Police reform in the United States

After the video of the killing of George Floyd went viral in May 2020, massive multiracial protests were held throughout the United States demanding police reform and an end to police brutality. Floyd was a forty-six-year-old unarmed Black man who died when a White police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes while Floyd repeatedly said “I can’t breathe.” More than fifteen million people participated in the subsequent protests, most of which were organized by Black Lives Matter (BLM). This movement began after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman in Florida, who in 2012 shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed seventeen-year-old Black man.

According to experts, police reform in the United States should focus on transparency and accountability. The development of a national registry of police officers with a history of misconduct would increase transparency because it would make other jurisdictions aware of the actions of these officers and prevent them from being hired for other forces after they have been dismissed from their own. To increase accountability, a national standard stating that force only be used as a last resort needs to be created and enforced. Experts also say the nation needs to end qualified immunity, which protects individual police officers from being sued when they break the law.

After Floyd’s death, federal, state, and municipal legislation was proposed to combat police misconduct, racial bias, and police brutality among the eighteen thousand law-enforcement agencies in the United States. The myriad legislation includes laws banning chokeholds, knee restraints, and no-knock warrants; requiring the use of body and dashboard cameras by police; restricting police officers’ access to military equipment; requiring police to undergo training on racial profiling; and banning the hiring of officers with a history of misconduct. Among the legislation is the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, introduced by Democrats on June 8, 2020, which aimed to combat police misconduct, excessive force, and racial bias. However, while the act passed in the House, it stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate and was opposed by President Donald Trump. Following the general election in November in which Democrats narrowly regained control of the Senate while Joe Biden was inaugurated as president in January 2021, the act was introduced once more. In March of that year, the act once again passed in the House; however, the Senate failed to reach an agreement on the act in September. That same month, the Department of Justice announced the implementation of a new policy strictly limiting federal officers' use of no-knock entries, chokeholds, and carotid restraints.

Brief History

Efforts at police reform have occurred throughout the history of the United States. However, because the nation’s law-enforcement agencies are not a single entity, uniformly changing police procedures is challenging, if not impossible. About eighteen thousand police departments are scattered throughout the United States. External commissions have been created to determine the procedural changes needed for police reform. However, the commissions merely recommended such changes and left implementation to individual police departments, which made such efforts largely unsuccessful.

In 1929, President Hoover formed the Wickersham Commission to investigate rising rates of crime and police officers’ inability to combat it. The Wickersham Commission also delved into organized crime. Formed in New York City in the 1970s, the Knapp Commission was created to investigate police corruption in the city. However, like the Wickersham Commission, the Knapp Commission was more successful in making the public aware of such corruption and crime rather than initiating changes in law-enforcement agencies.

During the professional era of the mid-twentieth century, the focus of police reform was on separating policing and politics. The civil service system was implemented to recruit and hire police officers rather than allowing politicians to do this. Officers appointed by politicians were usually required to return the favor by supporting a political agenda. Police training programs and academies became common during this time.

During the civil rights movement, US Supreme Court decisions under the Warren Court led to some changes in law enforcement. The Warren Court (1953–69) was the time when Earl Warren, an American politician, served as chief justice. Among these decisions were Mapp v. Ohio (1961) and Miranda v. Arizona (1966). In the former, it was determined that evidence seized unlawfully without a search warrant could not be used in criminal prosecutions. In the latter, the court determined that police cannot use a person’s statements during an interrogation unless the person was informed of their right to have an attorney present during questioning.

In 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act authorized the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice to bring civil suits against law enforcement agencies, thereby holding them accountable for the actions of their officers. However, the act itself was extremely controversial for its emphasis on punishment rather than prevention, initiating mass incarcerations and the need for many additional prisons.

The era of community policing began in the 1970s and 1980s and continued into the twenty-first century. Community-centered policing focuses on reducing fear and disorder in neighborhoods. Its goal is to make community members trust police and believe that police are receptive to their feedback and concerns.

Overview

Michael Brown. The killings of Black Americans by police officers in the 2010s and 2020s have drawn attention to the need for transparency and accountability in law enforcement and have led to demands for police reform. Among these killings is the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was an unarmed eighteen-year-old Black man who was shot to death by Darren Wilson, a twenty-eight-year-old White police officer. Accounts of the incident were given by Dorian Johnson, a friend of Brown’s who was with him when he was killed, and other witnesses. Wilson saw Brown and Johnson walking in a street and told them to get on the sidewalk, using his police SUV to block and confront them. Brown and Wilson then had an altercation through an open window of the SUV. Wilson claimed that Brown tried to take his gun, so he fired it. When Brown and Johnson ran, Wilson pursued them. At some point, Brown turned around and faced Wilson. Witnesses said that Brown’s hands were in the air when Wilson fired twelve shots, six of which hit Brown, killing him. Police officers left Brown’s body in the street for four hours, enraging passersby. Wilson claimed that he shot Brown in self-defense and was not charged in Brown’s killing. The numerous protests and riots that occurred after Brown’s death came to be known as the “Ferguson Unrest” and sparked debate throughout the nation about racial bias against Black Americans by police officers.

