We necessarily give police officers considerable discretion in carrying out their job. With this discretion, there is a heightened risk that officers will engage in misconduct. And unlike other fields, misconduct by police officers “can leave [a] victim dead or permanently damaged, and under the right circumstances one cop’s bad call—or a group of cops’ habitual [bad behavior]—can be the spark that leaves a city like Baltimore in flames.” Given these realities of modern American policing, it is critical to ensure that police disciplinary procedures reflect not just a respect for due process, but also a respect for the opinions of the public that the police department serves.

-Stephen Rushin

There have been renewed and urgent conversations about race and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and the city of Minneapolis remains central to these conversations. One block away from the third precinct police station, which is still fenced off, the local bookstore remains covered in plywood; drawn in huge pink and white font reads: “Abolish the Police.”
While many people support system-wide police reform, few agree on how to enact it. Yet, one thing is clear: our current system of police accountability is not working. Police discipline is hampered by too many procedural protections. Officers have contractual protections, statutory protections, and judge-made protections including: (1) arbitration; (2) collective bargaining; (3) statutory Bill of Rights; and (4) qualified immunity. These layers of disciplinary protections compound like armor. In order to have police reform that actually reflects a more just system, all procedural protections must be analyzed in turn. Arbitration is only one part, and it may not even be the most significant. But it is clear that arbitration can impede police accountability.

Arbitration, as a mechanism to resolve disputes, is tethered to police disciplinary appeals. This paper will examine the history of police unions and the unique role arbitration plays in police accountability. It will also look at Minnesota’s recent statutory changes to police officer grievance arbitration, concluding that Minnesota’s recent law does not go far enough to create substantive change. Under the new law, officers still have too many protections in the police disciplinary appeals process. In order to restore public trust in law enforcement and promote justice and healing, police procedural protections must be significantly reduced.