Speaker 1: Consent decrees were a staple of the Obama administration's efforts
Speaker 1: to change troubled city police departments, often in light of
Speaker 1: aggressive policing practices, but Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made
Speaker 1: it clear he's no fan of consent decrees. When he
Speaker 1: took office in February, he ordered a review of all
Speaker 1: federal consent decrees entered in Justice Department lawsuits against local
Speaker 1: police departments, and in early April, he tried to delay
Speaker 1: the implementation of the consent decree reached with the City
Speaker 1: of Baltimore by the Obama era Justice Department, but a
Speaker 1: federal judge shot down the request and approved the consent decree.
Speaker 1: A new report from researchers at the University of Texas
Speaker 1: at Dallas examined consent decrees in twenty three police departments
Speaker 1: and found that fewer civil rights lawsuits were filed in
Speaker 1: those cities. What can we conclude from that study? Here
Speaker 1: to help us examine that is Christy Lopez, professor at
Speaker 1: Georgetown Law School, formerly a deputy chief in the Justice
Speaker 1: Department Civil Rights Division. Christie, let's start with the basics.
Speaker 1: What is a consent decree? Continue? A consent decree is
Speaker 1: is simply an order that has the back end of
Speaker 1: a federal judge UM that requires the police department to
Speaker 1: make a set of changes to address allegations that they're
Speaker 1: violing the law. Were you involved with negotiating consent decrees
Speaker 1: when you're at the Department of Justice. Yes, I UM
Speaker 1: let a number of the pattern or practice police investigations
Speaker 1: and negotiated several consent decrees. So let's look at this study,
Speaker 1: which has nothing to do with what Jeff Sessions asked for.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, explain the parameters and the conclusion reached.
Speaker 1: So this is a really important study UM for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. First, it's one of the few studies
Speaker 1: that's focused on whether the consent decrees are actually bringing
Speaker 1: about the ultimate goal, which is reducing police in misconduct UM,
Speaker 1: and it answers that question into very important ways. UM.
Speaker 1: One is that it tells us that, as we have
Speaker 1: found previously from other evidence UH, consent decrease can actually
Speaker 1: help cities save money by reducing the number of lawsuits
Speaker 1: the policeeness conduct lawsuits. And it also is important because
Speaker 1: it UM has helped confirm for us that UM that
Speaker 1: consent decrease are in fact effect of a uniquely effective
Speaker 1: form of reducing policeness conduct. The authors seem to have
Speaker 1: hesitation in saying that one is definitely a cause of
Speaker 1: the other, saying that there could be other causes and
Speaker 1: more study has to be done. Do you agree with
Speaker 1: that there that there could be a lot of different
Speaker 1: reasons for policeness conducts. No. No, for the for the
Speaker 1: for the reduction in the in the lawsuits, while the
Speaker 1: and I understand it's while the consent decree is actually
Speaker 1: ongoing than it been uh, sometimes goes back up again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an important point. I mean, they did try to control,
Speaker 1: to try to determine how much of this reduction and
Speaker 1: lawsuit was the result of the consent decree versus other
Speaker 1: things that we're going on. But it's absolutely the case
Speaker 1: that it's very difficult to control for all these different
Speaker 1: different factors. Um. But um, I do. I actually think
Speaker 1: that the report finds um about it up to a
Speaker 1: forty reduction of lawsuits filed during the course of a
Speaker 1: consent decree. Um, and then it finds that that reduction
Speaker 1: seems to dissipate after consent decree is over. But I
Speaker 1: think it's really important to note that UM. I think
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a problem with the methodology here,
Speaker 1: and as I said, it's an important study, but I
Speaker 1: think it does definitely indicate the needs for further UM study.
