Policing XII: Conclusion

 Policing in the US has been maligned for its ties to slave patrols and enforcement of Jim Crow laws. But it also has noble roots in the ideas that the forces that ensure civic order and protect the vulnerable are not to be soldiers quartered by external forces in our midst, but are to be civil authorities drawn for the citizenry itself. Seen from this latter perspective, when a significant portion of the law-abiding public fears the police no longer protect or serve the people, that is a sufficient cause for reflection and concern.

It is from this point of view that it seems to me that, notwithstanding all the positive acts of individual officers and department, policing in the US can be improved, and that we have a moral obligation to consider the improvements that can be made. Though we may support institutions like our churches to remind the public of good moral conduct, or serve in youth organizations to help build the citizenry of the future -- these facts do not excuse us from our responsibility to ensure that arm of civil authority we entrust to use force in keeping order should be as close to perfect as humans can manage. Nor can we escape the fact that police are the forces we as a body politic commission, and it is those forces that we maintain that we have a primary responsibility for managing in order to achieve the highest possible degree of protection for all.

In the last 12 days, I have dedicated my reflections to that concern. From those reflections, I suggest the following points:

• Transparency and oversight should be improved through civilian review boards, use of body cameras, and publicly available accounting of complaints and "near misses"
• Training and education should be improved so the time spent learning to de-escalate and peacefully resolve high-stakes situations is commensurate with the time spent learning to use force
• Building wide bridges of trust and familiarity with the community are a critical part of policing in the US; those efforts should be funded and chosen for maximum impact
• Where appropriate, police should be work in tandem with mental health professionals and other experts to address root causes of conflict; at the same time, as a society we must also work to address inequities that fuel conflict
• In choosing the offensive and defensive tools showcased in most situations, the guiding principle of a civilian police force should be the exact opposite of "maximum shock and awe," and efforts to portray policing as being at war, or arm police as if they are at war, are antithetical to efforts to build an inclusive society
• While the degree of actual abuse is debated by some, qualified immunity goes to far in denying the public to bring civil suit, and as the culmination of decades of legislating from the bench, should be subject to legislative clarification.

Most importantly, as a life-and-death concern, policing is too critical to be treated as commodity hourly labor. I suggest we should seek to move to a professional model of employment that draws on patterns in civil engineering and aviation safety, among others. Hallmarks of this switch would include 4-year college level training for police officers, reinforcement and extension of a dedication to ongoing training, diminishing hierarchy and band-of-brother responses so in all cases two or more police officers together are less likely to be involved in violent episodes rather than more, and critical self examination of incidents and near misses with an unflagging goal of no preventable mishaps.

I'm sure not everyone agrees with my conclusions, but I've tried my best to be reasoned and level-headed in my thinking and my rhetoric. What's more, I've learned a lot -- in no small measure due to comments, questions, and challenges from those who took the time to read my reflections. But it was also exhausting. With your permission, I think I'll talk about kittens tomorrow.

Policing XI: Abolish, Defund, or Reform

The problems we face in policing are systemic in the sense the way the system operates will create outcomes we don't want, even if every police officer in the US is of above average goodness. At the present time those outcomes have been cast in sharp relief by the death of several African-Americans in encounters with police. Further, we can expect that police themselves are not perfect, nor is every police officer of unquestionable moral character - they are human like the rest of us. It is against this backdrop that a substantial portion of the US public has come to the conclusion that the flaws in policing are intolerable and we must take action.

When addressing systemic problems, it is fair to ask if the system to be changed should be rebuilt from scratch, substantially reorganized, or subjected to incremental reform.

