By Cecilia Hansen Löfstrand, Christel Backman

This review paper critically examines the work environment implications of the use of body-worn camera (BWC) technology reported in research. We found that published peer-review studies (90 articles) pay very little attention to the work environment of BWC users – police officers. Departing from the notion of the two faces of surveillance and of BWC technology as a surveillance tool with uncertain implications – control or protection of officers – we critically examine how expectations in relation to BWC introduction and its implications have been addressed to explain why so little attention has been devoted to the topic. We found a dominant control rationale facilitating (rapid) BWC implementation at the expense of officers’ work environment, health and safety.

New Technology Work and Employment, Volume36, Issue3 November 2021 Pages 327-347

By Sunyoung Pyo

The national debate about police use of force against racial minority residents has led to increased attention to body-worn cameras (BWCs) as tools for increasing police accountability. Although researchers have documented the effectiveness of BWCs, little research has been done to examine why police departments decide to use them in the first place. Based on an innovation framework, the current study aims to explain what factors determine police departments’ decisions to implement BWCs. By examining 139 U.S. police departments using event history analyses, I find that the police departments with a higher severity of police-involved deaths of minority residents and a higher strength of social movements protesting police brutality are more likely to implement BWCs. In addition, some organizational and environmental factors, including the availability of federal grants and the council-manager form of government, have significant associations with BWC implementation. Findings also suggest that different patterns of BWC implementation are demonstrated according to environmental context.

Urban Affairs Review, 58(1), 258-289. 2022

By Laura Mills, James Freeman, and Verity Truelove

Facebook groups and pages exist that expose the locations of roadside drug testing, potentially undermining police enforcement and enabling punishment avoidance. This study aimed to understand how and why these sites are used, with a focus on Queensland motorists who reported using illicit drugs and/or medical cannabis and used Facebook police location communities. Interviews with 30 participants were conducted. A thematic analysis revealed that participants used police location communities to avoid receiving a charge for driving under the influence of drugs. Upon observation of a relevant roadside drug-testing location on police location communities, participants reported (a) delaying their driving and/or (b) circumventing the operation. Avoidance of roadside drug-testing locations appeared driven by the perception that laws for driving under the influence of drugs were unfair and that a charge for driving under the influence of drugs would negatively impact their life. The findings provide important knowledge regarding police location communities and have implications for how roadside drug testing could be most effectively operated.

Criminal Justice and Behavior, 2024. (online first)

By Jason Johnson and Sean Kennedy

Consent decrees are a blunt instrument for enacting police reform. The approach has proven ill-suited at enacting effective change in law enforcement agencies. These coercive reforms face institutional resistance from departments and their personnel and fall victim to mission creep from the unaccountable lawyers, judges, and bureaucrats who oversee the design and later the implementation of the reforms. The situation worsened significantly as the Obama Administration increased the use of consent decrees, a policy resumed under the Biden Department of Justice. Often built on limited and flimsy evidence, the Justice Department’s allegations against police agencies put local jurisdictions in a near impossible position to contest civil rights violations findings. Additionally, the Justice Department frequently injects its policy preferences into the required remedies that do not reflect urgent or even necessary changes, but policy agenda of the Civil Rights Division and the White House. Subject jurisdictions are often compelled to accept settlements with unachievable compliance goals and required to spend vast sums to remedy problems outside the scope of the statutory requirements. Consent decrees are not a quick, easy, or inexpensive fix. And this type of settlement can have consequences – higher crime, lower police morale, ballooning costs, drifting timelines, and dissatisfied residents. In many cases, consent decrees prove to be damaging boondoggles rather than bolstering effective and constitutional policing. Federal intervention for some agencies may still be necessary but less onerous and more effective tools exist for enacting necessary reforms. Those alternatives should be preferred where possible. The Justice Department’s interventions in law enforcement agencies should be precise in their methods and practicable in their goals. This paper examines:

• the origins and process of police consent decrees;

• the increasing use of consent decrees to enact police reform policies;

• the consequences of police reform by consent decree; and

• the alternative approaches to improving American policing.

Alexandria, VA: Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, 2023. 24p.

