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The Need For Federal Intervention In Ferguson

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As I mentioned over the holiday, I have a #Slatepitch in what is hopefully the non-pejorative sense about what actions the federal government should be taking even if they don’t think that Wilson could be successfully prosecuted for civil rights violations:

But indicting Wilson for civil rights violations does not exhaust the possibilities of federal intervention. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice is empowered by statute to file civil charges if it finds a “pattern or practice” of violating civil rights on the part of local law enforcement. The DOJ can obtain a court order or negotiate a settlement that requires changes in police practices and maintains federal supervision to ensure that the changes are implemented.

These civil interventions can be very important. “Department of Justice’s civil pattern-or-practice investigation has the potential to make a real systemic change in the way policing is done in Ferguson,” explains Samuel Bagenstos, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School who served as principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights under the Obama administration. “It could lead to a consent decree or other agreement that changes the way the police hire, screen, train, and monitor officers, alters use-of-force policies, and so forth. I think the pattern-or-practice cases, far more than the criminal ones, are where DOJ can make real change to policing practices.”

As Josh Voorhees argued in this virtual space earlier this year, the importance of reforming police practices in Ferguson can hardly be overstated. In a tour de force of investigative reporting for the Washington Post, Radley Balko found that the police departments in Ferguson and other small towns in St. Louis County collaborated with local courts to function in large measure as a white supremacist protection racket. Overwhelmingly white police forces impose arbitrary fines for minor legal violations on overwhelmingly African-American residents, which are often compounded by penalties for failure to appear in court or to pay fines. (The average citizen of Ferguson has three outstanding arrest warrants!) Not surprisingly, there is good evidence that these draconian enforcements are racially discriminatory.

In case you’re having any doubts about whether to click through to this article, I would like to note that it’s been endorsed by…your wife. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Rumors that Heather Locklear will be blurbing Erik’s book are unconfirmed but probably accurate.

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