Advocates of abolishing police point to its history as a tool of oppression - for example, origins in slave-capture in the south, or in efforts to keep new immigrants "in line" in the north. Some may also further assert that we need no police; the people can regulate themselves. I do have some sympathy for that argument; I've lived in a group of more than a hundred dormitory residents with no constituted government and I thought it was generally fine. But that depends on bonds of social connection that, in my opinion at least, do not scale to the tens or hundreds of thousands of people that inhabit a mid-size city. Further, there are vulnerable among us who deserve protection (e.g., from rape, domestic violence, child abuse, and more.) To me it is not permissible to say these vulnerable people must all wait until the slower wheels of mental health services right the world. Nor is it wise to say every threatened person should go out, get a gun, and protect themselves -- indeed, that is not a freedom available to minors or ex-felons, yet they still deserve protection under the law. Therefore, while an individual city may choose to reconstitute their police force from the ground up, I do not see it as a nationally viable plan, nor even a plan that most states should embrace.

The idea of defunding the police is that we change the system by shifting funding from police departments to social services. These services, it is argued, can reduce our need for conventional policing by attacking social ills that combine to create situations that currently demand policing. On the face of it, this is a strategy that shares some common ground with the idea of reducing federal government funding to "starve the beast" and change government priorities. The strength of this position is that it clearly acknowledges reforms can get stalled and co-opted, and puts firm guardrails in place to ensure reform proceeds. I'd be concerned that the social services take longer to create good than proponents like to admit, but the position has a lot of appeal to me: reforms are often derailed. But the mayor of LA pointed out that since police are generally hired by seniority, this policy would cause her department to reverse hard-won progress in making the police force representative of the communities being policed. On balance, considering these two objections, I feel forced to consider reform as the proper way forward.

Reform, as noted, carries the significant drawback that it can get stalled. The systems and cultures in place can be powerful impediments to real change. I'd be lying to suggest that was not a concern. Still, I prefer reform.

To me, one of the best ways to overcome resistance to change is to move from a labor model to a professional model of policing. In particular, as a professional body police should investigate adverse outcomes with the same intensity the commercial airline industry does. To put that in context, there are about 16 million commercial flights in the US each year (for 800 million passengers), compared to 10 million arrests (these are all 2018 numbers). In the years from 2003 to 2009 there were 650 arrest-related deaths in the US each year. In most years, there are no airline deaths (excluding illegal acts); in 2018 there was one. That is the result of a relentless pursuit of perfection. Our response to a death in policing should not be to shrug our shoulders and say these deaths are an unavoidable part of law enforcement. Our governments and our police should look at these events with the same intensity and need for change that characterizes the commercial airline industry. 

As airlines are engineered systems and people are not, we will likely never see a year with no police-related fatalities, but experiences with efforts to improve patient safety in surgical settings (e.g., nearly 40% decline for 10 years for most age groups) indicate the same sorts of deep analysis and commitment to improvement can lead to substantial improvements over time. I believe that in the long run we will only create that sort of change but adopting similar practices of continuous critique and improvement in policing. Until then, the training and oversight reforms in the Massachusetts police reform proposals should yield material improvements in outcomes and help move policing from a labor model to a professional model of service. But absent a deep level of self-examination by communities and their police departments, none of the 3 broad options for change are likely to create sorts of improvements our consciences ought to compel us to seek.

Policing X: Qualified Immunity

Let me start this post on qualified immunity and related matters by stipulating that in order to effectively respond to rapidly evolving situations, police should not need to fear criminal charges for reasonable good-faith actions taken in the course of their work. In support of this goal, qualified immunity is judicial (not legislative) doctrine from the late 1960s that has evolved to bar civil rights suits for unconstitutional conduct unless it had been “clearly established” (i.e., by legal precedent) as being illegal at the time it occurred. The present concern with qualified immunity is that in seeking legal precedent, clear violations of civil rights might be precluded from reaching trial because there did not exist a clear precedent at the time the doctrine of qualified immunity was established, thus the case can never be heard and no legal precedent can ever be established. Opponents further assert that requirements for precedent are being sought on overly narrow grounds in practice, and have had the effect of preventing morally justifiable cases from even being filed.

