
The industry-wide training and understanding of the 21-foot rule in the U.S. (which isn’t taught in Canada) is also a major problem. The 21-foot rule is a mental note that if a person has a deadly weapon inside of 21-feet, this should signal to the police officer to use their firearm. Many officers have said the 21-foot rule is a part of police culture, handed down informally from one officer to another, or mentioned in training over the generations.
The reason why the 21-foot rule is so widely used is demonstrated in this video. What can be seen is that an attacker with a knife can quickly close the distance between themselves and a police officer, leaving the officer no time to fire their gun. In this video the distance of 21-feet is marked on the ground. But in real life events, there’s no direct measure of what 21-feet looks like. Because they don’t have this ability to mark the distance in the field, in most scenarios police officers will deem an approaching suspect a threat (whether they’re armed or not) to eliminate their ability to close the distance.
Police chiefs have verified that this approach is widely used. They have also said that the 21-foot rule has sometimes been used wrongly to suggest that if a suspect moves to close the distance between himself and the officer, the officer can shoot the suspect, and cite the 21-foot rule to justify the use of deadly force. As such, use of lethal force in these scenarios is the rule, not the exception. This rule virtually becomes a ‘green light’ to use deadly force. But to aid in the transformation of police training and culture, as opposed to the 21-foot rule, police officers should be provided broader training in sound decision-making, de-escalation tactics, and strategies to create time and space to better manage incidents without the need of force.
From the 21-foot rule we see that situations can drastically change in a matter of seconds, and suspects can close distances very quickly. This video shows police officers pleading with a suspect for a few minutes to drop his knife while the suspect yelled at them to “kill” him. As things developed, the suspect quickly charged at the police officers leading them to shoot him multiple times. What can also be seen in the video is that not only did the suspect cover enough ground to reach the officer who was shooting, but he didn’t die after the initial shots. Even though he was wounded with multiple bullets, he was able to attack the second officer on the scene, reaching for his gun and forcing the officer who first shot him to fire another round of bullets which ultimately killed the suspect.
The questions I ask here are, could this have been handled differently? And would it have been possible for the police officers to use non-lethal force and hand-to-hand tactics once the knife was dropped to control better control the situation as opposed to kill him? I think this was very possible. But what we have seen time and time again is the reliance of a weapon to control the situation, and the inability to operate without weapons.
The Militarization of the Police
I would argue that the most pressing issue to policing is the militarization of the police. The militarization of the police stems back to 1997 when President Clinton signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997 which contained the 1033 program. The 1033 program allowed the Secretary of Defense to sell or transfer excess military equipment to law enforcement agencies. This surplus of equipment included Department of Defense equipment, weapons, and tactical vehicles that were to be transferred to law enforcement agencies for use during the war on drugs. Under the scope of this program, policing in the U.S. has slowly become militarized. Between 2006 and 2014 alone, the Department of Defense transferred over $1.5 billion worth of equipment, including the following:
- over 600 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles;
- over 79 thousand assault rifles;
- over 200 grenade launchers;
- nearly 12000 bayonets
- 50 airplanes; and,
- over 400 helicopters.
In addition to this, $3.6 million worth of camouflage and other ‘deception equipment’ has been transferred. Often, much of this material is provided for free under the program, with a caveat that they must use it within one year; otherwise, the equipment must be returned to the Department of Defense. This provides an added incentive to use the equipment, even in situations that don’t call for it. This is particularly significant as in a study on militarization and police violence, the authors find a positive relationship between the 1033 program transfers and fatalities from officer-involved shootings. They also find that the militarization of police increases civilian death by approximately 129 percent.
Why was there such an increase? Well, the military grade machinery is only one element of the militarization of the police. There’s also the element of military training and tactics which has been said to change the mindset of officers from guardians to warriors. This mentality for public servants is extremely problematic and outdated, and it’s outdated because the warrior mentality was meant to serve during the war on drugs and to respond to the increasingly aggressive weapons of cartels and gangs. However, violent crime has significantly decreased since the 1990s; and since then, handguns have become the preferred weapon of choice for shootings because they are easier to carry.
