What just happened?
On August 23rd, 2020, Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man was shot multiple times by Rusten Sheskey, a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin.[1] The shooting occurred two months after the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (2020), a civil rights bill aimed at combatting racial bias, police misconduct, and the use of excessive force.[2] In response to the shooting, Reverend Bernice King, minister and CEO of Martin Luther King Jr. Center posted on social media, “we shouldn’t have to see one more video of a Black human being brutalized and/or gunned down by police in a clear case of excessive or unwarranted force”.[3]
Jacob Blake, a 29 year-old African American Man (Image on the left) was shot 7 times getting into car.
What does this mean?
The lack of institutionalised changes within America’s criminal justice system, most notably across its (approx.)18,000 police forces is reprehensible.[4] Changes need to be made and maintained in the education of police officers at all ranks through to new recruits with mandatory training in subjects including cultural diversity, hate crimes, conflict management skills, and community policing strategies. Topics such as these should, in addition, aim to address both explicit and implicit racial biases held by many law enforcement officials.[5]
In comparison to many European countries, police recruits in the United States spend significantly less time in police training. Standard U.S. training programs take “twenty-one weeks on average, whereas similar European programs can last more than three years”.[6] The U.S. has an absence of nation-wide standards for what recruits should learn, due to the fact that there are hundreds of police academies across the country. As a result, police academies across the U.S. focus heavily on training in “technical skills rather than communication and restraint”.[7] Indeed, A report compiled by the Justice Department in 2006 found that police recruits typically “spent the most time learning firearms skills (median instruction time of 60 hours) and self-defence skills (51 hours)” in comparison to just 11 hours on cultural diversity, 8 hours on community policing strategies, and 8 hours on mediation skills.[8]
Any future reforms in the education of U.S. law enforcement should also meet human rights standards. All training on and around the subject of force should not focus so heavily on using force, but instead on de-escalation, conflict management, and mediation skills. There should also be a clear focus on the Human Rights Standards Use of force: “everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person -- no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”, and thereby “focus on the need to ensure that police operations are planned and controlled in such a manner as to minimise the likelihood of recourse to lethal force”.[9]
A report compiled by the Justice Department in 2006 found that police recruits typically “spent the most time learning firearms skills (median instruction time of 60 hours) and self-defence skills (51 hours)” in comparison to just 11 hours on cultural diversity, 8 hours on community policing strategies, and 8 hours on mediation skills.
Many academics, including Paul Hirschfield, an associate sociology and criminal-justice professor at Rutgers University agrees that there should be mandatory changes in education, specifically on the subject of force. Hirschfield has stated that “if you make it more difficult to use deadly force, legally and through training, then police departments need to adapt” their tactics.[10] In many countries where police are typically unarmed, governments are able to invest in “advanced level of training for law enforcement”.[11] In Norway, for instance, police recruits must complete a mandatory three-year bachelor’s degree, spending “one year studying society and ethics, another shadowing officers, and a final year focusing on investigations and completing a thesis”.[12] Statistically, this type of training has shown to be very effective as a report published by the Norwegian government shows that even in situations where guns were used by the Norwegian police, “police fired just two shots in all of 2014. In the 12 years leading up to then, the only fatal shootings came in 2005 and 2006” compared to the U.S. which had “59 fatal police shootings in the first 24 days of 2015”.[13]
Why did George Floyd die? The history of police brutality in the US.
The U.S. has potentially begun to show developments in the reforming of their criminal justice system after a bill titled The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, was passed this summer. Title III of the Act includes detailed sections on amendments in education in both racial bias and the use of unnecessary force including, Training on Racial Bias and the Duty to Intervene (Section 361), mandating “training at the federal level and conditions federal funding for states and local agencies on implementation of such trainings”.[14] In addition, Changing the Use of Force Standard through the Peace Act (Section 364) “alters the standard to evaluate use of force from whether the force was reasonable to whether it was necessary”.[15] Unfortunately, the bill is not expected to create any traction now or in the near future as President Donald Trump and the Republican controlled Senate openly oppose the bill.[16] At LawMiracle, we believe that changes could happen at a more local level, if city and state governments are willing to commit to the issue. “The complexities of police administration and institutional design require serious attention that is not going to happen with a presidential candidate -- but could and should happen at the gubernatorial level”.[17]
Reforms in police education is just one of the many issues that needs to be addressed not just within America’s law enforcement agencies, but the U.S. criminal justice system as a whole, including defunding the police.[18] Please also consult the final two references for more information about the topics touched on briefly in this article.
Written by Connie Barnes
Assessing Firms:
#White & Case LLP #Fragomen #Berry Appleman & Leiden #Weil Gotshal & Manges #Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer #Latham & Watkins #Kirkland & Ellis #Clifford Chance #Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison #Cleary Gottlieb
References:
[1] Julie Bosman and Sarah Mervosh, ‘Wisconsin reels after police shooting and second night of protests’ (The New York Times, 24 August 2020).
[2] George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 (116th Congress , H Report 116-434).
[3] ‘Video shows Wisconsin police shooting a black man multiple times as he enters a car’ (LNW, 24 August 2020).
[4] Duren Banks and others, ‘National Sources Of Law Enforcement Employment Data’, (US Department of Justice, 4 October 2016).
[5] ‘Implicit Racism’ (Encyclopedia.Com, 18 September 2020).
[6] Amelia Cheatham and Lindsay Maizland, ‘How police compare in different democracies’ (Council on Foreign Relations, 30 July 2020).
[7] Ibid.
[8] Brian A. Reaves, ‘State and Local Law Enforcement Training Academics’ (Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, 2006).
[9] ‘Universal Declaration Of Human Rights’ (UN General Assembly, 2020).
[10] Yasmeen Serhan, ‘What the world could teach America about policing’ (The Atlantic, 10 June 2020).
[11] Mélissa Godin, ‘What the U.S. can learn from countries where cops don’t carry guns’ (Time, 19 June 2020).
[12] Ibid.
[13] Chris Weller, ‘American cops can’t go a day without a gun death – here’s how Norway went 10 years without one’ (Business Insider, 2 August 2015); Jamiles Lartey, ‘By the numbers: U.S. police kill more in days than other countries do in years’ (The Guardian, 9 June 2015).
[14] ‘Analysis of The Justice In Policing Act of 2020’ (Covington, 12 June 2020).
[15] Ibid.
[16] Catie Edmondson, ‘House passes sweeping policing bill targeting racial bias and use of force’ (The New York Times, 25 June 2020).
[17] Yasmeen Serhan, ‘What the world could teach America about policing’ (The Atlantic, 10 June 2020).
[18] Sam Levin, ‘What does “defund the police” mean? The rallying cry sweeping the U.S. – explained’ (The Guardian, 6 June 2020).
Disclaimer: This article (and any information accessed through links in this article) is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.