By Timothy Hsiao

Critics of American policing often make the claim that it is a direct descendant of antebellum slave patrols, the mostly voluntary groups organized to capture runaway slaves and stifle slave rebellions in the early eighteenth century. Consider just a few examples:

• “The origins of modern-day policing can be traced back to the ‘Slave Patrol.’” — NAACP

• “Policing itself started out as slave patrols. We know that.” — Rep. James Clyburn.

• “Slave patrols . . . morphed directly into police.” — Nikole HannahJones.

• “[M]odernized police actually emerged in the South during slavery— they literally were slave catchers.” — Scalawag Magazine.

Even pro-law enforcement organizations such as the National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum in Washington, D.C. have come to accept this claim. According to one criminal justice textbook, it is “widely recognized that law enforcement in the 20th-century South evolved directly from these 18th and 19th-century slave patrols.”

While it is true that slave patrols were a form of American law enforcement that existed alongside other forms of law enforcement, the claim that American policing “traces back” to, “started out” as, or “evolved directly from,” slave patrols, or that slave patrols “morphed directly into” policing, is false. This widespread pernicious myth falsely asserts a causal relationship between slave patrols and policing and intimates that modern policing carries on a legacy of gross injustice. There is no evidence for either postulate.

In order to demonstrate causation, one must show that modern policing drew its distinctive practices and structure from slave patrols. But the evidence shows that American law enforcement—whether in the form of sheriffs, town watches, constables, or police—all emerged from distinctly English influences. Both slave patrols and modern police departments drew from these influences. The fact that the latter did so after the former does not mean that the latter emerged from the former.

New York: National Association of Scholars, 2023. 6p.

.By Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Community Violence Can Be Prevented All people want to be healthy, safe, and connected to other people. We all want to have access to life opportunities, including education and employment, to become valued members of communities and society, and to live our lives free from violence. To support community violence prevention and promote health and safety, the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed the Community Violence Prevention Resource for Action (or Prevention Resource, for short). DVP’s vision is to have a violence-free society in which all people and all communities are safe, healthy, and thriving. Violence is preventable using a public health approach. This includes bringing together partners and community members to consider local needs and the best available evidence to implement violence prevention strategies. About this Prevention Resource for Action Community violence happens in public places, such as streets or parks, between people who may or may not know each other. Examples include assaults, fights among groups, homicides, and fatal and nonfatal shootings. This resource is informed by research and conversations with community members, people who have experienced violence, and other partners.a It is an update to the Youth Violence Prevention Resource for Action.  It includes evidence for preventing violence experienced by youth (ages 10-24), which is now under the larger community violence topic. In this update, we expand the evidence to include examples for preventing violence experienced by young adults (ages 25-34). Young adults ages 20-24 have the highest homicide rate. They are closely followed by young adults between the ages of 25-29, 30-34, and then teens ages 15-19.8 Over the past 40 years, we have learned a lot about preventing violence, but there is still more work to do. This resource is intended to help communities and states prevent violence before it starts and lessen the harms of violence that occur by describing the best available evidence for community violence prevention. DVP looks forward to learning from communities and states about how this resource is being used and how it can be improved so that all communities are safe, healthy, and thriving. This Prevention Resource has three components. The first component is the strategy, or the direction or actions needed to prevent community violence. The second component is the approach, or specific ways to advance the strategy through policies, programs, or practices. The third component is the evidence for each approach in preventing community violence or the conditions or behaviors that increase risk for community violence. The examples provided in this resource are not intended to be a comprehensive list of evidence-based programs, policies, or practices for each approach. Rather, they illustrate models that have been shown to prevent community violence or impact conditions or behaviors that increase risk or protect against violence    

Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  2024. 104p.  

By Joanna Wang, Don Weatherburn, Wai-Yin Wan

Aim: To examine the long-term effect of two routine police activities on property and violent crime in NSW.

Method: Police move-on directions and person searches as well as property and violent crimes were extracted from the NSW Police Force’s Computerised Operational Policing System. We investigate the relationship between police activity and crime using panel of 17 Local Area Commands (LACs) over the period 2001 to 2013. To estimate the long-run relationship, panel models of Pooled Mean Group and Mean Group were applied to allow for differing effects between LACs.

