UC Santa Barbara

The widespread outcry against police brutality, triggered by the extrajudicial killing of George Floyd in 2020, has made police oppression a prominent concern in the public consciousness. In this developing landscape, a comparatively unexamined aspect of police accountability is the use of the consent decree. A police municipality charged by the federal government with violating the constitutional rights of its civilians may choose to agree to a consent decree, a legally binding document governing its future behavior, instead of going through litigation. The goal of the consent decree is to change the police culture of a municipality through close oversight by a court-appointed monitor until the period or the terms of the decree are complete. The consent decree, though controversial, is seen as a viable alternative to spending taxpayer money on what might be futile litigation. This paper seeks to answer the following question: Is the consent decree effective in increasing police accountability? My preliminary argument, based on an analysis of the Pittsburgh and Ferguson consent decrees, is that the consent decree is ineffective for police accountability due to municipalities’ continued lack of transparency and failure to emphasize public participation.