Seven Ideas for Reshaping Policing in America

There is a flood of police reform proposals in the works across the U.S., driven by the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer later charged with his murder and by the massive protests that followed. With polls showing big increases in the number of people agreeing that Black Americans are treated unfairly by the criminal justice system, a cities, states and the federal government have rushed to consider or adopt changes, though an effort in Congress bogged down in partisan disagreement. Even ideas such as defunding police departments that were on the political fringe before Floyd’s death are now getting serious consideration, at least in some form. Here is a summary of some of the key ideas in the debate.

The term chokehold generally refers to any police technique designed to restrain someone by restricting the flow of blood or air through the neck, as happened to Floyd, who died when the officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. Chokeholds are already banned by some police departments but are still sometimes used: the 2014 death by asphyxiation of Eric Garner in New York City occurred despite the fact that chokeholds were banned by that department in 1993. The City Council in New York and the state legislature in June both passed bans that make the use of chokeholds potentially a felony. House Democrats have proposed a national ban that would make the use of chokeholds a civil rights violation. A bill drafted by Republicans in the Senate instead called for encouraging departments to do away with chokeholds by conditioning grants from the Justice Department on steps to restrict the practice.