By Matthew Radburn, Leanne Savigar-Shaw, […], and Arabella Kyprianides

Despite widespread empirical support for Procedural Justice Theory, understanding the role of police psychology in shaping encounters with ‘citizens’ is relatively opaque. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature by exploring how officers talk about themselves and their colleagues and deploy social categories to understand their interactions with ‘the public’. The qualitative thematic analysis draws upon 22 semi-structured interviews conducted with officers in various roles and teams within a large metropolitan police force in England. Our thematic analysis demonstrates the centrality of procedural fairness in officers’ talk (in terms of internal relations with colleagues and external relations with ‘the public’). Interviewees described complex internalised theories of social relations, differentially positioning themselves in relation to other colleagues and multiple ‘publics’ often depicted along socioeconomic and geographical lines. Officers described their interactions with ‘the public’ in sequential and historical terms with complex and changing (often intergroup) power dynamics. Implications of the analysis for understanding the role of social identity processes among police officers and how this underlying conceptualisation might shape police–‘citizen’ encounters are discussed.

Criminology & Criminal Justice, Volume 22, Issue 1, February 2022, Pages 59-77

By Brittany Cunningham, James Coldren, Benjamin Carleton, Richard Berk & Vincent Bauer

Purpose

Police officers in the USA are often put in harm’s way when responding to calls for service. This paper provides a demonstration of concept for how machine learning procedures combined with conformal prediction inference can be properly used to forecast the amount of risk associated with each dispatch. Accurate forecasts of risk can help improve officer safety.

Methods

The unit of analysis is each of 1928 911 calls involving weapons offenses. Using data from the calls and other information, we develop a machine learning algorithm to forecast the risk that responding officers will face. Uncertainty in those forecasts is captured by nested conformal prediction sets.

Results

For approximately a quarter of a holdout sample of 100 calls, a forecast of high risk was correct with the odds of at least 3 to 1. For approximately another quarter of the holdout sample, a forecast of low risk was correct with an odds of at least 3 to 1. For remaining cases, insufficiently reliable forecasts were identified. A result of “can’t tell” is an appropriate assessment when the data are deficient.

Conclusions

Compared to current practice at the study site, we are able to forecast with a useful level of accuracy the risk for police officers responding to calls for service. With better data, such forecasts could be substantially improved. We provide examples.

Camb J Evid Based Polic 8, 4 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41887-023-00094-1

By Josh Leung-Gagné

I use data linking counts of homicides by police to police department (PD) and jurisdiction characteristics to estimate benchmarked (i.e. risk-adjusted) police homicide rates in 2008–2017 among the 711 local PDs serving 50,000 or more residents, a sample with demographics resembling all mid-to-large Census places. The benchmarked rate estimates capture PD deadliness by comparing PDs to peers whose officers face similar risks while adjusting for access to trauma care centers to account for differential mortality from deadly force. Compared to existing estimates, differences in benchmarked estimates are more plausibly attributable to policing differences, speaking to whether the force currently used is necessary to maintain safety and public order. I find that the deadliest PDs kill at 6.91 times the benchmarked rate of the least deadly PDs. If the PDs with above-average deadliness instead killed at average rates for a PD facing similar risks, police homicides would decrease by 34.44%. Reducing deadliness to the lowest observed levels would decrease them by 70.04%. These estimates also indicate the percentage of excess police homicides—those unnecessary for maintaining safety —if the baseline agency is assumed to be optimally deadly. Moreover, PD deadliness has a strong, robust association with White/Black segregation and Western regions. Additionally, Black, Hispanic, foreign-born, lower-income, and less-educated people are disproportionately exposed to deadlier PDs due to the jurisdictions they reside in. Police violence is an important public health concern that is distributed unevenly across US places, contributing to social disparities that disproportionately harm already marginalized communities.

PNAS Nexus, 2024, 3, 1–10

By Josephine Wonsun Hahn, Ram Subramanian and Tiffany Sanabia

Minor offenses, including drug possession, shoplifting, disorderly conduct, vandalism, misdemeanor assault, and driving with a suspended license, make up the vast majority of cases in the American criminal justice system. Misdemeanors — the most common type of minor offense — amount to roughly three-quarters of cases filed each year. Enforcement consumes significant government resources, and the overall public safety benefit is questionable. For people charged with minor offenses, resolving cases requires months of court appearances. And minor offense charges have lifelong consequences: arrests alone restrict access to jobs, places to live, health care, and education. Low-income Black and Latino communities disproportionately bear these burdens. Brennan Center researchers examined minor criminal offense trends in New York City between 2016 to 2022. The resulting report highlights changes in enforcement, the prevalence of common offenses, and case outcomes, as well as racial disparities in minor offense case rates that persist despite reforms implemented over the last decade.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 2024.

