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Will DOJ Complete More Police Reforms Before Trump Arrives?

Crime and Justice News

Elected after global protests over police brutality, President Biden promised broad reform to U.S. policing.

He pledged to increase use of the strongest tool for overhauling problem-plagued police departments, beginning sweeping civil rights investigations into a dozen police forces, including in Minneapolis, Trenton, N.J., and Louisville. Those investigations have produced 551 pages of findings full of shocking examples of brutality, racial profiling, illegal arrests and impunity for officers who committed misconduct, reports the New York Times. The Justice Department is running out of time to make the reports into binding plans of action.

The Biden administration has produced only one final oversight agreement, in Louisville. President-elect Trump is unlikely to pursue more. In Trump’s first term, the Justice Department turned away from seeking new oversight agreements and pulled back from enforcing those in place. Trump has said repeatedly that he wanted to give officers “immunity from prosecution, so they’re not prosecuted for doing their job.”


The lack of progress under Biden has frustrated residents of places like Minneapolis, where DOJ began an investigation after the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020, but has not yet reached an agreement with the city on federal oversight. “Here we are, four and a half years after the torture and murder of George Floyd that ignited the longest worldwide protest ever,” said Stacey Gurian-Sherman of Minneapolis for a Better Police Contract, a police accountability group. She added, “The clock is ticking and we fear that come Jan. 20, President Trump will come in and pull the plug on Minneapolis.” Gurian-Sherman blamed Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for the lack of an agreement. The Justice Department has taken longer than normal — in some cases more than two years — to complete investigations. The White House pointed to changes Biden ordered for federal law enforcement agencies. The DOJ Civil Rights Division is enforcing 15 court-ordered oversight agreements from previous administrations. Under Biden, it has also used lesser tools, such as a resolution with a sheriff’s department in Georgia where deputies stopped and searched a women’s lacrosse team from a historically Black university.

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A daily report co-sponsored by Arizona State University, Criminal Justice Journalists, and the National Criminal Justice Association

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