Are Women the Solution to Police Reform?

 






Tyre Nichols' death at the hands of police was mourned by Vice President Kamala Harris, who called it a moment that calls for legislative police reform. In her brief words at Tyre Nichols' Memphis memorial service, Harris remarked, "Tyre Nichols should have been safe."  As she urged Congress to adopt police reform legislation, the vice president expressed that Nichols' passing may "shine a light on the path toward peace and justice." Renewing calls for police reform and protests were triggered by footage of the violent attack from New York to Los Angeles. During her time as a senator from California, Harris co-authored legislation with Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey that mirrored the House-passed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.




After seeing Kamala Harris speak out about police reform and this bill, I wanted a further look into the opinions and/or solutions surrounding the topic. After multiple searches all that would come up were things that said, "Want the Reform of Police? Hire More Women, Police Reform Needs Women; Reform the Police by Recruiting Women, and How Women Want to Fix the Police." I did not think that the solutions or opinions would drastically vary; I just wanted to see who was actually talking about it. After seeing all these stories and pieces about how women felt, I went searching for how men felt and came up short. 
 
According to research, female police officers are less likely than their male counterparts to be the target of persistent charges of using excessive force, cost communities less to settle civil lawsuits for similar occurrences, and receive fewer citizen complaints. One of the women in the story in the above picture talked about people believing that the police are necessary, but they need to be more representative, and that may mean hiring more women or people who are actually from the neighborhoods they are policing. Women have alluded to the problem being who is hired, the training, the history, and the budget. I want to know what is going to spark the necessary change for real police reform to start happening. Maybe women in higher positions like Kamala Harris or other women around the United States will have to take a stand and continue to talk about necessary changes for there to be real change in police reform.
 
 

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