The U.S. Justice Department is expected to cut back or eliminate efforts to seek court-ordered reforms of local police departments after President-elect Trump takes office.
That would leave the burden on states and cities to oversee police agencies to combat misconduct.
Some of those government units may act only if there is considerable community support for more oversight of policing, speakers on a Brookings Institution webinar said Thursday.
Brookings researchers studied police reforms in St. Louis and Baltimore, both of which experienced DOJ oversight after high-profile incidents, the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in 2014 and the death of Freddie Gray after being injured while being transported by Baltimore police in 2015.
The deaths of Brown and Gray represented Black men killed with impunity by police, Brookings scholars said. One in 1,000 Black men can expect to be killed by police. Such disparities persist across social class lines and even when Black men are unarmed and not attacking at the time of their deaths.
There has been a "huge variation" in state actions on police reform in the last decade of activism by Black Lives Matter and others, said Rashawn Ray, a Brookings senior fellow.
Contrasting the two states involved in the study, Maryland and Missouri, which have similar populations, police have killed 180 people in Maryland and 310 in Missouri over 10 years.
During that period, Maryland legislators passed a major police reform package, while Missouri lawmakers generally passed "pro-police" measures that limited police prosecutions and liability for deaths, Ray said.
Research led by Ali Sewell of Emory University, a participant in the webinar, found that police killings “spill over” to harm the health of people living in neighborhoods with more police violence. Police killings trigger traumas and collective memories, forcing community members to relive the violence.
Black people who view videos of police violence report worse mental health conditions.
Researchers interviewed 20 stakeholders in St. Louis and Baltimore about community health, public safety, police reform, and the enduring impact of protests that followed the Brown and Gray episodes. Participants included elected officials, police officers, and community activists.
l
One person interviewed in Baltimore said, “If one doesn’t know how to deal with the pressures and the general stress of engaging law enforcement, then it can negatively impact their mental health."
Perri Johnson of the Loyola Academy of St. Louis, a former police captain in the city, said that police officers themselves are diivided over reforms, with white officers and police unions generally defending the status quo and black officers favoring changes in police procedures and getting more public citizens involved in reviewing police policies and training.
Webinar participants agreed that the public, particularly minorities, would be better served if police officers engaged more with the community in non-confrontational situations and made fewer unnecessary traffic stops.
Yanet Amanuel of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland said one study found that 64% of traffic stops in the state involved Blacks, much higher than their proportion of the population, and many involved only the odor of marijuana.
;
Comments