By Melissa M. Labriola, Jill Portnoy Donaghy, Tiffany Keyes, Sarah Junghee Kang

oncerns about the physical health, mental health, and safety of first responders and law enforcement officers have been increasing for some time. The goal of this research is to synthesize evidence from the growing literature on mental health and wellness programs studied with law enforcement and first responder populations to help the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identify and strengthen programs and policies and to conduct an evaluability assessment (EA) to provide direction for future research.

This report presents findings from multiple research tasks, including a review of domestic and international literature on first responder wellness programs and interviews with key stakeholders in DHS about existing DHS wellness programs, wellness program implementation, and subsequent challenges. Authors conducted an EA of programs identified as potentially ready for evaluation in the stakeholder interviews. The authors of this report synthesized the findings from these tasks to develop a research agenda for future DHS wellness research efforts.

Key Findings

• According to the literature within the scope of our parameters, the most studied wellness programs for law enforcement and first responders were group prevention skills and knowledge training, psychotherapy, physical fitness, and mindfulness training.

• According to our interviews, certain program types, such as suicide prevention training, physical fitness programs, mindfulness training, and mandatory postvention efforts, were generally viewed as effective.

• Overall, more research is needed with larger sample sizes, rigorous designs, and outcomes other than knowledge change.

• Some interviewees recommended adopting robust, evidence-informed, non-DHS programs and adapting them for DHS's population, with the related concern of the uniqueness of the agency and the applicability of programs designed for different populations.

• Stigma in seeking and receiving services is a critical barrier but, according to interviewees, might be improving.

• Organizational barriers to participation include (1) a lack of resources to fund programs and/or on-site mental health clinicians, (2) employees feeling that they do not have sufficient time to seek out support (especially employees who have very demanding roles), (3) employee concerns about confidentiality, (4) insufficient leadership support, and (5) a lack of awareness about the resources available to employees.

• More research is needed with larger sample sizes, rigorous designs, and outcomes other than knowledge change, such as mental health and wellness outcomes.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2025, 107p.

By The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

This paper is a summary of the first of a series of roundtable discussions that aim to identify opportunities for law enforcement to harness new technologies to support its work, help formulate policy recommendations and explore potential OSCE capacity-building support in this area. The first event of this series was dedicated to the topic of harnessing new technologies to enhance crime analysis, and focused on opportunities and challenges in deploying artificial intelligence (AI) for analysis and the potential impact of these technologies on human rights.

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Prague: OSCE 2025. 12p.

By Brian A. Jackson, Pauline Moore, Jennifer T. Leschitz, Benjamin Boudreaux, Jo Caulkins, Shoshana R. Shelton

Violence by K–12 students is disturbingly common. Ensuring that schools have effective ways to identify and prevent such incidents is becoming increasingly important. Various concerning behaviors or disturbing communications, including direct threats, can precede acts of violence. Although removing every student exhibiting such behaviors might seem prudent, doing so can be counterproductive, limiting the effectiveness of safety efforts. With effective systems for behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM), schools can assess and respond to concerning behavior to protect the community and respond to the student whose behavior caused concern.

To do so, schools need the tools to respond. Tools may include restrictive measures or law enforcement involvement in the most serious cases, but other options can be more effective. Those additional options include different types of mental health intervention, counseling, and other supports. Teams with extensive tools available to them can better customize interventions, increasing the chance of positive outcomes for all involved.

In this report, the authors draw on published literature and extensive interviews with education and public safety practitioners to build an inventory of the many intervention options that are valuable for schools in the management phase of BTAM. In addition, drawing on varied approaches from the fields of counseling, school discipline and behavioral management, and other professions that must match appropriate services to the needs of youth in their care, the report discusses decision support tools to help management teams implement this critical part of efforts in preventing targeted violence and keeping school communities safe.

Key Findings

Various Intervention Options Are Available for K–12 BTAM Efforts

Support-focused interventions can address the underlying causes of problematic student behavior and also lead a student toward a more favorable, positive path into the future.

By using supportive counseling and other interventions, BTAM is widening the options available for school leaders and staff to address problematic behavior that has the potential to develop into violence.

To be effective, school BTAM teams need a broad set of tools, including options appropriately matched (1) to the specifics of a student's problematic behaviors, (2) to the unique school community and environment, and (3) to the needs and circumstances of the student or students involved.

