After former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd last week, the window may have reopened for criminal justice reform in Washington, D.C.
Tim Scott, the only African American Republican senator, is leading bipartisan talks with key Democratic lawmakers such as Rep. Karen Bass and Sen. Cory Booker. Republicans understandably value law and order and instinctively support the police, but polls show that officers themselves actually favor many reasonable reform proposals. With that in mind, conservative voters should support these three commonsense police reforms as a way to work with Democrats and improve our indisputably flawed criminal justice system.
1) Mandating Body Camera Usage By Officers Nationwide
In cases like Floyd’s, we only know about the tragic injustice because police camera footage was released. Without that footage, the officer who took Floyd’s life never would’ve been held accountable. Indeed, the original police report described Floyd’s death as follows: “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction” — a funny way to describe being pinned to the ground for nine minutes until losing consciousness and then not provided emergency medical assistance by officers.
Body cameras are in use in some departments and states scattered across the country, but there’s no reason requirements shouldn’t be adopted nationwide. It would improve accountability and likely decrease the unnecessary use of force. Moreover, it’s not anti-police for conservatives to support such a requirement. Nearly 75% of officers surveyed by Morning Consult supported requiring body cameras, and in many cases, body camera footage is used to vindicate officers when they haven’t actually done anything wrong. Body cameras also offer obvious advantages to prosecutors, providing court-admissible evidence of criminal conduct.
2) Demilitarizing the Police
When we give police officers far more militaristic weaponry than they actually need, we set them up for failure and make the use of excessive force more likely. Under a current federal initiative known as the 1033 Program, the government transfers military equipment to police officers to use in drug enforcement, such as grenade launchers, military-grade drones, night-vision sniper scopes, armored vehicles, and more.
Conservatives can and should support rolling back this excessive program to limit abuse — without endangering police officers. According to a study of 9,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, this equipment has had no bearing on the number of officers killed or harmed in the line of duty. It’s also been shown that police militarization doesn’t decrease crime. Meanwhile, other evidence shows that the militarization of police has led to worsening relationships between citizens and officers — the very problem people across the political spectrum are increasingly eager to solve.
3) Heavily restricting ‘No-Knock’ Warrants
Police execute roughly 20,000 “no-knock” warrants each year, searches in which they burst into a suspect’s home without announcing themselves as police. These warrants are given out by judges like rubber stamps, even though they can result in deadly tragedies in which shootouts break out between confused homeowners facing unknown intruders and officers executing a lawful warrant.
This routinely leads to injury and death. The left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union conducted an analysis that looked at 818 no-knock raids and found seven deaths (including two suicides to escape arrest) and 46 civilian injuries. And there is more than 20 times that number of annual raids, so the total death and injury and injury figures are likely over 1,000.
In true cases when law enforcement officers are trying to apprehend a serial killer or terrorist, perhaps such drastic tactics are necessary. But conservatives and liberals alike should at least support banning unannounced home invasions in mere drug enforcement cases, which have become one of “no-knocks” most common usages.
Conservatives Can Make Room for Reasonable Compromise
Conservatives rightly reject calls to “defund the police.” We also justifiably oppose left-wing hostility toward law enforcement. However, that doesn’t mean we must stubbornly defend the status quo.
Our criminal justice system is deeply flawed, and we can support police reforms to improve it meaningfully without turning our backs on the brave people who wear blue.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a Washington Examiner contributor and host of the Breaking Boundaries podcast.
