University of Arkansas at Little Rock
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Trauma-Informed Policing: The Impact of Adult and Childhood Trauma on Law Enforcement Officers
Get PDFFor every six months that a police officer serves in the line of duty, he or she is likely to experience an average of three traumatic events. Such events may include fatal accidents, murders, suicides, and active threats to the life of the officer or someone else. Given the wealth of available data on how trauma reorganizes the nervous system to respond to everyday stimuli as threatening, this is an area that cries for critical exploration, especially in light of the frequency with which unarmed Black civilians are killed at the hands of officers who often make split-second decisions to respond to situations they perceive as dangerous with deadly force.
For police officers of color, on-the-job trauma is often compounded by the lived experience of being a Black or brown person in America. Our previous research has delved into the traumatic fallout of the over-policing of Black youth and its long-term negative health impacts on Black people at a population level. As adults, officers of color then face both the persistent stress of living in a society that treats Black lives as disposable and the forceful, public rebukes of abusive police practices that target the very people who look like them. Such critiques, police officers report, add to the stress of an already demanding, hazard-filled profession.
When the undeniable racial dimensions of aggressive policing of communities of color are publicly discussed in the wake of the murder of yet another unarmed Black mother, father, or child, commenters point to the red herring that racism in policing must not exist when such an incident involves a Black police officer who pulls the trigger. Itis our assertion that this is not the case. All police officers are subject to implicit racial bias as products of a culture where white supremacy is alive and well, and this is known and documented.
What is not documented is our argument that the trauma that all police officers experience in the line of duty, as well as any preexisting childhood trauma that they bring with them, predisposes them at a biological level to overreact to perceived threats in ways that create increased risk for the unnecessary use of deadly force. Black police officers in particular are susceptible given the duality of their roles, although little is known about how this plays out in the context of threatening encounters.
This Article seeks to explore that duality and lay a groundwork for development of further research. We hope to accomplish this, first, by discussing the science of trauma; second, by providing an overview of the history and evolution of policing, including recent innovations (for example, body cameras, community policing, and implicit bias training)intended to reduce the use of force and improve police-community relationships; third, by examining gaps in data and research that could assist in formulating evidence-based approaches for reducing the potential for violent encounters; and finally, by sharing narrative accounts of how traumatic experiences have shaped police officers in their interactions with individuals and communities of color
Constitutional Law—Filling the Gap: The Need for Legislative Action to Protect the Right to Record Police in the Age of Citizen Journalism
Get PDFCriminal Law—Unfettered Discretion: Prosecutorial Discretion in the Aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org.
Get PDFConstitutional Law—Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Will Likely Have a Negative, Disproportionate Impact on Women of Color and Reassert Inferiority
Get PDFDisability Law—From Stair Flights to Websites: An Argument for Amending the Americans with Disabilities Act to Include Title VI That Applies to Online Spaces
Get PDFA Revised Perspective on Non-Debtor Releases
Get PDF“Non-debtor releases” are bankruptcy orders that extinguish claims against a party other than a bankrupt debtor over the objection of the creditor. Also known as “third-party releases,” the legality of these orders is one of the most important and controversial issues in bankruptcy law specifically and business law generally. The split in the courts over the propriety of non-debtor releases stretches back thirty-five years. However, the United States Supreme Court is poised to resolve the split this term in the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy. In two prior articles published in 2006 and 2009, I argued that third-party releases are permissible under the Bankruptcy Code. But I no longer believe that to be the case. This article presents my revised perspective.
The paper sets forth three basic arguments. First, bankruptcy courts grant non-debtor releases using the general equitable powers provided by sections 105(a) and 1123(b)(6) of the Code. But orders issued via those statutes that implement general bankruptcy policies rather than another specific section of the Code may not contravene substantive non-bankruptcy law. Third-party releases are policy orders that violate substantive non-bankruptcy law. Releases are thus beyond the scope of the two equitable powers statutes.
Second, pro-release authorities contend that section 524(e) of the Code does not bar non-debtor releases. But the interpretive approach they employ to justify this claim results in section 523(a) of the Code not prohibiting the release of non-dischargeable claims. The latter conclusion is deeply implausible because it is universally rejected by lower federal courts and inconsistent with principles of statutory construction consistently endorsed by the Supreme Court. Therefore, via reductio ad absurdum, section 524(e) bans third-party releases.
Third, even if non-debtor releases are statutorily permissible, the best interest of creditors test contained in section 1129(a)(7) of the Code mandates that the debtor’s plan of reorganization promise payment in full on all claims subject to the release. I defended this proposition in my first two articles. The current piece recaps and updates the analysis contained in my earlier work
Constitutional Law—The Current System for Abolishing Child Pornography Online is Ineffective: The Alternative Measure for Eradicating Online Predators
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