“With Sen. Jeff Sessions about to be the next attorney general, the likelihood that the Justice Department will continue to regularly intervene to reshape troubled local law enforcement agencies appears greatly diminished.
“Under the Obama administration, 12 police departments signed court-ordered agreements called consent decrees — four times as many as in the George W. Bush era. Sessions, an Alabama Republican, has made it plain that he’s highly skeptical of this option. ‘These lawsuits undermine the respect for police officers,’ he said at a recent Senate hearing on his nomination.”