Insights from Education, Public Safety, and Other Fields Can Be Combined to Support Matching Effective Interventions to Student Needs

Decision support tools and resource-matching guidance can help ensure that school-based teams are collecting the information required to taking a holistic approach to address a student's varied needs and help promote appropriate consistency to ensure that disparities in how BTAM teams respond do not substantiate concerns that BTAM processes are unfair or inequitable.

Using structured systems to capture data when a BTAM team (1) interviews students involved in an incident, (2) collects school or law enforcement data, or (3) contacts others for information about a student of concern provides a more straightforward starting point for selecting among multiple intervention options.

Recommendations

To better inform intervention planning, intervention tools should be designed so that they prioritize collecting data on factors that can be changed because pieces of information in BTAM that may be a useful part of assessing the danger posed by an individual may be useless for intervention planning.

The inventory of intervention options developed in this study could provide a starting point for schools to make conscious decisions as they (1) review the options available to their teams and (2) identify any options they do not have access to but that could become valuable near-term priorities to strengthen their school safety efforts.

Progress monitoring data of BTAM efforts can help better support students while also helping schools become more responsive to external oversight of their BTAM programs and allay concerns about the fairness and equity of outcomes across different student populations.

Including positive mileposts into threat management planning not only could help lay out a path to full completion of all intervention activities but could also help define goals more specifically for an at-risk student, motivating even more beneficial outcomes.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2025.

By Emma,Sutherland Disley, Alex,Sussex, Jon,Pollard, Jack,Saunders, Catherine L.,Morley, Katherine I.,Gkousis, Evangelos,Hulme, Shann

This report presents an outcome evaluation of the National Model for Liaison and Diversion (L&D) in England, which aims to identify and support vulnerable individuals within the criminal justice system (CJS) by linking them with appropriate health and social care services. The evaluation utilizes a novel, large-scale linked dataset, combining healthcare and criminal justice records, to assess the impact of the National Model on health service utilization, re-offending rates, diversion from the CJS, and the timeliness of court processes. Findings suggest L&D services engage individuals with multiple vulnerabilities, intervene at crisis points, and may increase diversion from custodial sentences. However, the evaluation found no overall reduction in re-offending following L&D referral.

Santa Monica, CA: Cambridge, UK: RAND, 2021. 232p.

By Megan Welsh Carroll , Shawn Teresa Flanigan , and Nicolas Gutierrez III

This paper examines racialized encounters with the police from the per-spectives of people experiencing homelessness in San Diego, California in2020. By some estimates, homelessness doubled in San Diego during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a survey of (n ¼ 244)and interviews with (n ¼ 57) homeless San Diegans during initial shelter-in-place orders, oversampling for Black respondents, whose voices are often under-represented despite high rates of homelessness nationally. Ourrespondents reported high rates of police contact, frequent lack of respect;overt racism, sexism, and homophobia; and a failure to offer basic services during these encounters. Centering our Black respondents’ experiences of criminalization and racism in what Clair calls “criminalized subjectivity,” we develop a conceptual framework that brings together critical theoretical perspectives on the role of race in the governance of poverty and crime.When people experiencing extreme poverty face apathy, disrespect, and discrimination from police—as our data show—the result is a reluctance to seek services and to engage with outreach when offered. This reinforces stereotypes of unhoused people as not “wanting” help or “choosing” to be homeless. We reflect on these findings and our framework for envisioning a system of public safety that supports and cares for—rather thanpunishes—the most vulnerable members of our society

PUBLIC INTEGRITY2023, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 285–300

