President Barack Obama has vowed to push for criminal justice reform in his final months in office. But analysts say his Justice Department has already made a legacy-defining imprint on policing.

Relying on a sweeping federal law drafted 22 years ago by then-Sen. Joe Biden, the Obama administration has pursued about two dozen civil rights inquiries into local police such as the one focused on the Baltimore Police Department to be released on Wednesday.

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“This is an area that really is almost impervious to formal data analysis,” said Robert Weisberg, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. “It seems clear that it’s been successful in cajoling settlements.”