The Key To Police Reform? Both Officer And Community Buy-In - Honolulu Civil Beat
The Key To Police Reform? Both Officer And Community Buy-In
Putting community engagement at the heart of police reforms undoubtedly is a stride in the right direction. But officers need support for their work, too. Reading time: 6 minutes.
As America continues to grapple with racism and police killings, federal action over police reform has stalled in Congress. But at the state level there is movement and steps toward reform are underway in many U.S. cities, including Philadelphia; Oakland, California; and Portland, Oregon.
Many of these efforts are geared toward ending specific practices, such as the granting of qualified immunity, through which officers are shielded from civil lawsuits, and the use of certain police neck holds and no-knock warrants. Mayors and city councils nationwide have also pushed reforms emphasizing accountability and transparency, with many working to create independent ov
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A Black Cincinnati director and choreographer is taking his film to neighborhood parks this summer, hoping to spark conversations about race, police brutality and mental health.
But one local park doesn’t want it.
Or at least, that was the response until there was pushback from the film s production company and questions from The Enquirer.
When Darnell Pierre Benjamin reached out to suburban Symmes Township about showing “13th & Republic” in Home of the Brave Park, the initial response was a request for more information. Would the event be free? Because the parks cannot be used for profit. What is the film about?
Commentators have pointed to a resistance to change among officers and an inability to garner community buy-in as reasons for the slowdown in progress in Baltimore.
Part of the problem, as seen with Baltimore, is that federal intervention does not appear to guarantee lasting change. Research shows that Department of Justice regulations aimed at reform only slightly reduce police misconduct. There is also no evidence that national efforts targeting the use of force alone mitigate police killings.
Community-led reform
One beacon of hope is the Cincinnati Police Department. Twenty years ago, residents in Cincinnati experienced events similar to what many cities have faced in more recent years. An unarmed Black man, Timothy Thomas, was shot dead by officers in 2001, sparking widespread unrest. It led Cincinnati to enter into a different model of reform: a collaborative agreement.
Success stories of U.S. cities that have reformed their police suggest community, officer buy-in might be key | Opinion
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The guilty verdicts delivered against Derek Chauvin on April 20, 2021, represented a landmark moment – but courtroom justice cannot deliver the sweeping changes most Americans feel are needed to improve policing in the U.S.
As America continues to grapple with racism and police killings, federal action over police reform has stalled in Congress. But at the state level there is movement and steps toward reform are underway in many U.S. cities, including Philadelphia; Oakland, California; and Portland, Oregon.
The other is the abolishing of local residency requirements for city employees, including police and firefighters. I think this has had a major deleterious effect in Ohio since the state government pre-empted municipal home rule to achieve this a number of years ago, and the Ohio Supreme Court upheld it. Now in the cities that have the highest crime rates, the safety forces tend to be staffed with officers from distant suburbs. They can be viewed (and sometimes act like) invading forces rather than feeling themselves to be, or behaving like, members of the community.
I heard a good interview on NPR with a police officer who bucked that trend by moving into the neighborhood he serves. Will find that link and post it.