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Running head: POLICY FORMULATION

Policy Formulation

Emmanuel Michael

University of Central Florida

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The article selected for the analysis is a CNN article that talked about the sailing through

of the Juneteenth bill through Congress but at the same time addresses legislation that is key in

addressing issues of racial inequity facing some significant obstacles. CNN is a well-known

media outlet worldwide and has been consistent in the way they report their news. As a result,

the information presented regarding the policy changes addressing racial equity is non-biased

(Foran & Dean, 2021). Moreover, the same can be realized through the way presentation of the

information in the article where both points that are for and against the policy have been

presented.

The policy that is addressed in the article is key legislation that is aimed at dealing with

racial inequity and some discriminatory policies. The policy was developed after George Floyd's

death. The responsible police were put in custody in 2020, which resulted in a significant call to

overhaul policing and deal with police misconduct and racial injustice issues. In the proposal,

they say that there is a need to add new standards for when it comes time for a police officer to

be charged with crimes. Therefore, the policy proposal adds more standards as to how and when

police officers should be charged with criminal activities (Foran & Dean, 2021). The other proposal

in the policy legislation included adding specific crimes to the said policy that police officers can

charge with a crime. It is important to note that according to the qualified immunity standard,

police are not supposed to be charged in a court of law when it comes to some crimes, and that is

the legislation that the policy intends to change and ensure that there are specific crimes that the

would have to answer.

Some of the policy legislation proposers are a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by GOP

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Rep. Karen

Bass of California. The group came together to come up with a deal that would pass the Senate
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as they are voting for the bill to die so that police have to answer to some charges when they

commit some crimes (Foran & Dean, 2021). However, according to the article, the bipartisan talks

were halted when the group reached a critical issue on whether Congress should add the new

standards for when officers should be charged with crimes. Some of the claims that have been

put across to support the adding of new standards include the fact that the Democrats say that

adding new crimes will make the officer accountable. However, according to Scott and

Republicans, though they are open to the conversation, they argue that any change in Section

242, which mainly talks about the standard of criminally prosecuting police officers, they say

that it is a red line. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that any addition of such new crimes will

have to exist outside Section 242. Moreover, Sen. Lindsey Graham further claimed that they are

open to adding crimes such as sexual assault. However, one point to understand from the claim is

that even though they are available to criticism, they all support the idea of the proposal to add

some crimes or make it easier to sue officers in the civil court.

The claim in the article meets the principles of strengths perspective policy practice as

according to Chapin, especially the third and fourth principles that talk about structural barriers

and self-determination and social justice. The structural barriers that are mentioned in the claim

include the inability to agree on how the policy will get to the Senate without contravening

section 242 of the constitution (Chapin & Lewis, 2020). At the same time, it is self-determination,

and social justice since the proposal's claim is meant to allow for equity injustice when it comes

to police officers who contravene the law for their benefit, causing harm to the community.

Therefore, I think that the proposal meets the criteria as Chapin has explained in his Strength

perspective.
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References

Chapin, R. K., & Lewis, M. K. (2020). Social policy for effective practice: A strengths

approach.

Foran, C., & Dean, J. (2021, June 18). Juneteenth bill sails through Congress but key

legislation targeting racial inequity faces major obstacles. CNN.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/17/politics/racial-inequity-legislation-congress/

index.html