Consent Decrees, Settlement Agreements, and Assistance Letters Involving Alleged Unconstitutional Police Practices

Purpose

This dashboard is designed to provide users with information regarding federal Civil Consent Decrees and Settlement Agreements between the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and local and state government entities where there are underlying allegations of unconstitutional police practices.

The information in this dashboard is provided as a resource to users interested in learning about this unique form of police reform litigation. Law enforcement leaders may use this information to supplement their ongoing efforts to improve their practices. The dashboard includes information regarding the types of federal pattern-and-practice investigations involving law enforcement agencies, the reforms agreed upon in the civil Consent Decrees and Settlement Agreements, and other information that can help promote meaningful discussion on police reform and organizational improvements.

Locations of Federal Interventions

Timeline of Federal Interventions

Definitions: 

  • Pre-DOJ Investigation – refers to the time period before the DOJ opened an investigation into the agency

  • Investigation Period – refers to the time in which DOJ conducts a more detailed examination of the agency’s policies, procedures, and actual practices impacting on the areas in which there are allegations of misconduct.

  • Compliance Period – refers to the time during which the agency is required to perform the specific actions in the Consent Decree, MOA, settlement agreement, or post-judgement order and show compliance with its provisions

  • Post-Termination – refers to the time after a Court or the parties terminated the Consent Decree, Settlement Agreement, MOA, or other agreement between the parties to perform certain actions 

Areas Identified by DOJ Civil Rights Division

Areas Identified by DOJ Civil Rights Division Counts

The table includes links to the Consent Decree documents and the details of 22 locations.

Coming Soon:

A database of the above Consent Decree documents in which these documents can be searched

Important Note Regarding this Site:

Please note that the information available on this site includes data compiled, analyzed, and summarized by the National Policing Institute using publicly-available records.  The information presented on this site is neither an official compilation nor representation of the data by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Sources:

Agency Identifying Information – Information was sourced from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Law Enforcement Agency Roster (LEAR), Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR), and Police Employment (PE) data. This information was supplemented with open-source data collected by the Institute.

Agency Descriptive Information – Information was sourced from data collections conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, including: (1) the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey, the (2) Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA), and the (3) Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies (SCLEA).

 

Litigation Records – Information was sourced through a partnership with the University of Michigan's Law School, Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse (https://clearinghouse.net/about). The Clearinghouse uses a variety of methods to obtain litigation data. Routine searches of the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service are used to identify new litigation, and updates to ongoing litigation which is then manually reviewed and coded. Information has also been further supplemented by using publicly available records on the USDOJ Civil Rights Division website as well as non-government sources.

The Consent Decree Database is a product of the National Policing Institute and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Justice or any other government agency.

If you would like to request training and technical assistance to address any of the topics in this dashboard

If you would like to request training and technical assistance to address any of the topics in this dashboard