By Vicky Taylor

This report, published by the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford and Border Criminologies in collaboration with Humans for Rights Network, Captain Support UK and Refugee Legal Support, shows how people have been imprisoned for their arrival on a ‘small boat’ since the Nationality and Borders Act (2022) came into force. It details the process from sea to prison, and explains how this policy is experienced by those affected.

New dta shows that in the first year of implementation (June 2022 – June 2023), 240 people arriving on small boats were charged with ‘illegal arrival’ off small boats. While anyone arriving irregularly can now be arrested for ‘illegal arrival’, this research finds that in practice those prosecuted either: 1. Have an ‘immigration history’ in the UK, including having been identified as being in the country, or having attempted to arrive previously ( for example, through simply having applied for a visa), or, 2. Are identified as steering the dinghy they travelled in as it crossed the Channel.

49 people were also charged with ‘facilitation’ in addition to ‘illegal arrival’ after allegedly being identified as having their ‘hand on the tiller’ at some point during the journey. At least two people were charged with ‘facilitation’ for bringing their children with them on the dinghy. In 2022, 1 person for every 10 boats was arrested for their alleged role in steering. In 2023, this was 1 for every 7 boats. People end up being spotted with their ‘hand on the tiller’ for many reasons, including having boating experience, steering in return for discounted passage, taking it in turns, or being under duress.

Despite the Government’s rhetoric, both offences target people with no role in organised criminal gangs. The vast majority of those convicted of both ‘illegal arrival’ and ‘facilitation’ have ongoing asylum claims. Victims of torture and trafficking, as well as children with ongoing age disputes, have also been prosecuted. Those arrested include people from nationalities with a high asylum grant rate, including people from Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, and Syria.

Humans for Rights Network has identified 15 age-disputed children who were wrongly treated as adults and charged with these new offences, with 14 spending time in adult prison. These young people have experienced serious psychological and physical harm in adult courts and prisons, raising serious questions around the practices of the Home Office, Border Force, Ministry of Justice, magistrates and Judges, the CPS, defence lawyers, and prison staff.

Oxford, UK: Border Criminologies and the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford , 2024. 44p.

