Is There Hope for the Chicago Police Department?

http://www.thenation.com/article/is-there-hope-for-the-chicago-police-department/

First, this nation must end the drug war. More than any other public policy, the War on Drugs has made enemies of cops and citizens (disproportionately young, poor, and of color). It has corrupted countless police officers and law-enforcement agencies. It has done irreparable harm to individuals, families, and neighborhoods. Further, despite having spent, by one commonly cited estimate, close to $1.5 trillion prosecuting and incarcerating tens of millions of people (many sick or mentally ill, and in need of treatment, not jail) between 1970 and 2010, illicit drugs are more readily available, at lower prices, and higher levels of potency than when President Nixon famously declared this war on the American people.

Second, using the tens of billions of dollars saved by ending the drug war—with a portion of the savings earmarked for a strong regulatory system, as well as drug-abuse education and treatment—the Justice Department should be tasked with setting and enforcing national standards for every branch of American law enforcement: federal, state, and local. Congress should expand DOJ’s current investigative duties to include formulation of reasonable, defensible standards of performance and conduct for every cop in the country. Each officer, each agency, must achieve certification in all aspects of procedural justice: search and seizure; stop-and-frisk; laws of arrest; rules of evidence; use of force, including lethal force; and First Amendment protections. The Justice Department must also be empowered to decertify, for cause, individual officers and individual agencies.

And, third, based on the constitutional premise that the police belong to the people and not the other way around, an aroused and organized citizenry (including representatives of such organizations as Black Lives Matter as well as sympathetic police officers and politicians) should demand full citizen participation in all aspects of police operations: hiring, policy-making, program development, training, crisis management, and citizen oversight. In only exigent, dangerous situations should police officers make unilateral decisions—in conformity with policies set by the citizen-police partnership.