If there’s anything that the last few months have taught us, it’s that at the very least, drastic reform of America’s law enforcement practices is necessary. Throughout these protests, law enforcement officers have been shown using excessive force against peaceful demonstrators, from NYPD officers driving an SUV into protestors to Buffalo cops pushing an elderly protester to the ground. And for far too long, conservatives have buried their heads in the sand, pretending that the problem of police brutality is a left-wing myth, presumably to appear “tough on crime” and maintain the perennial support of police unions come election season. This refusal by conservatives to tackle the issue has led to the growth in popularity of extreme left-wing proposals to reform the police, such as defunding the police or even dissolving it, none of which would make this country any safer. We cannot counter this push towards lawlessness by plugging our ears and pretending that policing in America is fine. It’s time for conservatives to step up and offer our solutions for ending police brutality and unjustified killings.
To be clear, none of this is to mean that all law enforcement officers in the US are bad, or even that most are bad. The vast majority of police officers in this country are patriotic and selfless citizens who place themselves in harm’s way to protect and defend their communities. The reason for reform, then, is that power tends to attract people prone to abusing it. In other words, “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The best way to maintain departments of good police officers is to enact policies that render the bad ones powerless. We should certainly place our faith in the institution of law enforcement for maintaining law and order and give them the benefit of the doubt in complex situations due to the dangerous nature of the occupation. However, we must also simultaneously recognize that police officers aren’t above the law, and that if we wish to foster trust between police and the communities they serve, we must hold them accountable to these communities, to the Constitution, and to the law. It is this respect for law enforcement coupled with a distrust of unchecked power that underscores the conservative philosophy and provides a sound basis for common-sense reforms.
Thus, any conservative reform of law enforcement must toe the fine line between upholding public safety and curtailing police brutality. We’ve seen criminals in recent months emboldened by the anti-law enforcement rhetoric coming from all echelons of our government, which has led to crime rate spikes in cities such as New York and Chicago. In any reform effort, this is exactly what we must avoid: we ought to curtail the authority that law enforcement officers have to use deadly force, but not to the extent that their hands are tied behind their backs in combating violent crime. It’s easy for us, especially millennials and gen-Zers, who grew up after the crime epidemic of the 1980’s and 1990’s, to take police presence for granted. But look not too far back in the past, and we see a time when it wasn’t safe to walk the streets of New York or Los Angeles at night. Our goal should be to reduce police brutality, but not police protection, because we can be assured that if crime rates go up to where they were 30 years ago, many more people will die.
So what steps can we take to reduce police shootings? One of the most important reforms we can implement is de-escalation training. The sobering fact of policing in America is that law enforcement officers are far too quick to draw their weapons. In fact, it is easier for a police officer to shoot a suspect in the US than it is for an American soldier to kill a terrorist. Our military rules of engagement clearly stipulate that US forces “will not fire unless fired upon.” In contrast, we’ve seen far too many examples of police officers shooting suspects for having objects that looked like firearms, the most egregious example of which is the tragic story of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed for playing with a toy gun.
One way to implement de-escalation requirements would be to set minimum standards on the use of force, under which an officer may not resort to using deadly force unless the situation crosses a predetermined threshold of severity. All law enforcement officers should be trained to use their firearm as a weapon of last resort, and only fire if their lives are in imminent danger, simply because no other situation warrants discharging a firearm. Fleeing suspects, suspects resisting arrest, or even belligerent suspects can all be dealt with in non-fatal ways using force that doesn’t result in their deaths.
Beyond reducing fatal encounters, de-escalation training will also help law enforcement officers better deal with suspects suffering from mental health issues or mental disabilities, and avoid tragedies such as the death of Elijah McClain. By learning to de-escalate situations, officers can handle suspects who are unable to follow directions in more compassionate and non-lethal ways, taking into account their disabilities and resolving these situations in a peaceful manner.
However, more training isn’t the end-all-be-all of curtailing police brutality. If we’re truly serious about reducing instances of abuse of power by law enforcement, we must tear down the “blue wall of silence” that protects abusive cops. And that starts with eliminating police unions. Ever since police unions rose to the political power they enjoy today, they’ve established a culture of protecting and covering up police officers, no matter what. Privacy clauses in police-union contracts prevent prior complaints of misconduct against officers from being released to the public. Union leaders have advocated against body camera requirements, and have even spoken in favor of criminalizing recording police officers during an encounter. Police unions have done more than virtually any other entity to shield officers from any form of accountability, and as such, if we want to hold our officers responsible for their actions, we must abolish police unions.
Abolishing police unions, in particular, should be a no-brainer among conservatives, who have long argued against public-sector unionization, especially teachers’ unions. Unfortunately, due to police unions’ almost exclusive support for Republican candidates, conservatives have made an exception for them, while still waging a war against collective bargaining by virtually any other group of government employees. Now is the time for conservatives to be philosophically and ideologically consistent. We have said for long that public sector workers shouldn’t be able to unionize. Now is the time to extend that belief to law enforcement officers as well.
Lastly, any effort to end police brutality in America must include a proposal to limit qualified immunity, a judicial doctrine which shields public officials from civil lawsuits for violating constitutional rights as long as they did not violate “clearly established law.” In practice, this means that if a police officer violates a suspect’s rights, but there isn’t any judicial precedent for the constitutionality of his actions, he is immune from lawsuit. On one hand, qualified immunity shouldn’t be completely eliminated. Law enforcement officers should be able to do their jobs without fearing that they may be sued in the aftermath, which would limit their effectiveness and their safety. At the same time, however, qualified immunity should only apply to officers who clearly acted in good faith, as was the case prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Harlow v. Fitzgerald. This would enable suspects to win civil suits against officers who obviously and egregiously violated the suspects’ constitutional protections.
In a world where ideas such as defunding and even abolishing the police are gaining traction, it is our responsibility as conservatives to pitch solutions that would accomplish the same goals, but without the collateral damage present in the left’s proposals. Perhaps defunding the police would reduce police brutality, but at what cost? If the lives saved by defunding police are being eclipsed by those lost to inner-city gang violence, is it really worth it? We must ask ourselves these questions before crafting policies out of knee-jerk reactions that sound good in theory but wouldn’t make Americans safer. And ultimately, every step we take in implementing police reform must balance law-and-order concerns with protecting the civil rights of suspects, because if we veer too far in either direction, the repercussions will be nothing but a less safe, less free America.
