The current bill seems a lot more likely to pass and may shed some light on policework.

Transparency will unveil the depth of the problem, but in the end, the depth of the problem is only useful as trivia or, at best, as marketing towards fixing the problem. Police misconduct, abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and collusion with judges cannot and will not be solved by record-keeping. Even if the records reveal injustice, or if other evidence surfaces that prove some records are fabricated, who will prosecute the police? Who will sentence them?

I thought it was important to point out that oversight will not provide a way for us to have our cake and eat it, too.

Requires the Attorney General to provide for and report to Congress on a study of the information on deaths of persons in custody.

Looks like congress has attached the reporting requirements to criminal justice grants that states are already receiving.

Looks like a good idea, will it actually work?

Prof.

I find myself a bit puzzled by your comment. Currently the vast majority of the excesses wrought by our increasingly militarized police forces go un-recorded, the officers who betray their duty and the public trust unpunished.

How can the first step towards overcoming this culture of cover-ups and secrecy be anything other than dramatically increased transparency? Only with transparency and tracking can we begin to assess the scale and the scope of the problem and begin to understand the damage that has been wrought on our free society.

How, precisely, do you think that Scalia was able to justify his belief in the “new professionalism” of a national police force that at times seems anything but professional. (professionals do not treat their public trust as a license to engage in petty tyrannies. professionals do not place a higher value on group loyalty than on integrity and competence)

Clearly the first step must be to require that the single most direct threat to personal liberties that most Americans ever face be required to document and justify its actions on the public record. As you state, it won’t solve the problem by itself. But it is the absolutely vital first step so that all of the other solutions might thrive.

I commend the idea. Why does my cynical nature give me a twinge and begin to suspect that at least some police would begin to make sure they do find what they expected? Some might even begin to prepare “scripts” for various situations to cover their errors. Of course, that is not so different from how some already do things after a questionable raid — long delays for the “internal investigation” to take place, where the police were never in the wrong.