Policing the Police.

• Author: Gilmore, Brian
• Position: Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do About It

As a law student, I worked in the legal department of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections, which defends the city against civil lawsuits when a resident of a jail is killed or seriously injured while in custody. Memories of that summer internship returned when I read Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do About It, by Roger A. Mitchell Jr. and Jay D. Aronson.

Death in Custody is a radical shift in how to analyze violence, misconduct, and dysfunction in the criminal justice system in the modern era. It makes sense, considering advancements in technology and increased outrage from the public when someone dies in police custody.

While media outlets argue daily over the severity of the problem, Mitchell and Aronson have published a book that has some real answers based on science and data. Most of all, this is a call for a public health and human rights approach to the issue. As the authors note, "the American public is demanding change in the way the criminal legal system operates and accountability when law enforcement officials cause harm."

Mitchell, a forensic pathologist, professor, and former chief medical examiner for the District of Columbia, and Aronson, a professor of science, technology, and society at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, set out immediately to make their case in the first chapter, called "Lynching." This chapter puts a spotlight on the history of killings in custody in the United States and lynchings in general to make an important historical comparison. The country effectively legitimized mob rule during the lynching era, which has carried over to the modern era. Aronson and Mitchell note that while "we must take care when making comparisons between lynching and deaths in law enforcement custody," the similarities are "undeniable." African Americans, they write, consider it within the "same continuum of violence."

Lynchings did wane as a result of fierce resistance, but other heinous acts driven by white supremacy took their place. The fact that African Americans are repeatedly murdered in police custody at a disproportionate rate is evidence of this. In the era before smartphones, there...