On Thursday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch–a week or so before she leaves her post–announced reforms for the Baltimore Police Department, agreed to by the city and the DOJ. The reforms include increased community oversight, and improved recruitment and training policies. In a statement, Lynch said the reforms will help “ensure effective and constitutional policing, restore the community’s trust in law enforcement, and advance public and officer safety.”

The consent decree follows a Department of Justice report on policing in Baltimore that was released last August, the culmination of a year-long investigation spurred by the death of Freddie Gray in 2015. The report, which was based on data from 2010 to 2016, found that the Baltimore Police Department has “systemic deficiencies” in training, and policies that “failed to equip officers with the tools they need to police effectively.” There was widespread racial bias in the department, the report found; police officers were also found to have used excessive force.

Lynch also said that a pending investigation into the Chicago Police Department will be released shortly, perhaps as early as Friday. According to a Chicago Tribune report, the Justice Department found that Chicago police violated the U.S. Constitution with some of their practices. The Chicago investigation began in December 2015, after a video was released that showed a Chicago police officer shooting and killing a black teenager, Laquan McDonald.

“Change is painful. Growth is painful. But nothing is as painful as being stuck in a place that we do not belong,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said at the time of the DOJ report. Under President Barack Obama, the Justice Department has investigated 25 law enforcement agencies across the country; 14 ended in consent decrees. 

These reforms come during a transitional period for the Justice Department. President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee, Jeff Sessions, has raised concerns that the Justice Department will shield police departments rather than investigate possible reforms. During his two-day confirmation hearing that concluded on Wednesday, Sessions was prodded about how he would enforce consent decrees, and if he would pursue the issue of police reform as attorney general.

“I think there is concern that good police officers and good departments can be sued by the Department of Justice when you just have individuals within a department that have done wrong,” Sessions said. “These lawsuits undermine the respect for police officers and create an impression that the entire department is not doing their work consistent with fidelity to law and fairness, and we need to be careful before we do that.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Baltimore police officers routinely engage in unconstitutional searches and arrests, excessive force, and profiling of black people, says a report from the Department of Justice presented on Wednesday morning.

The 163-page report says this pattern exists because of “systemic deficiencies in BPD’s policies, training, supervision, and accountability structures that fail to equip officers with the tools they need to police effectively and within the bounds of the federal law.”

Unconstitutional stops and arrests

The report is not a pleasant read. While people living in the wealthy, predominantly white areas of Baltimore describe the police as responsive and respectful, individuals in the poor, mainly black neighborhoods, on the other hand, describe the police as disrespectful and not responsive to their calls. They are also often targeted for unjustified stops and searches.

The DOJ’s report presents numbers on how many black people were stopped, often without reasonable suspicion. In fact, many were stopped when simply standing or walking on the city’s sidewalks. In the report, an image of a police department permeated with racial bias emerges.

Black people accounted for 95 percent of the 410 people who were stopped 10 times or more in the five and a half year period of data collection. One man, in particular, was stopped 30 times in less than 4 years, without ever being charged with a crime.

.@TheJusticeDept: ‘BPD’s Enforcement Activities Disproportionately Impact African Americans’ https://t.co/c0KeX8WF4X pic.twitter.com/f2Q1I3wXUN

— DOJ Civil Rights (@CivilRights) August 10, 2016

The frequent disregard for the Constitution through mass stops, searches, and arrests seem to be due to the  “zero tolerance” policy from the 1990s, which rewarded officers who make a lot of arrests.

The Baltimore Police also may have been biased against women when handling sexual assault cases. Officers failed to properly and meaningfully investigate cases of sexual assault and also to collect and corroborate evidence supporting the women’s accounts. While the DOJ did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that policing in Baltimore amounted to gender-bias in violation of federal law, some bias appears to have affected officers’ handling of sexual assault cases.

What’s next?

The Department of Justice launched the investigation in the spring of 2015, after the death of Freddie Gray. Reforms to make necessary changes will probably cost tens of millions of dollars and may take several years. The next step in the process is for city and federal officials to negotiate a settlement and present it to a federal judge. The settlement will include a list of requirements that the Baltimore Police Department will need to meet in the coming years.

A positive note is that everyone the DOJ investigators talked to during the investigation agreed that the BPD needs major reforms, even current police officers and city leaders. The DOJ said it will talk to local residents to take their opinions into account during the later stages of negotiation.

“There’s going to be a lot of folks with a lot of ideas about what needs to happen now in the community and in law enforcement, and it’s been really important to us to be able to hear directly from community members,” Vanita Gupta, head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division, said to the Baltimore Sun.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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