Law Enforcement

7. Massively Parallel Roles & Tasks

Law Enforcement Officials at all levels are charged with preventing citizens from defying the law. Without the remedies that their efforts provide, our legal rights could easily be violated by anyone willing and able to resort to violence and intimidation. Law enforcement officials are, therefore, critical to the success of the broader MPP effort. Also critical is that they hold themselves strictly accountable to the same system of laws that they are charged with enforcing.  In fact, they need to go beyond the letter of the law in ways that make clear that they also stand behind the spirit of the law.  Cases in which law enforcement either violates, or appears to violate, the law constitute a big driver of public distrust and is a problem that needs to be vigorously addressed. Fortunately, there are a large number of efforts to do this. Police2Peace is a national nonprofit focused on bringing together representatives from the activist and police communities with the goal of healing relationships — work that also used to be done by the now closed agency, the Community Relations Service.  There are also major efforts to better understand the sources of criminal behavior including mass shootings and neighborhoods with persistently high crime rates and inadequate law enforcement. Especially important are efforts to understand and find sensible ways of addressing the United States' extraordinarily high incarceration rates. Here, increased reliance on restorative approaches shows real promise as do efforts to limit punishment but increase the chances of getting caught (which are, in many jurisdictions, very very low).  There are even efforts to propose workable compromises on the contentious issue of gun control.

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