July 1, 2026 • 34 mins
When crime rises, the instinct is usually to hire more officers, increase enforcement, and ask police departments to do even more. But after spending years investigating police departments and working on reform efforts across the country, my guest today has started asking a different question…
What if we’re asking policing to do too much in the first place?
Christy Lopez is a professor at Georgetown Law, former DOJ Civil Rights Division attorney, and one of the leading voices on policing reform and alternative public safety responses.
In this episode, we talk about the limits of traditional police reform, why consent decrees have struggled to produce lasting change, and what it would look like to build a more diversified public safety ecosystem instead of relying almost entirely on law enforcement.
Christy Lopez is a Professor at Georgetown Law, where she teaches courses on policing, criminal procedure, and civil rights, and is the Faculty Director of Georgetown's Center for Innovations in Community Safety. Prior to going to Georgetown in 2017, she was at the U.S. Department of Justice where she led the Division's group conducting pattern-or-practice investigations of law enforcement agencies.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
I'm Jeff Asher, and this is Jeffalytics Podcast.
When crime rises, the instinctis usually to hire more
officers, increase enforcement,and ask police departments to do
even more.
But after spending yearsinvestigating police departments
and working on reform effortsacross the country, my guest
today has started asking adifferent question.
What if we're asking policing todo too much in the first place?
(00:22):
Christy Lopez is a professor atGeorgetown Law, former
Department of Justice CivilRights Division attorney, and
one of the leading voices onpolicing reform and alternative
police responses.
In this episode, we talked aboutthe limits of traditional police
reform, why consent decrees havestruggled to produce lasting
change, and what it would looklike to build a more diversified
public safety ecosystem insteadof relying almost entirely on
(00:45):
law enforcement.
A lot of this conversation comesdown to a simple but
uncomfortable reality.
Even good police departmentscannot be expected to solve
every problem they're sent tohandle.
Let's get started.
Christy, welcome.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01):
Thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
So, Christy, uh, can you walk us through what is your
background?
What brings you to us today?
SPEAKER_00 (01:08):
Um, I am uh a professor at Georgetown Law, uh,
where I teach courses oncriminal procedure, policing,
civil rights enforcement.
Um I also am the uh faculty uhco-director of the Center for
Innovations in Community Safety,um, which um we may talk about a
little bit more.
Prior to this, I was at theDepartment of Justice.
(01:30):
I've been um in the civil rightsdivision twice uh for a total of
about uh over 10 years, um,working in the section that
investigates police departmentsand tries to ensure that their
practices comport with theConstitution.
And I have also worked as acourt-appointed monitor to a
police department and done otherwork related to policing.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
And what sort of motivates you to do this work?
How did you come across this assort of a field of study, an
area of expertiseprofessionally?
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
I think it started when um with an interest in
human rights, actually,international human rights,
mostly.
I'm just really being interestedin the way that governments
treat the most vulnerable andsort of disliked or disfavored
people in a society.
And I actually went to theDepartment of Justice to work on
prison and jail cases.
(02:20):
When I started working in thosecases, it became apparent to me
that a lot of the people inprisons and jails didn't
understand why they were there.
It seemed like there were a lotof people.
My my first case would involvethe LA County jails and um
involving their treatment ofpeople with male health
diagnoses, and there were over6,000 people in the jails.
And then I did a case involvingwomen in the Arizona prison
(02:41):
system who were there for thingslike writing bad checks and a
lot of crimes related to povertyand abuse.
And it just made me think a lotabout how the criminal legal
system operates, and I wanted tounderstand it more.
My father was a homicidedetective for over 20 years in
Southern California.
And that for me, I think,complicated the picture compared
(03:01):
to a lot of people think theyjust say, well, it's bad police
officers doing bad things, andthat's why we have a system
that's so bad.
And that just didn't ring truefor me, knowing my dad and his
friends and the how seriously hetook his work and how important
he felt it was.
Um if that it seemed like areally complicated question that
I wanted to try to understandmore.
And I've been trying to do thatum for about 30 years.
SPEAKER_01 (03:21):
What is your grand conclusion from having done this
for 30 years?
SPEAKER_00 (03:25):
My grand, I don't know if I have a grand
conclusion, but my currentcurrent operating theory is that
we have come to over-rely onpolice and law enforcement
specifically to take care oflots of things beyond crime,
including crime, but alsodifferent social problems and
disorder.
And we really it's I've beenworking for a long time to try
(03:47):
to help police or encourage orcoerce police into ensuring that
they are effectively protectingthe public while not violating
people's rights.
And I've just come to believethat we've that's kind of an
impossible task the way thatwe've currently structured
policing.
And so that's kind of what I'mworking on now is to sort of
think about how we can have amore diversified response, a
(04:09):
more diversified public safetyecosystem in which police still
play an important role, but umdon't try to do everything.
SPEAKER_01 (04:16):
And how does your your work, your experience with
DOJ, how have you worked thatinto what you're trying to
accomplish today withGeorgetown?
SPEAKER_00 (04:24):
So I think that work really taught me, it allowed me
to really dive deep into a lotof different agencies all across
the country, learn what makespolice departments work, what
challenges they face, how, youknow, which of those challenges
are through lines, regardless ofwhere you go, um, you know, the
(04:44):
differences in in differentjurisdictions.
Um it really taught me a lotabout um a lot of the incredible
people doing this work forpolice departments, line
officers, of police departmentuh police departments, some of
the greatest people you evermate meet.
Also some really people whoshould not be police officers
for sure.
Um members, community memberswho some are very critical
(05:08):
police, sometimes unfairly so.
But I often also found that someum community members are
remarkably uh show a lot ofgrace to police, despite having
been very harmed and are reallyappreciative of uh the
difficulty of the job.
So again, it just reallyreinforced for me the complexity
of this um entire endeavor.
And then of course, when I wasthe monitor of the Oakland
(05:30):
Police Department, it taught mea couple of things.
One is I was able to take a verydeep dive for almost um seven
years with one department.
Um and it also really taught mea lot about the limits of police
reform and monitoring andconsent decrees to try to change
some policing.
Those, if you'll recall, I'msure you know, and you know, I
also investigated the NewOrleans Police Department, and
it's one of the reasons thatwe've had many conversations,
(05:52):
Jeff, because he's done a lot ofwork there as well.
And when you look at departmentslike that, you watch a lot of
people working really hard totry to make things better.
And you really realize how thisis this is a problem that goes
beyond sort of the will or theefforts of any individuals to
fix it.
There's something structuralgoing on that we need to
address.
SPEAKER_01 (06:12):
How do you address kind of thinking about consent
decrees, having worked onseveral of them, that sort of
criticism that they're expensiveand sort of unnecessary, that
they prevent police from doingtheir job, that they're sort of
you're bringing in outsiders,fancy lawyers that come in and
tell locals how to how tooperate.
How do you sort of address thosethose basic complaints, I think,
(06:34):
that that I've heard a lot inNew Orleans and you kind of hear
it attached to most consentdecrees?
SPEAKER_00 (06:37):
Aaron Powell So I think there's definitely some
validity to the complaints aboutconsent decrees and the concerns
about consent decrees.
I think what sometimes peoplemiss is that, you know, you
know, they they make it sound asif these are sort of these
arbitrary agreements that peoplekind of rush in and and impose
their opinion or theirpreferences on on a
(06:59):
jurisdiction.
And they're obviously hopefulpeople most people recognize
that they're more thoughtfulthan that.
The the problem is that um theseare very complicated.
When a police department has apattern or practice of violating
people's rights, it's often forcomplicated reasons.
It's often for um reasons thathave been entrenched for many
years.
(07:19):
Um the um and and it and it inthis if the age if it were easy
to fix, or if the agency wereable to do on its own, it
probably would have done soalready.
