When a serious issue arises from interactions between citizens and police, it is broadcast to millions of Americans on their phones, TVs, laptops, and radios, inevitably inducing a call from the American public for some type of reform or change in the way citizens and police interact. Meanwhile, the word “reform” has become a tarnished one in many law enforcement circles (Morin et al., 2017). From the perspective of a number of law enforcement officers and officials, these calls to reform represent unnecessary change, undue hardship, and increased monitoring of a job that is already difficult to quantify and evaluate (Skogan, 2008). It’s also considered insulting to some that the uninitiated public would say that police need to do a better job without really knowing the context or scope of what that job actually entails (Burns, 2020; Morin et al., 2017).
Meanwhile, by and large, police still share a number of similar values to the citizens that they serve (Morin et al., 2017). Taken out of the context of their profession, it’s likely that many would support the principles that motivate reform efforts, if not the actual reforms called for by the general public (Morin et al., 2017). So why do they bristle so much at the prospects of change? The answer lies in the typical explanations as to why institutional change is so difficult and in a highly influential institution that is fairly unique to the criminal justice system: police unions.
Some of the common impediments to change in group settings are: inertia, uncertainty, and group norms (Cordner et al., 2016). Inertia is an obstacle because people find comfort in routine and often see no reason to change a process that has long been established (Cordner et al., 2016). Uncertainties and misunderstandings about the nature or degree of change necessary to improve the circumstances can breed resistance as well (Cordner et al., 2016). Members of any group will approach changes in group norms and shifts in group dynamics with caution and a degree of reluctance because they grow accustomed to a certain type of interaction within that group (Cordner et al., 2016). Taken together, these present serious obstacles to large-scale change in almost any group setting. In the context of police reform though, these issues are particularly salient and even magnified due to the presence and role of police unions (Berman and Kindy, 2020).
Similar to traditional labor unions, police unions are meant to act as a collective bargaining unit by which members (in this case, law enforcement officers and officials) use their collective power as workers to negotiate and fight for higher wages, increased benefits, and better working conditions (Clark, 2020). Because of the particularly dangerous and public nature of police work, these unions have had to be vigorous in protecting their members and in pursuing additional benefits for them (Armacost, 2016). In other words, where vigilance in labor disputes and public relations campaigns would be normal and expected, they have instead become hyper-vigilant and in some cases aggressive in the defense of their members and the profession as a whole. This makes sense to a degree, as it is their duty as a labor union to represent their members to the greatest extent possible. However, police unions differ from other labor unions in that the benefits of the association are not necessarily intended to be shared with the wider labor movement (Clark, 2020). Most unions act in some degree of solidarity with one another and the rationale is that what benefits one worker will benefit all, but police unions do not operate this way (Clark, 2020). In fact, a number of actions taken by police unions in the past have opposed the preferences and actions of other labor unions (Clark, 2020).
As a result, police unions have become highly exclusive and protectionist organizations that would prefer to see their members’ rights and benefits upheld and maintained at the expense of the general public’s desire for police reform (Finnegan, 2020). In short, these unions were formed to protect their members’ interests just like any other, but because they have ostracized the labor movement as a whole (or have been ostracized by the labor movement) and resisted external calls to change for so long, they have crystallized into a force that stands in opposition to substantive reform at almost any cost (Burns, 2020; Finnegan, 2020). A few examples from the Summer of 2020 include: a contingent of 57 officers in Buffalo, NY threatening to resign in solidarity because another officer was accused of misconduct; the unsolicited release of sealed arrest documents for a New York City elected official’s daughter in retaliation for proposed reform efforts; and a police union alleging that two of its members had been intentionally poisoned at a restaurant when the cause was in fact accidental food poisoning (Burns, 2020; Voytko, 2020). One need not look far for other recent examples of police unions overzealously defending their members in questionable ways, but these confrontations and conflicts will continue to increase in scope and scale as problems related to the criminal justice system continue to mount (Burns, 2020; Michaels, 2020). As an additional result, this has also served to magnify the effects of the usual obstacles to organizational reform (inertia, uncertainty, and group norms) significantly (Gerson et al., 2020).
Fundamentally speaking (and ironically enough), police unions are standing in their own way. Arguably, the best method to increase benefits for their members is to enhance the public perception of who police are and what they do. In doing so, they can make gains in terms of public image and thereby make more credible calls for why their compensation, benefits, or working conditions should be improved. As it stands now, police as a whole do not hold a high place of respect in the general public’s mind, especially when accounting for race, age, and political party affiliation (Desilver et al., 2020). This should be seen as extremely problematic to police union leaders and members if they are to achieve the goals they set out to accomplish, namely in the form of increasing economic and social benefits for their members.
In this way, just as police themselves are the gatekeepers to the criminal justice system, police unions have become the gatekeepers to criminal justice reform. Without their cooperation, the prospects for substantive and meaningful reform remain limited. However, if police unions change their outlook and consider the possibilities that reform holds for increasing member benefits and improving the public opinion of law enforcement, they can be a far more effective force in advancing the interests of police and progressing the policing profession as a whole. A shift in perspective could be beneficial not only to their current members, but for all future generations of police.
References
Armacost, B. (2016, August 19). The Organizational Reasons Police Departments Don't Change. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-organizational-reasons-police-departments-dont-change
Berman, M., & Kindy, K. (2020, June 29). Police chiefs and mayors push for reform. Then they run into veteran officers, unions and 'how culture is created.' Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-chiefs-and-mayors-push-for-reform-then-they-run-into-veteran-officers-unions-and-how-culture-is-created/2020/06/28/7d2ff812-b2ef-11ea-8f56-63f38c990077_story.html
Burns, M. (2020, June 30). Police used brutal protest tactics, rejected reform now face defunding. Retrieved October 2, 2020 from https://www.businessinsider.com/police-brutal-tactics-george-floyd-protests-defund-problems-2020-6
Clark, P. F. (2020, September 04). Why police unions are not part of the American labor movement. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/why-police-unions-are-not-part-of-the-american-labor-movement-142538
DeSilver, D., Lipka, M., & Fahmy, D. (2020, August 17). 10 things we know about race and policing in the U.S. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-we-know-about-race-and-policing-in-the-u-s/
Finnegan, W. (2020, August). How Police Unions Fight Reform. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/how-police-unions-fight-reform
Greenhouse, S., Lopez, R., & Gersen, J. (2020, June). How Police Unions Enable and Conceal Abuses of Power. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-police-union-power-helped-increase-abuses
Michaels, S. (2020, May 30). Minneapolis police union president allegedly wore a "white power patch" and made racist remarks. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/05/minneapolis-police-union-president-kroll-george-floyd-racism/
Novack, K., Cordner, G., Smith, B., & Roberg, R. (2016). Chapter Summary. Police & Society. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780190639211/studentresources/ch6/summary/
Morin, R., Parker, K., Stapler, R., & Mercer, A. (2017, January 11). Behind the Badge: What Police Think About Their Jobs. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/01/11/police-views-public-views/
Skogan, W. G. (2008) Why reform fails. Policing and Society, 18:1, 23-34. Retrieved October 2, 2020, from DOI: 10.1080/10439460701718534
Voytko, L. (2020, June 16). NY Police Unions Allege Officers 'Poisoned' From Shake Shack Food-Then Change Tune. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/06/16/ny-police-unions-allege-officers-poisoned-from-shake-shack-food-then-change-tune/
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