By Sebastian Rochéa and Jenny Fleming

Macro exogeneous shocks or disruptions (political, economic) have not received the attention they require in the study of policing and police.What happens when the police, whose primary practical and symbolic role is to define order, are operating within a society gripped by disorder? Contrary to endogenous shocks (caused by the misbehaviour of agents) which tends to have short term negative impact on trust in police, the effects of exogenous shocks (non-police origin) on trust seem to be more complex and conditional on the nature of the shock and on the attribution of blame to political authorities. In addition, during exogenous shocks decisions are made which have lasting effects in reshaping the nature of policing and the tactics of the police. The comparative analysis of shocks may make an important contribution tothe study of policing as they expand the scope of research beyond the usual Anglo-Saxon sphere and highlight the importance of concepts such as critical junctures or punctuated equilibrium

COMPARATIVE POLICING REVIEW – 2 / POLICING AND SOCIETY2025, VOL. 35, NO. 4, 381–397

By Molly McCarthy,Shaun McLaws,Troy Allard,Dominique de Andrade & Ben Matthews

While the causes of the international youth crime decline have been disputed, it has been proposed that changing policing responses may have contributed. This study examines whether increased rates of police-led diversion have contributed to the youth crime decline in Australia. Fixed effects panel regressions were undertaken to examine the association between police diversion rates and youth offending prevalence and reoffending across regions in New South Wales and Victoria from 2005 to 2019. A significant decline in youth offending prevalence in this period was found but also a decline in police diversion rates for young people, and there was a lack of association between diversion rates and youth offending prevalence. In contrast, youth reoffending increased during this period. Notably, regions with higher diversion rates had significantly lower levels of youth reoffending. Findings suggest that police-led diversion is unlikely to have played a primary role in the Australian youth crime decline but may have reduced growth in reoffending in regions where it was used more frequently. Findings also indicate that youth offending declines have been socioeconomically conditioned. Implications for the causes of the youth crime decline and policing responses to young people are discussed.

VICTIMS & OFFENDERS

By Robin S. Engel, Jennifer Calnon Cherkauskas

The 2024 Annual Report of the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) Traffic Stop Study presents a comprehensive analysis of member-initiated traffic stops conducted between January 1 and December 31, 2024. It continues a multi-year initiative to collect, audit, and analyze traffic stop data. In 2021, the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) revitalized its effort to collect traffic stop data This initiative builds on a voluntary traffic stop data collection system created by the PSP twenty-five years ago in partnership with the current research team, which was operational from 2001 to 2010 and served as a national model for traffic stop data collection (Engel & Cherkauskas, 2022). The report provides a detailed breakdown of traffic stop characteristics and outcomes at the department level, as well as across PSP’s four Areas, 16 Troops, and 89 Stations. PSP’s voluntary data collection and analysis align with best practices, showcasing its commitment to transparency and accountability to its communities and reinforcing its dedication to evidence-based policing practices. The objectives of the traffic stop data collection and analysis are to: (1) identify patterns and trends in traffic stops and their outcomes, specifically documenting any racial/ethnic disparities; (2) utilize data analysis to promote effective and fair law enforcement practices that enhance public and traffic safety; (3) foster public trust through transparent documentation of traffic stop data and findings; (4) identify opportunities for improvement in PSP policies, training, and supervisory oversight concerning traffic stops. 

Harrisburg: Pennsylvania State Police, 2025. 139p.

By The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services

  The Body-Worn Camera Model Policy is intended to allow for the individual needs of each of the police departments in New York State regardless of size or resource limitations. Law Enforcement are encouraged to customize these protocols to meet their regional needs, while being mindful of the intent of the policy. As with all model policies adopted by the Municipal Police Training Council (MPTC), this policy is non-binding upon agencies within New York State and is meant to serve as a guide to be used in developing a department’s individual policy. The Municipal Police Training Council (MPTC) approved an updated version of the model policy in June 2025.    

Albany: NYSCJS, 2025. 15p.

By Europol, Innovation Lab

This report from Europol's Innovation Lab explores how the police can adapt to the increasingly digital lives of European citizens. Online worlds are increasingly perceived as lawless, and while community police officers play a key role in the physical world, community policing equivalents are often in their infancy or absent in virtual worlds.