Freddie Gray. Freddie Gray was a twenty-five-year-old Black man who was arrested on April 12, 2015, by Baltimore Police for possessing a knife. Gray died from injuries to his spinal cord a week after being transported in a police van. Witnesses said that police used unnecessary force during Gray’s arrest. The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide. Criminal charges ranging from misconduct to second-degree murder were brought against the six officers involved in the crime. However, three officers were acquitted, and charges were dropped against the remaining three. Protests and riots broke out in Baltimore against racial injustice and police brutality.

Breonna Taylor. Breonna Taylor was a twenty-six-year-old emergency medical technician (EMT) from Louisville, Kentucky. Taylor was shot and killed by police on March 13, 2020, in her home, which she shared with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker. Narcotics agents believed that a friend, Jamarcus Glover, was illegally storing narcotics in Taylor’s home, but Taylor and Glover were not suspects in the investigation. A judge granted officers a controversial no-knock warrant, and police officers raided the home shortly after midnight. Because the door was locked, they used a battering ram to get inside. Taylor and Walker were asleep in their bed at the time. Believing that their home had been broken into, Walker drew a gun from a nightstand and fired, injuring an officer. Police officers then opened fire, killing Taylor. After searching the home, police officers found no evidence of illegal narcotics. After Taylor’s death, Louisville banned no-knock warrants. Initially only one of the officers involved in the raid, Brett Hankison, faced charges for Taylor's death; he was indicted in September 2020 on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment but later acquitted. However, in August 2022, Hankison and three other officers were indicted on a series of federal charges related to the shooting. After a jury deadlocked regarding Hankison's federal civil rights violations, the court declared a mistrial. Federal prosecutors decided to retry Hankison in October 2024.

George Floyd. George Floyd was a forty-six-year-old Black man who was killed by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old White police officer, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after Floyd was arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit bill. A video of the killing shows Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes while Floyd, who was handcuffed and lying face down, repeatedly tells Chauvin that he cannot breathe. Three other officers stood by and watched without intervening. Chauvin had a history of police misconduct. In 2006, he was involved in two shootings, one of which resulted in a death. He was involved in two additional shootings in 2008 and also shot at a man running from a crime scene in 2011. Chauvin was the subject of at least seventeen complaints. In response to Floyd's death, the Minnesota legislature passed a policing reform package in July that largely banned the use of chokeholds, instituted a requirement for officer intervention in cases of the use of excessive force by another officer, demanded more officer training for situations involving people with mental illness or mental disabilities, and included several other provisions. Chauvin, ultimately facing state charges of third-degree murder, unintentional second-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, was put on trial in early 2021, and in April, a jury found him guilty on all three counts; in June he was sentenced to twenty-two and a half years in prison. The three officers who did not intervene to save Floyd (Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas K. Lane) were charged with aiding and abetting a murder. The following month, the announcement was made by the Department of Justice that Chauvin, Thao, Kueng, and Lane had been indicted on federal charges pertaining to the case including unreasonable use of force and failing to intervene or provide medical aid. While these judicial developments were seen by many as a good step, activists argued that much more work still needed to be done to get to the root of the issue before any real change could occur. In December, Chauvin pleaded guilty in the federal civil rights violations case.

Jacob Blake. Jacob Blake is a twenty-nine-year-old Black man who was shot several times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 24, 2020. When police officers responded to a call about a domestic incident, Blake walked away. He attempted to open the door of his SUV, and a police officer grabbed his shirt and shot him several times in the back, severing his spinal cord and paralyzing him from the waist down. Blake’s three young children were in the SUV and witnessed the shooting. The two officers involved in the incident were placed on administrative leave. Riots and protests broke out in Kenosha, lasting for days after the incident and resulting in the deaths of several individuals. Both Kenosha's county district attorney and the Department of Justice decided against charging the officer in 2021. In the summer of 2021, Wisconsin's governor signed several police reform bills into law, but activists said much more was needed.