By Will Engelhardt and Daniel S. Lawrence

Before the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act was implemented in December 2019, North Carolina was the last state that still automatically charged 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in its criminal legal system. In March 2014, led by then–chief district court judge Marcia Morey, a group of stakeholders from Durham County, North Carolina, started the Misdemeanor Diversion Program (MDP) to prevent 16- and 17-year-olds from entering the criminal legal system. The first of its kind in North Carolina, the program provides services including life skills courses, restorative justice efforts, and behavioral health treatment over a 90-day period and has expanded to include adults of all ages. It has also been replicated in certain counties throughout the state. The MDP enables law enforcement officers in Durham County to redirect people accused of committing their first misdemeanor crime(s) to community-based services in lieu of charge, citation or arrest. The purpose is to diminish unnecessary arrests and jail time and the collateral consequences of being charged with and convicted of a crime. A central feature of this program is that it occurs prearrest and precharge, meaning someone law enforcement officers believe may have committed a crime will not be arrested or charged and will not formally enter the justice criminal legal system in any way. In 2020 and 2021, with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge Research Consortium, the Urban Institute conducted in-depth process and impact evaluations of the MDP, the findings of which we summarize in this report. By conducting both types of evaluations, the research team was able to better understand the processes and context that led to observed impacts. In addition, this is the first time a third-party research organization has evaluated the program’s impact, and such an evaluation is critical to demonstrating the program’s usefulness. Key takeaways from the process evaluation (A Process Evaluation of the Misdemeanor Diversion Program in Durham County, North Carolina) and the impact evaluation (An Impact Evaluation of the Misdemeanor Diversion Program in Durham County, North Carolina) are detailed in box 1.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 24p.

By Daniel S. Lawrence, Will Engelhardt, Storm Ervin, Rudy Perez

Before the implementation of the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act in December 2019, North Carolina was the last state that still automatically charged 16-to-17-year-olds as adults in its justice system. In March 2014, a group of stakeholders from Durham County—led by then–chief district court judge Marcia Morey—started the Misdemeanor Diversion Program (MDP) to prevent 16-to-17-year-olds from entering the justice system. The program has since expanded to include adults up to 26 years old. The first program of its kind in North Carolina, the MDP gives law enforcement officers in Durham County the discretion to redirect people accused of committing their first misdemeanor offense(s) to community-based services (such as life skills courses, restorative justice efforts, and behavioral health treatment) in lieu of citation or arrest. The purpose was to diminish unnecessary arrests and time in jail and the collateral consequences of being charged with and potentially convicted of a crime. What is particularly unique about this program is that it occurs prearrest and precharge, meaning someone law enforcement officers believe may have committed a crime will not be arrested or charged and will not formally enter the justice system in any way. This impact evaluation, the first conducted for the MDP, found that from March 2014 to February 2020, law enforcement officers in Durham County referred fewer than one-quarter of all people eligible for diversion to the MDP, though when they did, the program had positive impacts. In 2020 and 2021, with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge Research Consortium, the Urban Institute conducted an in-depth impact evaluation of the MDP, the findings of which are detailed in this report. This impact evaluation was one component of Urban’s research on the MDP; Urban also conducted a detailed process evaluation that was described in a July 2021 report, A Process Evaluation of the Misdemeanor Diversion Program in Durham County, North Carolina (Engelhardt et al. 2021). Key Takeaways The data examined in this report cover January 2012 to February 2020 and were collected from North Carolina’s Administrative Office of the Courts, the MDP, the Durham Police Department (DPD), and the Durham County Sheriff’s Office. Box 1 provides five key findings the research team derived from these data. In this report, we assess the following: ◼ MDP enrollment ◼ MDP completion rates ◼ the MDP’s impact on new arrests, convictions, and jail admissions for program participants ◼ the MDP’s impact on disparities by race and ethnicity, sex, and age ◼ the MDP’s impact on system-level arrests, convictions, and jail admissions Analyses were separated into two population groups—people ages 16 to 17 and people ages 18 to 21—because each group was eligible for the MDP during different periods. These groups were statistically matched to comparison groups through propensity score matching for the analyses that examined new arrests, convictions, and jail admissions. The comparison groups were well balanced with the MDP participant groups (see appendix D) and were pulled from pools of people who were concurrently eligible for the program but did not participate. Five Key Findings ◼ Approximately 77 percent of people eligible for the MDP were not referred to the program while it was operational from March 2014 to February 2020. ◼ Of those who did participate in the program, there was a very high completion rate of 95 percent. ◼ MDP participants had significantly lower rates of rearrests, convictions, or jail admissions than comparison groups within six months, one year, and two years. ◼ Participation in the MDP significantly reduced disparities in new arrests within two years and in new convictions and jail admissions within six months between 16-to-17-year-old Black people and non-Black people, making the differences in the levels of new arrests between these groups much more equivalent than between Black and non-Black people who did not participate in the MDP. ◼ The MDP did not have a larger impact on countywide rates of arrests, convictions, or jail admissions for either of the two age groups we analyzed

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 83p.

