Thread by @PeterMoskos

Let's take this DOJ report at face value. (Something I'm not inclined to do if this is another DOJ template-filling boilerplate "investigation" to legally trigger a consent decree, but for the sake of discussion...)
nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-…

Post Ferguson, a cottage industry of police reform "experts" got in the game. They were happy to sell their special sauce of "implicit racial bias" training to police departments. This was supposed to be solution to police. cbsnews.com/news/racial-bi…

So many of us knew it was mostly bullshit, or at least not a real way to improve policing. But what can we do? How can you be against racial bias training? Are you for racial bias? From 2015 Minneapolis. mprnews.org/story/2015/12/…

Reports were issues. "Toolkits" were available. Some were better than others, and couched in terms like reconciliation, legitimacy, equity, and justice, it was all rooted in a police-are-the-problem ideology. Minneapolis was a poster child for much of this.policingproject.org/news-main/2019…

"Mistrust" "strained police-community relations" "reconciliation framework" "multidimensional approach" "new tools" and "a suite of interventions." Really? What about actual policing and crime prevention? As if the key to less violence is getting non-violent people to like cops.

I don't mean to come out against ALL of this. I'm not against change. Minneapolis got all the "treatment." But at some point we need to accept an uncomfortable reality. basic fact: It didn't work. urban.org/sites/default/…

By what standards did "reform" make things better in Minneapolis. Maybe officers do now have less "implicit bias" and know the words and maybe even the concept "procedural justice." But so what? There were 33 murders in 2018, 48 in 2019, and 81 in 2022.

Minneapolis's progressive Chief Medaria Arradondo set up the four dozen(!) police department "community navigators" in 2018. "We can't arrest these problems away," he said. Well, maybe he should tried? Because the navigators failed after George Floyd's murder in 2020.

So now in 2023 we get the DOJ saying everything is wrong in the department. Well what about all the glorious reforms from 2014-2019? Not a word. It's like it never happened. Couldn't there be a little self-reflection from the reformers? Fool me once... documentcloud.org/documents/2385…

So what is the solution? Simple: do your job. Police. You need a strong leader with political support. Then it about standards, strategy, communication, and accountability. Probably in that order. Be open about what the department is doing. Then defend it. Keep data transparent.

There is no one size fits all policing strategy. It depends on the city. And the neighborhood. But police need to focus on legal crime prevention (and going after repeat violent offenders). Accountability for all. Punish cops who do wrong. Defend those who do not.

I really hope that the same cadre of experts who led Minneapolis's reform up this point don't get a chance at fixing another department (or Minneapolis again!) until they can explain what went wrong and why. Why what they did failed. Or explain why the DOJ report is wrong.

Because if there's one thing DOJ reports tend to lead to, it's lawyers and academics and "experts" getting paid to have conferences and fix police departments, and they almost never leave a department better than they found it.

There are no hard and fast rules, but let's have some fun and make some "reform" rules of thumb:
1) If your idea starts with how to "fix" police rather than improve police, you're probably going to fail. Because police aren't broken.

2) If your reform doesn't even address the basic function of policing in terms of preventing crime and disorder, you're doing it wrong.

3) If you have no measure of success outside of administering the treatment, your fix is probably a grift.

4) If no practitioners are involved in your fix, it's probably bullshit. And ever if it's not, it's probably going to fail without practitioner input.

5) If your reform can't be implemented by local people already on the payroll, it's probably a grift. Even if not, it's too expensive and not sustainable.

6) If teaching cops new vocabulary is an essential part of reform, it's probably bullshit. There is no improvement that can't be done with the language we already use.

7) If your reform ideas are premised on the idea that violent criminals are just like theur neighbors, except for they never got a break, you need to talk to more working-class residents in high crime neighborhoods.

8) Same, if you casually equate the well being of shooters and muggers with the best interests of "the community."