By Kamena Dorling and Maddie Harris

Wethersfield airfield, a remote 800-acre site in rural Essex, is the latest location for a large ‘open-prison camp’ in which the government is housing people seeking asylum. Although not described as immigration detention, Wethersfield replicates many of the features found in detention settings, including restrictions on movement, security and surveillance measures, lack of privacy and isolation from the wider community. Opened in July 2023, the camp has already caused profound and irreparable harm to many residents, harm that only intensifies the longer they are kept there. The evidence in this report, drawn from 10 detailed assessments by Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) clinicians and interviews with and ongoing support provided to 140 individuals by Humans for Rights Network (HFRN), makes clear that being held in Wethersfield is already causing significant harm to those placed there. This includes survivors of torture and trafficking, those with severe mental health issues, and children, despite Home Office guidance making clear that these groups should not be placed there. Residents have displayed symptoms of worsening mental health following transfer to Wethersfield, including low mood, loneliness, flashbacks, reduced appetite, weight loss, feelings of despair and difficulty sleeping, and a worsening in symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Men held there have reported anxiety and depression, suicidal ideation, intense desperation and fear, self-harm and acute sleep deprivation. The very features of Wethersfield, and similar sites such as Napier Barracks, cause significant mental distress. These include: y Isolation: Wethersfield’s remote location and restricted access exacerbates feelings of detachment from society, while lack of adequate facilities heighten tensions in the site as more men are placed there. y Detention-like setting: The camp’s resemblance to a prison, with barbed wire and surveillance, triggers traumatic experiences among residents, many of whom have had experiences of other ‘camps’, in Egypt and Libya for example. y Lack of privacy and shared facilities: Overcrowded living conditions significantly impact residents’ mental health, and increase the risk of communicable diseases spreading. y Inadequate healthcare: Healthcare services are insufficient, with concerns about the lack of trauma-focused support and barriers to accessing care. The ‘screening process’ for deciding who should be placed in Wethersfield is fundamentally flawed. In just the first three months of it being open, nearly a quarter of those placed there were moved out again because they did not meet the ‘suitability criteria’. HFRN has identified 11 children wrongly treated as adults and placed at serious risk of harm there. With over 120,000 people who have been waiting for over six months for a decision on their asylum claim, it is unclear how long the men will be kept there and what is happening with their cases, contributing to an ongoing sense of uncertainty and anxiety. No legal advice surgeries are being provided by the government in Wethersfield, and charities offering support are being denied access. Not only does keeping people in open-prison camps like Wethersfield not allow for their recovery, it does the exact opposite. It causes additional pain and trauma to people who have already experienced conflict, oppression, abuse, torture and trafficking. The Home Office intends to extend the use of the site for a further three years – this report highlights Wethersfield airfield, a remote 800-acre site in rural Essex, is the latest location for a large ‘open-prison camp’ in which the government is housing people seeking asylum. Although not described as immigration detention, Wethersfield replicates many of the features found in detention settings, including restrictions on movement, security and surveillance measures, lack of privacy and isolation from the wider community. Opened in July 2023, the camp has already caused profound and irreparable harm to many residents, harm that only intensifies the longer they are kept there. The evidence in this report, drawn from 10 detailed assessments by Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) clinicians and interviews with and ongoing support provided to 140 individuals by Humans for Rights Network (HFRN), makes clear that being held in Wethersfield is already causing significant harm to those placed there. This includes survivors of torture and trafficking, those with severe mental health issues, and children, despite Home Office guidance making clear that these groups should not be placed there. Residents have displayed symptoms of worsening mental health following transfer to Wethersfield, including low mood, loneliness, flashbacks, reduced appetite, weight loss, feelings of despair and difficulty sleeping, and a worsening in symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Men held there have reported anxiety and depression, suicidal ideation, intense desperation and fear, self-harm and acute sleep deprivation. The very features of Wethersfield, and similar sites such as Napier Barracks, cause significant mental distress. These include: y Isolation: Wethersfield’s remote location and restricted access exacerbates feelings of detachment from society, while lack of adequate facilities heighten tensions in the site as more men are placed there. y Detention-like setting: The camp’s resemblance to a prison, with barbed wire and surveillance, triggers traumatic experiences among residents, many of whom have had experiences of other ‘camps’, in Egypt and Libya for example. y Lack of privacy and shared facilities: Overcrowded living conditions significantly impact residents’ mental health, and increase the risk of communicable diseases spreading. y Inadequate healthcare: Healthcare services are insufficient, with concerns about the lack of trauma focused support and barriers to accessing care. The ‘screening process’ for deciding who should be placed in Wethersfield is fundamentally flawed. In just the first three months of it being open, nearly a quarter of those placed there were moved out again because they did not meet the ‘suitability criteria’. HFRN has identified 11 children wrongly treated as adults and placed at serious risk of harm there. With over 120,000 people who have been waiting for over six months for a decision on their asylum claim, it is unclear how long the men will be kept there and what is happening with their cases, contributing to an ongoing sense of uncertainty and anxiety. No legal advice surgeries are being provided by the government in Wethersfield, and charities offering support are being denied access. Not only does keeping people in open-prison camps like Wethersfield not allow for their recovery, it does the exact opposite. It causes additional pain and trauma to people who have already experienced conflict, oppression, abuse, torture and trafficking. The Home Office intends to extend the use of the site for a further three years – this report highlights why Wethersfield airfield, a remote 800-acre site in rural Essex, is the latest location for a large ‘open-prison camp’ in which the government is housing people seeking asylum. Although not described as immigration detention, Wethersfield replicates many of the features found in detention settings, including restrictions on movement, security and surveillance measures, lack of privacy and isolation from the wider community. Opened in July 2023, the camp has already caused profound and irreparable harm to many residents, harm that only intensifies the longer they are kept there. The evidence in this report, drawn from 10 detailed assessments by Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) clinicians and interviews with and ongoing support provided to 140 individuals by Humans for Rights Network (HFRN), makes clear that being held in Wethersfield is already causing significant harm to those placed there. This includes survivors of torture and trafficking, those with severe mental health issues, and children, despite Home Office guidance making clear that these groups should not be placed there. Residents have displayed symptoms of worsening mental health following transfer to Wethersfield, including low mood, loneliness, flashbacks, reduced appetite, weight loss, feelings of despair and difficulty sleeping, and a worsening in symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Men held there have reported anxiety and depression, suicidal ideation, intense desperation and fear, self-harm and acute sleep deprivation. The very features of Wethersfield, and similar sites such as Napier Barracks, cause significant mental distress. These include: y Isolation: Wethersfield’s remote location and restricted access exacerbates feelings of detachment from society, while lack of adequate facilities heighten tensions in the site as more men are placed there. y Detention-like setting: The camp’s resemblance to a prison, with barbed wire and surveillance, triggers traumatic experiences among residents, many of whom have had experiences of other ‘camps’, in Egypt and Libya for example. y Lack of privacy and shared facilities: Overcrowded living conditions significantly impact residents’ mental health, and increase the risk of communicable diseases spreading. y Inadequate healthcare: Healthcare services are insufficient, with concerns about the lack of traumafocused support and barriers to accessing care. The ‘screening process’ for deciding who should be placed in Wethersfield is fundamentally flawed. In just the first three months of it being open, nearly a quarter of those placed there were moved out again because they did not meet the ‘suitability criteria’. HFRN has identified 11 children wrongly treated as adults and placed at serious risk of harm there. With over 120,000 people who have been waiting for over six months for a decision on their asylum claim, it is unclear how long the men will be kept there and what is happening with their cases, contributing to an ongoing sense of uncertainty and anxiety. No legal advice surgeries are being provided by the government in Wethersfield, and charities offering support are being denied access. Not only does keeping people in open-prison camps like Wethersfield not allow for their recovery, it does the exact opposite. It causes additional pain and trauma to people who have already experienced conflict, oppression, abuse, torture and trafficking. The Home Office intends to extend the use of the site for a further three years – this report highlights why this must not happen and the Home Secretary should instead prioritise closing the site as a matter of urgency. why this must not happen and the Home Secretary should instead prioritise closing the site as a matter of urgency.