By Brittany C. Cunningham, Vincent Bauer, Kira Cincotta, Jessica Dockstader, Benjamin Carleton, Bridgette Bryson, Daniel S. Lawrence

Officer safety is of critical importance in an era of increased risk for law enforcement officers (hereinafter “officers”). Officers respond to some of the most unpredictable, traumatic, and violent encounters of any profession. Although much of an officer’s workday entails repetitive interactions, some calls for service or self-initiated contacts by officers may escalate into dangerous encounters. For officers to adequately mitigate the risks they may encounter while responding to calls for service, they must be well informed regarding the types of risks they face, the situations that may pose greater risk, and the strategies that will mitigate these risks.

Although previous empirical work on officer safety has yielded many important insights, to our knowledge, no prior work has applied machine learning models to produce risk assessments to promote officer safety. This project explored the potential for machine learning to identify high-risk incidents to officers using only the information available to dispatchers. A risk assessment model that could successfully flag high-risk incidents at dispatch would be immensely useful to law enforcement agencies, making it possible for officers to be better informed about potential risk factors before arriving on scene. Such a model would also be useful to agencies as they decide how to allocate scarce resources, such as deciding which calls should receive single- or dual-officer vehicles, where to send alternative response teams, and whether to deploy specialized units.

Readers should be aware that the model reflects the data upon which it is built. Biases in reporting and collecting officer injuries, as well as in how officers respond to calls for service, will be mirrored in the model’s risk assessments. While we have gone to great lengths to build the model using objective factors, these biases could sometimes lead the model to identify a situation as high risk when in fact that situation reflects low risk to officers. Concerns about the potential for bias in machine learning are important to evaluate, and these techniques offer opportunities for objective empirical examination of divisive topics to minimize the bias that is already present in the real world.

Calls for service and Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) data were merged from each of the four agencies, revealing the following findings:

Overall, the machine learning model performed well, correctly identifying officer injuries about half of the time. Given the rarity of officer injuries within the four agencies, being able to identify half of such rare situations is notable.

The model was also able to identify the factors that were the most important in predicting risk to officer safety and the types of incidents that posed the highest risk to officer safety. The results demonstrate that such a model can identify officer injuries from data on call characteristics; thus, whether such a model could be built into the dispatch process should be explored so that officers would be informed about potential risk factors before arriving at the location of a call.

The model highlighted factors and calls for service types that posed greater risks to officer safety.

The results of the machine learning model, along with the results from the officer interviews and surveys, also highlighted an often-overlooked aspect of police operations that is critically important to officer safety: dispatch.

Beyond producing statistical models, this project also collaborated with participating agencies to explore officer perspectives on safety and identify promising practices and recommendations to reduce risks to officers.

This project provides several practical benefits for improving officer safety. These benefits include the following:

Quantifying concepts that until now have been only informally or qualitatively understood (e.g., the relative risks of different calls for service types).

Comparing officer perceptions about injury risk to the quantitative data and identifying where gaps in understanding exist.

Highlighting the important relationship between dispatch and patrol, as well as the implications that this relationship has for officer safety.

Helping agencies assess the efficacy of their trainings and policies that directly affect officer safety.

Providing guidance on the information agencies collect and make available to dispatchers.

Supporting agencies to improve the amount and quality of risk and injury data agencies collect and use.

We hope that by providing agencies with a foundational knowledge of risks to officer safety, agencies will have a basis for modifying policy, training, and operations, leading to the implementation of strategies, processes, and procedures to keep officers and the communities they serve safe.

Arlington, VA: CNA Corporation, 2024. 52p.