And so the idea that they don'tneed this and you don't need a
monitor, you don't need thislevel of oversight.
Well, then sort of belied by thefact that there have been in
most of these places problemsfor a very long time and they've
(07:40):
been unable to be fixed in anyother way.
And so I think that I think thatthe job of I think the job of
consent decrees is to take onsome of the hardest cases and
try to correct some reallyharmful patterns.
I'm working on an article rightnow with Joanna Schwartz where
we're really talking about whatconsent decrees should look like
in the future.
I think one problem that peopledon't all often recognize is
(08:02):
that the the statute isn't inthe ground scheme of things that
old.
And it didn't get reallystarted.
It was passed in 95, reallydidn't get up and running until
2000.
There's sort of the newergeneration of findings reports
or investigations of policedepartments and the and the
ensuing consent decrees didn'tstart happening until the 2010
and 2012, in the case of NewOrleans.
And then we had sort of then ituh with a few years to sort of
(08:26):
start to get those going.
And then you had Donald Trumpcome in and kind of shut down
the program, and then PresidentBiden came in and the the
division started working again,but didn't really get any
consent decrees underway.
And so, and then of course nowTrump is is in office again and
has eviscerated the the umdivision and and this work.
And so there's been anopportunity for a lot of growth
(08:47):
in how the investigations areconducted, but we really haven't
been able to sort of learn fromand apply new learning in the
consent decree context.
So when people say consentdecrees aren't working the way
that they should, I think that'scorrect.
But I I don't think that meansthat there can't be better.
I think we're still learning howto make them better and that we
(09:07):
haven't had the opportunity.
There hasn't, well, we haven'ttaken the opportunity to make
them better.
Um so I think that that's animportant thing to think about.
But I I also think that weshould not be relying on consent
decrees to try to fix policingor make policing better or
improve outcomes, which is oneof the things I wanted to talk
about.
I was hoping to talk about withyou today, to really think about
(09:28):
kind of again more structurally,the role that we ask police to
play and the way that wesometimes we sort of read data
or or talk about data in waysthat seem to overstate the role
that police must play.
Um, and I think that's animportant conversation to have
as well.
SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
All right.
Well, let's let's dive into thatthen.
Because I do want to talk aboutthat as well.
We we talked about alternativeresponse.
Uh can you talk through, justsort of set the stage of what
are the options that areavailable to cities or law
enforcement agencies that aren'tjust sending a police officer to
respond to every 911 call?
SPEAKER_00 (10:02):
Yeah, so I think um the first thing to keep in mind
is that uh in the United States,we're sort of unique among
wealthy countries in the waythat we rely on um law
enforcement uh and have a prettymeager set of social services
and reliance on that.
And we also have some reallyhigh crime rates compared to
(10:23):
other countries.
And so we're doing we're doingthings, we've done things in a
particular way, and we've cometo think of that as the norm,
right?
And so when we and so what youso for example, we we we assume
or we believe that in order toprevent crime and to address all
the problems of uh socialproblems and disorder, that we
really need to center police.
(10:45):
And we really saw that with inwith the spike in crime during
the pandemic, right?
Um, you had crime was wasskyrocketing at some
unprecedented levels, the numberof police officers was falling.
And, you know, at least arguablyyou could say, well, that's
crime is rising because umpolice officers, the number of
police officers fell.
(11:05):
And so now uh we need more, inorder to make crime fall again,
we need more police officers,right?
So really buying all into that,centering the police as the
answer to all of this.
Now, of course, that narrativehas lost some traction.
Turns out law enforcementagencies didn't maybe lose as
many officers as they thoughtthey did, and some smaller
agencies, in fact, they may haveum increased.
They may have more officers nowthan they did before.
(11:27):
As you and I have talked aboutbefore, there's not much of a
correlation, even much less anysort of causal inference that
you can make between the numberof police officers and whether
crime was going up or down.
Um, and now, of course, we haveviolent crime going down at
unprecedented rates tounprecedented levels, even in
places where you have fewerofficers in pre-pandemic, like
(11:49):
Seattle, Philadelphia,Baltimore, DC, places like that.
But it's still, but we stillneed to but that that sort of
myth or or what I'll call falsenarrative is still there.
And it's going to be retold thenext time crime rises.
Oh my goodness, we need to havemore police officers.
There's still a lot of disorderthat people are concerned with
(12:09):
and often gets conflated withcrime.
Um, and people are are sort ofinaptly or perhaps in vain
looking to the police toaddress.
And importantly, we've got localgovernments who are right now
facing some significantfinancial constraints and
they're going to have to decidehow to spend, you know, limited
dollars.
And so when I think about sortof alternatives, I think about,
(12:31):
well, you know, we could, youknow, kind of to what?
We could just hire more policeofficers.
And I know certainly in in DCand then in New Orleans, um and
many other places, we haveexamples of how dangerous it can
be for that narrative to takehold where crime is going up or
disorder is is still high.
We need to hire more policeofficers and we need them now.
Certainly in Washington, D.C.
(12:52):
in the 80s and 90s, there was aprecipitous hiring spree, and
there was a whole WashingtonPost series on how devastating
that was.
Didage agent investigation of umuh the department because of the
problems that ensued.
I don't know if you recall inthe New Orleans findings report,
we talked about how there werehundreds of officers hired in a
relatively short time periodafter after Katrina.
(13:15):
There were about 400 officershired in those three years.
And NOPDE lowered its hiringstandards.
They removed, um, they asked theCivil Service Commission to
score the written part of theexam um, you know, less
vigorously.
And we heard from lots of NOPDleaders that this had caused a
generational problem of policeofficers who really shouldn't be
police officers.
(13:35):
So there there's a real, there'sa real um, there's a real danger
when we look only to the policeto respond to crime spikes or to
social problems.
But even more than that, in someways, that sort of sense that,
oh, you know, we need someone torespond to these calls, it
should needs to be police.
(13:55):
I think the problem with that isthat it perpetuates this
over-reliance on law enforcementto address crimes.
Um, and in doing so, it sort ofundermines efforts to modernize
and to innovate in how werespond to crime.
Um and that really brings us tosort of these other uh
(14:16):
approaches.
And so running through some ofthose other approaches, I do
want to note that one, and Ithink you've talked about this
as well, Jeff, but one of theways to sort of shift some of
this is to even within policedepartments that we we put a lot
of police activity on swornofficers.
A lot of that could be done bynon-sworn officers, what's
(14:36):
sometimes called professionalstaff or non-sworn, right?
It can be done some of thiswork.
I think what you see sometimeswhen there are crime spikes is
you see departments movingdetectives into patrol.
When in fact, what you reallyneed is is oftentimes you need
detectives out there solvingcases, getting clearance rates,
um, because that's probably thebetter thing.
And so I I do want to make clearthat a lot, some of this can be
(14:57):
done within police departmentsas well.
Outside of police departments,you've got everything from CBI,
community violence intervention,you've got what we are called is
called alternative firstresponse or community crisis
response.
And you've got changes to thebuilt environment, you've got
providing other places to takepeople besides jails, and then
(15:18):
you've got some hybrid sort ofresponses, everything from
after-school jobs to, you know,Patriarchy's done a lot of work
on increasing nonprofits.
And then, of course, that's evenbefore we get to root causes.
But that's just I'm happy totalk about any of those in
depth.
But that's basically the list ofwhat I'm thinking about when I
think of ways to diversify thepublic safety portfolio.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
How can cities one of the common complaints that I
hear when thinking about thoseas strategies, alternative
responses as strategies, is thata lot of times they'll implement
a program and it'll be a drop inthe bucket.
And they'll it'll be effectiveor it'll be impactful, but
you're talking about a tinyproportion of overall calls or a
tiny proportion of mental healthcalls.
