“It’s kind of like the old saying, when everything’s a priority, nothing’s a priority,” said Jason Johnson, who was a deputy police chief in Baltimore overseeing compliance with the city’s consent decree. Even so, believers point out that consent decrees may be far cheaper than unconstitutional policing. “What we’re talking about is broad institutional reform,” said David Douglass, the deputy monitor of the New Orleans consent decree and founder of a nonprofit group called Effective Law Enforcement for All, which helps communities develop voluntary reforms. In Baltimore, Michael Harrison, who was brought in as commissioner because of his success in implementing New Orleans’s police overhaul, just resigned, but the consent decree remains. Experience running a department with a consent decree has become a plum line on a chief’s résumé.

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Persons: ”, Jason Johnson, Mr, Johnson, Floyd, David Douglass, Michael Harrison, Brian O’Hara Organizations: Justice Department Locations: Baltimore, Louisville, Minneapolis, Orleans, New, Newark