As this appears to be a situation where an absence of law has caused the courts to effectively "legislate from the bench," we should all welcome legislative clarity. There does seem to be some anecdotal evidence the critics of qualified immunity have a point. And, since few officers are also case law experts, it seems that existence of precedent is a poor basis for making split-second decisions in policing. I am of the opinion that qualified immunity should be more restricted than it is. The proposed Ending Qualified Immunity Act in the US House of Representatives provides no protection for reasonable acts done in good faith. I think it goes too far. I am much more partial to the Massachusetts Senate proposal (the "Reform, Shift + Build Act"), which retains qualified immunity but places the burden on the state to demonstrate qualified immunity applies.

Regardless of the status of qualified immunity, for an officer to be found guilty of an offense in a court of law requires at least a preponderance of evidence (for civil cases) -- and more for criminal cases. It must also generally be the case that internal warnings and disciplinary actions are independent of legal findings of liability, or police departments should be able to act to prevent future misconduct. To the extent that labor agreements and other mechanisms limit the ability of municipalities to act without meeting that high legal standard for burden of proof, they abuse the public trust.

Also, because of qualified immunity and standards of evidence, it it follows that if in aggregate a community is aggrieved by police misconduct, then in order to properly protect accused police officers, some degree of injustice against the aggrieved group will go unpunished and in fact unrecognized. I know of no precedent for addressing such grievances, but it is worth considering that their historical and ongoing weight should be addressed. Perhaps this could be considered as a form of reparations -- as noted, I do not know of a precedent here, but the cumulative sense of injustice ought to be recognized even if individual guilt cannot be proven in a court of law.

These are thorny, detailed questions. But they are critically important and must be addressed. Though no bill will satisfy all parties, I am hopeful that the Massachusetts legislature will be successful in crafting a reform bill before ending the current session.

Policing IX: Arms and Weapons

I think I have just a couple more posts on this overall topic. Today I want to talk a bit about the offensive and defensive weapons police use. This will not be a comprehensive or detailed discussion, but perhaps is an outline of a basis on which such a discussion could proceed.

The process of dumping military-style hardware into community police forces has been discussed by many reporters and commentators across a wide range of political perspectives, so for brevity I will limit my comments. From what I can tell, there is a general consensus this practice is inappropriate and should be curtailed. The problem is, of course, if your tools are all made to quell urban combatants in foreign countries, then the challenges you face in police can appear to look like urban combat. There is some truth in the saying "If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

In the contexts of protests like those we have seen across the country in the past months, it is worth mentioning that it is not only offensive weapons that tend to escalate a conflict. Defensive weapons can have that affect also. I can't offer a solution here -- we all have a right to protect ourselves. On the other hand, showing up in full body armor with gas masks and nightsticks does send a message about where you expect the night to go (this applies to protestors as well). In some cases, it seems to me, deploying with overt and excessive defensive gear reinforces an adversarial stance and could even suggest a target for violence -- but this is not a line of thought one should carry too far. I would never suggest police forces should divest themselves of that sort of riot gear, but I would urge them to be thoughtful in its deployment.

In addition to guns, Police also have at their disposal a variety of less-lethal weapons. A few years ago, we called these "non-lethal" -- the change in nomenclature is, I think, useful. In a brief discussion, it's not worth detailing the risks of each type of weapon. Although not every situation can be de-escalated, it should be sufficient to note that choosing a less-lethal weapon is only descalatory if the conflict has already progressed to the level of immediately lethal force. As I've noted a few times, we are in a bad place if every signal we can send is escalatory in nature. (And I should say many police are good at sending these de-escalatory signals, but some are not and these less-lethal tools can enable that more escalatory response)