Results: We estimated a significant and strongly negative long-run relationship between both indices of police activity (move-on directions and person searches) and each of break and enter, motor vehicle theft and robbery. The person search activity is negatively related to assault, but the effect is weak; with a 10 per cent increase in person searches only producing a 0.29 per cent fall in assaults. No significant long-run relationship was found between assault and move-on directions.

Conclusion: Sustained increases in police activity, whether in the form of move-on directions or person searches, do appear to help suppress break and enter, motor vehicle theft and robbery but do not appear to help in reducing assault.

(Crime & Justice Bulletin No. 225). Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.  2019. 12p.

By Alex Chohlas-Wood, Marissa Gerchick, Sharad Goel, Aziz Z. Huq, Amy Shoemaker, Ravi Shroff, and Keniel Yao

 We describe and apply three empirical approaches to identify superfluous police activity, unjustified racially disparate impacts, and limits to regulatory interventions. First, using cost-benefit analysis, we show that traffic and pedestrian stops in Nashville and New York City disproportionately impacted communities of color without achieving their stated public safety goals. Second, we address a longstanding problem in discrimination research by presenting an empirical approach for identifying “similarly situated” individuals and, in so doing, quantify potentially unjustified disparities in stop policies in New York City and Chicago. Finally, taking a holistic view of police contact in Chicago and Philadelphia, we show that settlement agreements curbed pedestrian stops but that a concomitant rise in traffic stops maintained aggregate racial disparities, illustrating the challenges facing regulatory efforts. These case studies highlight the promise and value of viewing legal principles and policy goals through the lens of modern data analysis—both in police reform and in reform efforts more broadly.

The University of Chicago Law Review [89:2: Pages 441-475 March 2022  

By Beth A. Colgan

Highly publicized killings of people by law enforcement during traffic stops have led to a growing interest in traffic enforcement reform. While some see automated traffic enforcement and unarmed civilian units as a way to decrease interactions with law enforcement in hopes of decreasing police killings, it fails to address traditional traffic enforcement’s budgetary and racial problems. This article argues that this shift may lead to more enforcement of other codes that can create opportunities for violence and revenue extraction in overpoliced communities of color. The article concludes with a urging for more expansive and systemic changes to account for the revenue-generating economy of traffic enforcement.    

Key Findings: 

• Nonpayment of economic sanctions stemming from traffic tickets may trigger arrest warrants, vehicle impoundment, or a suspended driver’s license, which may carry additional costs.

• Law enforcement uses traffic codes as a weapon to implement pretextual stops to make traffic-based forfeitures.

• Research suggests revenue generation may push law enforcement officers away from investigating violent and property offenses and toward traffic enforcement and drug interdiction.

• Studies suggest law enforcement’s ability to retain forfeiture revenue has helped motivate the war on drugs.

Recommendations: 

• Afford a statutory right to counsel in cases involving fines and forfeitures.

• Require a criminal conviction before forfeiture in nearly all cases.

• Eliminate the federal Equitable Sharing program or pass laws that prohibit participation in the program.

• Reduce law enforcement dependency on fines, fees, and forfeiture revenue by redirecting them elsewhere

North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 100, 889-958 (2023)

