Law Commons^™

Police Reform Through Section 1983, Adam J. Smith

Northern Illinois University Law Review

For decades, members of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) engaged in a protracted campaign of corruption, terror, and violence against Black and brown Chicagoans. Intermittent efforts to reform or otherwise rein in the CPD invariably fell short. In late 2014, a CPD officer murdered a 17-year-old Chicagoan, Laquan McDonald. CPD officials and city leaders attempted to whitewash the killing as a justified use of deadly force, but—thanks to the work of local organizers and a national pressure campaign—McDonald’s death instead led to a yearlong investigation by the federal Department of Justice (DOJ). Ordinarily, such an investigation would have resulted in …

Review Of The Little Book Of Police Youth Dialogue: A Restorative Path Toward Justice, Robert Brenneman

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Trauma: Community Of Color Exposure To The Criminal Justice System As An Adverse Childhood Experience, André Douglas Pond Cummings, Todd Clark, Caleb Gregory Conrad, Amy Dunn Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

The reality that traumatic childhood experiences are directly linked to negative health outcomes has been known and widely recognized in public health and clinical literature for more than two decades. Adverse Childhood Experiences (“ACEs”) represent the “single greatest unaddressed public health threat facing our nation today” according to Dr. Robert Block, former President of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

ACEs are traumatic events that occur in early childhood, which can range from abuse and neglect to experiences derived from household and community dysfunction, such as losing a caregiver, being incarcerated, or living with a household member suffering from mental illness. …

How Federalism Built The Fbi, Sustained Local Police, And Left Out The States, Daniel C. Richman, Sarah Seo

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the endurance of police localism amid the improbable growth of the FBI in the early twentieth century when the prospect of a centralized law enforcement agency was anathema to the ideals of American democracy. It argues that doctrinal accounts of federalism do not explain these paradoxical developments. By analyzing how the Bureau made itself indispensable to local police departments rather than encroaching on their turf, the Article elucidates an operational, or collaborative, federalism that not only enlarged the Bureau’s capacity and authority but also strengthened local autonomy at the expense of the states. Collaborative federalism is crucial …