Lastly, one thought on guns themselves. Sam Harris (and others, I suspect) points out that since police in the US generally carry guns, suspected criminals can reach for the gun and every encounter that police go into carries the seeds of being a lethal encounter. He then adds that, because of the widespread availability of guns in the US, police have no choice but to carry guns. I'm not sure I fully agree with every step in that chain of logic, but for argument let's say that it is true. Though it's a technical band-aid of sorts, there is an obvious solution to the objection in the form of smart guns which would prevent a criminal from easily using an officer's gun against them. Though they are not sold in large numbers and are maybe not as technically mature as other guns, that would almost certainly change rapidly if police forces widely adopted the technology. For that reason, I regard as specious the argument that police must regard every encounter as potentially lethal because of the guns they themselves carry. (Not being a police officer, I cannot say how much this fear influences thinking, I am merely saying if it is a substantial source of concern, it seems fixable and thus should be fixed.)

Policing VIII: Professional Organizations

Doctors are required to take and abide by the Hippocratic oath. If they violate their oath, they may be removed from their professional association, regardless of whether they are found guilty in a court of law. 

Lawyers are held to the standards of their jurisdiction, which are generally based on the ABA model code. If you violate those standards, your license to practice can be taken from you by your state bar association.

Civil engineers operate under the code of ethics of their professional society, and again can lose certification even if they are not found guilty of a crime under law.

Yet police, while police chiefs have a uniform code of ethics, police officers operate under a hodgepodge of oaths administered by their employers. The role of the police union seems to be to protect police officers' employment first, while the integrity of the calling takes a much lower priority.

I am generally not anti-union, and I absolutely recognize that police deserve labor protection in some form. I submit, however, that a group given such power over others, a group that has been given license to use deadly force in the course of their work, should operate under a framework more like the examples above. An alternative might be a military code of conduct, but I do not believe we should be blurring the lines between police and military.

I recognize this entails treating police more like professionals across the board - good pay, for instance should not be dependent on overtime or on traffic detail work. But I think it is consistent with my thoughts yesterday on increasing entry-level training requirements for police.

I recognize this is easier said than done, but I do think there is great value to all in recasting the relationship between police and society as more professional in its focus and less about labor as a commodity. To show I am not the only one who see this as a possible way forward, I'll close with this link from the National Police Foundation: A Hippocratic Oath for policing.

Policing VII: Education

In Germany, minimum standards for police education require two and a half years of education, and often require four years. In some places in the US, you can be a police officer with less than half a year of training.

As things are right now, we expect a lot from our police officers. They are asked to lead the response to a wide variety of complex situations involving domestic violence, mental health, substance abuse, motor vehicle accidents, and more. While I support efforts to bring additional fields of expertise in these situations -- especially when it can be done as a preventative measure -- the truth remains that responding to a mandate as large as this requires a lot of training, as well as a lot of support after the training. From what I can see, we could do better at both in the US.

Given the very wide-ranging mandate we give our police in the US, a four-year post-high-school training period does not seem unreasonable to me. Police officers deal with complex and diverse situations, they should be given a broad range of tools to understand and address those situations. Further, completing a sustained course of specialist study both indicates and develops a degree of self-discipline that I think is an appropriate expectation for the job. On the face of it, good policing is a high-level calling -- there is no reason I can think to expect it should require, for example, a dramatically lower standard of education than we require of public school teachers.

In Germany, one factor that motivates their curriculum is looking at the role policing played in the rise of naziism. As a result, the curriculum includes specific training on empathy for minority and disadvantaged groups. And still they have some problems with holocaust deniers. If the US had a similar longer-term training process, how would we be able to ensure it did not inculcate the very attitudes we seek to diminish over time? It's an important question and, in truth, I don't have a complete answer. I'll touch on some partial ideas tomorrow, but I think it's fair to note that we have the same concern with any educationally-based credentialing system -- doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc., all benefit from successfully addressing this issue. 

It's my point of view, which I recognize I'm asserting without proof, that: 1) we should give police more tools and techniques for resolving conflict without violence; 2) continued progress in drawing police from communities they serve is worthwhile; 3) increasing empathy by police for the community they serve is part of what a good educational system can do. These are high-level goals, and are worth continued investment.