By Daniel S. Lawrence, Bryce E. Peterson, Rochisha Shukla, and Lilly Robin

This publication represents a technical summary report of the Urban Institute’s evaluation of efforts with the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) to improve its public surveillance network. The goal of this study was to conduct a rigorous process, impact, and cost effectiveness evaluation of the process MPD took to optimize its network, which included improving operations, installing new cameras, and integrating video analytic technologies into its system. The two video analytic technologies were (1) automatic license plate recognition cameras and (2) high-definition cameras connected to gunshot detection technology. The evaluation used a mixed-methods research design. Qualitative data collection included in-depth observations of the department’s camera operations to understand their practices and determine which types of improvements would most benefit the program, as well as stakeholder interviews with staff members who either worked directly within the camera program or routinely used its footage in their work. We conducted interviews with camera operators, camera program supervisors, shift commanders, crash reconstruction unit officers, specialized investigations division officers, criminal investigations bureau detectives, and civilian managers from the department’s communication division. We also collected numerous quantitative data, including administrative crime data, metadata from the camera system, and systematic data on the costs associated with the system upgrades. We then used these data to assess: (1) the overall impact all of the interventions had on crime at the city, focus area, and intersection levels; (2) the specific impact of the two video analytic components on crime; and (3) the costs of the upgrades relative to their effectiveness. Our findings indicate that the impact of these interventions was mixed. We analyzed data in the two areas where MPD concentrated their surveillance optimization efforts and found some decreases in crime. However, when we focused on our analyses on the specific intersections where cameras and other technologies were installed, our models found increases in some criminal events, which is likely the result of the new cameras capturing crimes that may have otherwise been missed by the department. We also found no significant changes in crime in the areas where the two video analytic technologies were implemented compared to matched comparison areas. The findings from this research yielded several important lessons for improving criminal justice policy and practices. First, police departments must have strong, collaborative relationships with the vendors they select to upgrade their surveillance systems. Second, agencies that engage in efforts to optimize their surveillance systems should regularly re-evaluate their goals and processes to maximize the effectiveness of these new technologies. Finally, departments should ensure that all necessary personnel are made aware of the new technologies and have adequate access to them.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2024. 18p.

By Will Engelhardt. Storm Ervin, Daniel S. Lawrence, and Rudy Perez

Before its Raise the Age legislation in December 2019, North Carolina was one of the few states that still automatically charged 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in its justice system. In 2013, led by then–chief district court judge Marcia Morey, a group of stakeholders from Durham County, North Carolina, started the Misdemeanor Diversion Program (MDP) to prevent 16- and 17-year-olds from entering the justice system. The first of its kind in North Carolina, the program began in March 2014 and expanded over time to include people of all ages. It has also been replicated in certain counties throughout the state. The MDP allows law enforcement officers in Durham County to redirect people accused of committing their first misdemeanor crime(s) to community-based services in lieu of citation or arrest. The purpose is to diminish unnecessary arrests and time in jail, and the collateral consequences associated with being charged with and potentially convicted of a crime. What is particularly unique about this program is that it occurs prearrest and precharge, meaning someone law enforcement officers may believe has committed a crime is not arrested or charged and does not formally enter the justice system in any way. In 2020 and 2021, with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge Research Consortium, the Urban Institute conducted an in-depth process evaluation of the MDP, the findings of which are detailed in this report. This process evaluation was one component of Urban’s research on the MDP; the research team is also conducting an outcome evaluation that will be described in a fall 2021 report.

Safely and Justice Challenge, 2021. 44p.

By IBAC - Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission

The Focused Police Complaints Pilot (Pilot) was a trial by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) to establish a dedicated team to assess and investigate single incident complaints about the conduct of Victoria Police personnel from people who are at a higher risk of experiencing misconduct. These communities included: • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples • people with disability • people who identify as LGBTIQA+ • people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds • people aged under 25 years • people with mental illness, where their mental illness is linked to their engagement with police • people who have a reasonable fear of their safety. As Victoria’s anti-corruption and police oversight agency, the purpose of IBAC is to prevent and expose public sector corruption and police misconduct. IBAC relies on the trust of the Victorian community to perform our role to keep the public sector and Victoria Police accountable. In practice, this means we rely on community members to know about IBAC, feel confident to contact us to make a complaint and feel assured that IBAC will fairly and independently assess the complaint and investigate it when appropriate. IBAC recognises the challenges faced by people making a complaint about suspected corruption or police misconduct. Whether these challenges arise for social, economic or cultural reasons or because it can be difficult to speak out, IBAC understands that making a complaint or being part of an IBAC investigation may be a confronting experience. To help address these barriers, the objectives of this Pilot were to: • improve the timeliness of IBAC’s complaints assessment, investigation and outcome notifications to reduce IBAC’s response times for complainants through an accelerated pathway for police complaints from the identified communities • increase transparency and complainants’ understanding of the outcomes of complaints • trial better means to identify focus community complainants. The Pilot ran from October 2023 to April 2024 and an internal evaluation was completed in June 2024. This report provides an overview of IBAC’s work to establish and operate the Pilot. It also outlines the outcomes of the Pilot and the next steps for this important work.

