Department of Justice Consent Decrees as the Foundation for Community-Initiated Collaborative Police Reform

Abstract

Acting pursuant to authority granted by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. §1414, the Department of Justice has entered into dozens of agreements generally known as consent decrees. Consent decrees are costly, ad hoc, and necessarily limited responses to a historically rooted and widespread problem, one that has become more prominent, divisive, and volatile as a result of the ubiquitous video-recording of police–civilian interactions and the divergent views concerning appropriate police tactics between police and the communities in which they operate. Collectively, these consent decrees constitute a compendium of best practices for constitutional, effective, community-oriented policing. This article argues that they can empower communities to initiate police reform and to educate communities concerning the elements of effective, constitutional policing, establish agreement with the police concerning the elements of constitutional and effective policing, and serve as the foundation for an agreed-upon roadmap for reform, including measures of progress, accountability, and results.