(15:57):
How can agencies or cities scalethese so that it's not a drop in
the bucket, so that they aremaximally impactful?
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
Yeah, well, that takes us right back to the the
issue of sort of assuming thatif we want more public safety
services, that those servicesshould come from police.
Because when you look at these,uh and I'll take um community
crisis response or alternatefirst response, um, when you
look at those, if you look at uhmany studies, um, including the
(16:27):
um there's almost half of calltypes could be safely addressed
by non-police, and that 26% thatthe and that those call types
represent 26% of police hours,right?
So that the potential for theseunits to take up a lot of the
calls that are currently beinghandled by police is quite high.
(16:50):
And when you look at um some ofthe more mature crisis response,
enterprise response um organ uhunits like Albuquerque Community
Safety Department, Durham Hart,Denver Starr, the limiting
factors on their ability torespond is not that there are
not enough eligible calls forthem to respond to, it's that
there are not enough people torespond to those calls.
(17:12):
And that's just a matter offunding and demand, right?
The same way that when crimegoes up, you get legislators,
politicians, sometimes communitymembers saying, we need more
police.
Look at this, crime has gone up.
We need to sh have a shift inmindset where people understand
that like what they need ismaybe not more police.
They do need more governmentresponse responders, but maybe
(17:33):
that should be people in these,in one of these community safety
groups or these alternativefirst response teams instead of
police officers.
Those people can take the calls.
You know, these calls can becomplicated.
Police don't want to take them alot of times.
And they allow people who arespecially trained for those
sorts of calls to respond andspend the time necessary to
hopefully provide betteroutcomes and um connect people
(17:56):
with services that will canprevent recurrence.
SPEAKER_01 (17:59):
And even going more simpler, how do you get agencies
or cities to see the value ofwhat we um my partner Ben
Horwitz and I talk about is likecivilianization.
In New Orleans, an enormous dropin police officers from like
1,200 to 900, under 900officers, 2019, just 2019 to
(18:20):
like 2023.
And they spent$80 million tohire new officers and are below
the number of officers they hadwhen they started spending$80
million three years ago.
So you've got this enormousproblem, response times through
the roof, and then they hired acontractor to respond to
non-injury traffic accidents.
They hired something like 100professional staff or civilians
(18:40):
or whatever you want to call it,and response times plunged.
And so they have uh they wentfrom 150 minutes on average in
2022 and 2023 to now they're atlike 50 or 60 minutes on
average, which is not great, butis about the historical norm,
despite the fact that they stillhave very few officers.
And so it's been enormouslysuccessful, but it's not
something that the city isadvocating as like here's a
(19:03):
solution to you know staffingproblems, here's an easier way
to do it.
And they're not, I wouldn't callthem innovative in terms of
looking for new ways.
One of the ideas that comes tomind is this idea of civilian
responders to non-emergency,like almost civilian detectives
that can go out and processscenes that you don't
(19:23):
necessarily need an officer at.
Your car was broken into, threepennies were stolen, you want to
report the crime, the officergoes out there, you're not gonna
give it the CSI treatment.
You're just you want to notewhat happened, and your choices
are not responding in time orhaving a very slow response and
having a civilian response.
And often the agencies willchoose the not responding fast.
(19:44):
A long-winded way of sayinglike, how do we get advocacy
from a policy standpoint on thissort of minutia of improving
efficiency through less swornresponses?
SPEAKER_00 (19:56):
Yeah, no, I do think that is the question because
there's so much evidencesupporting these sorts of
alternative responses and notand responses and shifting work
even within police departments,as you're talking about, from
sworn to non-sworn positions.
There's so much evidence thatthis produces better outcomes,
you know, in on severaldifferent uh levels.
(20:18):
And I think that there's,especially since 2020, the
problem has been, or maybe since2021.
The problem has been to someextent that the conversation has
been derailed by people accusingpeople of wanting to abolish
police or defund police if yousupport any of these sorts of
shifts.
And this is of course, you know,it it kind of makes sense,
(20:41):
although it does, I'm not tryingto entirely make sense for
police unions to be like, no,don't don't shift these things,
right?
I say kind of makes sensebecause a lot of their own law
enforcement officers are aresaying their members are saying,
hey, we don't want to take thesecalls, can someone else take
these calls?
But I understand why they wantto want to say, like, hey, we
want to, we wanna hold on to asmany positions as we can.
(21:01):
But if you look at this from awhole government sort of
perspective, the evidence is allin favor of a more diversified
approach.
The conversation has really beenshut down because uh partly
because of sort of ourassumptions and our mindsets, we
just reflexively go to policewhen it comes to taking care of
crime and disorder and problems.
We don't think about these otheroptions.
And then even where we do startto think about those and talk
(21:23):
about those, people are oftenafraid to really support that
and demand that because theydon't want to be accused of not
supporting law enforcement.
I really do think that's a lot,a lot of it.
So the both the sort ofpreconceptions and the
assumptions that we fall back onand the very real resistance
from people who have an interestin maintaining the status quo,
even if that's not if thatstatus quo is not best for
(21:45):
public safety.
SPEAKER_01 (21:46):
And are there like if you were advocating, if a
city hires you to consult onwhat what was should we
implement, what are kind of thethe go tos that sort of X, Y,
and Z are the things that youshould think about first?
As what you should be looking toimplement.
SPEAKER_00 (22:03):
So one of the tricky bits, of course, is that there
are 18,000 law enforcementagencies.
Many of them serve the samejurisdiction.
But in every city or countyyou're going to go to, you're
going to have to look and seewhat that jurisdiction needs.
You may have a jurisdictionwhere they actually need more
police officers, or maybe theyneed fewer police officers, but
they need to be better paid.
But in a lot of places, you aregoing to need, again, a more
(22:26):
diverse portfolio of publicsafety.
And what I would look at, youwould have to sort of see what
is needed in that jurisdiction,but I would look at, you know,
what kinds of community violenceintervention programs do you
have?
We've got focused deterrents.
There's a lot of evidence, youknow, that indicates that's a
much more efficient andeffective way of reducing
violent crime.
(22:46):
I would look at what cognitivebehavioral therapy types of
programs they have.
You know, Jens Ludwig talks alot about this in his new book,
Unforgiving Places about howvaluable those programs can be.
Rokha is a similar program.
He talks about becoming a man,but there's programs like this.
So all of the David Mohammed'swork with kids has been amazing.
So I would look, what are youdoing in that realm that is
(23:07):
adjacent to law enforcement butis different?
And then I would look, ofcourse, at the um, and this is a
lot of the work that we do at MyCenter, um, the work with
community crisis response.
Um, you know, what kinds of calltype types are you able to take?
Are you able to shift to a umnon-um police responder?
Um and and I would encouragepeople to listen to the um the
(23:29):
podcast that was done aboutDurham's heart program because
it really starts off by umaddressing sort of the law
enforcement concern about thatprogram and then and then
indicating how much lawenforcement came around once
they realized how valuable itwas.
But it also indicates thatthat's not enough and that you
really do need some socialservice, a so sort of a social
(23:53):
safety net, right?
And so what you see in in a lotof places now, sobering centers
or sort of some kind of crisisstabilization centers, all over,
from Pennsylvania to Alabama,all over, these sorts of places
are are cropping up to kind ofgive you an immediate sort of,
it's not the long-term socialsafety net, but it's an
immediate social safety net.
(24:13):
And of course, there are thethings that we've always known
about, um, and not always, butfor some time known about that
we should be investing more ineverything from street lights.
Liz Glazer has a piece in VitalCity, um, or maybe the Atlantic,
very recently talking about,hey, just you know, the built
environment can really help,right?
So everything from redesigningpublic spaces, planting trees,
fixing derelict buildings,street engineering, all these
(24:36):
sorts of things I would belooking to.