By Anna Stenkamp and Michael Rempel

The purpose of this study is to assess recent trends in criminal summons practices by the New York City Police Department (NYPD), including if and how they disproportionately impact low income and/or Black and Brown communities.

Key Findings

Overall Summons Trends:

Steep Decline Until 2022: Criminal summonses plummeted by 90% from 2013 to 2022 (from 375,707 to 36,621). However, for the first time in a decade, criminal summonses increased by 62% in the most recent year from 2021 to 2022 (from 22,603 to 36,621).

Most Summonses Issued in Bronx and Brooklyn: The Bronx and Brooklyn emerged as hotspots for summonses, with over 60% issued in these boroughs from 2020 to 2022. The Bronx alone accounted for 30% across these years, despite Bronx residents comprising only 17% of NYC’s population.

Few Convictions: In 2022, just 9% of criminal summonses ended in a conviction. (Straight dismissals accounted for 63%, with 28% receiving an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal.) With less than one out of ten cases disposed as guilty, criminal summonses largely do not involve formal accountability but, rather, a “process is punishment” effect, including lost time, income or other challenges from people having to appear in court.

Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities:

Widening Racial Disparities: From 2020 to 2022, the NYPD issued over 85% of criminal summonses to Black or Hispanic people, who combine for 52% of NYC’s population. Relative to their numbers in the general population, police issued summonses at a rate 8.9 times higher for Black than white people in 2020, increasing to 11.4 times higher in 2022.

Income Disparities: The NYPD issued over 60% of summonses to people living in zip codes that fell below the median household income. Further, within communities of every income bracket, the NYPD disproportionately issued criminal summonses to their Black and Hispanic residents. For example, in zip codes with a median household income below $35,000, police issued 97% of summonses to Black and Hispanic people, though they made up just 44% of the population. And in affluent zip codes with a household income over $100,000, police issued 73% of summonses to Black and Hispanic people, though they comprise 24% of the population.

Neighborhood Disparities:

Disparities Based on Zip Code: Residents of 40 (22%) of the City’s 178 zip codes accounted for over half of criminal summonses in 2022. Thirty-four of these 40 zip codes (85%) were majority or plurality Black or Hispanic.

Racial Disparities Within Zip Codes: Across all 178 zip codes, 89% had a larger proportion of summonses issued to Black residents and 67% had a larger proportion issued to Hispanic residents than their respective shares of the zip code’s general population. Thus, NYC police are both disproportionately issuing summonses in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods; and within virtually all neighborhoods citywide, police are disproportionately issuing summonses to Black and Hispanic residents.

The disproportionate issuance of summonses targeting Black and Hispanic communities highlights systemic biases that perpetuate inequality within the criminal justice system. Addressing these disparities is crucial to fostering a fair and equitable approach to law enforcement, ensuring justice for all residents of New York City

New York: Data Collaborative for Justice, 2024. 45p.

By Justice Policy Institute

A nearly decade-long failure of the Bowser Administration to fund and implement evidence-based strategies to prevent violence and strengthen communities has contributed to the context for increased crime and violence. Missed Opportunities: Why Inaction on Preventative Measures Undermines Public Safety in Washington, DC uncovers recent trend of a lack of leadership on proactive public safety strategies, instability in key executive agencies, and little coordination of efforts by government officials that have left the District ill-prepared to respond to alarming increases in some crimes. The brief offers a series of recommendations for District leadership:

• Improve the coordination between agencies working to prevent and address violent crime;

• Focus comprehensive resources on the specific people at the center of violence;

• Implement a holistic public health approach to violence prevention and intervention and invest in supports and services in communities;

• Fund efforts to build community trust and efficacy in policing; and

• Evaluate and sustain effective programs and initiatives

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2023. 16p.