London: Helen Bamber Foundation and Human for Rights Network , 2023. 22p.

By Anna Kotova with Rachel Cordle

This report reviews key research on intergenerational offending, defined as the observed phenomenon whereby children with a parent or parents who offend, go on to offend themselves. It focuses on questions such as whether any differences between maternal and paternal offending exist, differential impacts according to the child’s gender, and evidence of interventions to reduce intergenerational offending. Key findings are: • There is a strong correlation between parental offending and child offending, established across numerous longitudinal studies across different jurisdictions. • There is clear evidence to suggest that children with a parent in prison are at risk of poor outcomes (in terms of mental health, behaviour, wellbeing etc.). However, the extent to which parental imprisonment is a specific cause of these poorer outcomes is unclear (i.e., poor outcomes may result from other factors such as socio-economic disadvantage). • There are complex reasons why children with an offending parent are at higher risk of offending. These encompass both intrafamilial (e.g. parental supervision of the child, addiction) and socio-economic (e.g., economic deprivation) factors, meaning a multi-faceted approach is needed. • Recent research has found the effect of parental offending on children differs according to the gender of parents and children. Having a convicted mother was linked to an increased risk of a daughter offending, but having a convicted father was not linked to an increased risk of the daughter offending. However, the number of girls who offend is generally small, which might explain this finding, as noted by the authors. There was a strong link between having a convicted father and boys’ offending, and the same trend in the context of boys and convicted mothers. However, in-depth analysis suggests a direct link between fathers’ offending and their sons’ offending, whereas the link between mothers and sons is not direct and is instead mediated via factors such as the father’s drug-taking. • Longer periods of parental imprisonment are associated with an increased risk of the child offending. • Type of offence is an additional factor. The children of people who commit violent offences are more likely to commit violent offences also. • There are very few external evaluations of interventions aimed at reducing intergenerational offending. Equally, there appears to be very few interventions that explicitly state that an aim of the intervention is to reduce intergenerational offending. • Several protective factors exist which are linked to improved child outcomes. For example, the resident carer coping well is one such factor, as is the child’s mental wellbeing and having a forum in which they can express their needs and emotions.

London: UK Ministry of Justice, 2025. 33p.

By Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science

Gun violence—a key driver of premature death and racial disparities in life expectancy in the US—remains especially damaging to Chicagoans, who face consistently higher per capita rates of gun violence than residents of other large US cities. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In response to this persistent challenge, Metropolitan Peace Initiatives (MPI), a division of Metropolitan Family Services, convened eight community-based organizations in Chicago in 2017 to form a CVI coalition called Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P). The coalition’s goal is to reduce gun violence stemming from interpersonal and group conflicts among the individuals most likely to be involved. To achieve this, CP4P organizations provide participants with conflict mediation and deescalation, mentorship, case management, and referrals to direct services, including legal advocacy, employment support, educational opportunities, and trauma-informed behavioral health counseling. The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science (CORNERS) served as CP4P’s research partner to evaluate the coalition’s violence reduction efforts. CORNERS used an engaged research process to co-design a multi-method evaluation in partnership with MPI and CP4P leadership. This report builds on previous interim reports on the coalition’s individual and communitylevel impact. CORNERS’ research and evaluation strategy is focused on assessing the following three key aspects related to CP4P’s reach and impact: The ability of CP4P to reach and provide services to individuals most acutely impacted by and involved in gun violence. 1. The impact of CP4P services on individual-level participant outcomes, including involvement in gun violence and service use. 2. CP4P’s potential impact on gun violence at the community-level. 3. To answer these questions, CORNERS built a multi-method research design that captures the experiences and perspectives of CP4P participants through focus groups, periodic surveys, and in-depth interviews. CORNERS also conducted quasi-experimental statistical analyses that demonstrate CP4P’s impact on gunshot victimization among its participants and within its coverage area.

Ebanston, IL: Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science (CORNERS), 2023. 32p.

By Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science (CORNERS)

Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P) is an innovative consortium of Chicago community violence intervention (CVI) organizations coordinating their activities towards a common goal: reducing gunshot victimization among individuals who are most likely to be involved in gun violence, neighborhood disputes, and group conflicts. CP4P launched in 2017 after a severe uptick in homicides in 2016. Since then, the collaboration has expanded to include 14 organizations covering 27 different community areas. CP4P’s model relies on street outreach workers to strengthen relationships throughout their respective communities and serve as front-line violence preventionists who mediate gang and interpersonal conflicts, monitor emergent activities and areas for community violence, and mentor those at highest risk of violence involvement. CP4P partner organizations also provide participants with direct services including legal advocacy, employment support, educational opportunities, housing assistance, and trauma-informed behavioral health counseling. Although CVI initiatives such as CP4P direct much of their programmatic efforts toward individuals, CVI organizations also intend to impact neighborhood levels of gun violence by penetrating social networks and group conflicts most involved [1], [2]. The need for both individual and neighborhood-level violence reduction efforts only increased during the startling surge in gun violence that emerged alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. CP4P’s innovative model was developed prior to these dual pandemics and was able to quickly respond and adapt its existing infrastructure in response to increased demand [3]. This research brief summarizes the results of a quasi-experimental evaluation of CP4P’s impact on neighborhood-level rates of homicides and nonfatal shootings from the start of the program to December 2021.

Evanston, IL: Corners (The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science), 2023. 7p

By Ashlin Oglesby-Neal, KiDeuk Kim, Sam Tecotzky, Josh Fording

Since 2014, Oakland residents have supported violence reduction strategies through the Public Safety and Services Violence Prevention Act, commonly referred to as Measure Z. Measure Z funds strategies implemented by the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and the Oakland Department of Violence Prevention. The Urban Institute and the Urban Strategies Council were contracted by the City of Oakland to evaluate these strategies. This report focuses on the strategies implemented by the OPD under Measure Z since July 2022. Specifically, this report provides a process evaluation of Measure Z strategies implemented by the OPD, incorporating community survey results to capture residents' experiences and safety concerns. To conduct this evaluation, we analyzed OPD administrative data, interviewed OPD staff, participated in dealongs with officers, reviewed program documents, observed neighborhood council meetings, and surveyed Oakland residents regarding their experiences with crime and their perceptions of the OPD. Key Findings Our key findings are as follows:  The rate of violent crime in Oakland was on a downward trend from 1,977 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2013 to 1,299 in 2017, then plateaued from 2018 to 2020. The violent crime rate then increased by 35 percent from 2020 to 2023. » Relatedly, the number of shootings and homicides increased in 2020–2021 compared with 2017–2019. The number of shootings and homicides decreased in 2022–2023, but remained above 2017–2019 levels.  The City of Oakland receives hundreds of thousands of 911 calls for police service a year, with a large increase having occurred in calls involving shootings in 2020. The number of shooting calls decreased from 2022 to 2024, but remained higher than in 2017 to 2019. » From 2018 to 2024, the average response time to 911 calls for potential violent crimes became slower.  The OPD is implementing all three of the strategies funded under Measure Z: (1) geographic policing through crime reduction teams, (2) community policing through community resource officers (CROs), and (3) addressing domestic violence and child abuse through the Special Victims Section. » All three strategies face staffing shortages, with fewer officers assigned to the positions than were authorized or envisioned at the outset of Measure Z. » Coinciding with the reduced staffing, CROs implemented markedly fewer community policing projects from 2022 to 2024 than from 2011 to 2019. Alongside a rise in violent crime, the Special Victims Section (SVS), operating with approximately two-thirds of its positions filled, had several hundred cases a year assigned to each investigator in 2022 to 2024.  Oakland residents who participated in a community survey administered by the project team in the summer of 2023 reported mixed views of the social cohesion in their neighborhoods, but overall are happy with living in Oakland. » Most do not feel safe after dark, and more than 7 in 10 respondents are concerned about becoming victims of many types of crime, including robbery, burglary, and shootings. » Roughly 4 in 10 respondents have negative views of the OPD’s ability to make fair decisions and keep their neighborhoods safe, while 2 in 10 have positive views of the OPD’s ability to do so. The remaining 3 in 10 have neutral views. » For respondents who had called 911 in the past year, half said that the dispatcher treated them respectfully and half said the call was not answered in a timely manner.

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2025. 60p.