With this mentality, the guardian approach of ‘serving and protecting’ is no longer the focus. Instead, being a warrior implies fighting in an active war, meaning that the training and day-to-day mentality is aligned with killing an enemy, translating to a shoot-first mentality. In turn, this may change how law enforcement officers perceive themselves, leading to alternative, more aggressive, interpretations of what ‘serving and protecting’ means, and also who they are serving and protecting.
The military style uniforms and aggressive tactical gear certainly adds to the perception of being a warrior. The energy alone given from these uniforms plays into the warrior mentality. To much of the public, officers in these uniforms don’t feel like comforting guardians and protectors. But this isn’t just about public perception. Police officers themselves have stated that they feel like soldiers in these uniforms, meaning that they feel like trained military professionals who kill their adversaries. I recognize that what someone feels and what that person does in reality aren’t necessarily mutually constitutive ideas. But they can be. And the possibility of this being true when largely dealing with non-aggressive or armed citizens is a major problem, particularly because it obscures their role in society, and also breeds intimidation and fear.
At large, not only does this contradict the mandate of law enforcement agencies, but it’s also at odds with the history of police uniforms. As it remains today, the colour of police uniforms is navy blue, for very intentional reasons. The blue colour for police uniforms stems from a choice made by the British government who desired uniforms that were distinct and different from the red uniforms of the army. This was important as they considered it necessary for people to be able to clearly identify who had authority over the general population, and for the officers to understand what their role was in society. Their role then was no different than it is today. It was, and is, to serve and protect. But with police wearing and using military equipment, these very basic boundaries that have separated police from the military in the past are now being blurred.
As these lines become blurred and continue to merge, what we’re seeing is that agencies are attracting a specific type of person. Of course, there are well-intentioned and decent people that become police officers, and perform the job well; but this type of person refers to individuals that view being a police officer as synonymous with being a warrior or solider. The danger here, as we’ve seen over the years, is an increasingly aggressive police force that relies on tasers or firearms when faced with any form of conflict.
Police Union Contracts
Beyond police training, police union contracts function as a safety blanket for police officers with broad protections embedded in contracts. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. It’s important to offer police significant protections to recruit and maintain workers with the desire to do this job. The problem is the lack of accountability and the scope of their powers. The absence of these mechanisms stems from two elements of police protection: 1) vague laws that allow for arbitrary application and interpretations; and 2), police contracts. Working simultaneously, these mechanisms increase the discretionary powers of police officers (particularly as it relates to the use of force) which allows individual officers in the moment, and police review boards, to determine whether the use of force is necessary or proportional.
Notably, use of lethal force is not governed by federal laws in America. Instead, individual state laws and U.S. common law regulate the use of force. Although this is the case, there are three cases that the United States Supreme Court has used to outline the legal scope for the use of force. These include the following:
- Tennessee v. Garner (1985), which established that using deadly force on a fleeing suspect constitutes search and seizure of the person, and should therefore be subject to the Fourth Amendment’s ‘reasonableness’ requirement;
- Graham v. Connor (1989), in which the Court determined that an objective “reasonableness” standard should apply to an individuals claim that police officers used excessive force while making an arrest, investigatory stop, or any other form of “seizure”; and,
- Scott v. Harris (2007), described as a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court involving a lawsuit against a sheriff’s deputy brought by a motorist who was paralyzed after the officer ran his vehicle off the road during a high-speed car chase. The court sided with police and ruled that a “police officer’s attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death.”
Working together these decisions limit accountability. But police union contracts are also problematic because they create barriers to accountability by allowing disciplinary processes to be handled internally. This is generally because they benefit from broad, bipartisan support, thereby providing a number of protections that make it difficult to remove bad officers.
One method of protection is the provision of civil service laws and protections. Civil service law regulates the appointment and discharge of public employees which includes police officers. These civil service actions have expanded over time to govern a broad range of employment actions including the following areas: demotions, transfers, layoffs and recalls, discharges, training, salary administration, attendance control, safety, grievances, pay and benefit determination, and classification of positions. In many states, civil service laws establish the minimum threshold for police officer employment protections, which police unions can increase through collective bargaining. This often translates to the disruption of justice or meaningful legal repercussions for the actions of a police officer.
