Oakland Police Caught Between Reform and Crime Surge
The New York Times
April 19, 2012
Quoted: Christopher Stone
Topic: Law enforcement reform
Christopher Stone
Last month, at his first executive meeting as Oakland’s new police chief, Howard A. Jordan laid out his priorities for the police department in California’s most violent city. No. 1: reforms. No. 2: crime. …
After more than a decade of consent decrees, experts now say effective reform agreements take into account department sizes and service demands. Officers have grown frustrated that Oakland’s monitors do not seem concerned about the decrease in police services.
“If a police department is not hurting anybody and is not exhibiting any racial bias, it may look good by some of the first generation’s standards,” said Chris Stone, a professor of criminal justice at Harvard’s Kennedy School, who conducted a study on the efficacy of reforms at the Los Angeles Police Department. …