As I sip my coffee this morning, I am thinking about police reform and the challenges that will be in the path of genuine reform.
As I am becoming more focused on the problems of the disproportionate treatment of minorities by local law enforcement, I wondered about the impediments to addressing the problem. It seems logical to me that the 'good' police officers would want to purge the profession of those that overstep their boundaries and give the good officers a bad name. Unfortunately, that doesn't always seem to be the case. There apparently exists some structural impediments to reforming the system that are deeply entrenched.
Over 60% of the police in this country belong to police unions whose collective bargaining agreements have very restrictive terms protecting the actions of its members. Personally, I've never opposed 'reasonable' protection of workers against capricious actions by management which impinge on a workers rights. However, over time many of these agreements have been used as a shield against the reasonable investigation and corrective actions against police overreach. Interestingly one study reflected that less than 1% of the complaints resulted in any disciplinary action against the officers against whom the complaints were lodged. In many instances the investigations can't even begin for some period, like 48 hours, which the cynical person might attribute to the opportunity for the police to get their stories "straight" and their supporters inline.
Apparently, many (most?) of the police unions have aggressively opposed reform and continue to put considerable financial resources into the fray to defeat actions to eliminate potential abuses and defeat reform minded candidates in local elections. Most local governments take the path of least resistance in fighting the unions since they have little power to win the battle against the union backed police groups. It seems that only when particularly egregious behavior gets in the public domain and creates a visible outcry does anything get addressed.
So.. where does this leave us? It suggests that the path to reform which holds individual officers accountable for their behavior is going to be an uphill battle. I am encouraged by the notion that if enough citizens stand-up and highlight the problems, collective bargaining agreements can be modified to improve accountability, but let's not be naive and assume it is going to happen overnight.
Back to my second cup of coffee this morning.