By Ashlin Oglesby-Neal Alena Stern Kathryn L. S. Pettit

Public scrutiny of police in the US—especially regarding racial disparities—has increased in recent years, with many communities experiencing strained relations with their local police. Police departments have also increased transparency by making some data about their activity (primarily arrests and reported crimes) public. However, access to high-quality, disaggregated police data is insufficient—these data must also be analyzed to inform and empower people in communities most affected by crime and the justice system as well as to benefit law enforcement agencies and policymakers. When meaningfully analyzed and shared, these data can support conversations between communities and police and catalyze local reforms. Local organizations in the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP)—a learning network coordinated by the Urban Institute that connects independent partner organizations in 30 cities—regularly provide data and analysis to support discussions about key issues in their communities. The NNIP’s mission is to ensure all communities can access data and have the skills to use information to advance equity and well-being across neighborhoods. In 2018, NNIP and Microsoft partnered to use the network to spur data-driven and community-led criminal justice reforms with the goal of building police-community trust and improving public safety.1 As one of the project’s activities, we selected one city—Los Angeles—to explore how we could create a comprehensive measure of community-police engagement using publicly available police data. Our motivating research questions are the following: ◼ Are there different patterns of community-initiated and police-initiated engagement? ◼ How many distinct patterns are there, and what makes them distinct? ◼ How do the patterns of community-police engagement vary across neighborhoods? In collaboration with the Microsoft Criminal Justice Reform team, the Microsoft Data Science team, and the University of Southern California’s Sol Price Center for Social Innovation (Los Angeles’s local NNIP partner), we synthesized data sources (including information on calls for service, stops, arrests, and crime) to develop a typology that elucidates the relationship between resident-initiated and policeinitiated activity, as well as how that relationship varies across Los Angeles neighborhoods. Our typology of community-police interactions reveals patterns in how calls to police and police activity (which varies by the severity of crime and levels of economic hardship) differ across neighborhoods. We also discuss how this neighborhood-policing typology can inform conversations about police reform and support local movements for a more equitable criminal justice system. We hope this report informs conversations in Los Angeles and demonstrates how open data can be a powerful tool for local data organizations and criminal justice advocates nationwide

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2020. 34p.

By Mélanie Seabrook, Vardan Gupta, Alexander Luscombe, and Andrew Pinto

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Municipal police in Ontario are overburdened – they are called upon to respond to issues beyond their scope and training. Investing in a range of municipal services – including housing, public health, long-term care, social assistance, paramedics, and children’s services – would promote community health and wellbeing and reduce demand for police through preventing crime and other crises from occurring, freeing police capacity for core functions. Ontario municipal funding for services promoting health and wellbeing hasn’t kept up with police funding over the past 12 years. Despite public support, municipalities face challenges in de-prioritizing police budgets to reinvest in other services, mainly due to the influential role of police boards in budget-setting. Community Safety and Wellbeing Plans present an opportunity to better engage local communities in municipal priority setting and could support the reprioritization of resources in future budget-setting.

Toronto: University of Toronto, School of Cities, 2025. 21p.

By Andy Higgins

The Police Foundation’s Blueprints project explores the design choices made by English and Welsh police forces in the delivery of local policing – specifically in relation to the operating models they adopt to provide incident response, neighbourhood policing, local investigation and public protection. It takes as its starting point the considerable diversification and frequent change in local policing models that has occurred within and between police forces over the last one to two decades.

Project aims

Describe and (as far as possible) codify, the variety of local police operating models being practised across England and Wales, explain why they have developed and explore the rationales behind them.

Investigate what (if anything) can be concluded about the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, based on quantitative performance

analysis (where possible) and local experiences and learning.

Look, in-depth, at the way policing models enable and constrain police practitioners working in four functional areas: incident response, neighbourhood policing, local investigation and public protection.

Explore what can be learned from the way local policing is organised in other countries.

Assess the suitability of different design options against future policing challenges, drawing on the analysis presented in the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, and focusing on strategic enablers such as preventative partnership and public cooperation.

The Police Foundation, 2024. 21p.

By Jessica M. Eaglin

Much public debate circles around grassroots activists’ demand to “defund the police,” raised in public consciousness in the summer of 2020. Yet confusion about the demand is pervasive. This Essay adopts a literal interpretation of “defund” to clarify and distinguish four alternative, substantive policy positions that legal reforms related to police funding can validate. It argues that the policy debates between these positions exist on top of the ideological critique launched by grassroots activists, who use the term “defund the police” as a discursive tactic to make visible deeper transformations in government practices that normalize the structural marginalization of black people enforced through criminal law. w. By recognizing this socially contextualized meaning to the call to defund the police, this Essay offers two important insights for the public in this current moment. First, it urges the public to confront the structural marginalization of black people when evaluating legal reforms that may impact police budgets. Second, the Essay encourages the public to embrace the state of confusion produced by the demand to “defund the police” when considering social reforms going forward.

Stanford Law Review Online Volume 73 (2020-2021), 21p.

By The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services

The Community Policing Act of 2020 (HB 1250; “the Act") mandated that the Virginia State Police (VSP) and other state and local law enforcement agencies, including police departments (PDs) and sheriff’s offices (SOs), begin collecting and reporting data on traffic stops as of July 1, 2020. State law enforcement agencies, PDs, and SOs are required to collect data on the race, ethnicity, and other characteristics of the drivers stopped, and on other circumstances of the stop such as the reason for the stop, whether any individuals or vehicles were searched, and the outcome of the stop (arrest, citation, warning, etc.). All reporting agencies are to submit this data to VSP, who maintain the data in the Community Policing Database.