By Mike McLively and Brittany Nieto

Oakland, considered for many years to be among the most dangerous cities in America, has cut its annual shootings and homicides nearly in half since 2012. Now, city leaders and activists from around the country are traveling to Oakland to learn from this remarkable success. Oakland gives us reason to hope that reducing gun violence in our most impacted communities is possible, and a basic framework for how to get there. In 2012, after several failures and facing great pressure from community activists, Oakland city leaders committed to launching a citywide violence reduction strategy, known as Oakland Ceasefire, with the help of technical experts from the California Partnership for Safe Communities (CPSC). Oakland Ceasefire is an ongoing partnership between community members, social service providers, and law enforcement officials, who work together to reduce violence, build police-community trust, and improve outcomes for high-risk individuals. The strategy has five main components: Analysis of violent incidents and trends, referred to as a problem analysis, to identify individuals at the highest risk of participating in serious violence. Oakland’s problem analysis revealed several misconceptions about the city’s violence dynamics. It also showed that only 400 individuals—just 0.1% of Oakland’s total population—were at the highest risk for engaging in serious violence at any given time. Oakland Ceasefire partners intervene with this population. Respectful, in-person communications with high-risk individuals to warn about the risks of ongoing violence and provide a genuine offer of assistance. With Oakland Ceasefire, these communications primarily take the form of call-ins, interventions in which stakeholders communicate with small groups of those most at risk of serious violence, and custom notifications, a personalized method of heading off imminent violence. Relationship-based social services are provided to high-risk individuals through the Oakland Unite network of community-based organizations. Oakland Unite is a unique city agency that uses taxpayer money to fund organizations that provide services like intensive mentoring, economic and educational training, and direct assistance to victims of violence and their families. Narrowly focused law enforcement actions by the Oakland Police Department’s (OPD) Ceasefire Section, in addition to ongoing, department-wide training in the principles of procedural justice and other strategies to improve police-community relationships. Since reforming its approach to violence, OPD has seen a dramatic increase in its homicide solve rate, while use-of-force incidents and complaints against the department are on the decline. An intentional management structure built around regular communication between Oakland Ceasefire partners and city leaders to stay on top of changing violence dynamics and track progress toward yearly violence reduction goals. Regular meetings include weekly shooting reviews, bimonthly coordination meetings, and performance reviews led by Oakland’s mayor.     

Giffords Law Center, Faith in Action, and the Black and Brown Gun Violence Prevention Consortium, 2019. 107p/  

By Aline Ara Santos Carvalho , Táhcita Medrado Mizael , Angelo A S Sampaio

A police stop must be based on founded suspicion: an officer's ability to correctly discriminate suspicious behavior. However, police stops can be influenced by negative attitudes toward Black individuals. We conducted a systematic review of empirical articles published from 2014 to 2019 that investigated the relationship between racial prejudice and police stops on PsycInfo using keywords such as "race," "ethnic," "police stop," "traffic stop," and "stop and frisk." Results included 16 studies conducted in the United States, England, Wales, and the Netherlands and showed that Black men were the most frequent targets of police stops; that many individuals who have been stopped by the police reported negative perceptions of the police force; that the Stop, Question, and Frisk strategy used by some U.S. police departments proved to be a type of stop that favors racial selectivity; and that traffic stops were favorable environments for racially biased actions by officers. We conclude that institutional racism in police stops proves to be a problem shared by several countries, including Brazil. We suggest more investigations to characterize institutional racism in the police force and in other settings and interventions aimed at reducing individual biases and collective racist practices.

Behav Anal Pract. 2021 May 28;15(4):1213-1220. doi: 10.1007/s40617-021-00578-4. PMID: 36605162; PMCID: PMC9744975

By Hildy Saizow., et al. ., CNA

In May 2020, the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer shocked the nation. Recorded footage brought the image of his death to millions of people, and they responded as never before. As the summer unfolded, protests were organized in communities all across the nation, with people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, young and old alike, marching together asking for
police reform and sharing concerns over police brutality and systemic racism. In response, police reform proposals were introduced at the federal and state levels, with more than 30 states considering legislative changes on police practices and accountability. At the local level, government and police officials began proposing changes to police policy and practice, enacting bans on chokeholds, and promoting de-escalation training. In the City of Antioch, hundreds of concerned community members voiced their opinions on race relations and policing reform during three City Council meetings in June 2020. The issues they raised were wide ranging, including systemic racism, body-worn cameras, and police recruitment, training, and accountability. In response, the Antioch City Council decided to hold a series of roundtable
discussions called Bridging the Gap to hear the perspectives of additional community members and learn more about the kinds of changes in policing the community desired. The City wanted to better understand the community’s perspectives on racial injustice and police-community relations and to identify ways to address them. CNA, an independent national research and analysis firm, was hired
to organize and facilitate these roundtable discussions. Major incidents involving police can and have happened all around the country. As we were writing this report, we learned that they can happen in Antioch, too. During our initial conversations to understand the goals of the Bridging the Gap sessions, we often heard that Antioch was holding community dialogues because of things that happened in other places. Recently, an interaction between a young man and Antioch police officers ended in the death of the young man. Although it may be too soon to determine the circumstances that lead to his death, the timing of this incident should serve as a cautionary tale for other departments. The policing issues in Antioch are national, and the national issues matter in Antioch.