Daunte Wright. In April 2021, protests calling for police reform once again erupted following the death of Daunte Wright, a young, unarmed Black man who had been shot and killed by a White police officer during a traffic stop. According to reports, once Wright had been stopped, officers at the scene had begun attempting to arrest him for an outstanding court appearance warrant when he tried to get away. This fatal police shooting, committed by an officer who had been on the force for many years but maintained that she had meant to use her Taser, was held up once again as an example of the perceived need for actual reforms in policing, especially as it occurred in Minnesota during Chauvin's trial, not far from the location where Floyd had died. Shortly after, the officer, Kim Potter, was arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter. In May 2021, the city of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, where the fatal shooting of Wright occurred, passed a resolution to implement a wide-scale package of policing reforms that included adjustments in responses to certain violations, as well as calls related to mental health distress. After the attorney general's office added a first-degree manslaughter charge and Potter's trial occurred, a jury convicted her on both counts in December 2021.

Federal and Local Legislation. After the video of Floyd’s killing surfaced, protests and riots broke out throughout the country and around the world demanding police reform. They resulted in proposed legislation at the federal and state levels.

The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 was proposed by Democrats in Congress on June 8, 2020. Among other reforms, the act would make it easier for the federal government to prosecute cases of police misconduct, eliminate qualified immunity of law, ban the use of chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and allow the use of deadly force only as a last resort, requiring officers to first use de-escalation techniques. The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 passed in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives but failed to move forward in the Senate that year. In March 2021, after having been reintroduced, the act was once again passed by the House; in September, the Senate failed to reach an agreement on the act.

On June 16, 2020, President Donald Trump signed the Executive Order on Safe Policing for Safe Communities. This legislation grants funding for police departments that become certified by independent credentialed bodies approved by the attorney general. Such certification includes policies prohibiting the use of chokeholds except in situations where the use of deadly force is permitted by law. Certification also includes training in de-escalation techniques.

The George Floyd Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act was proposed by the House in June 2020. Among other reforms, the act would require federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies to report to the Justice Department the deadly use of force by police officers; grant monetary awards to law-enforcement agencies with new programs for hiring, such as aiming to hire more diverse officers; and create a set of federal minimum standards for police officers.

The Ending Qualified Immunity Act was a police reform bill proposed in July 2020 and reintroduced in March 2021 to remove the judicial doctrine of qualified immunity, which protected police officers from being held personally responsible for violating citizens’ rights. Supporters of the bill believe that it would significantly reduce the number of incidents of police brutality by holding police officers accountable for their actions. In October 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in support of qualified immunity in two cases. In both cases, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of police officers who had been accused of using excessive force in response to domestic disturbances. Meanwhile, some states and municipalities introduced bills to end qualified immunity, with many failing to pass while Colorado and New York City had passed legislation banning and limiting, respectively, this defense.

Defunding Police. After Floyd’s murder, protesters, politicians, and religious leaders called for the defunding of police. Defunding refers to taking money allotted to police departments and using it to fund other community resources such as health care, housing, and education that are designed to improve people’s quality of life. Supporters point out that police officers are not stationed on every corner in White affluent neighborhoods. They argue that improvements in quality of life in neighborhoods with high crime would lead to a drop in crime, thereby reducing the number of police officers needed in these areas. However, Trump had been against such a move when he was president, and Democrat Joe Biden, inaugurated as president in January 2021, was also against defunding police departments. Instead, Biden expressed support for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which passed the House but not the Senate that year. In May 2022, Biden signed an executive order on police reform which, among other measures, established a National Law Enforcement Accountability Database intended to collect information on police misconduct from all federal law enforcement agencies.

In November 2021 Minneapolis was one of the first cities to add a ballot measure to overhaul the police system and replace the police department with a new department. Voters rejected the measure, and throughout the early 2020s political leaders in a number of other large US cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, distanced themselves from similar efforts. This shift came amid a wider decline in support for defunding the police; a study conducted by the Pew Research Center in late 2021 found that only 15 percent of US adults wanted cuts to police funding, a drop in support of nearly 10 percent compared to 2020.

Despite waning levels of support, even among Black Americans and Democratic voters, for such extensive defunding or overhauling of police departments, many activists continued to call for systemic reforms. They noted how the US continued to see high numbers of police-involved killings; for example, in 2022, US law enforcement officers killed at least 1,176 people, the highest number since at least 2013, and Black Americans comprised a disproportionate share of people killed by police in the US. In January 2023, calls for reform grew even louder following the death of Tyre Nichols, a young Black father and FedEx employee who was beaten to death by police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, during a traffic stop. Following Nichols's death, large protests occurred in Memphis and elsewhere in the US, five officers involved in his death were charged with second-degree murder, and some Democratic US lawmakers began preparations to bring the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to a vote in Congress once again. In May 2024, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, reintroduced the act in the House, less than two months before she died. On the local level, a number of communities looked into altering practices around traffic stops for minor violations; by April 2023 Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and some other cities had ordered police to stop conducting these types of stops, and other governments considered legislation of their own.

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