For law enforcement officials and officers on the street, 2018 saw a growing focus on the relationships between police departments and the communities they serve. Departments across the country adopted new practices to better respond to vulnerable populations, including immigrants, people with mental illness, and victims of sexual assault.
Nonprofit groups developed tools for law enforcement to help agencies reform their policies and improve policing by engaging with the community, and two police chiefs—along with two faith-based leaders—advocated for gun control in an op-ed directed at the nation’s largest firearms manufacturer. But police officers’ use of deadly force repeatedly grabbed national headlines. The Washington Post estimated that in 2018 there were 998 fatal shootings of civilians by police—a slight increase from 2017, but coupled with a notable development: in several high profile cases, officers were held accountable in use-of-force incidents involving black men.
The federal government rolled back, suspended, or discontinued grants supporting local efforts to improve public safety and policing practices. And, right before former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s departure from his post, he placed additional limits on the U.S. Department of Justice’s use of court-enforced agreements to ensure local police reform.