By David Spencer

‘The Wicked and the Redeemable’ reveals that:

• Despite representing nine percent of the nearly six million people convicted of a criminal offence between 2000 and 2021 prolific offenders receive over half of all convictions.

• The Crown Prosecution Service is taking far longer to charge suspects than ever before. It now takes an average of nearly 44 days compared to 14 days seven years ago. These delays are putting vulnerable victims at risk of considerable harm as a result of wholly unnecessary bureaucracy.

• The number of cases that have been outstanding for more than 6 months (the expected standard) has quadrupled in the last four years to 30,384 cases. This is part of the biggest ever Crown Court backlog in history (with 64,709 cases now outstanding – double the number four years ago).

• Despite already having more than 45 previous convictions, ‘Hyper-Prolific Offenders’ are sent to prison on less than half of all occasions (47.3%) on conviction for an indictable or either-way offence. For ‘Prolific Offenders’, those with 16 previous convictions or more, the number falls to less than a quarter being sent to prison on conviction (24.4%) for an indictable or either-way offence.

London: Policy Exchange, 2023. 54p

By Jason Tan de Bibiana, Kerry Mulligan, Aaron Stagoff-Belfort, Daniela Gilbert

Communities across the country have been harmed by violence for decades, and government leaders have struggled to deliver impactful solutions. In particular, an overreliance on policing has not produced the safety that communities need and deserve. Community organizers working to address violence have long recognized that a different approach is needed—one that comes from a deep understanding of a community’s needs, uses data to guide strategies, and prioritizes prevention and intervention rather than punishment. One innovative way for governments to incorporate these tenets into policy and practice—and to provide better, more sustainable support to community-based efforts—is by building centralized local offices of violence prevention or neighborhood safety (OVP/ONS). These offices have the potential to radically transform governmental approaches to public safety. This report summarizes the current state of OVP/ONS nationally and identifies promising practices and recommendations to create and support these offices.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 73p.

By Robin S. Engel, Hannah D. McManus, and Gabrielle T. Isaza

In post-Ferguson America, police departments are being challenged to implement evidence-based changes in policies and training to reduce fatal police-citizen encounters. Of the litany of recommendations believed to reduce police shootings, five have garnered widespread support: body-worn cameras, de-escalation training, implicit bias training, early intervention systems, and civilian oversight. These highly endorsed interventions, however, are not supported by a strong body of empirical evidence that demonstrates their effectiveness. guided by the available research on evidence-based policing and informed by the firsthand experience of one of the authors in implementing departmental reforms that followed the fatal shooting of a civilian by an officer, this article highlights promising reform strategies and opportunities to build the evidence base for effective use-of-force reforms. We call upon police executives to engage in evidence-based policing by scientifically testing interventions, and we call on academics to engage in rapid research responses for critical issues in policing.

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 687(1), 146–165. 2020

By Michael Topper and Toshio Ferrazares

ShotSpotter is an acoustic gunfire detection technology utilized by police departments in over 150 cities world-wide with the intention of rapidly dispatching police officers to violent crime scenes in an effort to reduce gun violence. In Chicago, this amounts to approximately 70 instances per-day whereby officers are immediately dispatched to potential instances of gunfire. However, this allocation diverts police resources away from confirmed reports of 911 emergencies, creating delays in rapid response—a critical component of policing with health and safety implications. In this paper, we utilize variation in timing from ShotSpotter rollouts across Chicago police districts from 2016-2022 to estimate the causal effects of ShotSpotter on 911 emergency response times that are designated as Priority 1 (immediate dispatch). Using comprehensive 911 dispatch data from the Chicago Police Department, we find that ShotSpotter implementation causes police officers to be dispatched one-minute slower (23% increase) and arrive on-scene nearly two-minutes later (13% increase). Moreover, these effects are driven by periods with fewer police on-duty and times of day with larger numbers of ShotSpotter-related dispatches. Consequently, when responding to emergency calls, police officers’ success rate in arresting perpetrators decreases by approximately 9%, with notably large decreases in arrests for domestic battery (14%).

Job Market Paper, 2023. 75p.

