This week, there was another shooting of an unarmed Black man by police, this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

So it’s very timely to read an article co-authored by MFOI Ava Abramowitz an article in Lawfare, Measurement Matters: The Key to Police Reform.  The authors take a dispute system design approach to analyzing the problems, focusing on the importance of developing good data to monitor situations and provide the basis for policies to improve them.  They write:

Police departments, their officers, and the citizens they serve need performance measurement systems that reflect today’s values, reward citizen service as well as crime management, and imbue honesty in policing, while shunning gamesmanship.  To be judged worthy by all involved, these measurement systems must promote officers and behaviors that benefit the community and penalize officers and behaviors that hurt it.

. . .

Let every police department, supported by a professional facilitator, become a safe venue for people to speak up—with both officers and the community each having their say.  It is challenging to do, but all stakeholders need to respect all equally as they listen so that all can learn the fear each has of the other, the anger each has for the other, and the pain and psychological damage that police use of force, whether justifiable or not, causes everyone—police and citizens alike.  In this way, the community will be in a better position to let go of the past and move forward to a safer, freer future.  In this way, it will be possible to reach consensus on a police-performance measurement system that rewards what society wants to measure and measures what society wants to reward.

Take a look.