And then I think what I call thehybrid programs, I would be
looking at like, well, what youknow, summer youth employment
programs.
I always think about ScottThompson, um, the chief in
Camden, a very challengedcommunity in New Jersey, telling
me that he would trade 30officers for another boys and
girls club.
You know, that's a police chiefwho sees the value in some of
(24:57):
these non-law enforcement waysto prevent and and address
crime.
Um and then, you know, I thinkit is, it makes sense in that
this is not as attractive tolegislators often because it's
more long-term.
But if you look um at JohnRoman's sort of analyses of
(25:17):
these, and Brendan Beck has apiece in the annual review of
criminology, really talkingabout basically we need to stop
hand-waving at the importance ofaddressing root causes if we
want a sustainable way ofpreventing crime.
And so, you know, I grew up inthe 80s.
I'm very aware of how cynicalpeople have been for a long time
(25:38):
about trying to prevent crimethrough addressing root causes.
But there's just there's a lotof evidence that housing and
education, employment, thosesorts of things, that's the way
you sustainably keep crime downinstead of expecting police to
do it all through arrests andyou know, that's just not that's
not a long-term plan forsuccess.
SPEAKER_01 (25:57):
So what do you see as the path forward uh from here
on policing reform, improvingpolicing, continue to sort of
move the ball, move the ballforward?
SPEAKER_00 (26:08):
Well, there's certainly nothing predetermined.
Um I think as with so manythings in the world right now
where it sort of feels likewe're on the cusp and things
could fall either way.
And so I don't think thatthere's, you know, nothing is we
shouldn't take anything forgranted.
I mean, we just need to decideare we, are we gonna try to be
the best versions of ourselves,or are we just gonna fall back
on our on you know, tried andtrue methods, even um
(26:30):
recognizing some of the veryreal harms um, you know, that
things like uh, you know, sortof mass misdemeanor arrest
programs and mass incarcerationhave on communities, the race to
the racial inequality theyresult in, you know, the way
that we have been policing umhas not had a as strong of an
(26:51):
influence on keeping on crime asone would expect for something
we invest so much in.
And it has had a lot of harm.
So is there a way that we canrethink the way that we are um
that we are approaching publicsafety?
And I think that the pathforward really is to sort of
look at some of the programsthat are being piloted, invest
(27:13):
more in the ones that are shownto be promising.
We can't demand, of course, arandomized control trial before
we try the new things orreinvest in new things, um, just
as we haven't invested, wehaven't replied a randomized
controlled trial with policing.
Um we have to sort of justreally look at what's promising,
try that out and see how itgoes.
And I think that's, you know, wejust have to we just have to opt
(27:36):
for a more constructive andpositive approach to um public
safety and sort of use policefor that sort of judicious, you
know, sort of try to getpolicing to be that sort of,
they are the, they have the umour police are the ones who we
give the authority to use force,including lethal force.
(27:58):
Let's like make sure thatthey're able to do that when we
need it and do so in a way thatis most judicious and restrained
um and effective, and really tryto get some have a more sort of
specialized and diverse umtoolkit that we can respond to
these problems more fully.
I think that that might thatmight require a sort of right
now, police are kind of a ummulti-tool, right?
(28:19):
They go out to the scene andthey what they kind of assess it
and see what is needed.
Some of that might need tohappen more at the um uh at the
stage where the 911 call comesinto dispatch.
So really trying to make surethat our dispatchers are are
better at sort of making thosecalls, but also we might need
some sort of non-police sort ofgeneralist to go to those sorts
(28:40):
of calls and and and do thosesorts of assessments.
SPEAKER_01 (28:42):
And I guess the big question uh from where you sit
is is there a way for DOJ tobecome involved again?
Like I know that the civilrights division has has
obviously been sort ofeviscerated at this point.
Is there a way to rebuild thisand effectively continue what
was before or improve on whatwas before?
SPEAKER_00 (29:01):
So there theoretically is.
I don't know if it's going tohappen or how long it's going to
take.
I think the Department ofJustice has lost a lot of
legitimacy for, you know,appropriately so.
And so I and I think it can andshould take a while to rebuild
that legitimacy.
And, you know, and there werealways communities who didn't
have much trust in thedepartment already.
(29:22):
And so I think it's going to beum a effort at rebuilding trust
and legitimacy, and also justbeing willing to try some new
bold ideas.
And I think that is going torequire um putting I I think the
Department of Justice is goingto have to relinquish some
control over these agreementsunder these and these reform
(29:43):
efforts and really let empowerlocal communities, including
police departments and thecommunities who are impacted by
policing, empower them todevelop more of these solutions
for themselves and support themin that.
And again, I have that's a wholeother conversation.
I'm working on how that happensright now.
But I think that that's the rolefor them is really kind of
(30:03):
having a little bit of humilityand really empowering, doing
figuring out how it can bestempower local communities to
sustain reforms on their own.
SPEAKER_01 (30:12):
And then my last question is just uh, and I
started asking this to all myguests, but what role do you
think that AI can play inimproving your work or kind of
this broader idea of policereform in general?
SPEAKER_00 (30:26):
Um I'm not as I you know, I certainly have lots of
concerns about AI as we allshould, right?
It's it's certainly again, whoknows how it's all gonna turn
out.
It's gonna depend on a lot ofchoices that people make.
But I do think there's somepotential there.
There's some opportunity therefor some real gains.
Everything from I I actuallylike a lot of the ability, and
this isn't necessarily AI, butit can be AI, of some more
(30:48):
technological enforcement thattakes sort of the human out of
it.
When done properly, it canremove some implicit or explicit
biases.
It can also reinforce them andmask them for sure.
Um, but I think there are waysthrough, you know, everything
from stop light enforcement andstop sign enforcement and speed
enforcement to sort of make somegains there.
(31:10):
I also think I'm most excited,frankly, about the use of AI to
review um body worn camerafootage in a more efficient way.
That is huge, both foraccountability purposes, but
also for learning purposes, tobe able to sort of figure out
where are the key points in thisday, in this officer's day that
we should be focused on tofigure out, you know, how to
(31:31):
conduct traffic stops mostsafely or to handle a domestic
violence response most safely.
But also, hey, how can I ensurethat what the officer wrote in
their report was true withoutgoing through, you know, many
hours of watching video?
Their AI may be helpful there.
So I, you know, I I'm familiarwith Ian Adams work and others'
(31:55):
work, um, talk about some of therisks of over reliance on AI.
And that's certainly, that'scertainly going to happen.
And we're gonna have to getthrough that.
But I think that they're it itcan also, I think it's it can be
promising as well.
SPEAKER_01 (32:06):
And where can people go to learn about all you all
are doing at Georgetown and andfind out more information about
this sort of work?
SPEAKER_00 (32:13):
Well, the we you can go to the website at uh Center
for Innovations and CommunitySafety at Georgetown Umlaw.
And we have um a few uh whitepapers that we're putting out on
everything from how you get um auh alternative response
community crisis responseprogram started, how you staff
it.
Um these are not panaceas, theseare not, you know, silver
(32:38):
bullets.
There are still gonna be there'slots of work, lots of things
that can go wrong.
It's not uncomplicated, it's ascomplicated as policing, just
different.
And so there's a conference thatwe're having in June that we do
in conjunction with the policingproject and others to um really
help bring people together totry to figure this out.
So you can look at thosematerials and you know,
obviously talk with me or umwith our the leaders in our in
(33:01):
that practice for our center.
They really, they're some of theexperts in the in the nation on
this.
And it's a really I reallyappreciate it's one of the most
it's been nice to have a new,fresh conversation that feels a
lot more promising than havingthe same conversations, trying
to sort of fix placing in allthe same old ways and coming up
with the same, coming up againstthe same obstacles.
And this seems like um this isthis is proving to be um a way
(33:22):
past some of those seeminglyintransigent obstacles.
