I found this excellent essay on law enforcement on Crooks and Liars. It was just hanging out in the comments. The author, Bill Allyn, has posted it on a number of online sites. I hope I can help his comments go viral by publishing them here. I think he covers all the bases.
"America has a serious, institutionalized, systemic law enforcement problem. Over the last 4 decades, our law enforcement has become increasingly militarized, putting every citizen at risk of being shot and killed for nothing more than reaching for their wallet, as instructed, or less. This may increase safety for police officers (debatable, in the long run), but at the expense of making American citizens far less safe, which is the exact opposite of the goals of law enforcement. We need to create systems that bring back accountability within every level of the justice system.
Nationally, we need to:
1. Create citizen oversight committees with powers of subpoena and prosecutorial discretion for every law enforcement agency in the country.
2. Require law enforcement officers to be personally insured to protect taxpayers from lawsuits. Too risky for insurance? No insurance, no badge.
3. Require every law enforcement officer to wear a camera. No camera, no gun. No exceptions.
4. Require yearly psyche tests and lie detector tests to screen out bad apples.
5. Require monthly drug and steroid tests.
6. All police agencies must keep a database of every officer-caused civilian injury, shooting or killing, and that data must be periodically transmitted to a third-party, non-biased national database.
7. Any officer involved in a shooting must be alcohol and drug tested immediately.
8. Officers should be made aware of studies on abuse of power, such as the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures.
9. Create a special number to report police brutality.
10. Create national database of bad cops, so they don’t just get hired elsewhere.
11. Reverse militarization of police forces. Take away military “toys”, weapons, APC's, uniforms, etc. Keep SWAT/military weapons and equipment under lock and key only to be used in genuine emergencies.
12. End drug prohibition/war on drugs. Use harm reduction strategies.
13. End private prison industry.
14. Create a national organization dedicated to these ideals."