- Better data regarding all police stops/encounters with the public.
Right now, data is only collected for stops that result in tickets or written warnings. That means that if an officer stops me, but doesn't give me a written warning or ticket, that stop is unrecorded.
We need to track this so that we can get statistical information on if officers are just randomly engaging people of color with no real probable cause or suspicion. The general public never hears about those encounters, but it creates the types of situations where tensions are heightened. We need to know how often this type of thing is happening.
- More use of body cameras and dash cameras that officers cannot disable at the scene.
How often have we seen questionable things happen, but there's no video footage because the body cam or dash cam either was not working, or had been accidentally turned off during the chase/stop/encounter. That should not happen. We have technology that would allow the cameras to record to a separate location and would prevent them from being disabled by the officer when they are actively on duty. The cameras are there for a reason. They shouldn't just be getting turned off.
- Any police involved shooting that may be prosecuted must be moved outside the jurisdiction for prosecution.
It is incredibly difficult to find an unbiased jury in cases that involve police shootings. Part of this is that because people naturally lend credibility to those in positions of power or authority, meaning that a police officer will tend to be more believable because of their position than the average person. You can't do anything about that because that's a natural human tendency.
What you can do something about is that people tend to not want to judge too harshly against the department that they have to call when there is something happening to them. Very simply, people in Lawrence don't want to be too quick to judge the Lawrence PD, because if they are in trouble, they want the Lawrence PD to respond. The best way to handle this is that if there's an officer involved shooting in Lawrence that may bring about criminal charges, it has to be prosecuted in Topeka, or in Kansas City, or Olathe, or Wichita, or Emporia - basically somewhere that isn't Lawrence so that the people on the jury are more comfortable judging the case without worry.
- Community outreach
There's been a history within the black community that the police are not on our side. This goes back as far as lynchings, when often police would stand aside as blacks accused (but not convicted) of crimes were drug from their cells and killed by mobs. Even through the 1950's and 1960's, there was a tendency to trump up charges against African Americans. Now that we have DNA evidence, we are discovering lots of convictions that have imprisoned the wrong people, often based on the testimony of one witness, without any physical evidence (sometimes even ignoring alibi witnesses).
This has led to a tendency by minorities to simply not trust the police. They aren't generally there when we need them - unless its to arrest us. I remember calling a police officer to file a report of a theft. Once he determined I wasn't the suspect, he lost interest, took down my name and what was taken, then left. No investigation. Nothing. He provided zero help. Just didn't care about helping a young black kid. Once I wasn't a suspect, he had no time to talk to me.
That's not something that can be undone overnight. The justice system as a whole has a responsibility in this. People need to outright admit that some of the things that happened in the past were wrong - unequivocally wrong. No qualifiers. Just wrong. And then it has to be established that the practices that led to that - often times simply a desire to get a conviction on the books for a crime - need to be changed.
Part of that is also making jury service more open to poorer individuals. For an hourly worker, the $10 per day for jury service makes it an incredible hardship. By making jury service available only to those with the means to afford it (because hardship is a reason to be excused) the pool is tilted away from lower income individuals, meaning that if you are poor and a minority, the chances of being tried by a jury of your peers is actually fairly low.
- Improved access to justice
This goes to the point above, but let's just be honest - the criminal justice system is underfunded. Grossly underfunded. Prosecutors offices are underfunded. Did you know that prosecutors offices actually have their own independent investigators (i.e. not the police). Except that many offices can't fill those positions, so they simply use the police as their investigators - that means the prosecutors office has a significant conflict with law enforcement officers within their jurisdiction. How can they be expected to look into any of these issues without bias when they work hand in hand.
On top of that, indigent defense is even more poorly funded. In most cases, the indigent defense offices have no investigators on staff. Our constitution guarantees access to an adequate defense, but nobody wants to pay "to defend criminals." Criminal defense isn't about defending criminals, its about defending the constitution, requiring the prosecution to meet its burden on all elements and generally defending the process of justice.
If the very poorest in society can't afford access to justice, because our legal framework is built on precedent, any bad precedent, even ones built on the basis of an individual simply not having access or the ability to mount a defense, are woven into the fabric of our legal system and affect the outcome of later cases. That means they could directly affect you or I if we are ever wrongly accused. That helps everyone, but particularly people of color because...
- Rethink the war on drugs.
We have an addiction problem in this country. Now that it is opiods and suburban housewives are addicted, there is a push to decriminalize addiction (i.e. usage). But how many young minorities are in prison now for usage? We need to significantly rethink how we handle this 'war' because to fight a war you need enemies and there are always casualties.
There are probably a ton more ideas, but that at least gives a start.
Edit: I should probably note that most of these ideas are not original to me. The vast majority are things that have been suggested in various studies, reports, and papers dating back to the 80's and 90's, and supported by research as recent as this year.