SPEAKER_01 (33:26):
Great.
Well, thank you so much.
This has been a greatconversation.
Uh I love the perspective, and Ithink it's so important that
giving all of the staffingissues that policing are having,
that this is something that'ssort of forefront in the
conversation of how do we moveforward, because it's not just,
as you say, hire new police,because that's not easier said
than done.
So thank you so much for comingon the show, Christy.
(33:47):
Thanks for listening to theJeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
I'm Jeff Asher, and this is Jeffalytics Podcast.
When crime rises, the instinctis usually to hire more
officers, increase enforcement,and ask police departments to do
even more.
But after spending yearsinvestigating police departments
and working on reform effortsacross the country, my guest
today has started asking adifferent question.
What if we're asking policing todo too much in the first place?
(00:22):
Christy Lopez is a professor atGeorgetown Law, former
Department of Justice CivilRights Division attorney, and
one of the leading voices onpolicing reform and alternative
police responses.
In this episode, we talked aboutthe limits of traditional police
reform, why consent decrees havestruggled to produce lasting
change, and what it would looklike to build a more diversified
public safety ecosystem insteadof relying almost entirely on
(00:45):
law enforcement.
A lot of this conversation comesdown to a simple but
uncomfortable reality.
Even good police departmentscannot be expected to solve
every problem they're sent tohandle.
Let's get started.
Christy, welcome.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01):
Thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
So, Christy, uh, can you walk us through what is your
background?
What brings you to us today?
SPEAKER_00 (01:08):
Um, I am uh a professor at Georgetown Law, uh,
where I teach courses oncriminal procedure, policing,
civil rights enforcement.
Um I also am the uh faculty uhco-director of the Center for
Innovations in Community Safety,um, which um we may talk about a
little bit more.
Prior to this, I was at theDepartment of Justice.
(01:30):
I've been um in the civil rightsdivision twice uh for a total of
about uh over 10 years, um,working in the section that
investigates police departmentsand tries to ensure that their
practices comport with theConstitution.
And I have also worked as acourt-appointed monitor to a
police department and done otherwork related to policing.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
And what sort of motivates you to do this work?
How did you come across this assort of a field of study, an
area of expertiseprofessionally?
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
I think it started when um with an interest in
human rights, actually,international human rights,
mostly.
I'm just really being interestedin the way that governments
treat the most vulnerable andsort of disliked or disfavored
people in a society.
And I actually went to theDepartment of Justice to work on
prison and jail cases.
(02:20):
When I started working in thosecases, it became apparent to me
that a lot of the people inprisons and jails didn't
understand why they were there.
It seemed like there were a lotof people.
My my first case would involvethe LA County jails and um
involving their treatment ofpeople with male health
diagnoses, and there were over6,000 people in the jails.
And then I did a case involvingwomen in the Arizona prison
(02:41):
system who were there for thingslike writing bad checks and a
lot of crimes related to povertyand abuse.
And it just made me think a lotabout how the criminal legal
system operates, and I wanted tounderstand it more.
My father was a homicidedetective for over 20 years in
Southern California.
And that for me, I think,complicated the picture compared
(03:01):
to a lot of people think theyjust say, well, it's bad police
officers doing bad things, andthat's why we have a system
that's so bad.
And that just didn't ring truefor me, knowing my dad and his
friends and the how seriously hetook his work and how important
he felt it was.
Um if that it seemed like areally complicated question that
I wanted to try to understandmore.
And I've been trying to do thatum for about 30 years.
SPEAKER_01 (03:21):
What is your grand conclusion from having done this
for 30 years?
SPEAKER_00 (03:25):
My grand, I don't know if I have a grand
conclusion, but my currentcurrent operating theory is that
we have come to over-rely onpolice and law enforcement
specifically to take care oflots of things beyond crime,
including crime, but alsodifferent social problems and
disorder.
And we really it's I've beenworking for a long time to try
(03:47):
to help police or encourage orcoerce police into ensuring that
they are effectively protectingthe public while not violating
people's rights.
And I've just come to believethat we've that's kind of an
impossible task the way thatwe've currently structured
policing.
And so that's kind of what I'mworking on now is to sort of
think about how we can have amore diversified response, a
(04:09):
more diversified public safetyecosystem in which police still
play an important role, but umdon't try to do everything.
SPEAKER_01 (04:16):
And how does your your work, your experience with
DOJ, how have you worked thatinto what you're trying to
accomplish today withGeorgetown?
SPEAKER_00 (04:24):
So I think that work really taught me, it allowed me
to really dive deep into a lotof different agencies all across
the country, learn what makespolice departments work, what
challenges they face, how, youknow, which of those challenges
are through lines, regardless ofwhere you go, um, you know, the
(04:44):
differences in in differentjurisdictions.
Um it really taught me a lotabout um a lot of the incredible
people doing this work forpolice departments, line
officers, of police departmentuh police departments, some of
the greatest people you evermate meet.
Also some really people whoshould not be police officers
for sure.
Um members, community memberswho some are very critical
(05:08):
police, sometimes unfairly so.
But I often also found that someum community members are
remarkably uh show a lot ofgrace to police, despite having
been very harmed and are reallyappreciative of uh the
difficulty of the job.
So again, it just reallyreinforced for me the complexity
of this um entire endeavor.
And then of course, when I wasthe monitor of the Oakland
(05:30):
Police Department, it taught mea couple of things.
One is I was able to take a verydeep dive for almost um seven
years with one department.
Um and it also really taught mea lot about the limits of police
reform and monitoring andconsent decrees to try to change
some policing.
Those, if you'll recall, I'msure you know, and you know, I
also investigated the NewOrleans Police Department, and
it's one of the reasons thatwe've had many conversations,
(05:52):
Jeff, because he's done a lot ofwork there as well.
And when you look at departmentslike that, you watch a lot of
people working really hard totry to make things better.
And you really realize how thisis this is a problem that goes
beyond sort of the will or theefforts of any individuals to
fix it.
There's something structuralgoing on that we need to
address.
SPEAKER_01 (06:12):
How do you address kind of thinking about consent
decrees, having worked onseveral of them, that sort of
criticism that they're expensiveand sort of unnecessary, that
they prevent police from doingtheir job, that they're sort of
you're bringing in outsiders,fancy lawyers that come in and
tell locals how to how tooperate.
How do you sort of address thosethose basic complaints, I think,
(06:34):
that that I've heard a lot inNew Orleans and you kind of hear
it attached to most consentdecrees?
SPEAKER_00 (06:37):
Aaron Powell So I think there's definitely some
validity to the complaints aboutconsent decrees and the concerns
about consent decrees.
I think what sometimes peoplemiss is that, you know, you
know, they they make it sound asif these are sort of these
arbitrary agreements that peoplekind of rush in and and impose
their opinion or theirpreferences on on a
(06:59):
jurisdiction.
And they're obviously hopefulpeople most people recognize
that they're more thoughtfulthan that.
The the problem is that um theseare very complicated.
When a police department has apattern or practice of violating
people's rights, it's often forcomplicated reasons.
It's often for um reasons thathave been entrenched for many
years.
(07:19):
Um the um and and it and it inthis if the age if it were easy
to fix, or if the agency wereable to do on its own, it
probably would have done soalready.
And so the idea that they don'tneed this and you don't need a
monitor, you don't need thislevel of oversight.
Well, then sort of belied by thefact that there have been in
most of these places problemsfor a very long time and they've
(07:40):
been unable to be fixed in anyother way.
And so I think that I think thatthe job of I think the job of
consent decrees is to take onsome of the hardest cases and
try to correct some reallyharmful patterns.
I'm working on an article rightnow with Joanna Schwartz where
we're really talking about whatconsent decrees should look like
in the future.
