More than 100 of the nation's top law enforcement officials met in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday as part of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch's Summit on Violent Crime.
The universal sentiment shared during the summit was that officers have pulled back and stopped aggressively policing out of fear their actions will be recorded, posted on the Internet and ultimately end their careers, according to The Washington Post.
The summit was held to find a way to drive down to homicide rates that have soared inexplicably this year in dozens of citie -- a reversal of decades of falling violent crime rates.
Mayors attending the summit said that police officers' sinking morale could be a factor in the rise.
"Perhaps the most difficult to calibrate, but the most significant is this notion of a reduction in proactive policing," Chuck Wexler, Executive Director of the Police Executive Research Forum said.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was much blunter in his assessment.
"We have allowed our police department to get fetal and it is having a direct consequence," he told Lynch. "They have pulled back from the ability to interdict . . . they don't want to be a news story themselves, they don’t want their career ended early, and it’s having an impact."
Officials on hand spoke of a change in atmosphere in major city police departments over the past year amid the high-profile police-involved shootings and in-custody deaths that led to riots in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore. While officers on patrol still do their jobs fewer take extra steps out of fear that any altercations may be recorded and uploaded to the Internet.
New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton called it the "YouTube effect."
"The challenge going forward," Bratton said, "is to keep it in balance so that our officers feel that as we ask them to go forward that if they, in fact, do the right thing, we will be supportive."
