On Police Reform, Compromise Is A Dirty Word. It Shouldn't Be.

The actual compromises on police reform are on policy, not whether it is needed.

A sigh of relief echoed throughout countless homes as Derek Chauvin’s charges came back guilty, guilty, guilty. But before that moment, those verdicts were a source of debate. For some, the debate was whether he was guilty at all.

For others, that debate was already settled. Their concern was whether he would be charged at all. That reflects an immense absence of trust in our nation’s justice system. The absurd lack of accountability is best reflected from outside observers. The Betoota Advocate, an Australian newspaper, ran a headline on the trial which bluntly read, “Murderer Who Got Caught Committing Murder On Video Found Guilty Of Murder.”

The calls for change in policing brought to the forefront of national debate after the murder of George Floyd are still just as important today. One officer receiving the very minimum of accountability is not the issue’s end, but its beginning. We need more than accountability. We need justice. What that looks like is not agreed upon.

At a glance, much of the Four Rivers student body supports total abolition of policing. While there’s some variation, the consistent concept is replacing police with specialized social workers, completely removing violent options from the equation as a means of preventing police brutality. But that’s just a glance. Political opinions are most commonly expressed publicly through Instagram graphics. Not only does not everyone have Instagram, it’s not safe to assume that anyone not posting pro-abolition messages directly opposes the approach. Social media just isn’t a good way to learn what people believe.

All of that is to say that abolition will be present in the classroom if there is ever a discussion of policing. I believe that view lacks one key complication. Suppose that 25% of the student body supports abolition, a low estimate. That’s a fair bit higher than the 15% of Americans who support the idea across the country, according to a Gallup survey of 36,000 of us, conducted over the summer. Not only is it highly unlikely that these 15% are clustered together with enough density and political power to actually vote to abolish policing in their area, but let’s say they are.

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that New York City (picked at random) decides to abolish policing, and everything goes well there. That on its own leaves everywhere else just as bad as it was before. If you want to change policing for the better, even if you support abolition, you’re going to have to compromise. That can sound sickening, given that compromise in the past has meant letting police brutality occur wherever and whenever. What needs to be pursued is actual reform. Massive reform, but reform that can pass if put up to a vote. No matter how well you can argue for a policy and its positive impact on people, if you don’t want it put to a vote for fear of the people voting against you, your policy isn’t going to make it in our system.

What reform is actually politically possible, then? Well, quite a bit. Once more, from Gallup:

Let’s not pretend that just because a majority of party members support something that the party will act on it. We may as well be skewing against the people in our system. But these numbers are striking. With enough reasonable debate and correct framing, I believe that we have shot at real police reform in this country.

Imagine if across the country, every police department had to meet the following requirements:

• All officers must live within the area they operate in, and attend community events to build trust.

• Every police department is run by an elected civilian member of the community, by the locals.

• All future police and any police reported for behavior attend two years of mandatory training.

• Absolutely no use of tear gas, which is banned by the Geneva Conventions.

Those are just a few ideas. There’s much more that can be done and has to be done than a list that short can contain. I am hopeful that even in our system, reforms like these are possible. Getting to anywhere better than where we are now requires compromise. The trick is knowing when to compromise on policy to avoid compromising on morality.