I think one problem that peopledon't all often recognize is
(08:02):
that the the statute isn't inthe ground scheme of things that
old.
And it didn't get reallystarted.
It was passed in 95, reallydidn't get up and running until
2000.
There's sort of the newergeneration of findings reports
or investigations of policedepartments and the and the
ensuing consent decrees didn'tstart happening until the 2010
and 2012, in the case of NewOrleans.
And then we had sort of then ituh with a few years to sort of
(08:26):
start to get those going.
And then you had Donald Trumpcome in and kind of shut down
the program, and then PresidentBiden came in and the the
division started working again,but didn't really get any
consent decrees underway.
And so, and then of course nowTrump is is in office again and
has eviscerated the the umdivision and and this work.
And so there's been anopportunity for a lot of growth
(08:47):
in how the investigations areconducted, but we really haven't
been able to sort of learn fromand apply new learning in the
consent decree context.
So when people say consentdecrees aren't working the way
that they should, I think that'scorrect.
But I I don't think that meansthat there can't be better.
I think we're still learning howto make them better and that we
(09:07):
haven't had the opportunity.
There hasn't, well, we haven'ttaken the opportunity to make
them better.
Um so I think that that's animportant thing to think about.
But I I also think that weshould not be relying on consent
decrees to try to fix policingor make policing better or
improve outcomes, which is oneof the things I wanted to talk
about.
I was hoping to talk about withyou today, to really think about
(09:28):
kind of again more structurally,the role that we ask police to
play and the way that wesometimes we sort of read data
or or talk about data in waysthat seem to overstate the role
that police must play.
Um, and I think that's animportant conversation to have
as well.
SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
All right.
Well, let's let's dive into thatthen.
Because I do want to talk aboutthat as well.
We we talked about alternativeresponse.
Uh can you talk through, justsort of set the stage of what
are the options that areavailable to cities or law
enforcement agencies that aren'tjust sending a police officer to
respond to every 911 call?
SPEAKER_00 (10:02):
Yeah, so I think um the first thing to keep in mind
is that uh in the United States,we're sort of unique among
wealthy countries in the waythat we rely on um law
enforcement uh and have a prettymeager set of social services
and reliance on that.
And we also have some reallyhigh crime rates compared to
(10:23):
other countries.
And so we're doing we're doingthings, we've done things in a
particular way, and we've cometo think of that as the norm,
right?
And so when we and so what youso for example, we we we assume
or we believe that in order toprevent crime and to address all
the problems of uh socialproblems and disorder, that we
really need to center police.
(10:45):
And we really saw that with inwith the spike in crime during
the pandemic, right?
Um, you had crime was wasskyrocketing at some
unprecedented levels, the numberof police officers was falling.
And, you know, at least arguablyyou could say, well, that's
crime is rising because umpolice officers, the number of
police officers fell.
(11:05):
And so now uh we need more, inorder to make crime fall again,
we need more police officers,right?
So really buying all into that,centering the police as the
answer to all of this.
Now, of course, that narrativehas lost some traction.
Turns out law enforcementagencies didn't maybe lose as
many officers as they thoughtthey did, and some smaller
agencies, in fact, they may haveum increased.
They may have more officers nowthan they did before.
(11:27):
As you and I have talked aboutbefore, there's not much of a
correlation, even much less anysort of causal inference that
you can make between the numberof police officers and whether
crime was going up or down.
Um, and now, of course, we haveviolent crime going down at
unprecedented rates tounprecedented levels, even in
places where you have fewerofficers in pre-pandemic, like
(11:49):
Seattle, Philadelphia,Baltimore, DC, places like that.
But it's still, but we stillneed to but that that sort of
myth or or what I'll call falsenarrative is still there.
And it's going to be retold thenext time crime rises.
Oh my goodness, we need to havemore police officers.
There's still a lot of disorderthat people are concerned with
(12:09):
and often gets conflated withcrime.
Um, and people are are sort ofinaptly or perhaps in vain
looking to the police toaddress.
And importantly, we've got localgovernments who are right now
facing some significantfinancial constraints and
they're going to have to decidehow to spend, you know, limited
dollars.
And so when I think about sortof alternatives, I think about,
(12:31):
well, you know, we could, youknow, kind of to what?
We could just hire more policeofficers.
And I know certainly in in DCand then in New Orleans, um and
many other places, we haveexamples of how dangerous it can
be for that narrative to takehold where crime is going up or
disorder is is still high.
We need to hire more policeofficers and we need them now.
Certainly in Washington, D.C.
(12:52):
in the 80s and 90s, there was aprecipitous hiring spree, and
there was a whole WashingtonPost series on how devastating
that was.
Didage agent investigation of umuh the department because of the
problems that ensued.
I don't know if you recall inthe New Orleans findings report,
we talked about how there werehundreds of officers hired in a
relatively short time periodafter after Katrina.
(13:15):
There were about 400 officershired in those three years.
And NOPDE lowered its hiringstandards.
They removed, um, they asked theCivil Service Commission to
score the written part of theexam um, you know, less
vigorously.
And we heard from lots of NOPDleaders that this had caused a
generational problem of policeofficers who really shouldn't be
police officers.
(13:35):
So there there's a real, there'sa real um, there's a real danger
when we look only to the policeto respond to crime spikes or to
social problems.
But even more than that, in someways, that sort of sense that,
oh, you know, we need someone torespond to these calls, it
should needs to be police.
(13:55):
I think the problem with that isthat it perpetuates this
over-reliance on law enforcementto address crimes.
Um, and in doing so, it sort ofundermines efforts to modernize
and to innovate in how werespond to crime.
Um and that really brings us tosort of these other uh
(14:16):
approaches.
And so running through some ofthose other approaches, I do
want to note that one, and Ithink you've talked about this
as well, Jeff, but one of theways to sort of shift some of
this is to even within policedepartments that we we put a lot
of police activity on swornofficers.
A lot of that could be done bynon-sworn officers, what's
(14:36):
sometimes called professionalstaff or non-sworn, right?
It can be done some of thiswork.
I think what you see sometimeswhen there are crime spikes is
you see departments movingdetectives into patrol.
When in fact, what you reallyneed is is oftentimes you need
detectives out there solvingcases, getting clearance rates,
um, because that's probably thebetter thing.
And so I I do want to make clearthat a lot, some of this can be
(14:57):
done within police departmentsas well.
Outside of police departments,you've got everything from CBI,
community violence intervention,you've got what we are called is
called alternative firstresponse or community crisis
response.
And you've got changes to thebuilt environment, you've got
providing other places to takepeople besides jails, and then
(15:18):
you've got some hybrid sort ofresponses, everything from
after-school jobs to, you know,Patriarchy's done a lot of work
on increasing nonprofits.
And then, of course, that's evenbefore we get to root causes.
But that's just I'm happy totalk about any of those in
depth.
But that's basically the list ofwhat I'm thinking about when I
think of ways to diversify thepublic safety portfolio.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
How can cities one of the common complaints that I
hear when thinking about thoseas strategies, alternative
responses as strategies, is thata lot of times they'll implement
a program and it'll be a drop inthe bucket.
And they'll it'll be effectiveor it'll be impactful, but
you're talking about a tinyproportion of overall calls or a
tiny proportion of mental healthcalls.
(15:57):
How can agencies or cities scalethese so that it's not a drop in
the bucket, so that they aremaximally impactful?
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
Yeah, well, that takes us right back to the the
issue of sort of assuming thatif we want more public safety
services, that those servicesshould come from police.
Because when you look at these,uh and I'll take um community
crisis response or alternatefirst response, um, when you
look at those, if you look at uhmany studies, um, including the
(16:27):
um there's almost half of calltypes could be safely addressed
by non-police, and that 26% thatthe and that those call types
represent 26% of police hours,right?
