How to Go After Rogue Prosecutors

When the world saw Los Angeles police officers beat Rodney King on camera in 1991, conversations about how the police engage with communities of color were destined to change. Congress heard the general public’s cries for accountability. Although the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 hiked up prison sentences and increased funding for police recruitment, it also contained a provision for what one law professor has since called “the only reliable way to rebuild police-community relations”: the federal pattern-or-practice investigation.

Few among the general public might call these investigations by this name, but their usual result—a federal consent decree between the Justice Department and a city to force police reform—has become widely known, especially since and obtained a consent decree to gear police practices “toward de-escalation and avoiding force.”