The law enforcement officers bill of rights (LEOBR) which is included in police union contracts presents further challenges as it provides officers with special due process protections during disciplinary investigations that aren’t given to other forms of public employees. Again, this isn’t inherently problematic as I believe there should be a distinct threshold provided to police officers to incentivize people to do the work. However, LEOBRs can be problematic because they limit the ability to interrogate police officers, while states also have various levels of limitations on punishing officers. Take for example Maryland whose LEOBR limits officer interrogation procedures. While, in Illinois, citizen complaints are required to be accompanied by a sworn affidavit, virtually preventing citizens from filing anonymous complaints.
In this regard, law enforcement agencies have obtained these protections by arguing that special disciplinary procedures are necessary as police officers require the broadest scope of protections possible to perform effectively in dangerous situations. This means that they must be free from having to think carefully about their next action, giving them the ability to quickly react and respond. The most obvious benefit of this is that quick responses can be life saving for the public and themselves. On the other hand, personal biases or fear in these quick reactions may lead to the wrong decision in perceived dangerous situations, possibly causing the death or severe injury of an innocent or non-threatening individual. But this argument of law enforcement agencies suggests that officers need to be comfortable with their decisions in the moment, even if in retrospect the choice may have been wrong.
A large number of union contracts also delay officer interrogations after a complaint of misconduct. This can be anywhere from a few hours to days after the suspected misconduct, even if it was an officer-involved shootings. In some cases, the contracts also require investigators to give officers access to evidence before beginning interrogations. Other agencies destroy officer personnel records after a period of time, and multiple contracts try to bar or limit the bandwidth of civilian oversight. This is exemplified in the City of Cleveland’s contract which requires management to eliminate any verbal and written rebukes from officers’ personnel files after six months. What’s more, supervisors must eliminate all disciplinary actions and penalties from an officer’s file after two years. In eliminating this history from files, it can perpetuate and amplify misconduct in the field. Further consider that there are also limits placed on the statute of limitations, and barriers that prevent management from investigating anonymous complaints. By imposing these limits, these contracts give officers a significant amount of time to coordinate stories that absolves them of blame.
Current Approaches to Resolving the Weaknesses in Law Enforcement Practices and Policies
We’ve come to understand that there are deep issues in law enforcement that stem from numerous areas, operating as wicked problems that require multiple solutions and an interdisciplinary approach. For years critics of the industry have recognized these gaps and have called for changes. Many agencies in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., have decided to create civilian oversight boards, adopt body-cameras, implement implicit bias training, and increase the amount of Black police officers in response to these criticisms.
These solutions have not been effective in addressing these problems for a number of reasons. For starters, based on the research, the narrative that these approaches have significant benefits in terms of enhancing accountability and reducing the use of force are false. At best, the literature on this topic indicates that the effect of these solutions seems to be extremely limited or nonexistent. My goal isn’t to be dismissive of these things as the limited impact may be a result of how these solutions have been used. But the data indicates that only are these approaches ineffective, but also that there is no relationship between these solutions and reducing police use of force or bettering policing practices.
The Implementation of Civilian Oversight Boards
Cities have implemented civilian oversight boards to improve police accountability and reduce the use of force. Civilian oversight boards are people who aren’t police officers, but are empowered by the institution to investigate misconduct complaints and influence how departments form policies. The value of the civilian oversight body comes from them being external to law enforcement, theoretically combatting possible conflicts of interest in allowing police colleagues to investigate them in response to misconduct complaints. As such, oversight boards are meant to provide an external check on the police to create a fairer investigatory process, and also bridge the police accountability gap as the legal system and law enforcement agencies often fail to punish police misconduct.
In 2009, civilian oversight bodies existed in nearly eight percent of the largest cities in the U.S., and nearly 100 different civilian-oversight boards operate in America. They’re understood to be overwhelmingly advantageous in that they address the accountability gap, whereas many cases that should be prosecuted are often dropped due to the interests of local executives and prosecutors—being to appease the law enforcement agencies desire for internal investigations—who join forces against aggressive prosecution. Here, prosecutors are most likely to pursue misconduct cases when departments refer them; but the problem is that they have little incentive to aggressively pursue these cases as they often fear that police officers may find ways to retaliate against them. This lack of incentive is also shared by local legislators (unless there is a major public scandal). In this light, civilian oversight boards being external to the system can increase transparency and accountability, ultimately helping to achieve just results in more cases.