Policing VI: Outreach Programs

Because this series of reflections is an effort to think about ways policing could be improved, it tends to lay a lot on police. As I said at the outset, I have taken that focus only because they are the professionals and they are the people I pay as a taxpayer -- it doesn't mean anything more than that.

Still, it feels like the right time to change up a bit and offer something that is not wholly negative. In team dynamics, sometimes we take an approach of asking what we should stop doing, what we should start doing, and what we should keep doing. It's worth talking about what police should keep doing, and I'll use the Quincy Police Department as an example. QPD runs a variety of public safety campaigns that are not about law enforcement at their core:

Advocacy: Autism Awareness and Pink Patch Project offer commemorative patches that generate funds for the indicated causes. These are causes worth supporting, and I feel fairly confident they generate some good will. There is some risk a cynical observer could see them as a smokescreen behind which deportment shortcomings are camouflaged, but we're not being cynical here. It makes sense to me these are genuine expressions of concern that QPD should keep doing, but take a bit of care to avoid touting them as proof that there are no reforms that could benefit the community.

Safety: QPD offers Basic Boating Safety Courses and Car Seat Installations as in-person services. I think they once offered Bicycle Safety in person, but the web site currently only shows an online course. They also offer a Self Defense Program for women. These programs offer person-to-person contact between the police force and the community, strengthening trusting connections we want to have. These are the sorts of things I'd absolutely like to see more of. For example, imaginatively revitalizing the bicycle safety program could provide an opportunity for police to directly interact with youth in the community.

HELP (Handicapped-Elderly-Lost Persons) and Project Lifesaver / Lojack are similar to one another. They are important services and essential in overall community safety. Kudos.

Domestic Violence Advocacy Program is self-explanatory. Health Imperatives is a broadly similar effort focused on victims of sexual assault. From the website, it seems officers receive some training. And it is good that the QPD partners with advocacy groups in these areas. But I've also heard that some victims of these types of crimes have felt belittled and dismissed by QPD. These are essential services: we need to be sure the commitment to them extends way beyond a link on a website.

CRASE is a program to train organizations in responding to active shooter events. It seems like an innovative program and a good chance to build relationships between the community and the QPD. This might well be a program my church could benefit from. Definitely keep doing.

DARE Program is a well-intentioned effort to address a real problem. But long-term effectiveness is questionable and it's not clear it helps build positive relationships with QPD broadly among our youth. This one might be due for some critical review.

Jail Diversion Program is an effort to work with mental health professionals to ensure mental health events do not become criminal events. There is a recent video taken of QPD officers that provides at least anecdotal evidence this sort of initiative has had some success. But that same video showed some officers were much more willing than others to escalate the situation. I don't have overall statistics, or even a good idea how I'd get them. Nor can I pretend to know the details of that event. So I'll give a qualified thumbs up to what we're doing today, with the suspicion we could do more.

Prescription Drug Disposal is a necessary service, and QPD is a good home for that. Just from a "good governance" perspective, we need to be sure the drugs that are dropped off are well controlled from that point on and do not somehow find their way to the market or to abusers (to be clear, I have no reason to suspect that is a problem at QPD). And related to this, QPD pioneered the use of NARCAN to successfully reverse the effects of overdoses and saved lives by doing so. Let's keep doing stuff like this.

In sum, beyond the narrow mission of law enforcement, QPD has been successful in several important programs and had qualified success in several others. I see these sorts of programs as things that both have direct benefits and can also build connection with the community they serve. While there is opportunity for improvement, these are good investments, and I both commend the QPD for them and encourage city officials to continue supporting this broader view of public safety. At the same time, we need to be sure that having good programs does not blind us to ways we can do better.

