By Barry Friedman et al.

Recent events have brought to the fore longstanding concerns about the nature of policing in the United States and how it undermines racial equity. As an institution, policing needs significant reconsideration. It is time to rethink the structure and governance of policing. It is also time to engage in a deeper conversation about the meaning of public safety. In the meantime, however, the following is a list of urgently-needed reforms, compiled by a small group of law school faculty, each of whom runs or is associated with an academic center devoted to policing and the criminal justice system. The reforms are not intended as an entire agenda for what ought to happen around policing, or what American policing should look like. Rather, they offer immediate, concrete steps federal, state, and local governments can take to address enduring problems in policing. The authors are scholars who are also deeply involved in the daily practice of policing, and included among them are the Reporters for the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law: Policing, which works with advisers from across the ideological spectrum in drafting high-level principles to govern policing, though the recommendations here go beyond the scope of the ALI project.

New York: NYU School of Law Policing Project (June, 2020).18p.

By Alissa Pollitz Worden,  Beau Holladay,  Morgan Madison,  James Miller,  Kaitlin Moloney

In April 2019 the New York State Legislature passed a suite of criminal justice that went into effect on January 1, 2020. The reforms included significant changes in police officers’ discretion to make custodial arrests, which lead people to be detained for up to 24 hours by law (and longer for those arrested on weekends or holidays in some counties). In almost all misdemeanors and many Class E felonies, the new law directed police to issue desk appearance tickets (DATs), which allow people to return home and appear for their arraignment at a later date. The same set of reforms also restricted judges’ discretion in setting bail or detaining people at arraignment; they were directed to release people under recognizance, supervision, or conditions on most cases involving misdemeanor and non-violent felony charges. In this report we examine the implementation and impact of DAT reform in a sample of New York’s Town and Village Justice Court jurisdictions. The state’s approximately 1,200 Justice Courts were established in counties’ suburban and rural towns outside incorporated cities. Justice Courts perform the same functions as City Courts: arraignment of felony, misdemeanor, and violation charges arising within their geographic boundaries, bail and release decisions in those cases, and adjudication and sentencing in misdemeanor and violation charges. This report investigated the use of DATs in sample of arrests made in Justice Courts located in six counties: two largely suburban counties that include mid-sized cities, and four largely rural counties that are each home to one or two small cities. Our analysis of arrests and DAT issuance rates from 2018 to 2022 suggests the following. Contextual Changes in Arrests and the Composition of Charges • Declining Arrests in the 6 Counties Studied: The numbers of arrests in all classes of offenses declined from 2018 to 2022. The decline in arrests during 2020 was followed by a rebound in 2021; yet when arrest rates largely stabilized in 2021 and 2022, they did so at levels significantly lower than in 2018. This decline was most marked in misdemeanor arrests. • Small Number of Common Charges: A small number of specific offense charges (13) account for about 75% of all arrests. Among misdemeanors in particular, the most common arrest charges in these suburban and rural jurisdictions were driving while intoxicated (40%), drug possession (16%), and petty larceny (9%). Changes in DAT Issuance • Lack of Apparent Changes Linked to Reform: Despite the intent of DAT reform, there is little evidence of an overall increase in DAT issuance in misdemeanor arrests – about 75% resulted in a DAT across all 6 counties throughout the 2018-to-2022 study timeframe. However, DAT rates in Class E felonies (a target of reform) and Class D felonies (not a target of reform) both increased substantially over time. These increases in DAT use in E and D felonies appear to have begun prior to January 2020 – raising the possibility that pre-existing trends of fewer custodial arrests, and not the DAT reforms per se, may largely explain these patterns. • Results Varied by County: Context matters. The six counties demonstrated different patterns of DAT usage. In misdemeanor arrests, DAT rates increased (albeit modestly) in three counties, decreased in one county, and remained stable in the other two counties. Overlapping Policy Changes Ensuring Access to Counsel in Justice Courts: DAT reform took effect in the midst of another statewide reform: ensuring the presence of counsel at arraignment in all courts. Prior to 2016, and as a result of their often non-regular, impromptu scheduling of arraignments, many and perhaps most custodial arrest arraignments in Justice Courts were conducted without the presence of a defense lawyer, a prosecutor, or both. In 2015, the final settlement of the landmark case Hurrell-Harring v. State of New York established the principle that the 6th Amendment right to counsel includes the right to an attorney at arraignment. The result was an imperative that courts find ways to ensure not only that arrested persons were arraigned in a timely fashion, but also that they had access to counsel at first appearance (CAFA). In principle, that imperative applied to all arraignments, whether they occurred in the aftermath of a custodial arrest or a DAT. In Justice Courts, right to counsel reforms and DAT reforms may work at cross-purposes. From 2016 to 2022, Justice Courts in 26 counties established centralized arraignment parts, which meet daily in a single location to arraign custodial arrest cases from all Justice courts, with defense lawyers deployed to each arraignment session. For security reasons, these sessions are typically held in the visiting rooms of county jails. While these sessions safeguard the constitutional right to representation at first appearance in court, they may also result in several hours of detention for people who must wait in the jail until the court session convenes. Notably, these people may include individuals for whom bail reform prescribes pretrial release in lieu of detention. Thus, centralized arraignment courts are a novel strategy to advance   the right to counsel in rural areas, but they may inadvertently result in pre-arraignment detention. Summary The findings in this report indicate that DAT reform produced some of the outcomes that were expected in some counties. However, overall misdemeanor DAT rates did not change consistently across Justice Courts in the six counties studied. Class E and especially D felony DAT rates began to steadily increase months before DAT reform went into effect. Moreover, had DAT reforms produced its intended larger effect on DAT rates, it may have had unintended consequences. For example, county strategies to ensure legal representation at Justice Court arraignments, begun several years before the 2020 reforms, may inadvertently result in pretrial detention as individuals must wait for centralized arraignment sessions in detention. But these same county strategies represent a solution to what had previously been the inconsistent provision of counsel. Further research is needed to (1) expand the scope of data collection in sampled counties to follow trends beyond the early implementation and pandemic time periods, (2) further assess the magnitude of detention associated with centralized arraignment parts, and (3) investigate the adaptations that local practitioners have made to optimize the impact of the reforms.