Melbourne: State of Victoria , (Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission) 2024. 16p.

By Elle Wadsworth, Mafalda Pardal, Lucy Strang, Laura Atuesta, Fin Oades, Emily Hutton, Eric Sevigny, Emily Lawso

The report concludes with reflections and implications from this review’s findings (Chapter 6), as follows:

Overall, the available evidence suggests that drug-related law enforcement activities are of limited effectiveness in reducing violence. Indeed, more studies demonstrated an association between drug-related law enforcement activities and increased violence than decreased violence. Selective enforcement tactics appeared the most promising in their capacity to reduce violence, although the evidence base covered in this review is limited.

Passive drug-related law enforcement activities, such as increasing police presence in known drug market areas, appear promising in reducing violence. However, less evidence is available on the effectiveness of these interventions than on active law enforcement activities.

The causal mechanisms of violence reduction are under-explored in the literature. However, several studies discussed supply disruptions, focused deterrence and positive relationships between police and communities as potential success factors.

Barriers to the effectiveness of violence-reduction efforts included the resilience of drug markets, the cultural significance of violence in some drug trafficking organisations, and law enforcement’s limited resources.

This review did not identify any UK-based evidence – most research came from the Americas. While most law enforcement activities in this review also occur in the UK, the results are not directly replicable in a UK setting.

Evidence on the relationship between drug-related law enforcement and serious violence and homicide over the last decade is lacking. What was previously effective (or ineffective) in reducing violence may yield different results now.

More evidence is needed on the effectiveness of drug-related law enforcement activities in retail-level markets or prison settings in reducing violence.

Relevant agencies planning and implementing drug-related law enforcement activity should consider the risk of increased violence, particularly for interventions for which available evidence suggests a strong association (for example, leadership removal and seizures).

Future UK research on drug-related law enforcement and violence could focus on interventions that may reduce violence, such as selective enforcement, and whether the findings presented can be validated.

London: Home Office, 2025. 63p.

By Tin Kapetanovic 

This article analyses the expansion of Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) across the Sahara-Sahel, using the transplantation framework from criminology to explore how the group relocated. By focussing on this case study, the article offers an examination of how JNIM strategically embedded itself in a new environment. The study incorporates qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with NATO analysts and military personnel involved in counterterrorism in the Sahara-Sahel, data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project and a review of open source literature. The findings show that JNIM’s expansion was driven by push factors, including military pressure in northern Mali following the French-led Operation Serval in 2013 and competition with other illicit groups. Pull factors encompassed weak state presence, ethnic tensions between Fulani herders and Dogon farmers, economic opportunities in illicit gold mining and smuggling routes and the region’s strategic location. JNIM adapted organisationally by integrating local leaders, intermarrying, providing services, and establishing Sharia governance structures. However, their expansion faced constraints from local self-defence militias and increased military operations by Malian and international forces. The transplantation framework reveals JNIM’s strategic organisational adaptations and environmental exploitation, offering insights beyond traditional models of ideological diffusion or networks.

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 7(1): pp. 1–19

By Alex H. Kral, Jamie L. Humphrey, Clyde Schwab, Barrot H. Lambdin, Bradley Ray,

Importance Opioid-involved overdose mortality has been on the rise for 2 decades in the US, exacerbated by an unregulated drug supply that is unpredictable and has increasingly contained highly potent fentanyl analogs starting a decade ago.

Objective To determine whether there is a geospatial association between law enforcement drug seizures and opioid-involved overdose mortality in San Francisco.

Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study used location- and time-stamped overdose mortality data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and publicly available crime data from the San Francisco Police Department between 2020 and 2023 to assess whether location and time of law enforcement drug seizures were associated with subsequent opioid-involved overdose mortality. Data were analyzed from January 2020 to September 2023.

Exposures Time-stamped locations of law enforcement drug seizures involving a drug distribution charge.

Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcomes were the time and location of (1) overdose mortality involving any opioid and (2) overdose mortality involving fentanyl or any fentanyl analog. The relative risk (RR) and 95% CIs for endemic and epidemic factors were calculated.

Results There were 2653 drug seizure crime events that involved any drug distribution charge and 1833 overdose deaths that tested positive for any opioid or synthetic opioid, including heroin and fentanyl analogs. Within the surrounding 100 meters, law enforcement drug seizures were associated with increase risk of fatal opioid-involved overdoses the day following the drug seizure event (RR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.06-2.83; P = .03) and elevated risk persisted for 7 days (2 days: RR, 1.55;95% CI, 1.09-2.21; P = .02; 3 days: RR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.08-1.93; P = .01; 7 days: RR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.11-1.46; P = .001). Similar statistically significant spatiotemporal patterns were observed in the 250- and 500-meter spatial bandwidths. Within each space-time kernel, the strength of the association, all of which were statistically significant, dissipated the further away in time and distance from the law enforcement drug seizure event.

Conclusions and Relevance The findings of this cross-sectional study suggest that the enforcement of drug distribution laws to increase public safety for residents in San Francisco may be having an unintended negative consequence of increasing opioid overdose mortality. To reduce overdose mortality, it may be better to focus on evidence-based health policies and interventions.

JAMA Netw Open. 2025, 11p.

By: Michelle Kirby

A 2010 law established a pilot program to allow Connecticut courts to order GPS devices (ankle bracelets) to be used to track family violence offenders. Under this law, the Judicial Branch’s Court Support Services Division (CSSD) implemented the Alert Notification/GPS program in the Bridgeport, Danielson, and Hartford judicial districts. CSSD’s preliminary report on the program indicated that it met its objective to (1) enhance monitoring of high-risk family violence offenders and (2) increase victim safety. The December 2011 final summary report concluded that the program was successfully implemented in all three court locations with a high degree of collaboration systemwide.

Hartford: Connecticut General Assembly Office of Legislative Research, 2023. 4p.

By  Griffin Sims Edwards and Stephen Rushin

This Article examines the effect of state laws restricting the use of police quotas. Police quotas describe the establishment of a predetermined number of traffic stops, citations, or arrests that officers must make within a particular time period. Some police supervisors have historically used quotas to ensure adequate productivity by officers. However, critics argue that quotas incentivize officers to engage in unnecessary, and in some cases, unconstitutional, coercive behavior. Numerous states across the country have enacted laws banning or limiting the use of police quotas.

This Article analyzes a dataset of traffic and pedestrian stops from eleven law enforcement agencies with varied laws on police quotas over time. It finds minimal evidence that laws limiting police quotas reduce coercive behavior by police. If anything, agencies may engage in slightly more coercive behavior after the introduction of these laws. However, we find evidence that restrictions on the use of police quotas may improve the quality of traffic stops and vehicle searches.

We offer several hypotheses to explain these results. First, the narrow focus of quota laws may limit their effectiveness. Second, the managerial tactics that replace police quotas may incentivize officers to engage in similar amounts of coercive behavior. And third, the relatively weak enforcement mechanisms in state quota bans may reduce their deterrent effect.

We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the literature on police regulation. We also offer recommendations for reforming police quota laws.

109 Iowa Law Review 2127 (2024), 

By Barry Friedman, Rachel Harmon & Farhang Heydari

For far too long, the federal government has failed to exercise its constitutional authority to mitigate the harms imposed by local policing. Absent federal intervention, though, some harmful aspects of policing will not be addressed effectively, or at all. States and localities often lack the necessary capacity and expertise to change policing, and many states and localities lack the will. This Article argues for federal intervention and describes what that intervention should look like. The Article begins by describing three paradigmatic areas of local policing that require federal intervention to create real change: excessive use of force, racial discrimination, and the unregulated use of surveillance technologies. Because state and local governments are either unable or unwilling to address these problems alone, the federal government should intervene to identify and enforce minimum standards, develop best practices, collect data, and distribute resources nationwide. Regrettably, Congress has failed to act adequately to improve local policing for the better, although it has tried to encourage reform through the use of its Spending Power. This Article argues that Congress should utilize its regulatory powers under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause to address these paradigmatic problem areas, and it explains how this can be done consistently with Supreme Court doctrine. Alongside—or in the absence of—congressional action, the executive branch has the power and responsibility to act to address policing’s harms. The Article explains that, though indirect, the President wields considerable power to influence policing by setting policy, implementing federal programs, enforcing civil rights, and supervising federal law enforcement. Although the executive branch should use this power to promote local policing that is effective, fair, and accountable, and that minimizes harm, administration after administration has failed to do so consistently and also has failed to hold federal law enforcement to these standards. Recent executive branch efforts have improved the situation, but there still exists a gaping chasm between how the federal government should be influencing local policing and how it is doing so today

