For the final article in my series on how policing could change under President Trump, I’m going to look at the Department of Justice practice of using consent decrees to push for reform in local police departments. In this context, a consent decree is a binding agreement between a police department and the DOJ that is reached as a settlement after the DOJ sues the police department for an alleged pattern of civil rights violations. This is something that is widely expected to decline under Jeff Sessions’ leadership. Continue reading “Trump’s presidency: A hiatus in consent decrees”
Trump’s presidency: The 1033 program
This continues a series of articles looking at different ways Trump’s election might have an impact on law enforcement.
As I noted in my last post, the transfer of military equipment to local police departments has been a subject of scrutiny and controversy in recent years, and the Trump presidency looks to be conducive to that transfer.
Military Equipment and the Police
A common criticism you hear coming from progressive circles these days is against the “militarization” of police. This criticism goes deeper than just equipment, and deserves (and will ultimately get) more treatment than what I’ll say in just this article. But the face of the argument is in police equipment: most visibly, rifles, armored vehicles, and more BDU-like uniforms.