A recent article on The Atlantic's City Lab, "How the Voting Rights Act Could Be a Path to Police Reform," is based on a recent paper by Professor Jason Mazzone and former Illinois Professor Steve Rushin (University of Alabama).

The paper, "From Selma to Ferguson: The Voting Rights Act as a Blueprint for Police Reform," applies the lessons of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in proposing the use of a coverage formula to identify and regulate local police departments engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional misconduct.

From City Lab: 

"Under the Voting Rights Act, Congress created a formula that determines which areas of the country warrant federal supervision over their election affairs. That formula was derived by looking at where African Americans were prevented from voting due to obstructions such as literacy tests and poll taxes. It also includes places with historically low voter-registration and turnout rates among African Americans.

A similar formula could be applied to areas where police departments have been found guilty of engaging in patterns and practices of racial discrimination and misconduct, write Rushin and Mazzone."

The Atlantic City Lab article

Mazzone's paper on SSRN