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66 Duke L.J. 1191 (2016-2017)
Police Union Contracts

handle is hein.journals/duklr66 and id is 1219 raw text is: Duke Law Journal VOLUME 66 MARCH 2017 NUMBER 6 POLICE UNION CONTRACTS STEPHEN RUSHINt ABSTRACT This Article empirically demonstrates that police departments' internal disciplinary procedures, often established through the collective bargaining process, can serve as barriers to officer accountability. Policymakers have long relied on a handful of external legal mechanisms like the exclusionary rule, civil litigation, and criminal prosecution to incentivize reform in American police departments. In theory, these external legal mechanisms should increase the costs borne by police departments in cases of officer misconduct, forcing rational police supervisors to enact rigorous disciplinary procedures. But these external mechanisms have failed to bring about organizational change in local police departments. This Article argues that state labor law may partially explain this failure. Most states permit police officers to bargain collectively over the terms of their employment, including the content of internal disciplinary procedures. This means that police Copyright @ 2017 Stephen Rushin. t Assistant Professor, University of Alabama School of Law. Thank you to Amna Akbar, William Bridge, Jenny Carroll, Jennifer Collins, Joseph Colquitt, Greg Crespi, Laura Dolbow, Heather Elliott, Mirit Eyal-Cohen, Charlotte Garden, John Gross, Joanna Grossman, Grant Hayden, Jennifer Laurin, Grace Lee, Kay Levine, Arnold Loewy, Janet Moore, Christopher Passafiume, Michael Pardo, Meredith Render, Gregory Rushin, Kami Chavis Simmons, Fred Smith, Daiquiri Steele, Adam Steinman, Seth Stoughton, Gary Sullivan, Joshua Tate, David 0. Taylor, Fredrick Vars, Peter Winship, and Ekow Yankah for their comments, conversations, and discussions about this paper. I am grateful for the feedback from the students in Vanderbilt Law School's Legal Scholarship course. Additionally, this paper benefited from presentations at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting, Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, and the University of Alabama School of Law. Finally, this paper would not have been possible without generous financial support from the University of Alabama School of Law or without Katie Grayson's excellent research assistance.

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