Discover an overview of online policing principles and current initiatives across Europe, including case examples from specific countries to facilitate learning for similar initiatives

Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2025. 21p.

By The  United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and United States Attorney’s Office For the Southern District of Mississippi

• Hours after the Department of Justice announced its investigation of the Lexington Police Department (LPD) on November 8, 2023, officers chased a Black man through a field and tased him nine times. The man began foaming at the mouth. One officer pointed to a Taser probe lodged in the man’s hat and said, “Damn, one of my probes hit him in the head.” The man, who has a behavioral health disability, had been accused of disturbing a business. This was not the man’s first encounter with LPD. Earlier that year, LPD officers had jailed him for ten days for trespassing; four days for stealing a cup of coffee; and twelve days for stealing packets of sugar. Each time they arrested him, LPD unlawfully refused to release the man until he paid money towards old fines and fees he owed from misdemeanors and traffic tickets. But each arrest added more fines and fees to the ledger. By November 2023, the man— who has no job, no assets, and no bank account—owed more than $7,500. In encounter after encounter with the man, LPD violated his rights. But like countless people in Lexington, the man had little recourse. Through a combination of poor leadership, retaliation, and a complete lack of internal accountability, LPD has created a system where officers can relentlessly violate the law. FINDINGS The Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that the City of Lexington and the Lexington Police Department engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law. Specifically, we find that LPD unlawfully: • Arrests, jails, and detains people who cannot pay fines or fees, without assessing their ability to pay; • Uses excessive force; • Conducts stops, searches, and arrests without probable cause, including jailing people on illegal “investigative holds” and arresting people solely because they owe outstanding fines; • Imposes money bail without justification or assessment of ability to pay; • Jails people without prompt access to court; • Violates the rights of people engaged in free speech and expression, including by retaliating against people who criticize the police; • Discriminates against Black people; and • Operates under an unconstitutional conflict of interest because LPD’s funding depends on the money it raises through its enforcement. 

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice 2024. 42p.

By Zhuoying Fan, Xuewei Zhang, Guangwen Song &Chunxia Zhang 

• Targeted police stops are frequently carried out by police in response to real-world needs. The effectiveness of various purpose-driven police stop tactics on crime prevention and control varies. However, existing research has neither identified the associated factors of police stops nor explored their impact on crime with different factors. Therefore, this study focuses on the main urban areas of megacities along the southeast coast of China. The space is partitioned using hierarchical clustering after applying the XGBoost and SHAP algorithms to determine the factors related to police stops. Lastly, this study explores the causal effects of police stops with different associated factors on crime, using causal forests within double machine learning. There are three conclusions. First, there is a strong correlation between police stops and four variables: alarm, visiting population, criminal, and government agencies. Second, by clustering based on different associated factors of police stops, existing police stops can be classified into five categories according to their purposes: (i) composite stops positively associated with “Alarm, Visiting Population, Criminals” (AVC-CPS); (ii) composite stops positively associated with “Alarm, Visiting Population, Bus Station” (AVB-CPS); (iii) random stops with no significant positive association (NA-RPS); (iv) single police stops positively associated with “Alarm” (A-SPS); and (v) single stops positively associated with “Visiting Population” (V-SPS). AVC-CPS corresponds to the highest number of grids in the study area. Third, the influence of police stops on crime varies significantly depending on the factors that are associated with them. Among all categories, AVC-CPS has the best overall inhibitory effect on crime, while single police stops and random police stops have minimal or insignificant effects. In summary, the conclusions of this study can provide a basis for optimizing the spatial deployment of police forces, aiming to improve the effectiveness of stop operations and crime prevention and control capabilities.

  • Humanit Soc Sci Commun 12, 1026 (2025)

By Eric Arnold

This Comment explores the current state of police reform in the city of Chicago, with a special focus on the various oversight agencies currently in force. Chicago has a long history of police misconduct, and the city has tried to make changes over the years to restore the community’s trust in policing. The police reform movement became especially prevalent in recent years following the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald by a Chicago Police Officer in 2014. This Comment will show why the current mechanisms in place are insufficient to bring the needed change to the Chicago Police Department, and that the Chicago Police Department has shown time and time again they are unable to police themselves. While there have been some effective changes to the city’s policing efforts in recent years, considerable room for improvement remains.