Speaker 1: It indicates while while this research report purports to focus
Speaker 1: on consent decrees, if you look at the cities they
Speaker 1: looked at and they're listed in foot night footnote nine
Speaker 1: of the report, most of those those cities actually involved
Speaker 1: what we call memorandum of agreement, not consent decrees. And
Speaker 1: that's because those are the older form of agreements that
Speaker 1: the Department of Jeffice used to reach before the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: And it was precisely because we learned that those the
Speaker 1: changes under those older m oa's didn't last as long
Speaker 1: as that we moved to consent decrees. And so when
Speaker 1: this report looked at the agreements that were ended, they
Speaker 1: were looking primarily at those older m oas, and so
Speaker 1: when they found that the the changes didn't last as long,
Speaker 1: that's actually what we would expect and we would hope,
Speaker 1: I would hope that these authors would be open to
Speaker 1: actually focusing UM on whether consent degrees actually have a
Speaker 1: longer laughing effect. And that's obviously important as Jeff Sessions
Speaker 1: wants to move away from consent decrees back to those
Speaker 1: more voluntary agreements. Is there any evidence for what Sessions
Speaker 1: has said that heavy scrutiny of police in recent years
Speaker 1: had made has made officers less aggressive, leading to a
Speaker 1: rise in crime and s these like Chicago, and also
Speaker 1: saying that the decrees reduced the morale of police officers.
Speaker 1: So there has been a little bit of studying into that,
Speaker 1: and there is not a lot. There is very little
Speaker 1: evidence to support what he says and what they're what
Speaker 1: evidence there is is hardly conclusive, and there's there's more
Speaker 1: evidence to that is the opposite of that um there.
Speaker 1: Incent decrees are correlated not only with with lower payouts
Speaker 1: for cities, but they're also correlated with lower crime rates
Speaker 1: and with higher office morale. We've actually seen that in studies. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that that Sessions is wed to
Speaker 1: this idea that he's held for a long time. That's
Speaker 1: that's that's not going to be swayed by by the
Speaker 1: actual facts on the ground. And consent decrees are expensive
Speaker 1: costs estimated about ten million or more in cities such
Speaker 1: as Baltimore and New Orleans. Explain what that money goes to.
Speaker 1: Some of it, Yeah, I mean they do. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: no questions. They do cost the money. A lot of
Speaker 1: money goes to training officers, and I think that's why
Speaker 1: I hope that we would all agree that that's a
Speaker 1: really important investment to be put in our police departments.
Speaker 1: But some of it does go to UM creating systems
Speaker 1: for collecting information, but that really opposite that the departments
Speaker 1: has had for a long time. And some of it
Speaker 1: goes to mock to paying monitors to actually be able
Speaker 1: to report out is neutral independent people about whether the
Speaker 1: changes are being made. But I think you have to
Speaker 1: look at again the reduction of UM lawsuits. This shows
Speaker 1: you look for example at Chicago, which has paid out
Speaker 1: well over half a billion dollars in the past ten
Speaker 1: years or so in lawsuits to see to ask yourself
Speaker 1: whether this is would be rather be spending our money
Speaker 1: to get our police department up to constitutional muster, or
Speaker 1: would be rather be paying lawyers and litigants for being
Speaker 1: abused by the police department. Some civil rights advocates fear
Speaker 1: that Sessions memo could imperil the status of agreements that
Speaker 1: have yet to be finalized. I think there's one pending
Speaker 1: with Chicago Police Department, right do do you are you
Speaker 1: concerned that that might happen? Yes, I am. I mean
Speaker 1: I think that the a G has made it clear
Speaker 1: that he doesn't think that preventing systemic police abuse is
Speaker 1: a worthy endeavor for the federal government. Um. He's made
Speaker 1: it clear that, UM, he believes it's worth tolerating police
Speaker 1: abuse if that if that makes it easier for police
Speaker 1: to lock up for people of color for low level
Speaker 1: drug crimes. And he believe that, notwithstanding the research that
Speaker 1: shows us that that sort of policing makes communities and
Speaker 1: police officers less safe, stop to mention that it perpetuates
Speaker 1: violations of people's civil rights. UM. So you know, I'm
Speaker 1: obviously concerned, and I think that this this report just
Speaker 1: gives us more evidence that consent decrees again are uniquely
Speaker 1: useful in helping to change departments but may have been
Speaker 1: trying to change for decades and not been able to
Speaker 1: in the past. Thank you so much for being on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law. That's Christie Lopez. She's a professor at Georgetown
Speaker 1: Law School. That's it for this edition of Bloomberg Law.
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