Albany, NY: John J. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc., 2024. 36p.

By Robert E. Worden,  Sarah J. McLean,  Robin S. Engel,  Hannah Cochran,  Nicholas Corsaro,  Danielle Reynolds,  Cynthia J. Najdowski Gabrielle T. Isaza

 In February of 2018, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) began in service training on implicit bias for its 36,000 sworn personnel, using the Fair and Impartial Policing (FIP) curriculum. A team of researchers from the John Finn Institute for Public Safety and the IACP/UC Center for Police Research and Policy partnered with the NYPD to conduct evaluation research on the impacts of the training. The evaluation concentrated on the effects of the training among patrol officers assigned to commands in the Patrol Services Bureau, Transit Bureau, and Housing Bureau, whose training commenced in May, 2018 and concluded in April, 2019. We assessed the immediate effects of the training on officers’ beliefs and attitudes: their knowledge about the science of implicit bias and the potential implications for policing, and their attitudes about the salience of bias and discrimination as a social problem, and the importance of policing without prejudice. A survey was administered on the day of FIP training, either prior to or following the training on alternating days. We drew inferences about immediate training effects from the differences in pre- and post-training survey responses. The effect of the training on officers’ knowledge about implicit bias was of moderate magnitude, though many officers’ comprehension of the science of bias was limited. The effects of the training on officers’ attitudes toward discrimination, and their motivation to act without prejudice, were fairly small, though prior to the training, most officers considered discrimination a social problem and felt individually motivated to act without bias. Officers regarded the training as beneficial: 70 percent reportedly gained a better understanding of implicit bias and more than two-thirds reportedly learned new strategies and skills that they expected to apply to their work. Nearly half rated the likelihood of using all five bias management strategies as either a 6 or 7 on a 7-point scale anchored at 7 as ‘very likely.’ We conducted a follow-up survey about officers’ beliefs and attitudes and their actual utilization of FIP strategies, which was administered from June through August of 2019, ranging from 2 to 13 months following the training. Asked whether they attempted “to apply the FIP training in your duties over the last month,” 42 percent said they had not, 31 percent said they attempted to use the bias-management strategies sometimes, and 27 percent said they attempted using them frequently. Comparing the follow-up survey responses to those on the days of training, we also detected some decay in the immediate effects of the training on officers’ comprehension of the science of implicit bias. The impact of police training is likely to be greater when it is supported by other organizational forces, of which immediate supervisors may be the most important. We surveyed sergeants post-training. We found that most sergeants view monitoring for bias as one of their responsibilities, and that they are willing to intervene as needed with  individual officers. One-quarter reported that they had intervened with an officer whose performance warranted intervention. Slightly more than half of the sergeants reportedly address issues of implicit bias during roll calls, thereby reinforcing the training. Insofar as officers’ unconscious biases may influence their enforcement decisions, and to the extent that officers apply their training in FIP strategies to manage their unconscious biases, we hypothesized that the training would lead to reductions in racial/ethnic disparities in enforcement actions, including stops, frisks, searches, arrests, summonses, and uses of force. We examined enforcement disparities at multiple levels of analysis – at the aggregate level of commands and the level of individual enforcement events. To isolate the effect of the training from other factors, the NYPD adhered to a protocol for a randomized controlled trial that provided for grouping commands into clusters scheduled for training by random assignment. This experimental control was supplemented by statistical controls in the analytical models. Overall, we found insufficient evidence to conclude that racial and ethnic disparities in police enforcement actions were reduced as a result of the training. It is very difficult to isolate the effects of the training from other forces that produce disparate enforcement outcomes. Training impacts might be a signal that is easily lost in the noise of everyday police work. Estimating the effect of a single training curriculum on officers’ decisions to invoke the law or otherwise exercise police authority may well be akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Furthermore, it has been presumed but not demonstrated that enforcement disparities stem, at least in part, from officers’ implicit biases. Though research has shown that police officers, like the general public, hold unconscious biases, no scientific evidence directly links officers’ implicit bias with enforcement disparities. To the contrary, the evidence – which is thin, to be sure – suggests that officers practice controlled responses even without implicit bias training. If disparities stem from forces other than implicit bias, then even a well designed training that is flawlessly delivered cannot be expected to alter patterns of police enforcement behavior.   