So that the potential for theseunits to take up a lot of the
calls that are currently beinghandled by police is quite high.
(16:50):
And when you look at um some ofthe more mature crisis response,
enterprise response um organ uhunits like Albuquerque Community
Safety Department, Durham Hart,Denver Starr, the limiting
factors on their ability torespond is not that there are
not enough eligible calls forthem to respond to, it's that
there are not enough people torespond to those calls.
(17:12):
And that's just a matter offunding and demand, right?
The same way that when crimegoes up, you get legislators,
politicians, sometimes communitymembers saying, we need more
police.
Look at this, crime has gone up.
We need to sh have a shift inmindset where people understand
that like what they need ismaybe not more police.
They do need more governmentresponse responders, but maybe
(17:33):
that should be people in these,in one of these community safety
groups or these alternativefirst response teams instead of
police officers.
Those people can take the calls.
You know, these calls can becomplicated.
Police don't want to take them alot of times.
And they allow people who arespecially trained for those
sorts of calls to respond andspend the time necessary to
hopefully provide betteroutcomes and um connect people
(17:56):
with services that will canprevent recurrence.
SPEAKER_01 (17:59):
And even going more simpler, how do you get agencies
or cities to see the value ofwhat we um my partner Ben
Horwitz and I talk about is likecivilianization.
In New Orleans, an enormous dropin police officers from like
1,200 to 900, under 900officers, 2019, just 2019 to
(18:20):
like 2023.
And they spent$80 million tohire new officers and are below
the number of officers they hadwhen they started spending$80
million three years ago.
So you've got this enormousproblem, response times through
the roof, and then they hired acontractor to respond to
non-injury traffic accidents.
They hired something like 100professional staff or civilians
(18:40):
or whatever you want to call it,and response times plunged.
And so they have uh they wentfrom 150 minutes on average in
2022 and 2023 to now they're atlike 50 or 60 minutes on
average, which is not great, butis about the historical norm,
despite the fact that they stillhave very few officers.
And so it's been enormouslysuccessful, but it's not
something that the city isadvocating as like here's a
(19:03):
solution to you know staffingproblems, here's an easier way
to do it.
And they're not, I wouldn't callthem innovative in terms of
looking for new ways.
One of the ideas that comes tomind is this idea of civilian
responders to non-emergency,like almost civilian detectives
that can go out and processscenes that you don't
(19:23):
necessarily need an officer at.
Your car was broken into, threepennies were stolen, you want to
report the crime, the officergoes out there, you're not gonna
give it the CSI treatment.
You're just you want to notewhat happened, and your choices
are not responding in time orhaving a very slow response and
having a civilian response.
And often the agencies willchoose the not responding fast.
(19:44):
A long-winded way of sayinglike, how do we get advocacy
from a policy standpoint on thissort of minutia of improving
efficiency through less swornresponses?
SPEAKER_00 (19:56):
Yeah, no, I do think that is the question because
there's so much evidencesupporting these sorts of
alternative responses and notand responses and shifting work
even within police departments,as you're talking about, from
sworn to non-sworn positions.
There's so much evidence thatthis produces better outcomes,
you know, in on severaldifferent uh levels.
(20:18):
And I think that there's,especially since 2020, the
problem has been, or maybe since2021.
The problem has been to someextent that the conversation has
been derailed by people accusingpeople of wanting to abolish
police or defund police if yousupport any of these sorts of
shifts.
And this is of course, you know,it it kind of makes sense,
(20:41):
although it does, I'm not tryingto entirely make sense for
police unions to be like, no,don't don't shift these things,
right?
I say kind of makes sensebecause a lot of their own law
enforcement officers are aresaying their members are saying,
hey, we don't want to take thesecalls, can someone else take
these calls?
But I understand why they wantto want to say, like, hey, we
want to, we wanna hold on to asmany positions as we can.
(21:01):
But if you look at this from awhole government sort of
perspective, the evidence is allin favor of a more diversified
approach.
The conversation has really beenshut down because uh partly
because of sort of ourassumptions and our mindsets, we
just reflexively go to policewhen it comes to taking care of
crime and disorder and problems.
We don't think about these otheroptions.
And then even where we do startto think about those and talk
(21:23):
about those, people are oftenafraid to really support that
and demand that because theydon't want to be accused of not
supporting law enforcement.
I really do think that's a lot,a lot of it.
So the both the sort ofpreconceptions and the
assumptions that we fall back onand the very real resistance
from people who have an interestin maintaining the status quo,
even if that's not if thatstatus quo is not best for
(21:45):
public safety.
SPEAKER_01 (21:46):
And are there like if you were advocating, if a
city hires you to consult onwhat what was should we
implement, what are kind of thethe go tos that sort of X, Y,
and Z are the things that youshould think about first?
As what you should be looking toimplement.
SPEAKER_00 (22:03):
So one of the tricky bits, of course, is that there
are 18,000 law enforcementagencies.
Many of them serve the samejurisdiction.
But in every city or countyyou're going to go to, you're
going to have to look and seewhat that jurisdiction needs.
You may have a jurisdictionwhere they actually need more
police officers, or maybe theyneed fewer police officers, but
they need to be better paid.
But in a lot of places, you aregoing to need, again, a more
(22:26):
diverse portfolio of publicsafety.
And what I would look at, youwould have to sort of see what
is needed in that jurisdiction,but I would look at, you know,
what kinds of community violenceintervention programs do you
have?
We've got focused deterrents.
There's a lot of evidence, youknow, that indicates that's a
much more efficient andeffective way of reducing
violent crime.
(22:46):
I would look at what cognitivebehavioral therapy types of
programs they have.
You know, Jens Ludwig talks alot about this in his new book,
Unforgiving Places about howvaluable those programs can be.
Rokha is a similar program.
He talks about becoming a man,but there's programs like this.
So all of the David Mohammed'swork with kids has been amazing.
So I would look, what are youdoing in that realm that is
(23:07):
adjacent to law enforcement butis different?
And then I would look, ofcourse, at the um, and this is a
lot of the work that we do at MyCenter, um, the work with
community crisis response.
Um, you know, what kinds of calltype types are you able to take?
Are you able to shift to a umnon-um police responder?
Um and and I would encouragepeople to listen to the um the
(23:29):
podcast that was done aboutDurham's heart program because
it really starts off by umaddressing sort of the law
enforcement concern about thatprogram and then and then
indicating how much lawenforcement came around once
they realized how valuable itwas.
But it also indicates thatthat's not enough and that you
really do need some socialservice, a so sort of a social
(23:53):
safety net, right?
And so what you see in in a lotof places now, sobering centers
or sort of some kind of crisisstabilization centers, all over,
from Pennsylvania to Alabama,all over, these sorts of places
are are cropping up to kind ofgive you an immediate sort of,
it's not the long-term socialsafety net, but it's an
immediate social safety net.
(24:13):
And of course, there are thethings that we've always known
about, um, and not always, butfor some time known about that
we should be investing more ineverything from street lights.
Liz Glazer has a piece in VitalCity, um, or maybe the Atlantic,
very recently talking about,hey, just you know, the built
environment can really help,right?
So everything from redesigningpublic spaces, planting trees,
fixing derelict buildings,street engineering, all these
(24:36):
sorts of things I would belooking to.
And then I think what I call thehybrid programs, I would be
looking at like, well, what youknow, summer youth employment
programs.
I always think about ScottThompson, um, the chief in
Camden, a very challengedcommunity in New Jersey, telling
me that he would trade 30officers for another boys and
girls club.
You know, that's a police chiefwho sees the value in some of
(24:57):
these non-law enforcement waysto prevent and and address
crime.
Um and then, you know, I thinkit is, it makes sense in that
this is not as attractive tolegislators often because it's
more long-term.
