The author illustrates how police reinforce structural power and social inequalities through specific cases from the Minneapolis police department and other police-civilian encounters that have been widely reported in social and mainstream media throughout the past decade (2012-2022). Several policing practices including the use of no-knock search warrants, inappropriate uses of force (e.g., a ‘chokehold' that obstructs a suspect's breathing), and asset forfeiture are often used disproportionately against minority groups. Law enforcement officers are often protected from legal prosecution for civil rights violations under qualified immunity. Qualified immunity coupled with political and media constructions of rising crime and the need to protect police officers from potentially dangerous individuals serve to reinforce existing police-civilian outcomes. These “frames of understanding” result in continued racial discrimination in policing outcomes.
TopOrganizational Failure
It is widely discussed within policing circles that law enforcement officers hate change, even while their work environment is seemingly always changing. This outside demand for change within police organizations, even while those within the organization continue to resist such changes, presents ideal situations for continued, cyclical, failure of new implementation strategies. One study of 353 officers across seven Canadian police agencies (Kalyal, 2020) reported that the majority of officers themselves feel their organizations have limited success in implementing new policing strategies. The reasons most often expressed by officers explaining such organizational failures include lack of officer buy-in to the new policies; lack of effective communication by department leaders; having leaders who themselves are either resistant to change or fail to properly implement new policies and procedures due to lack of vision and improper planning; a loss of motivation by front line officers due to lack of organizational direction; and a lack of resources. When policy changes deal with homeland security initiatives, organizational “buy-in” to new policy implementation has been shown to be tied to federal grant monies associated with such policies and organizational plans (Jiao, 2021).
As for the continued trend in implementing the use of body-worn cameras, officers conveyed more willingness to accept the new body camera protocols and expressed more positive attitudes towards the implementation of body worn cameras once they discovered the policy was not being used to identify minor instances of officer misconduct within their department (Koen & Willis, 2020). There is an estimated 200,000-400,000 untested rape kits in police custody throughout the U.S. (Campbell et al., 2017). The main variable in predicting rape kit policy implementation success within police departments is having an influential champion for the policy (Campbell & Fehler-Cabral, 2020). In particular, long-standing, multi-disciplinary sexual assault teams coupled with committed leadership inside and outside of the police organization can greatly impact police organizational implementation strategies (Campbell & Fehler-Cabral, 2020).
The main point that can be concluded from recent research on police organization policy implementation is that continued pressure for policy implementation from community organizations, coupled with buy in from police department leadership (at times due to new policies being tied to new organizational revenue streams such as federal funding for specific policy adoption) are necessary ingredients in enacting and ensuring continued long-term organizational change. Furthermore, general acceptance of the new policy by front-line personnel is also necessary for long term change within policing organizations. While such organizational strategies have been seemingly successful in the areas of implementing new homeland security, body worn camera, and rape kit submitting policies, the evidence remains unclear (at best) as it pertains to changes in excessive force and civil right protection strategies.