The Act also mandated that the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) periodically obtain data from the Community Policing Database and produce an annual report “for the purposes of analyzing the data to determine the existence and prevalence of the practice of bias-based profiling and the prevalence of complaints alleging the use of excessive force." Such reports shall be produced and published by July 1 of each year.

This is the third of these reports from DCJS. It contains a review of how the data was collected and analyzed as well as preliminary findings of data from 650,387 traffic stops reported in Virginia during the nine-month period between July 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023. This report also presents the findings from analyses of statewide data; aggregated data from the seven VSP Divisions; and data from each individual law enforcement agency that reported sufficient data to the Community Policing Database.

The information presented in this report is preliminary and should be interpreted with caution. Although this analysis identified disparities in traffic stop rates related to race/ethnicity, it does not allow us to determine or measure specific reasons for these disparities. Most importantly for this study, this analysis does not allow us to determine the extent to which these disparities may or may not be due to bias-based profiling or to other factors that can vary depending on race or ethnicity. These other factors include differences in locations where police focus their patrol activities, differences in underlying regional populations, differences in driving patterns among individuals, and the lack of a scientifically established baseline for determining the number of drivers in each racial/ethnic group who are on the road and subject to being stopped while driving.

The analysis of racial disparity is a complex field with a vast array of potential contributing factors. Many data elements could play influential roles in racial/ethnic patterns of traffic enforcement but are unavailable to DCJS. Factors like the race of the officer performing the stop, agency policies and community priorities driving enforcement patterns, police report narratives outlining legal justifications for stop, search, and arrest can all inform stop patterns but are not within the current purview of available Community Policing Act data. Additionally, the data presented in this report cannot reflect any stop trends from agencies which did not provide data or records that were excluded for completeness issues. As such, while the report presents stop, search, and arrest disparities based on the available data, they should not be construed as complete and final proof of disparity OR any explanation of contributing factors which drive genuine disparities which may exist.

This report does not tabulate the many positive actions that can occur for a traffic stop such as seizures of guns, confiscation of drugs, and ensuring valid and current drivers’ licenses. The Community Policing Act imposes narrow requirements for data collection and analysis, and any benefits of traffic or pedestrian stops are not within the scope of the law.

While DCJS and VSP have introduced process improvements based on lessons learned in past reporting, the Community Policing Act is still in the early stages of implementation. More and better data, as noted in the recommendations, is needed to make the observations in this report more than directional, and the costs of such data gathering need further evaluation. As the report notes, many PDs and SOs − especially smaller agencies with limited resources − continue to face challenges establishing the data collection and reporting required under the Act. The majority of local law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in Virginia (255, or 74%) employ 50 or fewer sworn officers, including 118 (or 34%) employing 10 or fewer sworn officers. Many of these agencies have faced challenges fulfilling all requirements imposed by the Act and aligning their collection practices with the changes introduced since first implementation of the Act. For this reason, some agencies were unable to report complete data responsive to the Community Policing Act for the entire year, and in some cases the quality of the data was limited. Additionally, a substantial number of smaller agencies reported so few traffic stops that it was not possible to interpret data related to driver race/ethnicity. The state may wish to consider providing additional resources to LEAs, particularly smaller agencies, to support their ability to comply with the data-related provisions of the Act.

Another important limitation to the data and findings presented in this report relates to the race/ethnicity data in the Community Policing Database itself. Because the state lacks a standardized mechanism for reporting the race or ethnicity of a given driver, law enforcement officers must either make their own determination about a driver’s race/ethnicity (which may or may not be accurate) or ask for that information in the course of the traffic stop, which could raise constitutional concerns or escalate the perception of conflict in certain situations. Virginia does not collect and store information about a driver’s race/ethnicity, whether in driver-related databases maintained by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles or on individual driver’s licenses. Whether and to what extent the data related to driver race/ethnicity in the Community Policing Database accurately captures this information cannot be determined without further review.

The factors described above limited the ability of DCJS staff to conduct any complex statistical analysis of the data or to draw any firm conclusions about the existence and prevalence of the practice of bias-based profiling in a given agency or jurisdiction. It is anticipated that the reporting, analysis, and interpretation of Community Policing Act data will improve in the future as the program matures.

Richmond: Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, 2021. 73p.

By Robin Joy

Introduction

Criminal justice stakeholders and policymakers are interested in the way people with mental health concerns and/or substance use disorders engage with law enforcement agencies. This examination explores a sample of these interactions to describe individuals’ contact with the criminal justice system. A better understanding of these interactions can evaluate the utility of administrative data to inform policies regarding police responses in crisis incidents.

Methods

With data provided by a municipal police department, researchers identified 18 people who had the most arrests from 2018-2022 and at least one incident with a mental health flag in the Valcour system. Criminal histories were obtained and used in conjunction with data from the Vermont judiciary and Department of Corrections to construct a robust description of how these individuals interact with the criminal justice system.

