Trauma, anger and pain have boiled over in Minneapolis since George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. As the only state where police officers are required to have a college degree, we have the most educated police force in the nation. Yet we are continually making national headlines for officers killing unarmed citizens. Each incident seems to follow a now-familiar cycle that includes pain, outrage, demands for change, and what seems a conciliatory attempt to improve officer training, police-community relations, or both.
As professors of criminal justice, we focus our teaching and research on the social inequalities and structural mechanisms deeply rooted in the criminal justice system. Changes are needed in policing in Minnesota. Below, we recommend several changes that follow existing research. These policy changes are only a beginning. They do not address the longstanding systemic racism in the Twin Cities, where we have some of the worst racial disparities in the country. They do not address the recruitment problem in Minnesota policing, where there is a desperate shortage of officers of color policing in communities where they live. They do not address the toxic culture within some Minnesota police departments, or the need to address officer mental health. They will not rebuild the trust between the MPD and the community, which is likely irrevocably damaged.
These changes are a start. They have little cost. And they can be enacted right now.
- Use independent prosecutors
- Evaluate officer training in Minnesota
To our knowledge, there has been no evaluation of this new in-service training mandate over the past two years. Our sense is that few departments have used the millions of dollars of funding that the Legislature provided for training, and the training that is taking place is primarily provided by retired law enforcement officers as opposed to experts in conflict management, mental illness, and cultural diversity. For training funds to make a difference, their impact must be independently evaluated.
- Establish a Critical Incident Review Board
- Re-examine the Minnesota POST Board
The Minnesota legislature created The POST Board in 1967 to establish law enforcement licensing and training requirements, and set standards for law enforcement agencies and officers. As the Star Tribune showed in 2017, over the past two decades, hundreds of Minnesota law enforcement officers have been convicted of criminal offenses. However, most were never disciplined by the state because the POST Board has little authority. In the criminal complaint against Derek Chauvin, one of the officers is “worried about excited delirium or whatever.” Excited Delirium is not recognized by the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, or the World Health Organization as a legitimate diagnosis. Yet it continues to be a POST learning objective required to be taught to all future Minnesota officers. Currently, 10 of the 15 seats on the Minnesota POST Board are held by law enforcement. It needs to be restructured, and independently evaluated.
- Change the use-of-force statute in Minnesota
These recommendations are consistent with the recommendations of the Minnesota Working Group on Police-Involved Deadly Force Encounters and the 21st Century Task Force on Policing. We are calling on Minnesota to use these recommendations to help break this cycle. We must make meaningful evidence-based change that is continuously independently evaluated.
Gina Erickson, Sarah Greenman, Jillian Peterson, and Shelly Schaefer are associate professors of criminology and criminal justice at Hamline University.
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