Policing in America

In use-of-force trainings, police departments impose hard and fast rules on their officers despite departmental claims that such rules are unworkable. These rules, invisible to the public, often distribute risks of harm to the very civilians police are sworn to protect.

It's been a year since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and there have been a lot of police reform efforts since then. A lot of them have come to nothing, but some of them have been very productive—at the state level, in certain cities and even, to a certain extent, at the federal level. To discuss the police reform successes and failures of the last year, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Rashawn Ray, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the David M.

It's time to apply vicarious liability to local governments whose police officers violate the civil rights of residents. The change would be a more important reform for Section 1983 litigation than getting rid of qualified immunity for individual officers.

Abolishing qualified immunity, moving police misconduct payouts to police department insurance policies and having individual officers carry liability insurance could help transform policing in the United States.