By Suzanne Mooney, Lisa Bunting, Stephen Coulter & Lorna Montgomery

This report uses the ‘Sequential Intercept Model’ (SIM) as a framework to provide a selective review of practice innovations at different stages of the criminal justice process as a means to improve the life chances of young people and adults with complex needs in Northern Ireland (NI) who interface with the criminal justice system (CJS)1. The report was commissioned by the Safeguarding Board Northern Ireland as part of the cross-departmental Early Intervention Transformation Programme initiative to support the development of Trauma Informed Practice across systems of health, social care, education, justice and the community and voluntary sectors in NI.

Belfast: Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland and Queen’s University Belfast.

By Lindsay Turner, Julie Atella, Virginia Pendleton, Sophak Mom

When Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd in May 2020, the nearby city of Brooklyn Park began urgent work, including convening listening sessions and tasking city commissions with creating a work plan to improve the Brooklyn Park Police Department.

In December 2020, the City of Brooklyn Park hired Wilder Research to uncover the root causes of violence in Brooklyn Park, understand community perceptions of the Brooklyn Park Police Department, create research-driven recommendations to improve community safety, and develop a tool to assess and improve the Brooklyn Park Police Department’s performance. Wilder Research reviewed existing research on community safety and policing, analyzed Brooklyn Park specific community survey data related to the root causes of violence, and conducted interviews with residents and employees of Brooklyn Park.

High-level findings:

• There are risks of violence when people are not economically secure or connected to their community.

• There are disparities in Brooklyn Park that likely contribute to violence and disorder.

• Improving traditional policing may not improve safety.

• Brooklyn Park Police Department policies and interviewee themes support that procedural justice is a key strength; even so, some BPPD policies and Minnesota laws conflict with best practices.

Recommendations:

• Focus on prevention. To improve safety, the city should address inequities, and ensure that the social conditions where safety thrives are equally distributed across races and places in Brooklyn Park.

• Improve interventions. The city should explore using community-based mental health and substance use responses, school-based safety workers, and other efforts to reimagine police responsibilities. The city should also partner with community stakeholders to expand focused deterrence initiatives, and interventions including treatment and restorative justice.

• Assess BPPD for improvements. We developed a scorecard to measure BPPD performance. We recommend the city, BPPD, and community members impacted by systemic marginalization and police contact partner to assess and recommend changes to BPPD.

St. Paul MN: Wilder Research, 2021. 115p.

By Lindsay Turner

Background

Two legal doctrines in Minnesota – aiding and abetting liability and felony murder – converge to allow anyone who contributes to a felony to be charged with and punished for murder if a death occurs during the course of the felony, even if that person did not cause death, cause any injury to the deceased, nor intend for anyone to die. Aiding and abetting liability means that people are criminally liable for the crime of another if the first person aids, advises, counsels, or conspires to commit that crime (Minnesota Statutes 2021, section 609.05). Under the doctrine of felony murder, anyone who kills another during the course of committing a felony is liable for murder, even if they did not intend for death to result (Minnesota Statutes 2021, section 609.185 and 609.195). Taken together, this means that people in Minnesota can be punished for murder when they did not kill, injure, or even intend harm, so long as they contribute to a felony, and a death results during the course of the felony (called “aiding and abetting felony murder”).

In June 2021, the Minnesota Legislature established the Task Force on Aiding and Abetting Felony Murder (Task Force) (Laws of Minnesota 2021, 1st Spec. Sess. chapter 11, article 2, section 53) in order to understand any benefits and unintended consequences of Minnesota’s aiding and abetting felony murder doctrine. The Task Force organized into three subcommittees. One to collect and analyze data about charges, convictions, and sentences under the doctrine, one to review statutes and case law across the 50 states, and one to invite input from victims’ loved ones and those impacted by the current doctrine. In November 2021, the Task Force hired Wilder Research to review literature, aid in data analysis, and write the report to the legislature. This report summarizes this task force’s work, findings, and recommendations.

Key findings:

Studies on deterrence, incarceration’s lack of impact on re-offense, and adolescent brain development raise concerns with this doctrine.