Policing V: Tribalism and Dissent

After attending a vigil in Quincy center, I was waiting for a ride home. Not too far away, a group of 3 or 4 police officers stood at a street corner. So I approached and tried to start a conversation - a complicated thing in the time of covid-19, with social distancing and face masks. I was able to get a few words in with one officer who was off to the side. But after a brief acknowledgment, he turned away from me walked over to fully join his fellow officers and talk with them. He wanted to be part of his tribe.

I don't have a source for this, but I've been told that most instances of police misconduct occur when there are groups of police, and almost none occur when police are alone. It is believed that police are more careful when alone, and avoid situations that are at risk of escalation.

And of course, there is the band of brothers effect. We are tribal creatures. When one of our tribe is threatened, we act to protect them. This spirit is taken to its fullest heights among soldiers in war, but is seen in police as well -- and can be a good thing. But it can also make it hard for police officers to intervene to stop bad behavior as well. Even worse, the sense of strength in a group can give power to rogue bands within the police, and can be compounded by authority in the form of rank or experience.

In studies of airline cockpit discussions after commercial airliner accidents, it was found that the authority of the pilot outweighed the possibility of dissent in several cases reviewed. As a result, conscious efforts were made to flatten the structure of an airline cockpit so people other than the pilot felt empowered or obliged to speak up if they saw something concerning.

Similar studies of operating rooms revealed a similar power imbalance, where mistakes made by a surgeon were not questioned effectively by others. Again, a sustained effort was made to change that culture and make questioning and dissent function more reliably.

I think policing might need to undertake a similar process. We need to make it so 4 minds brought to bear in a situation means more creativity for better problem solving and reduced risk of misconduct. Until we are confident that a group of 4 policeman has better judgement than a single policeman, I argue there is work to be done in this aspect of police culture.

Policing IV: Transparency

I'm heavily influenced by open source-software development. In open-source software, every potential bug is reported and addressed. And (through the history in a version control log) can be traced back to an individual that made a code change. This is a level of transparency that changes everything. And, in truth, it's not that much different from how commercial software development proceeds as well. For instance, as a Jira user, it took less than 30 seconds to reach the list of all known Jira bugs.

I think we should expect and require a similar level of transparency from our police. The city or police department web site should have readily accessible process for filing complaints of any kind. Those complaints should be tabulated in more or less real time so decision makers -- whether they be citizens or government officials -- can instantly know not only if certain types of complaints are common, but if certain officers are the source of a majority of complaints.

Certainly, there would need to be a means of providing anonymity for people reporting issues. I'm also open to some degree of anonymity to protect police officers before claims are substantiated. But local policing relies on police and citizen knowing one another, so I possibly police identities do not need to be fully anonymous (see
We’re police officers. You should know our names. That goes for Portland, too for example).

To be fully open about small mistakes and concerns would allow us to address issues before they became big issues. This sort of openness is, of course, scary to police. But to me it seems similar to widely reported studies of apologies in medical settings -- it was scary at first, and the lawyers complained it would lead to an onslaught of litigation. But in hospitals where doctors apologized for adverse events, time to resolve claims decreased by by over 50% and cost of claims dropped by approximately 50%, depending on the measure used. At the same time, patient satisfaction increased.

In my city, the police department web site certainly contains useful information. But in several attempts, I still cannot find any way to report police misconduct, or any accounting of what sorts of misconduct concerns others have raised. In response to questions about misconduct, the departmental response has been more or less a stream of self-congratulatory references to the good programs the department does run. This implied sense of denial diminishes trust rather than increasing it. Rapid and full disclosure provides critical opportunities for learning that we simply do not have under our current system, and provides an opportunity to build trust through rapid and personal response to concerns. I believe we will struggle to change policing until we adopt a significantly more open and introspective system that includes looking at citizen concerns before they become civil rights violations.

Policing III: Body Cameras

If we create some sort of citizen review boards for the police, their effectiveness will depend in part on the availability of accurate data about police-civilian encounters. Perhaps the most cited example is the body camera. Related to the body camera, I'm going to assume many parts of a police station today are covered by surveillance cameras, or if they are not, they can be. Also, I will note that there are significant privacy issues with cameras which I will simply defer to a later conversation.

