> why this is happening, and what needs to be done about it.
You already point out the key issue as to the WHY, and that is the shared interests of a group that needs to be held accountable (police) and those who's job it is to hold them accountable (Prosecutors, and the governing authority in general). Such shared interests inevitably lead to collusion.
The race component enters in because what little accountability there is depends less on institutional design, and more on external push back from victimized citizens, their families, and their communities, which are still segregated along lines of race. The more powerful and more privileged have more personal power, and their communities have more power, with which to push back.
Minorities are systematically victimized, because minority communities have less power with which to demand accountability. Its as simple as that.
The proximate solution is to repair the organizational checks on accountability, and break down the collusion networks within justice institutions. This will decrease police abuse generally, and, in that it depends less on community power, decrease the racial bias in outcomes.
A very traditional American way to do that, would be to create an adversarial institution as a watchdog, and to construct it with systematic incentives that keep it adversarial.
We expect and DEPEND ON the adversarial relationship of Prosecutors and Defense attorneys. We expect and depend on the same from the various checking and balancing sub-units in government.
I want to see a new meta-justice system, specifically and only for the prosecution and investigation of the larger, base justice system. A police for the police, and a judge for the judges. The important thing is that it remain an institution apart. Unlike traditional "internal affairs" departments, funding would need to come from the non-local, non-state level. Meta-prosecutors should have no interests and as few supervisors in common with Persecutors, nor meta-police with police, and that means there should be little to no exchange of staff from one to the other.
You already point out the key issue as to the WHY, and that is the shared interests of a group that needs to be held accountable (police) and those who's job it is to hold them accountable (Prosecutors, and the governing authority in general). Such shared interests inevitably lead to collusion.
The race component enters in because what little accountability there is depends less on institutional design, and more on external push back from victimized citizens, their families, and their communities, which are still segregated along lines of race. The more powerful and more privileged have more personal power, and their communities have more power, with which to push back.
Minorities are systematically victimized, because minority communities have less power with which to demand accountability. Its as simple as that.
The proximate solution is to repair the organizational checks on accountability, and break down the collusion networks within justice institutions. This will decrease police abuse generally, and, in that it depends less on community power, decrease the racial bias in outcomes.
A very traditional American way to do that, would be to create an adversarial institution as a watchdog, and to construct it with systematic incentives that keep it adversarial.
We expect and DEPEND ON the adversarial relationship of Prosecutors and Defense attorneys. We expect and depend on the same from the various checking and balancing sub-units in government.
I want to see a new meta-justice system, specifically and only for the prosecution and investigation of the larger, base justice system. A police for the police, and a judge for the judges. The important thing is that it remain an institution apart. Unlike traditional "internal affairs" departments, funding would need to come from the non-local, non-state level. Meta-prosecutors should have no interests and as few supervisors in common with Persecutors, nor meta-police with police, and that means there should be little to no exchange of staff from one to the other.
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