By The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) h

Police departments in the United States are charged with a broad set of responsibilities, and officers typically have little specialized training in the breadth of complex issues they encounter. Police are asked to respond to robberies and homicides, but they also enforce traffic rules and respond to noise complaints, domestic disputes, mental health crises, unhoused individuals, and more. Simply put, police are asked to do too much with too little. The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) has conducted multiple studies analyzing the type and severity of calls for service (CFS; i.e., 911 calls) in a variety of police departments across the country, finding across the board that CFS are overwhelmingly for noncriminal or low-level incidents. For example, according to NICJR’s analysis of Oakland Police Department (OPD) calls for service data, between 2018– 2020, nearly 60% of calls responded to by OPD were for noncriminal matters. This amounted to more than 368,000 responses. And in Seattle, NICJR found that 79% of calls received were noncriminal or low-level events, and only 6% of calls were associated with felonies of any kind, violent or nonviolent.1 For this report, NICJR analyzed CFS data as well as police department (PD) budgets for 10 California cities and eight cities in other US states. Across all 18 cities:

Oakland, CA: The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) , 2025. 56p

By Camello, M., Gomez Cardoso, A., Krebs, C., Planty, M

The Criminal Justice Technology Adoption and Implementation Guide is a resource for criminal justice decision-makers who want to assess agency challenges and understand potential solutions. The guide provides criminal justice decision-makers with a resource to consider the technical, operational, and governance factors that accompany adoption and implementation of technology solutions. The guide is designed for a broad range of criminal justice decision-makers, including those in law enforcement, corrections, community supervision, and courts.

Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International., 2025. 13p.

By Lily Robin, Bryce Peterson and Daniel Lawrence

In 2016, the Urban Institute received funding from the National Institute of Justice to help the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) optimize its surveillance system. Improvements included doubling the number of MPD public surveillance cameras across Milwaukee, integrating video analytic technologies, and other software and hardware upgrades. The department also strategically installed two types of cameras—pan-tiltzoom (PTZ) and panoramic—at intersections across the city. This brief explains how PTZ and panoramic cameras work and how they differentially impact crime and support criminal investigations.

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2020. 12p.

By Irshad Altheimer, Hayder Alhafedhi, Rashid Muhammad

his report provides a descriptive analysis of Rochester Police Department (RPD) traffic stop data. We analyzed 41,201 traffic stops performed by RPD between 2015 and 2023. The stop data consisted of 83 variables, but the analysis of many of those variables was hampered by high numbers of missing values. Increased scrutiny of law enforcement practices has led to calls for the collection and analysis of police stop data. Such data analysis is essential for fostering accountability and transparency within the police departments. Police officers in the United States conduct at least 50,000 traffic stops every day, making these stops a central part of modern policing and the most common way in which the public interacts with law enforcement (Policing Project, 2019). Beyond the frequency, traffic stops often lead to significant financial hardship for individuals through fines and fees, and evidence suggests that both traffic and pedestrian stops disproportionately impact people of color (Policing Project, 2019). Despite how common these stops are, there is still much we do not understand about traffic stop practices and the full effects of traffic stops. Analyzing this data enables the identification of patterns and trends within policing practices, including disparities in traffic stops based on factors such as race, gender, or geographic location (Policing Project, 2019). This helps to assess the effectiveness of current policing strategies and ultimately develop informed policy reforms aimed at promoting equitable policing practices. Transparency is crucial in law enforcement because it builds trust between police departments and the communities they serve. When the actions, decisions, and data of law enforcement agencies are open to public scrutiny, it demonstrates a commitment to accountability and ethical practices. This openness allows citizens to understand the reasoning behind police actions, reducing misunderstandings and promoting cooperation. Strong relationships based on mutual trust between police and the communities they serve are vital for effective policing and public safety; community members are more likely to cooperate with law enforcement and provide crucial information when they trust that police actions are fair and reflect community values (Community Relations Service, n.d.). Transparency is a key element in fostering this trust, as timely and open communication about critical incidents helps reassure the public that information is not being deliberately withheld (Community Relations Service, n.d.). This report is divided into the following sections. First, we provide an overview of the data. Second, we provide a descriptive analysis of the data that could be reliably analyzed. Third, we provide recommendations for future data collection.

Working Paper 2025-01 - 01

Rochester, NY: Center for Public Safety Initiatives Rochester Institute of Technology, 2025. 15p.

