In 1994, Congress passed 42 U.S.C. §14141, a statute authorizing the United States Attorney General to seek equitable relief against local and state police agencies that are engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional misconduct. Although police departments in some of the nation's largest cities have now undergone this sort of structural reform litigation, there has been little empirical research on the topic. Drawing on original interviews, court documents, statistical data, and media reports, this dissertation describes the federal government's use of structural reform litigation in American police departments and theorizes on its effectiveness. It shows that, under the right circumstances, structural reform litigation is uniquely effective at combating misconduct in police departments. It forces local municipalities to prioritize investments into police misconduct regulations. It utilizes external monitoring to ensure that frontline officers substantively comply with top-down mandates. And it provides police executives with legal cover to implement wide-ranging reforms aimed at curbing misconduct. Although expensive, structural reform litigation may ultimately pay for itself through reducing a police department's civil liability. But structural reform litigation is far from a perfect regulatory mechanism. Successful organizational reform requires continual support from municipal leaders, dedication by executives within the targeted agency, and buy-in by frontline officers. This suggests that structural reform litigation alone is insufficient to transform a law enforcement agency. The financial burden of structural reform litigation falls on local police agencies over a relatively short period of time. Additional questions remain about whether targeted agencies will sustain reforms after federal intervention ends and about whether this type of federal intervention makes officers less aggressive. This dissertation concludes by showing how the lessons from structural reform litigation can inform future regulations of law enforcement.

This book evaluates how structural reform litigation initiated by federal intervention has transformed police departments and reduced law enforcement misconduct.

The massive uprising following the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020--by some estimates the largest protests in US history--thrust the argument to defund the police to the forefront of international politics. It also made The End of Policing a bestseller and Alex Vitale, its author, a leading figure in the urgent public discussion over police and racial justice. As the writer Rachel Kushner put it in an article called "Things I Can't Live Without", this book explains that "unfortunately, no increased diversity on police forces, nor body cameras, nor better training, has made any seeming difference" in reducing police killings and abuse. "We need to restructure our society and put resources into communities themselves, an argument Alex Vitale makes very persuasively." The problem, Vitale demonstrates, is policing itself-the dramatic expansion of the police role over the last forty years. Drawing on first-hand research from across the globe, The End of Policing describes how the implementation of alternatives to policing, like drug legalization, regulation, and harm reduction instead of the policing of drugs, has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice. This edition includes a new introduction that takes stock of the renewed movement to challenge police impunity and shows how we move forward, evaluating protest, policy, and the political situation.

Named one of the best nonfiction books of the year by The Washington Post “Tangled Up in Blue is a wonderfully insightful book that provides a lens to critically analyze urban policing and a road map for how our most dispossessed citizens may better relate to those sworn to protect and serve.” —The Washington Post “Remarkable . . . Brooks has produced an engaging page-turner that also outlines many broadly applicable lessons and sensible policy reforms.” —Foreign Affairs Journalist and law professor Rosa Brooks goes beyond the "blue wall of silence" in this radical inside examination of American policing In her forties, with two children, a spouse, a dog, a mortgage, and a full-time job as a tenured law professor at Georgetown University, Rosa Brooks decided to become a cop. A liberal academic and journalist with an enduring interest in law's troubled relationship with violence, Brooks wanted the kind of insider experience that would help her understand how police officers make sense of their world—and whether that world can be changed. In 2015, against the advice of everyone she knew, she applied to become a sworn, armed reserve police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department. Then as now, police violence was constantly in the news. The Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum, protests wracked America's cities, and each day brought more stories of cruel, corrupt cops, police violence, and the racial disparities that mar our criminal justice system. Lines were being drawn, and people were taking sides. But as Brooks made her way through the police academy and began work as a patrol officer in the poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods of the nation's capital, she found a reality far more complex than the headlines suggested. In Tangled Up in Blue, Brooks recounts her experiences inside the usually closed world of policing. From street shootings and domestic violence calls to the behind-the-scenes police work during Donald Trump's 2016 presidential inauguration, Brooks presents a revelatory account of what it's like inside the "blue wall of silence." She issues an urgent call for new laws and institutions, and argues that in a nation increasingly divided by race, class, ethnicity, geography, and ideology, a truly transformative approach to policing requires us to move beyond sound bites, slogans, and stereotypes. An explosive and groundbreaking investigation, Tangled Up in Blue complicates matters rather than simplifies them, and gives pause both to those who think police can do no wrong—and those who think they can do no right.

measurement of effective policing is based on a quick response to crime that has already been committed, the value of crime prevention has become an afterthought in America's police departments." "The middle chapters outline these issues and identify the strategies to improve police community relationships and adjust the measurements for effective policing. The concluding chapters identify strategies designed to facilitate police department organizational change. Using terms from the discipline of economics, a "micro" strategy and a "macro" strategy are outlined. A new theory of policing concludes the book." "The book is intended primarily as a textbook for criminal justice students, but it will also prove useful to police departments, police academies, city managers, and elected officials responsible for police administration and community safety." --Book Jacket.

Discusses many of the ways that New York City dropped its crime rate between the years of 1991 and 2000.