Public trust in police is fractured. Here’s how to fix it. – USA TODAY

Philip K. Howard, Opinion contributor Published 6:00 a.m. ET June 8, 2020 | Updated 11:09 a.m. ET June 11, 2020

The doctrine of qualified immunity has been used to protect police from civil lawsuits and trials. Here's why it was put in place. USA TODAY

The tendency is to view accountability as a matter of fairness to the particular person,butwhats at stake is the health ofour publicculture.

Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin,arrestedlast week forthe death ofGeorge Floyd,should have been removed long ago from policing duties. Hehad18 complaints over his19-year tenure. Onlytwo resulted in discipline, but the union rules protecting police make it almost impossible to hold officers accountableevenfor extrememisconduct.

Chauvinhas nowbeen indicted for murder, buthis apparent killing of George Floyd is seen bymanynot as an isolated crime but asevidence of systematic police abuse. Minneapolis, like most cities, hasa poor record of holding police accountable. Out of 2,600 complaints since 2012,only 12 resulted in an officer being disciplined. The most severe penalty was a suspension for 40 hours.

The fact that three of Chauvins colleagues, themselves now indicted,watched as Floyd choked to deathis alsoan indictment of police culture.

In a show of peace and solidarity, law enforcement officials with riot shields take a knee in front of protesters on June 1, 2020, in Atlanta, during a fourth day of protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. (Photo: Curtis Compton, Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Theprotests andriots show what happens when large segments of the populationbelieve the deck is stacked against them.Distrust of government leads to corrosion of civil society.The opportunistic looting across the country isindefensible, but itsrationalizedby the logic of nihilism: If police wont follow norms of civilized behavior, then neitherwillwe.

Civil rights leaders have called foranational reckoning to end racism in America. But theunaccountability of bad cops is caused by a factorlargelyunrelated to racism.

The lack of accountability, according toa Reuters report in 2017, islargelydictated by police union contracts. The standard for discipline isbasicallyharder than for a criminal conviction.

Anofficer in Columbus Ohio was accused of brutally beatinga black college student who was sitting on a bench with friends, for the alleged crime of drinking a beer in public. That officer had been the subject of 40complaints for misconduct, but Reuters found that, like most bad officers, he could not be dismissed. Why? Union contracts require that prior complaints be expunged from the record, in some jurisdictions after a few months, so it is practically impossible to terminate repeat offenders.

Union leaders argue that the rulessimplymake sure that due process is given to the officers. Something is obviously wrong with this reasoning:Police officers invoke their rights to get away with violating the rights of citizens. Due process ismeantto protect against abuses of state power by police and other state agents not to protect police when they abuse their power.

Theclash of rights meansthataccountability is basically nonexistent.This is not just a problem with police, but throughout government. A 2016 Government Accountability Officereport found that more than99% of federal employeesreceived a fully successful rating.

Democracy issupposed to be amechanism for public accountability, butdemocracycantfunction if the links in the chain are broken. We elect governors and mayors, but they have no effective control over police, schools or other public institutions.

The organizational flaw hereboils down to confusion betweenlibertyand responsibility. Police and other public employees have an affirmative responsibility to serve the public effectively. They must beaccountable not by the standards of a criminal trial, but for meeting a much higher standard of public stewardship. It is the job of supervisors to make these judgments.

Theconfusion wassownby the Supreme Courtinthe heyday of Vietnam protests, when the court held that public jobs were akin to a property rightand could not be removed without due process. Although the court went out of its way to say that the process could be minimal, due process is a slippery slope.

Due processputstheburdenof proofon the supervisor. Fellow workers describe Chauvin as tightly wound, which is not a good character trait for a cop with a loaded gun. But how does his supervisor prove in a legal hearing that he shouldnt be a cop?

The tendency is to view accountability as a matter of fairness to the particular person,butwhats at stake is the health ofour publicculture. The harmof no accountabilityis far greater than a few bad apples.

Here are a few of thedestructiveeffects:

Loss of public trust, as seen in the last week, can lead to a breakdown of civil order.

No accountability is likeMiracle-Grofor bureaucracy. When people cant be accountable, they find soon themselves wallowing in red tape dictating exactly how to do things. Rules replace norms. Compliance replaces accomplishment.

Publicservice, and especially police work, shouldbe a source ofpride and honor,but the absence ofaccountabilityleads instead tocynicism and disrespect. AVolcker Commission report on federal civil servicein 2003 founddeep resentmentat the protections provided to those poor performers among them who impede their own work and drag down the reputation of all government workers.

Safeguards against unfairaccountability can readily be provided for example, by giving veto power to apeercommittee. But supervisors cannot be put to the proof in a legal proceeding. How do you prove who doesnt try hard, or lacks good judgment or is too tightly wound?

Accountability is not the only change needed to revive trust inAmerican government. Leaders too must be trustworthy. The institutions they lead must display fidelity to accepted norms not only avoiding abuses of authority, butgenerally striving to be fair, truthful and committed to the common good.

Whats needed isa new social contract with public employees. Instead of abulletproofsinecure, the coreorganizingprinciplemustbeaccountabilityfor the public good.

We will not have public trust without it.

Philip K. Howard is founder ofCommon Good. His latest book is"Try Common Sense."Follow him on Twitter: @PhilipKHoward

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Public trust in police is fractured. Here's how to fix it. - USA TODAY