The State of American Police Reform: The Movement Continues (Part 2 of 2)
Dr. Noble Wray has been involved in policing as patrolman, chief and consultant since he was a neighborhood officer in the Broadway-Simpson area in 1982.
by Jonathan Gramling
Dr. Noble Wray — Wray received an honorary doctorate from UW-Milwaukee — came into policing on a wave of reform. Wray joined the Madison Police Department in 1982. It was a time when the department was working to diversify its ranks to more reflect the community it served. Community policing, to allow officers and community members to have relationships beyond the emergency situation, was beginning to take hold in Madison. Wray a neighborhood officer in the Broadway-Simpson neighborhood. Wray would eventually move up in the ranks and served as Madison police chief from 2004 to 2013.
But even as he retired from the Madison Police Department — and throughout his MPD career — Wray was engaged in the police reform movement.
Recently, the Trump Administration eliminated the consent decrees that the U.S. Dept. of Justice had with the Minneapolis and Louisville communities after the police shootings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. But the Federal involvement was almost a reflection of a deeper movement and not the movement itself, something that the Federal Government could turn on and off at will.
“What my father used to always say to us is, ‘It’s too bad sometimes in America that justice comes about by this country having labored with an issue,’” Wray said. “He meant that you have to struggle before justice is elevated at each step of the way. He used to talk about that at great length. And so there is usually something significant in society that causes us to look inward at ourselves as people and say, ‘Is that the right way? Can we do better? Are we living up to the full meaning of the Constitution?’
The impact of rescinding the consent decrees will depend on where the communities were in the process.
“I think all of them were somewhere down the line in the process,” Wray said. “What we have found in working with departments is many times when you start, it is a very difficult process for leadership to say, ‘Yes let’s bring someone in.’ Even mayors, even citizens don’t want people looking at their local department. But once the process starts, what people start to realize is that there were some things that needed to improve. There were some things that needed to change. Minneapolis recognized that. And so what is happening there is they have agreed to continue the process. They’ve agreed to continue looking at policies, procedures, how they do things and what are the best practices.
Do they have the right equipment? Do they have the right operational things in place? Are they holding their people accountable? And are they seeing measurement and improvement? Every department is at various stages in this. For example, you have Baltimore who went through a consent decree several years ago and they almost completed theirs. And they are starting to see some of the rewards of doing it. Every department at some point in time should welcome external people coming in and checking. And not only external people, but also their own community asking questions, which is probably the best group of people. How are you doing in terms of measurement and seeing if you are making progress?”
The consent decrees are important as a national expression of police reform, in some ways like the King Civil Rights Marches were to the civil rights marches and efforts occurring in many municipalities across the South and across the United States.
“Consent decree, in a very simplistic manner, is an agreement by the police department and the community to work on how to improve policing in their department,” Wray said. “It is guided by the federal government. What they do is the federal government comes in and they will review your department. And again, this is usually as a result of some high profile incident. We could name them. It’s everything from George Floyd to what took place in Memphis, what took place in Kentucky. Everyone knows the names of these events. So the government comes in, brings in a group of subject matter experts and reviews what has taken place within that department. Normally, it’s not just that incident that created the problem. It is usually what is referred to as ‘The Pattern of Practice’ that has led up to something really going wrong in that department. Fortunately out of the approximately 17,000-18,000 departments in the United States, you only have 4-6 departments that are under a consent decree, which is actually pretty good. The ones that do go under this process, they look in and come in and are looking to try to do three things. One is to help these departments see things that they may not be seeing to improve that department. Two is that they bring a certain level of accountability if that department decides that it is not going to comply. It does carry the full weight of the Department of Justice to require that they comply with it. And then the third thing, which is so important, is that they go through this process of improving. And that process always should include the leadership of the organization, police officers and citizens, the local people who are there because they are in the best position to understand what the issues are in that community.”
And so real reform happens when all sectors of the community are involved.
“A thriving department will have people who will hold the department accountable at the local level,” Wray said. “That’s critical. The other thing that will take place is the leadership will constantly look at ways to improve. Probably more important than anything else because any time you have a chief or someone talking about the department, it is what that culture of that organization serves, what that department truly believes in and what they don’t believe in. Every department across the United States will have a policy or procedure, a mission/vision statement, but it is what that culture of that organization is and what they do is what really carries the day on how that department will interact and how well it will perform.”
The Federal Government can’t make police reform happen. But it can precipitate a local reform movement.
“The proper role of the federal government is as a catalyst for change,” Wray emphasized. “Number two, it is also to create an environment to have people come in and assist with the resources in terms of bringing in subject matter experts or sometimes financial resources. Through the COPS Office, people have been able, over the years, to get officers and equipment that they normally would not have been able to get. The third thing to do is sometimes as a catalyst, you need someone who is not directly involved in an issue to be able to help to bring community members and police together to talk and to look at the issues. But their role really should be only as a facilitator and then back away and let the community and the police department do what they can do best because when change happens at the local level where it involves police officers and citizens, that is the best change and the best way for this to occur. And that is the role of the federal government.”
Wray remains in the police reform movement and his called upon to speak and consult all over the country.
“I’ve talked all over North America to be perfectly honest with you,” Wray said. “And there are three things that I think are demanded of policing, every act decided on. And that is service. We are here as servants to the community. We are here to make sure that we have a caretaker role, that it is important that when we arrive, we aren’t just there to look and see what crime has been committed, but to make sure that our fellow man is taken care of. So service is important. Then the issue of justice is critical. That’s what ties us to Constitutional policing, the balance of justice. Are people heard? When we arrive at a scene or we are talking to someone, do we listen to both sides? Is everyone’s word important? Do we allow for human beings to be heard? That’s what gave rise to community policing. A lot of people wanted to be heard from a policing standpoint. So you have service and justice. And we were always going to be guided by fundamental fairness. Are we being fair? Are the scales of justice being weighed in a correct manner?”
Wray feels that the role of the Federal Government is important in terms of the level of vitality and sustainability at the local level.
“I believe it will continue. We have the ebb and flow in terms of priorities depending upon who pushes the change and the political leadership. But it is so important not only to be able to have the federal government serve as a catalyst, but also for this nation to send a signal of what is Constitutional Policing because that is the role of the federal government. And I think it will continue because at the local level — you see it here — if something happens, they will petition the mayor. They will petition the police. They will go out and protest. And they will demand change. And they will demand that the right things occur. I think reform will always be there. But I think the federal government has a role and I hope that we won’t lose that support from the federal government.”
As the saying goes, “This too shall pass.” While the role of the Federal Government has been diminished — or eliminated — under the Trump administration, it cannot extinguish the movement of reform. That is in the hands of the citizens of every municipality across America.