This Comment will evaluate some of the recent measures taken to change the Chicago Police Department, specifically looking at measures targeted at changing the culture of the Chicago Police Department by increasing transparency and accountability. These measures include mandatory body-camera footage and a ban on officers being affiliated with extremist groups. This Comment will explore and evaluate the effectiveness of these changes and how they could be further enhanced. This Comment will also propose additional solutions that Chicago could consider to increase police accountability and transparency and thus improve overall officer performance. This includes using more objective tools to measure police officers’ day to day performance, which can be done using tools similar to those being used in New Orleans and in Miami. This Comment will conclude with additional policy considerations and measures for enforcement, specifically focusing on ways to incentivize more responsible policing.

 115 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 205 (2025).

By Trevor George Gardner

 If criminal justice minimalism is a shared principle among criminal law scholars, it can help to clarify the quality of our disagreements. Every normative proposal in the criminal legal literature can be held to the minimalist standard—audited, so to speak, to account for the policy author’s minimalist claims. To this end, this Essay proposes a four-step framework by which to evaluate adherence to the minimalist principle, where each step serves as a hub for pointed scholarly debate regarding the path to minimalist criminal justice.

Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, 2025

By Jessica M. Eaglin 

 In response to the tenth anniversary of the Ferguson uprisings, this Essay examines how the protests reshaped legal discourse on algorithmic decision-making in criminal law, with a specific focus on systemic racial injustice. By deconstructing the metaphorical “black box,” the Essay surveys the intersection of race, technology, and incarceration while also illustrating how the uprisings influenced public and scholarly engagement with criminal legal technologies. The Essay analyzes current critiques and cautions against focusing too narrowly on reforming specific technologies rather than addressing the legal and social structures that sustain racial inequality. The Essay concludes by urging scholars and policymakers to engage with the structural dimensions of technology in criminal law and develop more comprehensive approaches to justice in the digital age.

Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, Volume 78 • Issue 1 • 2025 

By Christopher Williams

 This article reflects on the impact of the Ferguson protests over the past decade, sparked by the 2014 death of Michael Brown. I engage with S. David Mitchell’s 2015 question, Ferguson: Footnote or Transformative Event?, and illustrate how Ferguson inspired the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, campus activism, and policy changes such as the abolition of cash bail under the SAFE-T Act in Illinois. This article also explores the dual nature of Ferguson’s legacy—acknowledging its role in empowering racial justice movements while simultaneously fueling opposition, including attacks on Critical Race Theory (CRT). I underscore Ferguson’s enduring resonance in the fight for justice, the resounding calls for continued vigilance, and heartfelt advocacy to ensure its transformative promises are fulfilled—even amid continuous challenges.

  Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, Volume 78 • Issue 1 • 2025 

By Aya Gruber

The Ferguson uprising and the 25 million-strong Floyd protests were a watershed, heralding a sustained national scrutiny of the routine violence of policing, or so we thought. A decade after Ferguson and five years after Floyd, police budgets have grown, racialized enforcement continues apace, and reform remains elusive. Despite the public raising their fists and voices to condemn racialized police brutality, so little has changed structurally and culturally. The resilience of policing in the face of grassroots activism, I argue, stems from not just political backlash, protester unpopularity, and fading public attention, but a deeply held cultural conviction that policing is crime fighting. This essay begins with Ferguson as a caution about the limits of protest-based police reform. From there, it traces the historical arc of policing, revealing its origins in the maintenance of racial and social hierarchies. It then turns to the contemporary investment in policing as a source of public order, despite consistent evidence that aggressive street policing fails to reduce crime and often exacerbates harm. Finally, the article critiques the liberal attachment to procedural fixes and individual prosecutions, which serve to preserve the institution’s legitimacy rather than challenge its foundations. Until there is a true challenge to the core faith that policing is about reducing harmful crime and preserving public safety, the machinery of violence will continue to thrive in the shadow of critique

Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, Volume 78 • Issue 1 • 2025 

By Jeremy D. Barnum., Kevin D. Lucey,  Meagan E. Cahill,  William H. Sousa, 

  Illicit drug use is a significant problem in the United States, driven in large part by the opioid crisis. In 2023, the nation reported 107,543 drug overdose deaths, with more than 80,000 deaths involving an opioid. Stimulants have also become a growing problem; in 2023, more than 36,000 overdoses involved a psychostimulant, and nearly 30,000 involved cocaine (CDC 2024). Law enforcement is a crucial piece of the broader response to the drug crisis (PERF 2021). Proactive police interventions that leverage problem-solving and involve partnerships with community stakeholders offer the most substantial evidence of effectiveness (Mazerolle, Soole, and Rombouts 2007). One strategy to reduce drug problems is third-party policing (TPP). TPP involves police efforts to persuade or coerce nonoffending third parties (landlords, business owners, etc.) to take on more responsibility for addressing crime and disorder at or around their premises (Mazerolle and Ransley 2006). Typically, police begin by seeking voluntary cooperation of third parties by sharing information with them about specific problems, educating third parties on ways to prevent problems, or providing support to third parties to make changes. When third parties resist collaborative efforts, police may use coercive approaches, such as warnings, property inspections, or enforcement of civil remedies (Bichler, Schmerler, and Enriquez 2013; Eck and Wartell 1998; Mazerolle and Roehl 1998b). The study This report describes a randomized controlled evaluation of a TPP intervention implemented in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The intervention, called Operation CheckOut, aimed to reduce drug problems at hotel s and motels by fostering trusted partnerships between police and hotel staff. Officers from the Anne Arundel County Police Department (AACOPD) conducted four in-person visits between August 2022 and May 2023 to a randomly selected group of hotels. During in-person visits, officers engaged in a scripted procedural justice dialogue with hotel managers, delivered educational materials, identified legal responsibilities, and provided a dedicated email address that functioned as a “tip line” to report problems or suspicious activity directly to the Operation Check-Out team. The intervention was designed as a partial replication of Operation Galley, a TPP intervention   implemented by the Queensland (Australia) Police Service in 2017 (Mazerolle et al. 2018). The goal of the intervention was to bolster intelligence, investigations, and enforcement actions; reduce crime and disorder; and improve perceptions of police. Key findings Outcome analysis Calls for service data were analyzed to determine the impact of Operation Check-Out on four outcomes: (1) drug activity, (2) sick persons (e.g., overdoses), (3) disorder, and (4) violence. Average monthly calls for service for each outcome were compared among hotels in the treatment and control groups during the pre-intervention period, during the intervention period, and during the post-intervention period. Three findings were significant: 1. Calls reporting drug activity were lower at treatment hotels during the post-intervention period than during the pre-intervention or intervention periods. 2. Calls reporting sick persons were lower at treatment hotels during the post-intervention period than during the pre-intervention or intervention periods. 3. Calls reporting disorder were higher at treatment hotels during the intervention period than during the pre-intervention or post-intervention periods. That there were significantly fewer drug activity calls at treatment hotels following Operation Check-Out than there had been before is encouraging, as the intervention was specifically designed to mitigate drug problems. Reducing drug activity reduces the need for hotel staff to call 911. Also, as part of their efforts to build rapport with hotel management, officers often provided their direct work lines—allowing management to call specific officers familiar with their facility and problems instead of the generic 911 line. That there were significantly fewer sick person calls at treatment hotels during the postintervention period than during the pre-intervention or intervention periods further supports the idea that Operation Check-Out reduced drug activity during the intervention period with impacts realized during the post-intervention period. Given less drug activity, fewer overdoses would be expected. Finally, the finding that there were more disorder calls at treatment hotels during the intervention period than during the pre-intervention or post-intervention periods is somewhat unexpected, as fewer disorder calls would be expected in an environment with greater cooperation, enforcement, and police presence. One plausible explanation is that hotel staff were more willing to contact the police as a result of Operation Check-Out because, for example, they may have felt they had a supportive partner in addressing issues at their hotel, or they may have understood that the intervention involved repeated visits and become concerned about bringing trouble to the hotel if they failed to report problems to police.

Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2025. 103p.

By Maureen Taylor ahd Lesley McMillan 

  There is a significant body of research that illustrates the emotional demands of policing and the physical and psychological toll this takes on officers and staff. However, the management of these demands, particularly in more specialist roles such as those in public protection policing where the demand may be higher, are less well understood. This research explores the experiences of public protection police officers in Police Scotland through a lens of emotional labour..  The aims of this research were to: • Critically review the literature around the emotional impacts of policing on officers and the role of emotional labour in policing; • Establish the experience of, and impact on, officers involved in the investigation of public protection cases; assess how police officers in roles where emotional labour may be heightened, manage their emotions and the strategies they develop to do so; and • Examine how emotions and emotion management are mediated by organisational, departmental and role values, demands and culture In doing so, the research sought to answer the following research questions: 1. What is the emotional experience of police officers in public protection roles and what impact does it have on them? 2. What emotional labour do officers undertake, and what strategies of emotion management do officers employ? 3. To what extent does the theory of emotional labour explain the experiences of public protection police officers? 4. What role does the prevailing organisational culture play in the emotion management strategies of public protection policing? This report presents the findings from this research and a potential framework for understanding the factors that contribute to resilience within the context of public protection policing    

Edinburgh: Scottish Institute for Policing Research 2025. 32p.   

By Letitia James

  Every day, millions of New Yorkers take to the roads. They deserve traffic safety and policing that is fair and effective. This report describes some of the harms that can arise from police vehicle pursuits and high-speed vehicle chases and proposes reforms to help keep New Yorkers safe. Police chases have been shown to increase danger and result in injury or fatalities to drivers, passengers, bystanders, and police. We offer the following recommendations: Pass legislation to increase transparency New York law enforcement agencies should be required to track and publish a standardized set of data about traffic pursuits and high-speed chases. This should be facilitated by a centralized agency such as the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). Ban high-speed police pursuits, with very narrow exceptions High-speed chases can be deadly. Chases may be necessary when a serious or violent felony has been or will be committed, and when the driver’s conduct poses an imminent threat of death. But, in large part, ordinary speeding or minor traffic infractions should not lead to a high-speed, dangerous chase.  

Albany:  Office of the New York State Attorney General Letitia James, 2025. 11p.

Regulations from 100 Cities, Post-Floyd Policy Reforms, and Revisiting Constitutional Standards

By Dan Sutton, Fatima Dahir

Five years after George Floyd’s killing sparked unprecedented demands for police reform, questions persist about the changes that have—and haven’t—been made to American policing. Many Americans may be surprised to learn that policing rules vary significantly across jurisdictions, with stark differences in how officers are permitted to use force. One city may require officers to try de-escalating a traffic stop before using any force, while another city may permit officers to immediately draw their weapons without attempting alternatives.

The post-Floyd reform movement has produced a complex landscape of change: departments have largely converged on reforms like chokehold bans and requiring officers to intervene against excessive force, but they remain deeply divided on fundamental questions of when and how force should be used. Our study, which we believe represents the largest systematic analysis of American force regulations to date, examines 22 distinct policy dimensions across the nation’s 100 largest cities, comprising 2,200 total regulations collected through 2023. See Figure 1. This research was motivated by the troubling and well-documented relationship between race and police violence and the ongoing need to address systemic issues at the intersection of race, policy, and use of force.

Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Center for Racial Justice, 2025. 34p.By Dan Sutton, Fatima Dahir