This study is a preliminary exploration of the utility of administrative data in describing how and why people with behavioral health concerns utilize police services in one municipal police department. As such, the results may not be applicable to other agencies and populations in Vermont. The cohort was too small to find patterns in the criminal histories that suggest how a person goes from limited contact in the first two years to a high utilization of services. Missing also is how much contact the cohort had with law enforcement during their lifetime. Additionally, the interaction that individuals with behavioral health concerns have with other law enforcement agencies, social service providers, and hospitals was outside the scope of study.

Findings

On average, individuals in the cohort had 1.39 contacts per day with law enforcement. Most of the calls were related to non-violent matters. The most common type of call involved intoxication followed by trespass.

Montpelier VT: Crime Research Group, 2024. 18p.

By Stephen Rushin

This Article argues that, if effectively regulated, policing represents a fundamentally important social institution that advances the community interest in public safety, justice, equality, and the rule of law.

In recent years, a significant and growing body of legal scholarship has called for the shrinking of police responsibilities, the defunding of police budgets, or the complete abolition of local police departments. A countervailing body of scholarly literature has questioned the wisdom of some of these proposals, arguing that they could unintentionally make policing worse or have unintended public safety effects.

This Article enters this debate by affirmatively defending the importance of the institution of policing. It argues that effectively regulated policing is critical to the investigation of harmful criminal behavior, the responses to public safety emergencies, the deterrence of future harmful conduct, the physical protection of historically marginalized communities, and the rule of law.

However, policing can only serve these important functions if it is effectively regulated and accountable to the community it serves. Too often, the failure of policymakers to properly regulate police behavior has led to unaccountable policing agencies that regularly violate the constitutional rights of their constituents, particularly the rights of historically marginalized populations. However, that represents an ongoing regulatory challenge rather than an indictment of the fundamental importance of the institution of policing.

Understanding the importance of policing as a social institution has more than mere academic significance. As some scholars push for a fundamental reimagination of public safety, it is vital for these proposals to understand the value conferred by the institution of policing. Only by understanding the importance of policing can both abolitionists and reformers develop solutions that balance public safety and the protection of constitutional rights.

76 South Carolina Law Review 133 (2024), 47p.

By The College of Policing (UK)

The government’s Safer Streets mission aims to reduce serious harm and increase public confidence in policing and the wider criminal justice system. This guide supports senior police leaders and police and crime commissioners to help achieve this mission. It clearly sets out the best available evidence on public confidence in the police, as well as the policing activities that are most likely to have an impact. „ Implementing neighbourhood policing – Having a targeted visible presence in crime and anti-social behaviour hot spots or places with low trust. – Community engagement to identify the crime and anti-social behaviour issues that matter to people locally. – Carrying out effective problem-solving to tackle the issues that matter the most to local people. „ Policing with procedural and distributive justice – Making fair decisions and treating people respectfully. – Not being seen to over-police and under-protect communities. „ Improving police contact with victims – Responding to the needs and concerns of victims. – Focusing as much on the process as the end result. „ Improving police contact with suspects – Minimising the number of negative experiences. – Explaining enforcement action and preserving people’s dignity. „ Tackling police wrongdoing – Working within the law and adhering to ethical and professional standards. The guide begins by providing key definitions and trends in public perceptions over the past 20 years. It ends with a summary of what else may be important to public confidence in the police.

Coventry, UK: College of Policing Limited (2025) 23p.

By Amy J. Halsted, Max L. Bromley and John K. Cochran

Numerous prior studies have explored the level of job satisfaction of police officers. Some research has also focused on officer perceptions of community policing as practiced in municipal police agencies. There has been little empirical research on either topic conducted in sheriffs' offices throughout the US. The present study examines the relative effects of work orientation on levels of job satisfaction among deputy sheriffs in an urban sheriff's office which practices community policing on an agency-wide basis. Our findings suggest service-oriented deputies are somewhat more satisfied with their jobs than their crime control-oriented counterparts.

PIJPSM 23,1 82

By: GARY CORDNER & ELIZABETH PERKINS BIEBEL

Interviews and surveys were used to measure the extent of problem-oriented policing (POP) by individual police officers in the San Diego Police Department. Officers tended to engage in small-scale problem solving with little formal analysis or assessment. Responses generally included enforcement plus one or two more collaborative or nontraditional initiatives.