By Sarah Bosman

Fencing constitutes knowingly and willingly dealing in stolen goods, such as smartphones, vehicles or jewellery. It includes a large variety of activities, not only buying, trading and selling stolen goods, but also safely transporting and storing these goods. It is often referred to as a ‘victimless crime’. Typically, the selling and purchasing of stolen goods is a voluntary exchange in which both the seller and customer are helped instead of harmed. Moreover, many of the customers do not even realise they are buying stolen goods. For this reason, no one will report it, meaning that little is known about the prevalence of this phenomenon. Fencing inherently cannot exist without a different prior offence (e.g. burglary or theft) occurring. According to criminal law, this constitutes two separate crimes, as first there is a theft, followed by selling or trading these stolen goods. Yet, from the offender’s perspective, these actions fall under the same objective, which is obtaining money. On one hand, the fences make an easy profit, and on the other, the thieves can acquire money to buy something else. In order to prevent fencing, it is necessary to implement a holistic approach that includes all the relevant partners and targets every aspect of the phenomenon. For this reason, four separate focus areas have been identified that together make up the general phenomenon (see figure 1). These focus areas are: (1) preventing (valuable) goods from being stolen, (2) preventing fences and their customers from selling as well as buying stolen goods, (3) tackling stolen goods markets in general, and (4) the creation of local and (inter)national partnerships. Many of the initiatives contained in this paper are already being implemented in practice and have great potential. The aim of these initiatives is to make it more challenging to deal in stolen goods and consequently also to discourage theft to begin with.

Brussels: European Crime Prevention Network (EUCPN) 2022. 24p.

By Michael Skidmore 

In 2022-23 there were an estimated 3.5 million fraud offences in England and Wales, with members of the public now more likely to fall victim to fraud than any other type of crime (ONS, 2023a). And accordingly, the police are seeing an overwhelming rise in reported fraud, with levels of recorded crime exceeding one million offences, reflecting not only fraud against the public but also the considerable impact on businesses (ONS, 2023a). These patterns are largely the consequence of living in an increasingly digitised society in which the opportunities to perpetrate fraud have proliferated. All this crime is reduced into one single offence category of ‘fraud’, which covers both a large volume and a wide variety of offenders, offending, victims, harm, and vulnerability. This paper focuses specifically on ‘online fraud’, forming part of a wider programme of work looking at fraud that is enabled by the internet and digital technology. The paper reviews the literature with the aim of unpacking the nature and particular characteristics of online fraud. It also examines how data and knowledge about fraud inform and direct the strategic and operational responses of the police and other organisations. The complexities of producing a ‘true’ picture of fraud are explored, including a discussion of the meaning and significance of fraud when it is ‘online’. It highlights the gaps and challenges in our current understanding of online fraud that will be addressed in our ongoing research programme  

Paper 10. 

London: The Police Foundation April 2024  16p.

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

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

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

Key Findings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JAMA Netw Open. 2025, 11p.

By Richard Odin Segovia 

This systematic review explores the recruitment and retention challenges in law enforcement, focusing on their impact on operational effectiveness and community safety. The goal is to synthesize existing literature to identify research gaps and suggest directions for future studies. By examining qualitative and quantitative research, this review aims to provide practical strategies to improve recruitment and retention in law enforcement. Methods: Searches were conducted using Google Scholar, JSTOR, and ProQuest to capture a broad range of law enforcement recruitment and retention studies. The selection process involved a systematic search that yielded 135 records. After removing duplicates, 42 studies were screened based on title and abstract, leading to 34 full-text articles assessed for eligibility. Twenty-five studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the qualitative and quantitative synthesis, and five additional sources were used for background and contextual information. This review adhered to PRISMA guidelines. Results: The review highlights key factors influencing recruitment and retention, including public perceptions, competing labor markets, and organizational culture. Enhanced recruitment efforts, such as digital campaigns and targeted outreach, significantly increase applications and improve the quality of applicants. Supportive workplace environments and wellness programs substantially reduce turnover rates and improve job satisfaction. Effective recruitment and retention strategies also enhance community trust and workforce diversity. Conclusions: The review underscores the need for well-structured research to substantiate effective recruitment and retention strategies. It recommends areas for in-depth exploration in future studies, especially longitudinal research on the long-term impacts of innovative recruitment and retention strategies. Application to Law Enforcement: Integrating digital recruitment, community engagement, and wellness programs can enhance workforce stability  and effectiveness for law enforcement leaders. These strategies improve officer recruitment and retention, reduce turnover, and build stronger relationships with the community, leading to more effective policing outcomes.    

Lynchburg, VA: Liberty University, 2024. 43p.