Albany, NY: The John F. Finn Institute, 2020.   188p.

By Jedidiah L. Knode, Travis M. Carter

There is ongoing debate over the latitude of discretion police officers have when conducting stops and searches. While necessary due to resource limitations and need for individualized justice, discretion involves subjective characteristics of suspicion formation, such as race and ethnicity, which could perpetuate disparities in traffic enforcement. Research has yet to explore other marginalizing characteristics of suspicion formation, such as drivers’ social class. This study draws on over 550,000 stops conducted by a large state police agency in 2022 and 2023 to explore how vehicle values serve as class signals influencing officers’ discretion. We found disparities, whereby lower value vehicles were more likely to be searched than higher value vehicles after matching based on when, where, and under what circumstances stops occurred. However, searches of lower value vehicles were less likely to result in contraband recovery. Our findings highlight potential avenues for officer training and research analyzing inequalities in policing.

Justice Quarterly, September,  2024.

By Bethan Loftus, Martina Feilzer, Benjamin Goold

The ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) is largely a response to a stream of national media scandals that exposed the illegal and unethical behaviour of undercover police officers in two secretive units. The testimony of those who were the targets of undercover operations has further exposed the human costs stemming from the personalised and highly invasive surveillance undertaken by anonymous state agents. In this article, we reflect upon the existing research on covert policing and identify new areas for conceptual and methodological engagement, with a view to better understanding the harms that these secretive operations can generate. Attending to the inherent and inescapable intimacy of covert policing offers a much-needed opportunity to explore the effects of a unique state practice that can radically alter the lives of individual surveillance subjects, and which tests our conventional understandings of the legitimacy and limits of force, coercion, and police power.

The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice Early View April 2024

By The Policing Project at the New York University School of Law

The Policing Project at the New York University School of Law, in partnership with Microsoft and with funding from the Joyce Foundation and Microsoft’s Justice Reform Initiative, has developed the SAJETM Policing Assessment – a comprehensive tool to define and measure the characteristics of a Sound, Accountable, Just, and Effective policing agency. This assessment of approximately 100 metrics was developed in partnership with police leaders, researchers, and community advocates, and reflects the latest developments in social science, constitutional law, and industry best practice. Agencies respond to each metric with a simple yes/no and provide evidence (e.g., policies, training manuals) to support their responses. SAJETM is not designed to find a “perfect” police department. Rather, the goal is to provide an assessment of a department’s current standing across the four pillars, identifying both areas of strength and areas in need of improvement. In addition, because SAJETM relies on documentation rather than personal observation, it leans toward policy review over actual practice. While some of the metrics do seek to capture specific practices, they do not assess how comprehensively or effectively these practices are being carried out. Future audits may wish to delve deeper into these issues. Insights provided through this tool will help municipal leaders, police departments, and the communities they serve understand agency performance and collaboratively identify challenges and opportunities. At the request of the Office of the District of Columbia Auditor, the Policing Project conducted a SAJETM Assessment of the District’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). Dr. Aili Malm, an independent social science researcher, and policing subject-matter expert, assisted the agency in completing the tool as a neutral third-party evaluator. The process took approximately five months to complete. This report outlines MPD’s SAJETM Assessment results. Overall Score MPD’s overall SAJETM score is 81.66%. As MPD is the only agency to complete the tool at the request of an auditor’s office, insufficient benchmarks are available. However, the Policing Project team anticipates that agencies scoring over 70% should be considered well-performing police departments and MPD is over this level. There are some areas in which MPD is performing exceptionally well, and other areas in which improvement may be needed, particularly in the Just Policing pillar. The following sections describe MPD’s results across the four pillars. 

Washington, DC: Office of the DC Auditor, 2024. 45p.

By Pyman, Mark and Heywood, Paul M.

This open-access book provides accessible insight into how to tackle corruption in organizations and institutions. It explains how to recognize and analyze corruption issues, together with knowledge and advice on how they can be avoided, prevented, or minimized. It also provides a framework through which readers can examine what strategies are available to tackle corruption issues, a rationale for how to prioritize strategies depending on circumstances and context, and guidance on how to critique various options. The book will appeal to professionals and practitioners, as well as academics interested in governance and corruption.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2024.