Process:

CNA, through its Center for Justice Research and Innovation, began planning the roundtable discussions in November 2020. As a nationally recognized leader in justice systems research, police-community relations, and police reform efforts, CNA brought significant technical skills and a deep understanding of community policing, the intersection of race and policing, and evidence-based policing to the project. For over a decade, CNA has worked with more than 400 police departments to assess their operations, recommend changes based on best practices, and provide the technical assistance needed to implement change.

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2021. 60p.

United States. Department Of Homeland Security. Office Of Inspector General

From the document: "The United States Secret Service (Secret Service) planned and conducted protective operations at several sites on January 6, 2021, including the Capitol, and took actions to assist the United States Capitol Police (USCP). We initiated this review to evaluate the Secret Service's preparation for, and response to, the events of January 6, 2021. [...] We conducted this review to evaluate the Secret Service's preparation for, and response to, the events of January 6, 2021. [...] We made six recommendations to improve the Secret Service's policies and processes for planning and responding to similar events."

United States. Department Of Homeland Security. Office Of Inspector General . 31 Jul, 2024 .

By: Louise E. Porter and Adam Graycar

Some places have no crime and some have a lot, and thus we study hotspots. Corruption is structured differently to crime, but hotspots still are notable. The difference is that hotspots are not places but clusters of activity. This paper analyses corruption cases from New York City to explore a way of identifying such clusters. Seventy-two cases were coded according to features that represent the elements of the crime triangle: offender and motivation, target and opportunity, and place and ability. Multidimensional scaling revealed three groups of cases, exhibiting different patterns of corrupt activity. Group one involved politicians involved in high value financial corruption. Group two primarily involved supervisors who created opportunities involving procurement and contracts. Group three involved inspectors, particularly in the infrastructure sector, who were involved with low value bribes to violate regulations. Each is discussed in relation to situational crime prevention principles to develop possible strategies for prevention.

Security Journal, Vol. 29 (3) 423-441.

By Timothy F. Leslie, Cara L. Frankenfeld & Angela J. Hattery 

Background: Police shootings are unevenly spatially distributed, with substantive spikes throughout the USA. While minorities are disproportionately the victims of the police force, social or structural factors associated with this distribution are not well understood. The objective of this work was to evaluate police shootings in relation to victim race or ethnicity and residential segregation and racial diversity.

Methods: Validated crowdsourced data from the Washington Post’s Fatal Force (2015–2020) were linked with census tract-level data from the American Community Survey. Residential minority dissimilarity, interaction, and a racial and ethnic diversity metric were calculated in order to assess the potentially variant importance of evenness in distribution, exposure likelihood, and general representation. Logistic and multinomial regression was used to model associations between segregation and diversity, adjusted for other ecological characteristics. Analyses were stratified by victim race or ethnicity (Black, Asian, or Hispanic).

Results: Across all races combined, the odds of a police shooting in a particular census tract were associated with non-Hispanic Black dissimilarity (OR = 0.98, 95% CI 0.97, 0.99) and racial and ethnic diversity (1.046, 95% CI 1.044, 1.060). Areas with higher racial diversity had a higher likelihood of having a police shooting event with Black victims (OR = 1.092, 95% CI 1.064, 1.120) or Asian victims (OR = 1.188, 1.051, 1.343) than less diverse areas. Higher non-Hispanic Black interaction was associated with a lower likelihood of having a police shooting event with Black victims (OR = 0.914, 95% CI 0.833, 0.946) than lower interaction areas. Higher Hispanic dissimilarity was associated with a lower likelihood of having a police shooting event with a Hispanic victim (OR = 0.398, 95% CI 0.324, 0.489) than in lower dissimilarity areas.

Conclusions: The variant effects of residential segregation are only seen when victims are analyzed separately by race. There appears to be a protective effect for Hispanic populations in Hispanic communities, while the reverse is true of Black individuals. We urge law enforcement responsible for locations with segregated communities to monitor individual interactions that police have with residents as well as the patterns of frequency and context of those interactions.

Injury Epidemiology volume 9, Article number: 8 (2022)