State Labor Law and Federal Police Reform

In April of 1997, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reached a settlement agreement with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police (PBP) to correct a pattern of unconstitutional misconduct. It was the first time the DOJ had used 42 U.S.C. § 14141 to intervene into a local police department to correct systemic misconduct. The statute, passed in response to the Rodney King beating, provides the U.S. Attorney General with the power to seek equitable relief against troubled local police departments. As the reform process began to unfold in Pittsburgh, "problems soon emerged." The consent decree required Pittsburgh to improve its process for investigating and responding to civilian complaints. But at times, the PBP found it difficult to comply with this requirement, in part because the city had agreed to a collective bargaining agreement with the police union that limited which complaints were eligible for investigation. While the consent decree established ambitious goals for improvement, it also included a clause that read: "Nothing in this Decree is intended to alter the collective bargaining agreement between the City and the Fraternal Order of Police." This meant that, in attempting to reform the Pittsburgh Police Department via § 14141, the DOJ was effectively limited in its reach because of the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. As Jonathan M. Smith, the former Chief of the Special Litigation Section of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division has observed, the Pittsburgh experience is hardly unique. In the over twenty years since the DOJ has had the power under § 14141 to seek equitable relief against police departments, it has often had to take on "less sufficient reform strategies" because of the barrier of police union contracts.