Tired of bad cops? First, look at their labor unions. [View all]

[octoberlib]

By Daniel DiSalvo
June 3, 2020 at 9:57 a.m. EDT
Daniel DiSalvo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and professor of political science at the City College of New York-CUNY.



The purpose of policing is to promote public safety and uphold the rule of law so that individuals and communities can thrive. The purpose of police unions, however, is to win members better salaries and benefits and to protect their job security — specifically by pushing for safeguards against investigation, discipline and dismissal. These protections can make it difficult for police chiefs to manage their forces effectively and can allow a few bad officers to act with impunity, poisoning an entire organizational culture in the process.



The most notorious example of this problem emerged from Chicago after the 2014 killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by officer Jason Van Dyke. Before that fatal incident, Van Dyke had been the subject of 20 civilian complaints, 10 of which alleged excessive use of force. But under the union rules then in place, the complaints proved toothless. As a task force appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the wake of the shooting reported, “The collective bargaining agreements between the police unions and the City [had] essentially turned the code of silence into official policy.”

To be sure, many of the protections demanded by police unions reflect the unique challenges of policing. Because of the nature of their work, law enforcement officers tend to have adversarial relationships with the citizens and communities they serve. False or exaggerated complaints are inevitable, and it is understandable that labor representatives would want to protect their members against these threats.

Problems arise when these provisions are exploited to help cover for bad policing. In many American cities, police union contracts limit the amount of time an officer accused of misconduct can be interviewed, who can interview him and when an interview can occur. Houston and Louisville, for example, allow for delays of up to 48 hours before an interview with an officer accused of wrongdoing. On one hand, these rules protect officers who, because they must make statements on the record, surrender as a condition of their jobs their constitutional right to remain silent. On the other hand, this grace period can be used as time for officers to “get their story straight.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/03/tired-bad-cops-first-look-their-labor-unions/