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Since the shooting of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last August there have been growing calls for reforming police tactics in the United States. Liberal and libertarian groups charge that American police have become “militarized” and much too aggressive. These groups note that in addition to Brown, other unarmed suspects have died after interactions with police officials such as Freddie Gray in Baltimore and Eric Garner in New York City. Protests that emerged from the deaths of these men and others sometimes degenerated into violence with Ferguson and Baltimore experiencing riots this season, thereby creating some of the worst civil unrest that America has seen since the late 1960s. President Barack Obama and the Justice Department have investigated local police forces more diligently over the last six years and such investigations are likely to continue as an estimated 500 Americans have been killed by police officers this year. Proponents of reform argue that police need to do a better job interacting with the communities they serve and that better training is needed for officers when they interact with young people, the mentally ill, and minority groups. Opponents argue that an emphasis on community policing will create the re-emergence of a national crime wave, with some noting that a “Ferguson effect” is taking place where criminals are more empowered than ever before as police hold back for fear of criminal prosecution if they make a mistake.
This topic brief will explain the reasons given for police reforms, highlight some of the reforms that are ongoing in police departments throughout the country, and then analyze the impediments that exist to reform.
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