Possibly the most important thing about cameras is to note that they are not a cure-all. They can only help as part of a throughgoing effort to increase transparency and accountability. I'll also note that cameras have roles in both transparency and accountability--they can provide the public with insight into the challenges associated with police work at the same time that they can be used as evidence to correct abuses. Of course, they can also be used to show that alleged abuses did not occur. In a properly constituted atmosphere of trust, they can benefit everyone. But they can only do any of these thing in the context of many other supports.

As an example of how I think body cameras can work, I'd like to point you to "The worst-case scenario" which describes a situation where police officers were called out to a mental health event where a gun and a knife were already present. There were two mentions of cameras; both jumped out to me:

First quote: "Parker and three other officers stepped into the building hallway in single file, hands near their weapons. The door to the woman’s ground floor apartment was ajar. He could hear a toddler crying and the woman talking to herself about devils. He kept his right hand hovering next to the grip of his gun. He looked down to make sure his body camera was on. Then he took a breath, pushed the door open, and stepped into the darkened apartment."

Second Quote: "During a break at the precinct, he looked back at his body camera video from the first call, on Saturday. He watched Granville’s frustrated attempts to get his attention, and his own quick dismissal of Ivy. He imagined how others might criticize him if the video was made public, as it would have been had the second call ended in a shooting."

I take from the first quote that pausing to check the body camera was a useful interruption here. Before it, the police officers hands were on their guns. But for a moment, there was a break to think about following procedure, about slowing down and thinking, about accountability and a larger perspective. Where so many situations can get out of control so quickly, I think that pause is likely to be a good thing in most cases.

The second quote, I think, is even more important. He reviewed the footage and reconsidered the events. As a rock climbing instructor, we do lessons-learned and near-miss analysis all the time. We seldom leave an event without considering and discussing what we might do differently to be safer and offer a more rewarding experience for our participants. The fact this police officer reviewed the footage and discussed it with fellow officers is to be commended. I suspect it's common to do so, but I don't know. With good problem-solving and introspection, building on this level of self-analysis could be a really powerful tool.

Of course, cameras would have to be used reliably. As a software developer, I would be penalized if I failed to commit code changes to a version control system that gave my peers clear visibility to my work. Similarly, police would have to be required to use cameras and be penalized for subverting that transparency.

In sum, I believe body cameras and related technologies are a important part of improving policing in the US. But, without institutional supports and throughgoing changes, they are just window dressing. Which gives me more to talk about tomorrow.

Policing II: Citizen Review Boards

Many conversations about police reform include some idea of a civilian review board, so I'm going to use that as a reasonable place to starting point. Readers will need to keep in mind this is a vast subject and I am intentionally taking only a very narrow slice each day to see what I can learn, and intentionally managing the scope of my thoughts in order to stay on just that subtopic.

I noted yesterday that the value of increasing trust is a foundational principle for my thinking about policing. At the very least, it seems beyond doubt that a substantial fraction of the youth in our more urban areas do not fundamentally trust their police. It also seems clear that a substantial fraction of many minority communities in the US distrust their police. Regardless of anything else, the protests we have seen since the killing of George Floyd simply would not have occurred if trust in police was pervasive.

For the sake of argument only, let's say there was a simple flaw in policing that mayors and police chiefs identified tomorrow; they changed the flawed policy and fired all the bad people and announced it on the news the next day. Clearly, that would be insufficient to restore trust. There would need to be a sustained confirmation from a trusted watchdog for attitudes to change. So to me it is clear that some sort of civilian review board will be part of the way forward for a lot of cities, both small and large.

This bothers me for a few reasons. First, it adds another party to our city governments, and almost all of us have experienced the ways that increasing the complexity of an organization tends to decrease its agility. Plus, it costs money. But most of all, it means that our ostensibly representative political structures have lost connection with their constituents, or are at least unable to provide the quality of governance we want. And it seems unlikely that simple slogans will rebuild that trust on their own.