By Logan Seacrest and Jillian Snider

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the criminal justice system. Law enforcement agencies are using it to predict crime, expedite response, and streamline routine tasks. One of the most promising applications can be found in body camera programs, where AI is transforming unmanageable archives of footage into active sources of insight. AI can now analyze hundreds of hours of video in seconds. Early pilot programs suggest that these video-reviewing tools, when guided by human oversight, can uncover critical evidence that might otherwise be overlooked, reduce pretrial bottlenecks, and identify potential instances of officer misconduct. But these benefits come with risks. Absent clear guardrails, the same technologies could drift toward government overreach, blurring the line between public safety and state surveillance. The line between public security and state surveillance lies not in technology, but in the policies that govern it. To responsibly harness AI and mitigate these risks, we recommend that agencies and policymakers: • Establish and enforce clear use policies. Statewide rules for body camera use and AI governance ensure consistency across jurisdictions, particularly in areas like body camera activation, evidence sharing, and public disclosure. • Pair technology with human oversight. AI should enhance—not replace—human decision-making. Final judgments must rest with trained personnel, supported by independent policy oversight from civilian review boards. • Safeguard civil liberties. Safeguards must be in place to protect individual rights, limit surveillance overreach, and ensure data transparency. For example, limiting facial recognition during constitutionally protected activities like protests will help ensure AI is aligned with democratic ideals. With the right guardrails in place, AI can elevate body cameras from afteraction archival tools to always-on intelligence tools, informing decisions in the moment, when it matters most. 

R Street Policy Study No. 328 

Washington, DC: R Street, 2025. 25p.

By Lauren Lyons  

  he alarming recurrence of unjustified killings by police highlights systemic issues that should be deeply concerning to us all. Beyond excessive use of force, the police treat marginalized people in disproportionately harmful ways that reflect and perpetuate endemic injustice; they respond inappropriately to complex social and public health problems like homelessness, addiction, and mental illness, risking harmful escalation and exacerbating underlying issues. Police culture tends towards cynical authoritarianism, adopting an “us-versus-them” mentality that positions (at least a subset of) citizens as adversaries. All of this has resulted in severely diminished public trust in the police, fraught police-community relations, and rising skepticism of the legitimacy of policing institutions. Public outcry over these problems has catalyzed the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. The police murder of George Floyd was followed by mass protests in the summer of 2020, and since then, there has been widespread public debate on how to mitigate police violence and the distrust it engenders. Some call for incremental reforms, like changing laws and policies governing police use of force or strengthening misconduct reporting and decertification processes. Others demand that we reimagine the role of policing in our institutional landscape, reallocating powers, resources, and responsibilities from the  police to other institutions. The goal of this paper is to refine and defend this reallocative demand, which I refer to as the unbundling proposal. There has been a promising uptick in philosophical discussions of policing in recent years. Some focus on principles to guide police conduct, often drawing on theories of self-defense and professional ethics. Philosophers also propose measures to address police misconduct such as expanding legal statutes to outlaw harmful tactics, revoking the licenses of bad actors, providing reparations to victims of police violence, implementing self-evaluation and evidence-based improvements to departmental policy, restructuring police departments, broadening police participation in harm reduction and other forms of nonviolent order maintenance, and avoiding tactics that heighten the risk of illegitimate policing. These strategies, especially when combined, can improve policing. Rather than a discussion of their comparative merits and disadvantages, I present and defend an alternative ameliorative approach. The unbundling proposal asks not how police should act but rather what the scope of policing should be: Which situations require police presence? In the ethics of war, we distinguish between jus in bello (the ethics of conduct in war) and jus ad bellum (the ethics of whether war is justified). The unbundling proposal addresses an issue that is analogous to jus ad bellum considerations: when police should be deployed (instead of how they should behave). This approach complements rather than conflicts with many proposed reforms, but it also addresses a broader and less examined issue. Moreover, despite substantial public support, there has been no sustained discussion of unbundling in analytic ethics and political philosophy, and the attention the proposal has received is largely critical. The unbundling proposal is connected closely to movements to defund and eventually abolish the police. The slogan “defund the police” really means “defund and refund,” with activists calling for cutting police funding and reallocating it to other nonpolice institutions and community organizations. As such, “defund, refund” is one public finance-focused component of the broader unbundling proposal. For abolitionists, unbundling and other measures that reduce the scope and power of the police are critical steps toward ultimately dismantling the institution. Though I am not defending abolition here, the discussion should (1) clarify the practical action strategy of police abolitionists and (2) offer a more robust and appealing picture of the defund demand. The structure of this paper is as follows. In section 1, I present the unbundling proposal, identifying the specific dimensions of policing that proponents argue should be unbundled and reallocated. There I also discuss the definition of policing upon which unbundling is based. Then, I present a novel set of normative arguments for unbundling that reflect various rationales emanating from policing-critical social movements. The case for unbundling is strongest if we take them in tandem. The first two arguments (section 2) draw on principles of institutional design. I argue first that we should unbundle policing because public institutions with violent capacities should have narrow mandates; nonviolent, noncoercive responses to social problems should be the default. I then claim that unbundling constitutes a better distribution of epistemic labor. Catchall order-maintenance policing is epistemically overdemanding, while more narrowly defined roles foster better expertise and outcomes. The argument in section 3 centers on the effects of policing in unequal societies with historical injustice—specifically, how policing disproportionately burdens Black people, other people of color, and members of marginalized groups, driving structural injustice. I aim to reconstruct one argumentative thread that leads us from (1) these unfair effects to (2) the unbundling proposal. In doing so, I address the broader question of what forms of solutions are appropriate when institutions are infected with injustice, suggesting that in this case and others, justice-undermining effects require us to turn towards extra-institutional, reallocative measures. My hope is that the paper will be interesting for skeptics and advocates of unbundling and related proposals, adding some clarity to divisive debates and expanding the library of solutions to the pressing problems with policing defended within philosophy 