109 Virginia Law Review 1527 (December, 2023), 101p.

B/y Griffin Edwards and

Stephen Rushin

In 1981, the U.S. Supreme Court held in New York v. Belton that police officers could lawfully search virtually anywhere in a vehicle without a warrant after the arrest of any occupant in the vehicle. Then, in 2009, the Court reversed course in Arizona v. Gant, holding that police could only engage in vehicle searches after such arrests in a smaller number of extenuating circumstances. This series of cases became a flash point for the broader debate about the regulation of policing. Law enforcement groups argued that administratively complex rules, like those established in Gant, risk officer safety. But some scholars and civil rights activists worried that by giving police officers wider discretion to search vehicles incident to arrest, the Belton rule may have led to unjustified civil rights violations and racial profiling.

This Article argues that, by limiting vehicle searches incident to arrest, Gant may have disincentivized policing tactics that disproportionately target individuals of color without jeopardizing officer safety.

By utilizing a data set of traffic stops from thirteen law enforcement agencies in seven states, this Article presents an empirical study of the effects of shifting doctrines related to vehicle searches incident to arrest. This Article makes two findings. First, it finds no evidence that Gant endangered officer safety. Changes in state doctrines related to vehicle searches incident to arrest are not associated with increases in assaults of officers during traffic stops. Second, it hypothesizes that Gant may have reduced racial profiling. Gant may be linked to a somewhat larger decline in vehicle searches incident to arrest for nonwhite individuals relative to white individuals.

These findings are a reminder that seemingly neutral procedural choices by courts in regulating police behavior may have racially disparate effects. We conclude by arguing for the narrowing of the discretionary authority of police officers as a mechanism for reducing disparities in the criminal justice system.

91 Fordham L. Rev. 1 (2022).

By Julia A. Yesberg, Arabella Kyprianides, Ben Bradford, Jenna Milani, Paul Quinton & Oliver Clark-Darby

The use of force is arguably the defining feature of police. Yet this power is often controversial: a key node in the contest and debate that almost always swirls around police, with the question of race never far from such contestation. In this paper, we consider the influence of race in responses to use of force incidents among British-based samples. Using two text-based vignette experiments and one video study, our aims are threefold: (1) to explore the influence of suspect race in how people respond to police use of force; (2) to test the interaction between participant ethnicity and suspect race; and (3) to understand what attitudes and beliefs influence how people respond to police use of force. We found no effect of suspect race on how people judged police use of force. White participants were slightly more accepting of police use of force than black participants, but there was no interaction with suspect race. The strongest predictor of acceptance of police use of force was trust in police, and, controlling for other relevant predictors, racial prejudice was also a significant positive predictor of acceptance of use of force. To our knowledge this is the first study of its kind to be fielded in the UK.

Policing and Society, An International Journal of Research and Policy, Volume 32, 2022 - Issue 7, 19p.

By Pradhi Aggarwal, Alec Brandon, Ariel Goldszmidt, Justin Holz, John A. List, Ian Muir, Gregory Sun, and Thomas Yu

Prior research on racial profiling has found that in encounters with law enforcement, minorities are punished more severely than white civilians. Less is known about the causes of these encounters and their implications for our understanding of racial profiling. Using high-frequency location data of rideshare drivers inFlorida (N = 222,838 individuals), we estimate the effect of driver race on citations and fines for speeding using 19.3 million location pings. Compared with a white driver traveling the same speed, we find that racial or ethnic minority drivers are 24 to 33% more likely to be cited for speeding and pay 23 to 34% more money in fines. We find no evidence that accident and reoffense rates explain these estimates, which suggests that animus against minorities underlies our results

Science, Volume 387, Issue 6741Mar 2025, 5p,