Officer on Trial: A Q&A With Messina Madson

Published July 6, 2020

How do you respond to cities such as Minneapolis or Los Angeles, where the notion is not just to defund the police but to abolish them?

The call to defund or abolish police departments is largely a response to police associations or unions, which are seen as standing in the way of reform efforts. Advocates of defunding also want to consider what issues we, as a society, have criminalized that could be better addressed with a social worker than a jail. Since reforms within police departments have historically faced internal opposition from unions, we see situations such as those in Camden, New Jersey, where all officers were asked to reapply as a means to start over from scratch. I expect these calls for reform to intensify and law enforcement agencies will have to grapple with how to respond.

Read the entire interview in Texas Lawyer (subscription required).