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

• DOI: 10.1177/1098611117712237
• Date: 01 September 2017
• Published date: 01 September 2017
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Department of Justice

Consent Decrees as

the Foundation for

Community-Initiated

Collaborative Police

Reform

David L. Douglass

1

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 wide-

spread 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.

Keywords

consent decrees, police reform, constitutional policing

1

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, Washington, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:

David L. Douglass, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, 2099 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite

100, Washington, DC 20006-6801, USA.

Email: ddouglass@sheppardmullin.com

Police Quarterly

2017, Vol. 20(3) 322–336

!The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/1098611117712237

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