Civilian oversight boards usually fall into four categories: 1) civilian in-house, 2) civilian external supervisory, 3) civilian external investigatory, and 4), civilian auditor. I’ll provide some general context on these forms so that they are understood.
The Civilian In-House Model
The civilian in-house model operates in two forms: a bottom-up model, and a top-down model. Both forms have inherent flaws that impact their ability to succeed. In the bottom-up model civilians are hired to work for an internal affairs unit of the police agency to conduct the investigative activities that police officers in this unit would be tasked with under normal circumstance. However, although the oversight board conducts the investigation, senior police officers make the final decision after reviewing the boards reports, maintaining their control on the process, and limiting the powers of the board.
The top-down approach is one where a civilian lawyer is hired and given the investigative responsibilities as part of the internal affairs unit. However, the final decision remains with the chief of police, and the director must rely on the police officers to conduct the investigation and gather information as they lack a team. Again, this limits the power of the oversight board and impacts transparency.
The Civilian-External Supervisory Model
The civilian-external supervisory model is one where police officers from an internal unit investigate complaints, while the civilian board functions as an independent body that reviews the completed investigation. Often, because the police gather the insights and carryout the investigation, studies have shown that the supervisory body is 90 percent more likely to agree with the outcome of the department’s internal investigation.
The Civilian External Investigative Model
The civilian external investigative model is one where the civilian body has the power to directly interview police officers and civilians to gather the documentary evidence required to have an informed and holistic investigation. However, it tends to be the case that limited resources can quickly undermine the effectiveness of this model considering that the resources, staff, and expertise is needed to conduct their investigations. Although these things are needed for a proper investigation, many precincts fail to adequately fund civilian external investigative bodies, leading to their dissolution.
The Civilian Auditor Model
The final model is the civilian auditor model, where civilian auditors are typically granted full access to police departments records, and provided broad powers to audit, assess, and advocate for systemic change. An advantage with this model is that a single person can do the work of an auditor; however, a single auditor is susceptible to influences of intimidation from the police.
A Review of Civilian Oversight Boards
No form of a civilian oversight board is perfect, and each has distinct weaknesses. What’s more, any single model is bound to fail over time. But the reason why civilian oversight boards are largely ineffective despite their theoretical advantages is because the overarching flaw is a lack of authority to directly discipline officers and modify police department policies, and a lack of subpoena authority. Consider that only 19 of the top 50 largest precincts have subpoena authority. In this regard, the power of these boards tends to be limited to providing disciplinary recommendations for individual officers and suggestions for agency policy changes. So, in practice, the inability to enforce penalties and actually provide true oversight over the police renders the oversight board powerless.
I do believe that forming these boards is certainly a good start; but absent an active enforcement mechanism, the oversight board merely becomes another public charade to appease the calls for change, while not actually committing to changing. There are situations where boards do have enforcement authority. But in these situations, they often are unwilling to exert pressure to ensure recommendations are followed. Instead, they tend to seek out ways to appease the agencies it oversees to secure its cooperation. This decision to appease these agencies ultimately subverts the civilian oversight board, transforming it into an oversight group that conceals misconduct as opposed to revealing it.
What currently exists is an investigative model where the police are policing themselves. But the process must be isolated from agency advocates such as local prosecutors and local legislators as these parties have little incentive to pursue justice in these cases, or to even entertain an investigation at all. In order to improve the quality of our law enforcement agencies, I believe that civilian oversight boards play a crucial role in increasing transparency and accountability. It’s my opinion that civilian oversight boards should be scaled to all police precincts to provide external checks and balances on police powers and investigatory processes; however, before civilian oversight boards can be implemented and expected to have a strong and positive impact on policing, the structure of these oversight boards needs to improve to allow for greater enforcement mechanisms.
