So far ahead of the curve we are behind it

Chief Ferguson doesn't know why anybody could possibly be mad at NOPD.  After all, they are "ahead of the curve." 

“We are here to inform our city, our communities, of their New Orleans Police Department’s accomplishments thus far,” Ferguson said. “While there is much work to be done there is much that we should be proud of.”

Ferguson said that on the national level, the NOPD is on the forefront of reform efforts.

“People are calling for a wholesale change of what policing looks like in America,” said Ferguson, “but in New Orleans we are well ahead of the curve when it comes to effective police reform and a commitment to constitutional policing.”

Are they, though? It was a year ago at about this time that we came across  this illuminating article in The Appeal written by Matthew Nesvet. Nesvet recounts his observations working for the auditing firm hired to monitor NOPD's consent decree compliance.  He describes a conspiratorial relationship between the police and the consultants intended to help the cops meet the technical metrics of the decree even if nothing of any substance changes about the way they operate. The consultants themselves are often retired law enforcement. And this kind of consulting can be a lucrative post career option for those who know how to capitalize on relationships.

Police consent decrees are overseen by court-appointed criminal justice experts, including former police chiefs, private attorneys, and academics. These experts audit compliance with reform agreements and advise police on how to make changes. Consent decree monitoring is big business. Teams of expert monitors, often based outside the cities where they oversee police, bid for what can be multimillion-dollar contracts. In New Orleans, where the cost of the consent decree is approximately $55 million and rising, a joint committee of city and federal officials chose a monitoring team led by Jonathan Aronie, a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of the corporate law firm Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton.

These monitoring teams work with officials like former New Orleans police commissioner Murphy and his boss Harrison to develop metrics that assess the department’s progress. But as Murphy liked to say, quoting a member of the Sheppard Mullin team, “you manage what you measure.” In New Orleans, Murphy and Harrison teamed up with compliance auditors and the Sheppard Mullin experts to focus on quantitative metrics. The compliance “scorecards” Murphy created report the percentage of police districts and units fulfilling audit standards constructed from the terms of the decree.

 But the design of many of the metrics allowed police to check boxes rather than demonstrate real improvement.
consent decree racket

In the long run what happens is the city spends more money on hiring and arming cops, the consultants make a nice stack of money, and nothing else fundamentally changes.  And of course every established politician can pretend they've done some sort of "police reform." It's a win win win.

But, of course, that kind of progress doesn't happen overnight. First we have get everyone on the same page with regard to the fundamentals. For example, we have to make sure they all know how to count to 8. Back to that Lens article for an update on that.

The NOPD and the Mayor’s office have been recently touting the department’s compliance with the national #8CantWait campaign, started by the organization Campaign Zero. That campaign advocates for police departments to adopt eight use of force policies that the organization argues would reduce harm caused by police departments— including a ban on chokeholds, a de-escalation requirement and a duty to intervene when an officer sees a fellow officer using excessive force.

Earlier this month the department claimed in a tweet it had adopted six of those eight protocols — excluding a provision that officers issue a warning before shooting, along with exhausting all alternatives before shooting. Then, days later, Mayor LaToya Cantrell tweeted that the department was in compliance with all eight. At the press conference on Thursday, Ferguson said that in fact the department was in fact in compliance with all eight, and the first tweet was a mistake.

So they're learning some math.  But certain abstractions appear to be beyond their grasp. Such as the concept of zero... as in Campaign Zero.  As much as the mayor and the cops have been talking that up, they still don't quite get it.

Campaign Zero itself acknowledged on the #8CantWait website that the campaign “unintentionally detracted from efforts of fellow organizers invested in paradigmatic shifts that are newly possible in this moment,” and apologized.

Some local organizations seem to agree with the assessment that broader change is needed.

The Orleans Parish Reform Coalition (OPPRC), which held a rally recently to defund the police, has said its demands will broadly reflect a platform called #8toabolition — a response to #8CantWait — which include policy proposals intended to shift resources away from policing and incarceration. The platform calls for defunding and demilitarizing police, removing police from schools, freeing people from prisons and jails, and investing in housing and healthcare.

In other words, despite Ferguson's slightly innumerate boasting, NOPD's reform efforts are still well behind the curve.