The Northeast-Midwest Institute welcomes our newest addition to our growing roster of experienced public policy research experts, Professor Lawrence Sherman, PhD. as Senior Fellow for Criminal Justice and Policing. Dr. Sherman is crrently The Director of the Jerry Lee Centre of Experimental Criminology and Wolfson Professor of Criminology Emeritus at the University of Cambridge.
Dr. Sherman recently published this very timely editorial piece on the role of state governments - particularly Governors and Attorney General - in regulating and reforming American local police agencies in the Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing. Dr. Sherman asserts that “saving the legitimacy of a democratic policing system from the outrages of rogue cops and rogue police cultures …requires a realpolitik vision of who can get the policies implemented and how they can accomplish that…”, pointing out that the “most powerful political actor for police reform” is usually a state’s Governor, followed by the State legislature.
His example of Minnesota’s gubernatorial response to the George Floyd killing also includes the powerful example of the state Attorney General’s swift action (and there are other examples of state Attorneys General playing crucial roles in policing and other aspects of criminal justice reform not cited by Dr. Sherman in this Journal article. For equally interesting recent scholarship on the role of Attorneys General see, e.g.: “State Attorneys General as Agents of Police Reform” by Jason Mazzone & Stephen Rushin in the Duke University Law Journal). Citing the HM Inspectors of Constabulary in the UK, Dr. Sherman argues that that US states should create “Inspectors-General of Policing” (IGP empowered to de-certify both police officers and police departments after a documented pattern of abusive (“rogue”) policing. While Dr. Sherman admits that “the precedents of both Camden, New Jersey, and Northern Ireland are not exact matches,” they both demonstrate in their own ways “the potential for reforming any police agency that has loss the trust of the community they are sworn to serve and protect.
Catch Dr. Sherman’s recent webinar using his article as the centerpiece
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