In a report issued March 16, the Department of Justice delivered an unfortunate truth to the New Orleans government:
“For far too long, the New Orleans Police Department failed to adequately protect the citizens of the city.”
In arguably the most prominent city in Louisiana, a failure to sufficiently police the streets is a travesty.
According to the “scathing” report (which doesn’t even mention the 20 federal cases made against New Orleans police officers in the last three years), the NOPD has been found systematically guilty of excessive force, racial profiling and LGBT discrimination, among various other failures.
This hardly comes as a surprise to anyone who has visited, lived in or read about New Orleans. Mayor Mitch Landrieu himself was not surprised at its content, having requested the investigation in May.
To successfully reform the NOPD, the next step is to enter into a consent decree with the DOJ — “a binding judicial degree officially memorializing a voluntary agreement between two parties.” The agreement usually involves the restructuring of police policy, training and recruitment.
It’s a step in the right direction, but some people don’t seem to think so.
Like any far-reaching political decision, entering into a consent decree engenders one of two emotions — either embittered discontent or overpowering relief.
Detractors see the move as an encroachment of state sovereignty, as well an attack on the city’s integrity.
This point of view has already been demonstrated in New Orleans. Jim Gallagher, spokesman of the New Orleans Fraternal Brotherhood of Police, said in a statement the federal government will receive no cooperation from the group’s 1,200 or so members because (so he claims) the report puts honest officers on the same level as corrupt ones.
Balderdash.
The report clearly states on the first page of text that “the majority of the force is hardworking and committed to public safety,” but “too many officers of every rank either do not understand or choose to ignore the boundaries of constitutional policing.” Moreover, the view is restated in a letter to Mayor Landrieu accompanying the report.
Negative sentiments like Gallagher’s are poison to this initiative to end corruption. If the plan is to succeed, then the cooperation, input and goodwill of the people of New Orleans is not just desired, but necessary.
There are obvious difficulties involved in the process of reorganizing a corrupt police department, not the least of which is the unfortunate conundrum of how to police the police.
This isn’t the first time someone has tried to reform the NOPD — Mayor Ernest “Ditch” Morials attempted to overhaul the police department in the late 1970s and early 1980s to no avail, while in the 1990s, feds considered stepping in to reorganize a failing system but instead chose to allow then-Police Chief Richard Pennington to oversee a series of reforms without judiciary oversight.
Obviously, neither of those programs stuck. Good tries, though.
Reaching out to the federal government was the inevitable next step.
The DOJ has drawn up consent decrees with several cities, including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Detroit, some of the most notoriously crime-ridden communities in the nation. Mostly, the effects have been positive, with little to no perceivable negative impact.
And luckily, the changes seem to have a habit of sticking around.
A study issued by the DOJ in 2003 claims Pittsburgh’s level of success after the lifting of the consent decrees was equal to when the consent decrees were in place — in other words, a major improvement.
Of course, compliance isn’t easy. After 11 years of struggling, Detroit just recently failed to meet its deadline in implementing the stipulations.
The overall benefits of the deal seem to be perfectly clear. If nothing else, the attempt is something new and different for a city whose corruption has spanned practically the entirety of its existence.
Macy Linton is a 19-year-old international studies freshman from Memphis, Tenn. Follow her on Twitter @TDR_Mlinton.