![handle is hein.journals/caveat51 and id is 1 raw text is:
U.S. V. WARREN, OH: THE CASE FOR APPLYING
ARISTOTELIAN MODELING IN POLICE REFORM
Alicia McCaffrey
Abstract:
Police reform scholarship tends to emphasize the bureaucratic nature of
problems in policing, and, in turn, proposes administrative solutions,
such as providing more training or critiquing specific language in a
manual. This comment argues that instead of viewing policing problems
as at their core administrative, we should be willing to view them, at
least in part, as moral failings warranting ethical solutions. This per-
spective allows research on police reform to draw from a much larger
corpus of existing ethical writings. This paper applies ethical theory to
police reform in the specific context of U.S. v. Warren, arguing that the
success of the reforms implemented in the Warren Police Department is
due in large part to the department's use of Aristotle's theory of ethical
modeling: ethics is best taught by providing people with moral models
whose behavior they can emulate. Other police departments can apply
Aristotelian ethical theory by providing positive models from which of-
ficers can learn proper policing practices. This can be accomplished in
several ways, such as expanding the use of mentoring programs, using
more hypothetical role-playing in training, and publicizing stories of of-
ficers who properly de-escalated tense situations.
Introduction
Under the authority provided by 42 U.S.C. § 14141, the Department
of Justice (DOJ) can file a lawsuit against a local police department for a
pattern or practice of conduct ... that deprives persons of rights, privi-
leges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of
the United States.' The DOJ filed a claim against the Warren Police
Department (WPD) in 2012 using this statute.2 While the Technical As-
sistance Letter that the DOJ issued as a result of its investigation was
largely ineffective in facilitating reform, the Settlement Agreement
which the lawsuit produced led to several reforms in the following years,
most of which are largely regarded as successful.3 This paper examines
1. 42 U.S.C. 14141, (2012).
2. Complaint, U.S. v. City of Warren, No. 4:12-cv-00086 (N.D. Ohio Jan. 13, 2012), ECF No. 1,
https://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/PN-OH-0004-0004.pdf.
3. See Letter from Jonas Geissler, Senior Trial Att'y, Special Litig. Section, U.S. Dep't of Justice, to
Greg Hicks, Law Dir., City of Warren, Ohio app. (Dec. 18, 2013),
https://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/PN-OH-0004-0006.pdf [hereinafter 2013 Compliance
Letter] (listing the reforms taken); Telephone Interview with Eric Merkel, Chief of Police, Warren
Police Dep't (Apr. 12, 2016).
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