Policy Changes
Ban choke holds, curb other kinds of force.
Fire bad cops, which involves reforms in police union contracts.
Increase police transparency.
Increase community oversight of police.
Make it easier to move investigations of police abuses to state or other outside offices.
End qualified immunity, move to individual liability insurance for police officers.
Demilitarize the police.
End the drug war and repeal other unjust laws.
Shift to community policing as useful.
Where appropriate have mental health professionals respond to a situation rather than police.
Personal Actions
Elect district attorneys and attorneys general committed to equal treatment under the law and the prosecution of police officers for criminal violation of others’ rights.
Elect politicians keen on criminal-justice reform.
Record police actions.
Protest.
Educate.
Sources
Me: “Six Steps Toward Ending Police Abuses.”
Jacob Sullum, Reason: “5 Ways to Curtail Police Violence and Prevent More Deaths Like George Floyd’s”
Shikha Dalmia, Week: “How police unions actually hurt police officers.”
Samuel Sinyangwe thread and Campaign Zero research.
David Lane: “Qualified immunity is killing civil rights”: It’s also killing people.
Rob Gillezeau summarizes preliminary work on police collective bargaining: “The introduction of access to collective bargaining drives a modest decline in policy employment and increase in compensation with no meaningful impacts on total crime, violent crime, property crime or officers killed in the line of duty. What does change? We find a substantial increase in police killings of civilians over the medium to long run (likely after unions are established).”
Tags: criminal justice, george floyd