I recommend a three-pronged approach to improving civilian oversight boards. First, I recommend increased authority of civilian oversight bodies, giving them the power to discipline officers and greater influence in modifying police department policies. This includes subpoena authority and a transition of power to substantiate complaints and misconduct from the law enforcement itself and its advocates. The increase of powers in this respect also includes broad auditing authority to encompass civil rights and safety concerns. Increased authority is essential for civilian oversight boards because a major issue is the lack of power to directly discipline officers and police department procedures. Tied to the increased powers is subpoena authority. Without this authority, civilian oversight boards merely play an advisory role which, altogether, misses the mark of what is required. It’s essential for the oversight boards to be able to enforce recommendations and implement changes as deemed reasonably necessary. This would allow for greater powers with the authority to audit internal reports to proactively identify racial targeting.
Second, I recommend a complete transfer of the investigatory process for officer complaints, and the partial transfer of power to prosecute substantiated complaints from law enforcement agencies themselves and their advocates to civilian oversight boards. The internal investigatory process of officer complaints allows officers to investigate their colleagues. This approach leads to a high likelihood of a lackadaisical investigation, often leading to a mere warning or no punishment.
Although I believe that a total transition of the investigatory process is necessary, I can’t say the same for the prosecutorial process. Here, what I envision is an investigation conducted by the civilian oversight board, and subsequently handed to prosecutors to conduct the legal preceding’s. This way, prosecutors are prompted to evaluate and pursue misconduct claims as they will be directly referred these cases by the civilian oversight board.
Third, I recommend the publishing of quarterly or semi-annual reports on a website for civilian oversight boards to increase transparency to the public. Ideally, these reports should include the number of complaints the board received, the nature of these complaints, the discipline handed out, and a record of how often this form of misconduct reoccurred within the precinct. In concert, these three approaches could substantially improve civilian oversight bodies, and allow them to be effectively scaled.
The Implementation of Body Worn Cameras
Body worn cameras (BWCs) have become a clear fixture for law enforcement agencies, and are perceived as an excellent fix for bad policing practices and police misconduct. At large, recent literature suggests that BWCs have no real effect on reducing the use of force. A study by Barak Ariel of BWCs in large police departments using Denver as a case study finds that there was no discernable effect of BWCs on the likelihood of reporting use of force. In this study, Ariel found that the number of complaints for misconduct and use of force actually increased by 37 percent, from 1105 to 1524 once BWCs were implemented. Here, we should question why this happened? Did more people file complaints because they knew there was proof? Were police officers merely being more abusive on camera? In either case, this suggests that BWCs merely revealed that misconduct is a larger issue than we realize, and that they have had no effect on reducing this misconduct.
Notably, though the odds of arrest reduced by 18 percent, officers claimed this is because BWCs hindered officer-initiated work, which to some extent I do believe is essential. In another study by Ariel, not only did they find that BWCs didn’t reduce the use of force, but it seemingly increased assaults against police officers, and also found that there was virtually no difference whether BWCs were worn or not. This means there is also a negative impact on the safety of police officers. Further, consider a study by Cynthia Lum which has similar findings, where BWCs didn’t have statistically significant or consistent effects on most measures of officer behaviour, suggesting that BWCs haven’t produced dramatic changes in their behaviour for better or worse. The study also finds that arrests are just as likely to increase as to decrease with BWCs, that there is no indication that citizens’ satisfaction with police has improved, and that the effects of BWCs may be overestimated.
The revelation of these findings aren’t suggestions to abandon BWCs. In my opinion, BWCs are ineffective because of how they are used. In order to improve policing through BWCs, more research is needed on how they should be effectively used. Nonetheless, my recommendation for BWCs is to alter the structure of how they are currently used and how the footage is provided to the public. Here, I have two recommendations. First, I recommend a mandatory policy to turn on BWCs during all police interactions. This may sound simple, but in reality, this is extremely difficult to enforce. The alternative is to prompt officers to wear there BWCs all day. The issue with this is that it creates significant public security concerns as hours of footage is gained on interactions and situations irrelevant to police pursuits and activities. In most cases, a legal mandate to use record all interactions with civilians will suffice; but in other cases, it will be difficult to monitor officers who decide not to turn it on when they individually deal with civilians. Here, I simply call for more research to find an effective method to ensure officers turn on BWCs in all stops and interactions. Quite possibly, this could mean advances in technology so BWCs automatically turn on when interactions are sensed, thereby removing control of the officer to turn it on and off.
