The police department in New Haven, Connecticut, had a well-deserved reputation for police brutality and corruption during the 1980s. As is true of many police departments across the country, New Haven’s police chief unfailingly supported his officers against charges of police brutality. Some say that this toleration for police brutality encouraged police officers to use excessive force when questioning and arresting suspects. When Nicholas Pastore became New Haven’s chief of police in 1990, he made many changes to the department, including the withdrawal of automatic support to police officers accused of using excessive force.

Critics of Pastore’s new policy concerning police brutality believe that it caused the crime rate to rise. They maintain that since incidents of police brutality were no longer tolerated by their supervisors, police officers became reluctant to involve themselves in situations that...