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 Rylan Simpson ,Leigh Grossman

Purpose

Longstanding debates in policing regard the optimal method of patrolling the community. One question that often gets raised is if patrol officers should be deployed in single-crewed (i.e., one-officer) or double-crewed (i.e., two-officer) units? As part of the present research, we empirically examine the call-related output of patrol units by crewed status in Oakland, California.

Methods

Drawing upon calls for service data from the Oakland Police Department, we retrospectively reconstructed the patrol environment to assess the call-related output of single- versus double-crewed units. We also explored potential variation in the output of double-crewed units as a function of pairing characteristics (e.g., regularly partnered versus not regularly partnered).

Results

Our results revealed that single- and double-crewed units handled similar numbers of calls for service, although sometimes of potentially different types, in similar amounts of time. Our results also revealed that the output of double-crewed units was similar regardless of the pairing characteristics examined.

Conclusions

Whereas many police agencies deploy their patrol officers in single-crewed units, other police agencies deploy their patrol officers in double-crewed units. Overall, we find limited variation among the output of patrol units by crewed status. We discuss our results in the context of research and practice.

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 94, September–October 2024, 8 p.

By Mapping Police Violence

Every year Campaign Zero works to make this data accessible and understandable to the public via Mapping Police Violence, a platform tracking civilians killed by U.S. law enforcement. This report aims to provide key takeaways concerning incidents of police violence that resulted in a civilian being killed in 2024. Mapping Police Violence relies on local journalism, and sources news through our system which collects, filters, and processes the data. While we strive to employ official data sources from local and state government agencies, we believe it is important to continue collecting data from publicly accessible media sources. This allows us to identify gaps in government data, and further triangulate and validate the data. As per our methodology, all incidents go through a multi-layered review process. It is likely that the number of incidents may increase in the coming months because some police killings and their circumstances are not reported until weeks or months later.

Campaign Zero, 2025. 4p

By R. Shute and M Mecray

Context Service weapon activity, including instances where an officer’s firearm is drawn, pointed, or discharged, plays an important role in understanding events transpiring during a police–public encounter. Detection, documentation, and communication of these events in a way that is accurate, timely, and dependable is vital for enhancing transparency and accountability of law enforcement service weapon use. About this Report The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) requested the Criminal Justice Technology Testing and Evaluation Center (CJTTEC) to investigate the landscape of commercially available and emerging technologies that could meet this need. CJTTEC conducted a review of technologies capable of detecting when a service weapon has been unholstered, pointed, or discharged; documenting when a law enforcement officer discharges their service weapon (or initiating documentation such as body-worn camera (BWC) recordings in such incidents); and communicating the information to dispatchers. CJTTEC’s methodology to understand this technology landscape included secondary research (e.g., reviewing patents, trade literature, press releases, news articles, and publications) and primary research with technology experts, product representatives, and researchers. This brief provides a high-level summary of technology systems capable of documenting, detecting, and communicating service weapon activity, focusing specifically on technology integrated into or onto the weapon, in a holster, in a BWC, in a wearable device, or in environmental sensing tools. Conclusion Although no single commercially available tool is capable of detecting, documenting, and communicating service weapon activity, law enforcement agencies may be able to rely on a suite of products to help them address these needs.

Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2024. 15p.

