Reforming Honolulu Police Oversight: Evaluating the Ability of Gender and Disability-Based Police Violence to Reform Oversight Mechanisms

Abstract

National efforts to increase police accountability during President Obama’s presidency have been fueled by vivid images of police violence that have largely targeted black men. The root of many of these highly publicized incidents appears to be post 9/11 shifts in American policing that deprioritized community centric policing models in favor of a more militarized approach. President Trump’s administration and appointees within the federal government appear intent on returning to this strategy, which have begun to reverse oversight reform which took place after 2008. While race has been the primary intersectional stimuli for change in most U.S. states, gendered and ability violence by Honolulu police has driven local reform efforts following APEC in 2011. Research has found that of the 2099 sworn police serving as county law enforcement in Honolulu, an average of 1 in 6 officers has been accused of misconduct since training adjustments were made towards first-shooter based training. Over forty cases of police violence and criminal misconduct by Honolulu Police officers (since 2010) have resulted in the sentencing of six officers to federal prison, and the resignation of the Honolulu Police Chief who was alleged to have engaged in public racketeering. Despite overwhelming evidence of historical problematic past practices by Honolulu police that appear to target mental illness or gender, it wasn’t until the October 2014 video of Honolulu Police Sgt. Darren Cachola violently attacking his girlfriend that a community based call for police reform began. Reform minded lawmakers, together with activists, investigative journalists, and a coalition of bachelor level criminal justice college students under my supervision, galvanized to uncover, repair, and redirect police policy. This feminist-based community action project seeks to determine if gendered or ability violence by Honolulu police will spur the same oversight reform 2 policy as racially motivated police violence has on the mainland. My dissertation discusses ongoing efforts to develop police reform strategies specifically in Honolulu, and more generally across the State of Hawaii.