So, if I were to outline a plan for a civilian review board, I would probably build in a sunset clause. I would think in terms of something like a 5-year commision, with guaranteed representation for significant minority communities in the city, and with a young adult voice as well. I would add representation from the police force simply because in the course of a 5-year process there almost certainly will be cases where their insight will be necessary. I'm not sure it would be productive to include police union representation, so I'll leave that as an open question. I would also include representation from the existing government, because they are stakeholders too. But I would make sure that ordinary citizens comprised half or more of the board.

I would give them a mission that included four primary components: 1) reviewing police actions that have generated concern in the community, 2) reviewing a random sampling of other interactions to see if there are significant trends to be aware of, 3) working with the police department to correct those things that need to be changed, and 4) making an annual report to the city on how their functions can be re-integrated into normal municipal function at the end of their charter period. It is critically important that protection of citizens rights, and everyone's confidence in those protections, is a central function of regular government. It cannot be a bolted-on afterthought.

State police, at least in Massachusetts, also do not have an unvarnished record. Nor are they universally trusted. I think that a similar process could apply there, but I've not considered what details may differ.

At a smaller scale than our cities and urban areas, I do think many towns have a more personal connection between their police and the citizenry. But being complacent is part of human nature. I am willing to bet there are also many towns that think they are more or less immune to these problems, but are not. As a result, thought the form will vary locally, I think the concerns that current national events raise apply fairly broadly. 

Therefore, for many communities I think some sort of task force that proactively takes a searching look at our police-civilian interaction is a wise investment. Those task forces or citizen review boards should take an honest look at how our police are perceived in the community and foster changes as they are needed, with an eye toward building trust and ensuring that trust is fully deserved.

Of course, that is only one facet of how we can think about a way forward, and relies critically on getting information to review. That will be tomorrow's topic.

Police Reform: I

There's a lot that can be said about policing in the US.

We can start by recognizing that, through effective democratic institutions, putting policing under the control of the people and communities they police is crazy brilliant idea. It's an idea that has changed the world, and a situation I'd love to see as a global norm. We should absolutely do more of that.

We can also recognize that there are many police who do good things every day. Their job can be next to impossible at times. And sometimes things go wrong in the course of their jobs, sometimes horribly wrong. Some of those are unavoidable. Some are not unavoidable, but are made worse by the fact that in addition to straight-out criminal acts, there are a lot of people in the world who do stupid things.

But there are also cases where we - the police and the ordinary citizen both - can do better. Sometimes this is because some officers may be prejudiced against the people they serve. Other times, there may be systemic forces that create poor outcomes even when the individual police officers are good people doing their best. And sometimes, fatigue caused by a poorly functioning system can lead to cynical beliefs that then fuel negative outcomes.

When I think about changing the nature of police-civilian encounters, I am primarily thinking of police reform - because those are the people I pay through my taxes, and those are the people who are the trained professionals. Yes, that does place a higher burden on the police and the civilian governments to which they report. Nor does it let our families and communities off the hook for bad behavior, it's just that I don't pay them. (And, I do encourage everyone to support programs that increase responsible civic engagement, especially among youth...but that is a different topic)

It's my intent to think and write a little bit about policing for the next several days. Though I'll try to be explicit, it seemed worth starting with those caveats. In spite on my best efforts, I may sometimes appear to be singling out police. If it does appear that way, remember it is because they are the professionals, and they are the people I am paying. Still, I will do my best to be fair and open-minded, and as always I welcome your thoughts.

I'll close this first post with one principle I think is foundational: policing outcomes are better and society is more productive for all when trust between police and citizens is firm and universal. We seem to be at a low ebb in that respect, and things that build that trust are in a general sense things we should encourage.

With that, until tomorrow...