By Rick Muir and Felicity O’Connell 

Emily is on the phone to a 999-call handler. She is worried because a man who has been stalking her has been seen by a neighbour in a nearby street. While the call handler is talking to Emily and trying to reassure her, the call is being automatically transcribed into an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can search police databases. When Emily mentions the man’s name and address, the AI software discovers that the man has a firearms licence and alerts the call handler that the police need to get to Emily’s house straight away. Police Constable Tony Williamson1 has come across an elderly woman of British Pakistani heritage seemingly distressed in the street. He asks her if he can help, but she does not speak English. PC Williamson turns on the live translation tool on his mobile device and he asks her again. As she speaks, the woman’s words are translated in real time into his earpiece. She says that she is worried because her son Mohammed did not come home from school. This was three hours ago, and she has been trying to look for him. She says her son has a history of mental health problems and often goes missing. PC Williamson types ‘what’s your son’s name and date of birth?’ into the translation app on his phone and intuitively the keyboard is offered in Urdu. The woman types in the answer. The officer can run an immediate search across police databases for any information about her son. A full profile of her son Mohammed Iqbal1 is generated, including a list of addresses with which he is associated. The officer calls the case in and escorts Mrs Iqbal home while reassuring her that officers are now looking for her son. These are just two examples of the way AI powered technology could enhance the way that the police are able to serve the public. Policing is at its heart a complex information business, but it has struggled to make full use of the data stored on its many often outdated systems. AI could be transformative in policing because it can turn this wealth of data into actionable intelligence at the touch of a button. However, the AI revolution poses a whole set of legal and ethical questions for the police and society. How far should the police go in using AI to keep communities safe? Could these technologies make the police too effective, in that they may be able to know much more about us and pry into our private lives to an unprecedented degree? How can we be assured of the reliability and accuracy of the AI tools being deployed? How do we feel about machines making or guiding decisions as to whether a crime should be investigated, or someone should be charged with a criminal offence? Which policing decisions ought to be reserved for human beings? There are important technical, organisational and cultural questions too. Is the data the police hold ready for the AI revolution? Do police leaders understand the technology they are using? Are there the skills in the police workforce to properly exploit the potential of AI? Is the police service organised in such a way that it can properly make use of these new technologies? In this report we explore these and other questions in the following ways: 1. We set out a brief history of the development of AI and define some of the terms used to describe its different forms. 2. We describe some of the ways in which AI is currently being used by UK policing and explore how it might be used in the future. 3. We identify eight challenges for the more widespread use of AI for policing purposes. 4. We make a number of recommendations for policymakers and police leaders intended to help policing make the most of the AI revolution, while maintaining public trust and confidence and protecting rights and freedoms. The report is based on research undertaken between March and September 2024. This included a review of relevant academic and grey literature, interviews with 18 operational and strategic police leaders, policy makers, industry and civil liberties representatives, and a survey of chief information officers in English and Welsh police forces. 

London: Police Foundation, 2025. 28p.

In 2018, Queensland was the first Australian jurisdiction to provide police with new powers to conduct searches in cases where:

A missing person meets the definition of a ‘high-risk missing person’ because they are either: under the age of 13 or are at risk of serious harm if not found as quickly as possible

A police officer holds a reasonable suspicion that searching a particular place may locate the person or provide information relating to their disappearance, and

The occupier of the place cannot or will not give consent for the search to occur.

These provisions are contained in Chapter 7, Part 3A of the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (Qld).

Under section 879 of the Act, the CCC was required to review the provisions.

The CCC’s review identified that although the powers are rarely used, they proved to be a useful and valuable tool to progress investigations. It has made two recommendations for consideration by government.

State of Queensland, AUS: Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission: 2024. 22p.

By Sophia Hunt, Claudia Nmai, and Matthew Clair

This report summarizes perceptions of policing among a racially and socio-economically diverse sample of 37 people who faced criminal charges in the Hall of Justice, a courthouse in San Jose, California, between August 2021 and March 2022. A majority of criminal defendants we interviewed reported negative perceptions of personal police treatment, but a considerable minority reported positive perceptions. Among those who reported negative perceptions, two criticisms were common: (1) individual police officers’ violence, abuse, and fabrication of evidence; and (2) systemic policing practices that are overly intrusive and estrange certain disfavored groups in the Bay Area, such as the unhoused. Among those who reported positive perceptions, some believe that, despite their personal experiences of positive treatment, police do not treat everyone fairly and policing quality varies by context and the race of the policed person. Alongside these perceptions, a handful of defendants in the sample offered visions for changing policing. Two notable visions were: (1) reallocating resources from police departments toward other city services or under-resourced groups; and (2) reforming police departments in ways that reduce discrimination and abuse. While we discuss variation along demographic characteristics in our sample, we foreground how the range of experiences and visions of policing in San Jose have implications for policymakers and future research.

Court Listening Project, Report no. 1. Court Listening Project ((c/o Matthew Clair, Stanford University) 2022, 15p.

By John A. Shjarback

Broader public, media, and scholarly interest in police shootings of residents in the United States has been a constant since 2014. This interest followed a number of high-profile deadly force incidents, including those leading to the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and Tamir Rice in Cleveland, OH. In the decade since, researchers from a variety of academic disciplines have learned much about the scope and nature of police shootings. While US police as a whole use their firearms more than most other countries, rates of police shootings of residents vary across states.

The purpose of this report is to examine police shootings of residents—including both fatal and nonfatal, injurious incidents—using a comparative lens. More specifically, it explores rates of police shootings in the states comprising the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium (RGVRC)—Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island—with the rest of the country. These comparisons suggest an association between levels of firearm prevalence/availability in the general population, as well as related laws and rates of police shootings per capita. The majority of RGVRC states possess the lowest rates of police shootings of residents, which appears to at least partially be a function of low levels of firearm prevalence/availability among residents and strong laws and legislation related to guns.

Albany, NY: Rockefeller Institute of Government, 2024. 20p.