VOLUME 4 NUMBER 2 2005 PP 155–180

By Roberto Santos and Rachel Santos    

The three elements of community policing are (1) partnerships, (2) problem-solving, and (3) organizational transformation. These elements depend on one another: To develop meaningful partnerships with the community and conduct collaborative problem-solving, the community must trust the police and see them as legitimate in their authority. Research has established that an effective way of increasing legitimacy and trust is consistent, positive engagement between police and community members. Police departments have developed many community policing programs and events that bring police and community members together to interact in positive ways; some of the longest-established include Police Athletic Leagues (PAL), National Night Out, and Coffee with a Cop. Generally, such programs are carried out by designated community policing units or a small number of specific personnel, or through a publicity campaign or social media. There are fewer established models for implementing community engagement departmentwide. This guide focuses on promoting positive interpersonal interactions between community members and officers at any rank outside of normal law enforcement, management, or administrative duties. These proactive community contacts could be one-time or regular interactions, but they are personalized, often brief, direct, and positive. The significance of a simple type of interpersonal connection cannot be stressed enough: Research shows that community members’ opinions of police are greatly affected by positive contacts.3 The challenge is setting up a framework to make officers—not only patrol officers, but detectives, sergeants, managers, and commanders—more willing to proactively and consistently engage with the community in a way that makes sense for their positions and can easily become part of their normal duties. Such a framework can help an agency more easily systematize department-wide community engagement to build legitimacy and trust, which improves community acceptance of police efforts to partner, problem-solve, and prevent crime. Hearing from the police is important to translating concepts supported by research into realistic ways to operationalize best practices. The discussion in this guide is the outcome of focus groups conducted with officers at every rank from a wide range of departments across the United States. Ninety-seven people participated in 12 focus groups conducted via video conferencing—two each of officers or detectives, sergeants, lieutenants, captains or commanders, executive-level staff, and agency heads. The objective of the focus groups was to understand what would make law enforcement—both individuals and the broader police culture—more amenable to community engagement in daily activities and to identify challenges to community engagement implementation. Analysis of the conversations focused on finding out which activities are easy and realistic for law enforcement officers to implement individually and what organizational support they need to do so. The results, presented here, offer considerations about how to operationalize proactive community engagement with clear expectations, mechanisms for accountability, and alignment with proactive crime reduction and crime prevention. The discussion covers why community engagement is important; a framework, outlined by the major themes from the focus groups, for operationalizing community engagement; and, as an example, an application of the framework to one specific community engagement strategy—community walks. Our hope is that agencies will use this framework to implement any type of engagement strategy that can work for their communities.   

 Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services., 2024. 26p. 

By: L. Thomas Winfree Jr and Greg Newbold

Police in New Zealand have a well-established community-policing tradition. The current research is based on a survey of 440 officers, or roughly 6 percent of the New Zealand Police's sworn personnel We focused on the personal values, interpersonal relationships, and work situations of the officers as a way of understanding their respective levels of satisfaction with their jobs and assessment of their superiors. The goal was to determine the extent to which job satisfaction and perceptions of supervisory support varied within a national police force officially committed to community policing. The findings suggest that, even in a national police with an avowed community-policing orientation, not all police officers perceived the work world in the same terms. We further address the policy implications of these findings.

22 Policing Int. J. Police Strat. & Mgmt. 589 1999

By: Charlotte Gill, David Weisburd, Cody W. Telep, Zoe Vitter & Trevor Bennett

Objectives Systematically review and synthesize the existing research on community-oriented policing to identify its effects on crime, disorder, fear, citizen satisfaction, and police legitimacy.

Methods We searched a broad range of databases, websites, and journals to identify eligible studies that measured pre-post changes in outcomes in treatment and comparison areas following the implementation of policing strategies that involved community collaboration or consultation. We identified 25 reports containing 65 independent tests of community-oriented policing, most of which were conducted in neighborhoods in the United States. Thirty-seven of these comparisons were included in a meta-analysis.

Results Our findings suggest that community-oriented policing strategies have positive effects on citizen satisfaction, perceptions of disorder, and police legitimacy, but limited effects on crime and fear of crime.

Conclusions Our review provides important evidence for the benefits of community policing for improving perceptions of the police, although our findings overall are ambiguous. The challenges we faced in conducting this review highlight a need for further research and theory development around community policing. In particular, there is a need to explicate and test a logic model that explains how short-term benefits of community policing, like improved citizen satisfaction, relate to longer-term crime prevention effects, and to identify the policing strategies that benefit most from community participation.

J Exp Criminol DOI 10.1007/s11292-014-9210-y

Michael S. Scott.

Abstract: Police agencies have, for the most part, not yet integrated the principles and methods of problem-oriented policing into their routine operations. This is so for several reasons. First, many police officials lack a complete understanding of the basic elements of problemoriented policing and how problem solving fits in the context of the whole police function. Second, the police have not yet adequately developed the skill sets and knowledge bases to support problemoriented policing. And third, the police have insufficient incentives to take problem-oriented policing seriously. This paper begins by articulating what full integration of problem-oriented policing into routine police operations might look like. It then presents one framework for integrating the principles and methods of problem-oriented policing into the whole police function. The paper then explores the particular skill sets and knowledge bases that will be essential to the practice of problem-oriented policing within police agencies and across the police profession. Finally, it explores the perspectives of those who critically evaluate police performance, and considers ways to modify those perspectives and expectations consistent with problem-oriented policing.

Crime Prevention Studies. Vol. 15. 2003. pp. 48-97