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy

By The Policing Project at NYU School of Law 

  The story of the Chicago Neighborhood Policing Initiative begins in 2019. At that time, the City of Chicago faced a number of serious challenges involving crime and community confidence in the police. Decades-long concerns about discriminatory policing, police accountability, use of force, external oversight, and community responsiveness had reached a critical point that demanded action. Following the police shooting of Laquan McDonald, the United States Department of Justice investigated and found a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing by the Chicago Police Department (CPD), linking a lack of public trust to reduced crime prevention effectiveness. Within this environment, CPD personnel visited New York City to learn about the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) recently developed Neighborhood Policing model. That approach focused on reorganizing patrol activities in police districts to allow officers to engage meaningfully with the community and address local issues. The NYPD credited this method with enhancing community involvement and revitalizing focus on community policing. It is worth noting that Chicago’s original, groundbreaking community policing model, the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS), shared many features with the NYPD model, such as promoting partnership with community. But CAPS became under-resourced over time and today is a stand-alone program focused on community events rather than crime strategy. Identifying the NYPD model as a promising approach to improving public safety and relationships with the community, CPD leadership asked the Policing Project at New York University School of Law to work with the Department and local communities to develop a strategy to re-imagine the NYPD model to meet the needs and particular challenges of Chicago. Since 2019, the Policing Project has been supporting the development and implementation of the model, made possible by the partnership of a dedicated coalition of Chicago philanthropic organizations. The Neighborhood Policing Initiative (NPI) is a core policing strategy focused on problem-solving and crime reduction activities, undertaken in collaboration with neighborhood residents in a manner that builds trust between police and community. Through NPI, the community and the police share responsibility for addressing public safety issues in communities. NPI’s goal is to transform the community-police dynamic to produce meaningful public safety. Rather than solely relying on traditional police responses, NPI seeks to bring together Chicago communities to identify problems and develop solutions to guide police efforts going forward.  NPI’s vision is for this philosophy to permeate every level of the Department, equipping CPD and the communities it serves to reach a shared understanding of what policing should look like. Under NPI, residents are an ongoing, central part of the actual decision-making process on how they are policed.

New York: NYU University School of Law, Policing Project, 2025. 118p.   

Sandra Walklate , Charlotte Barlow

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of positive policing in relation to domestic abuse by opening up what is meant by this approach through an examination of what is taken for granted about it within much of the academic literature. Using data from a small-scale study involving case file analysis and interviews with police officers, the paper suggests in practice, positive policing involves a wide range of actions on the part of police officers. In exploring this data, the paper introduces the concept of ‘contextual safeguarding’ as a key feature of ‘positive policing’ in relation to domestic abuse. The paper makes the case for understanding ‘positive policing’ in the context of domestic abuse through the lens of ‘contextual safeguarding’ and that this would have beneficial consequences for wider debates on this issue.

Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, Volume 19, 2025,