Second, I recommend the consistent and immediate release of BWC footage in all lethal and non-lethal use of force situations. In order to maintain transparency and hold agencies accountable for their actions, they can’t have the power to choose when to release their footage (sometimes months later) and which footage to release. Also, it shouldn’t be the case that a judge mandated order is required for the footage to be obtained. BWCs are meant to increase transparency and accountability to the public. If the public is unaware of these recordings and the nature of these interactions then the cloak of distrust will surely remain.
The Ineffectiveness of Implicit Bias Training
The third approach that has been used as a solution for police misconduct is implicit bias training. This too has been found to be inadequate. Yet, it’s been used as a resolution for racist actions or cultural insensitivity. Typically, implicit bias training lasts between five and six hours, and the objective is to ensure that individuals learn how to reduce and control their own biases, while further prompting them to unlearn the association of Black Americans and criminality. This training may consist of multiple sections that debunk racial biases, explain the negative implications of biased policing, and outlines the tools to avoid bias. These trainings do have an impact. Notably, in a study from Robert Smith, the racial bias training succeeded at reducing implicit biases for two months, indicating only a short-term effect. But overall, empirical data supporting the direct or indirect positive impact of implicit bias training is underdeveloped. And it’s rather unlikely that decreases in biases will be long-term, and also unlikely that it will significantly lower incidents and use of lethal and non-lethal force.
I do believe this training is useful; but in order for the effects to be sustained, the training must be consistent as opposed to a single session. But being pragmatic, I know that a monthly session on racial bias will not happen. In my opinion, implicit bias training targets the surface issues related to racial disparities and racial discrimination in policing. The objective of implicit bias training is to get officers to police in a racially informed fashion, as it is believed that this will seemingly reduce disparate outcomes. The literature conveys that this is only true on the margins.
Increasing Black Police Officers
The final approach used by agencies is to increase the number of Black police officers. The results here also seem to be mixed. Some studies suggest an increase in Black officers increased discrimination and the use of force, while others have suggested that it decreased these things. In terms of increasing discrimination, the idea was that Black officers felt pressure from the predominantly white police officers and acted more aggressively towards Black people, subsequently increasing the use of force. It was also found that in the case of arrest behaviour, Black officers may treat Black people more harshly, and that they are more likely to stop Black motorists. In another analysis of shootings in 2015, they found that the percentage of Black officers and police-involved homicides of Black people are positively correlated until the percent of Black officers reaches 26 percent, meaning the relationship is positive and significant in 85 of the police departments in the largest 100 U.S. cities. When the number of Black police officers gets to 42 percent, then the relationship turns negative, but this estimate isn’t firm. These findings are largely at odds with the public perception that increasing the number of Black police officers increases representation, thereby allowing Black officers and Black people to feel more comfortable and less susceptible to discrimination. I say this because there’s a high threshold to meet in order for an increase in Black officers to have a noticeable impact. It’s even more important because there are a very limited number of precincts with over 30 percent Black police officers, so is this solution as effective as we believe it is? Overall, the results suggest that an increase in Black officers are only realistic resolutions for an extremely small number of large departments in the U.S. It’s unrealistic in places like Ferguson where Blacks comprise only 11 percent of the population. In this regard, doubling or tripling the number of Black officers may simply increase violent interactions between Black officers and Black people.
Conclusion
Improving policing services is not a simple task. To the credit of local governments in the U.S. and Canada, some have made strides to, improve policing practices, increase transparency, hold officers accountable, and reduce racial disparities. The issue is that many of the implemented solutions are in fact ineffective approaches, primarily because of they have been used. My hope with this article is that we think critically about how to reduce racial disparities and racial discrimination in policing, and truly consider how to increase police accountability. In order to truly improve our law enforcement agencies, we must, demilitarize, improve police training, negotiate better accountability measures in police contracts, effectively utilize BWCs, and improve the enforcement mechanisms for civilian oversight boards. If we think back to Patrick Lyoya, improvement in these areas is essential to bettering policing. And had these mechanisms been in place, Lyoya may have been alive today.
Black lives matter.