The Police Misconduct Litigation Network in the U.S. and Its Impact on Policing.

In this paper, I analyze the development in the U.S. of a network of lawyers and advocacy organizations supporting lawsuits over police misconduct. Although the origins of police misconduct litigation in the U.S. can be traced to the early decades of the 20th century, organized networks among police misconduct litigators began to grow only with the efforts of the NAACP-LDF in the 1940s, remained relatively moribund through the1960s, and then grew exponentially after the early 1970s. The paper documents the development of such networks and analyzes the conditions for their significant growth in the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, the paper discusses the impact of these networks and the liability threats generated by them on police policy and administrative processes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]