But if you look um at JohnRoman's sort of analyses of
(25:17):
these, and Brendan Beck has apiece in the annual review of
criminology, really talkingabout basically we need to stop
hand-waving at the importance ofaddressing root causes if we
want a sustainable way ofpreventing crime.
And so, you know, I grew up inthe 80s.
I'm very aware of how cynicalpeople have been for a long time
(25:38):
about trying to prevent crimethrough addressing root causes.
But there's just there's a lotof evidence that housing and
education, employment, thosesorts of things, that's the way
you sustainably keep crime downinstead of expecting police to
do it all through arrests andyou know, that's just not that's
not a long-term plan forsuccess.
SPEAKER_01 (25:57):
So what do you see as the path forward uh from here
on policing reform, improvingpolicing, continue to sort of
move the ball, move the ballforward?
SPEAKER_00 (26:08):
Well, there's certainly nothing predetermined.
Um I think as with so manythings in the world right now
where it sort of feels likewe're on the cusp and things
could fall either way.
And so I don't think thatthere's, you know, nothing is we
shouldn't take anything forgranted.
I mean, we just need to decideare we, are we gonna try to be
the best versions of ourselves,or are we just gonna fall back
on our on you know, tried andtrue methods, even um
(26:30):
recognizing some of the veryreal harms um, you know, that
things like uh, you know, sortof mass misdemeanor arrest
programs and mass incarcerationhave on communities, the race to
the racial inequality theyresult in, you know, the way
that we have been policing umhas not had a as strong of an
(26:51):
influence on keeping on crime asone would expect for something
we invest so much in.
And it has had a lot of harm.
So is there a way that we canrethink the way that we are um
that we are approaching publicsafety?
And I think that the pathforward really is to sort of
look at some of the programsthat are being piloted, invest
(27:13):
more in the ones that are shownto be promising.
We can't demand, of course, arandomized control trial before
we try the new things orreinvest in new things, um, just
as we haven't invested, wehaven't replied a randomized
controlled trial with policing.
Um we have to sort of justreally look at what's promising,
try that out and see how itgoes.
And I think that's, you know, wejust have to we just have to opt
(27:36):
for a more constructive andpositive approach to um public
safety and sort of use policefor that sort of judicious, you
know, sort of try to getpolicing to be that sort of,
they are the, they have the umour police are the ones who we
give the authority to use force,including lethal force.
(27:58):
Let's like make sure thatthey're able to do that when we
need it and do so in a way thatis most judicious and restrained
um and effective, and really tryto get some have a more sort of
specialized and diverse umtoolkit that we can respond to
these problems more fully.
I think that that might thatmight require a sort of right
now, police are kind of a ummulti-tool, right?
(28:19):
They go out to the scene andthey what they kind of assess it
and see what is needed.
Some of that might need tohappen more at the um uh at the
stage where the 911 call comesinto dispatch.
So really trying to make surethat our dispatchers are are
better at sort of making thosecalls, but also we might need
some sort of non-police sort ofgeneralist to go to those sorts
(28:40):
of calls and and and do thosesorts of assessments.
SPEAKER_01 (28:42):
And I guess the big question uh from where you sit
is is there a way for DOJ tobecome involved again?
Like I know that the civilrights division has has
obviously been sort ofeviscerated at this point.
Is there a way to rebuild thisand effectively continue what
was before or improve on whatwas before?
SPEAKER_00 (29:01):
So there theoretically is.
I don't know if it's going tohappen or how long it's going to
take.
I think the Department ofJustice has lost a lot of
legitimacy for, you know,appropriately so.
And so I and I think it can andshould take a while to rebuild
that legitimacy.
And, you know, and there werealways communities who didn't
have much trust in thedepartment already.
(29:22):
And so I think it's going to beum a effort at rebuilding trust
and legitimacy, and also justbeing willing to try some new
bold ideas.
And I think that is going torequire um putting I I think the
Department of Justice is goingto have to relinquish some
control over these agreementsunder these and these reform
(29:43):
efforts and really let empowerlocal communities, including
police departments and thecommunities who are impacted by
policing, empower them todevelop more of these solutions
for themselves and support themin that.
And again, I have that's a wholeother conversation.
I'm working on how that happensright now.
But I think that that's the rolefor them is really kind of
(30:03):
having a little bit of humilityand really empowering, doing
figuring out how it can bestempower local communities to
sustain reforms on their own.
SPEAKER_01 (30:12):
And then my last question is just uh, and I
started asking this to all myguests, but what role do you
think that AI can play inimproving your work or kind of
this broader idea of policereform in general?
SPEAKER_00 (30:26):
Um I'm not as I you know, I certainly have lots of
concerns about AI as we allshould, right?
It's it's certainly again, whoknows how it's all gonna turn
out.
It's gonna depend on a lot ofchoices that people make.
But I do think there's somepotential there.
There's some opportunity therefor some real gains.
Everything from I I actuallylike a lot of the ability, and
this isn't necessarily AI, butit can be AI, of some more
(30:48):
technological enforcement thattakes sort of the human out of
it.
When done properly, it canremove some implicit or explicit
biases.
It can also reinforce them andmask them for sure.
Um, but I think there are waysthrough, you know, everything
from stop light enforcement andstop sign enforcement and speed
enforcement to sort of make somegains there.
(31:10):
I also think I'm most excited,frankly, about the use of AI to
review um body worn camerafootage in a more efficient way.
That is huge, both foraccountability purposes, but
also for learning purposes, tobe able to sort of figure out
where are the key points in thisday, in this officer's day that
we should be focused on tofigure out, you know, how to
(31:31):
conduct traffic stops mostsafely or to handle a domestic
violence response most safely.
But also, hey, how can I ensurethat what the officer wrote in
their report was true withoutgoing through, you know, many
hours of watching video?
Their AI may be helpful there.
So I, you know, I I'm familiarwith Ian Adams work and others'
(31:55):
work, um, talk about some of therisks of over reliance on AI.
And that's certainly, that'scertainly going to happen.
And we're gonna have to getthrough that.
But I think that they're it itcan also, I think it's it can be
promising as well.
SPEAKER_01 (32:06):
And where can people go to learn about all you all
are doing at Georgetown and andfind out more information about
this sort of work?
SPEAKER_00 (32:13):
Well, the we you can go to the website at uh Center
for Innovations and CommunitySafety at Georgetown Umlaw.
And we have um a few uh whitepapers that we're putting out on
everything from how you get um auh alternative response
community crisis responseprogram started, how you staff
it.
Um these are not panaceas, theseare not, you know, silver
(32:38):
bullets.
There are still gonna be there'slots of work, lots of things
that can go wrong.
It's not uncomplicated, it's ascomplicated as policing, just
different.
And so there's a conference thatwe're having in June that we do
in conjunction with the policingproject and others to um really
help bring people together totry to figure this out.
So you can look at thosematerials and you know,
obviously talk with me or umwith our the leaders in our in
(33:01):
that practice for our center.
They really, they're some of theexperts in the in the nation on
this.
And it's a really I reallyappreciate it's one of the most
it's been nice to have a new,fresh conversation that feels a
lot more promising than havingthe same conversations, trying
to sort of fix placing in allthe same old ways and coming up
with the same, coming up againstthe same obstacles.
And this seems like um this isthis is proving to be um a way
(33:22):
past some of those seeminglyintransigent obstacles.
SPEAKER_01 (33:26):
Great.
Well, thank you so much.
This has been a greatconversation.
Uh I love the perspective, and Ithink it's so important that
giving all of the staffingissues that policing are having,
that this is something that'ssort of forefront in the
conversation of how do we moveforward, because it's not just,
as you say, hire new police,because that's not easier said
than done.
So thank you so much for comingon the show, Christy.
(33:47):
Thanks for listening to theJeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
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