To contextualize the issue, Wilder Research staff reviewed research on deterrence, incarceration’s impact on reoffense, and adolescent brain development. Decades of studies show that the threat of punishment alone does not deter crime (Rocker, 2021), that incarceration compared to non-custodial sanctions has no impact on reoffense or tends to increase the risk that the person who experiences incarceration will reoffend (Petrich et al., 2021), and that those in their teens through mid-20s are in a unique stage of brain development that make them less capable to assess risk and consequences, and more apt to be motivated by emotion and peer pressure than those older (Dobscha, 2019; Johnson et al., 2009). With this, Task Force members were concerned that Minnesota’s aiding and abetting felony murder doctrine does not deter behavior, does not reduce the risk of re-offense, and may especially harm those in their mid-20s and younger who are held liable under this doctrine.

Young people, people charged by Hennepin County, Black people, and males with little to no prior criminal history make up the largest groups of people charged, convicted, and sentenced under this doctrine.

From 2010 through 2019, there have been 130 people charged with aiding and abetting felony murder across Minnesota, and 84 people convicted of aiding and abetting felony murder as the most severe conviction. The Task Force analyzed patterns in charges, convictions, and sentences, and found that people 25 years and younger, people in Hennepin County, Black people, and people with little to no criminal history are those most frequently impacted by aiding and abetting felony murder liability. The Task Force was concerned with geographic, race, and age disparities that have happened under this doctrine.

Recent national trends are to limit aiding and abetting felony murder liability, not expand it.

The Task Force reviewed felony murder and aiding and abetting liability statutes from the 50 states, and also seminal state appellate or state Supreme Court cases relevant to aiding and abetting felony murder liability in Minnesota and around the country. The Task Force also heard presentations about whether other common law countries apply felony murder liability. The United States is the only common law country that has not yet abolished felony murder liability generally, and past decades have seen U.S. state legislatures and review courts abolish and otherwise limit aiding and abetting felony murder liability.

Victims and those convicted under the doctrine support limiting aiding and abetting felony murder liability, with avenues for retroactive relief.

The Task Force invited connection with victims’ families through contacting 37 victim/survivor organizations, and heard from victims’ families through the Minnesota Alliance on Crime (MAC). MAC is a statewide coalition of victim/survivor advocate organizations; 75% of their membership are victim-witness programs in county attorney offices, and the rest are community-based organizations. The Task Force also heard from 10 people convicted under this doctrine, and one person who rejected a deal to plead guilty to aiding and abetting felony murder. MAC expressed support for retroactive reform such that aiders and abettors of an underlying felony are not punished for the homicidal acts of another, and said that such retroactive reforms would be supported by the vast majority of its members. Impacted individuals expressed accountability for their role in the underlying felony and shared many difficulties stemming from being held criminally liable for the homicidal acts of another. Those impacted individuals who spoke on the subject strongly supported retroactive reforms to limit aiding and abetting felony murder liability.

The adverse consequences of Minnesota’s aiding and abetting felony murder doctrine outweigh its benefits.

After analyzing the above key findings, the Task Force agreed that the adverse consequences of the current aiding and abetting felony murder doctrine outweigh its benefits.

St. Paul, MN: Wilder Foundation, 2022. 222p.

By Anna Granias, Ryan Evans, Daniel Lee, Nicole MartinRogers, Emma Connell, With expert consultant Jose Vega

On May 25, 2020, a Black Minneapolis resident, George Floyd, was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin. The officer kneeled on Mr. Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, while two other Minneapolis police officers helped pin him down for a portion of that time. Another police officer prevented several bystanders from intervening as they watched Mr. Floyd die.

Vigils and peaceful protesting began immediately after the murder, at the scene (38th Street and Chicago Avenue) and in other locations, and continued through June 7, 2020. Civil unrest, including violence and destructive behavior, started within 24 hours at the scene and in other parts of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, in the state of Minnesota, around the U.S., and internationally. Looting and arson were widespread, and local police and emergency responders could not respond to many calls for help— either because they couldn't safely access the area or were too overwhelmed. Minnesota State Law Enforcement Agencies, including the Minnesota State Patrol, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Division, and other agencies, along with the Minnesota National Guard were called upon by the governor to provide services outside of their specific jurisdiction and training. Although these state-level entities were better equipped to respond to this particular crisis than local jurisdictions due to their training, equipment, and number of officers, they did not have experience responding to a large-scale civil disturbance and extended period of civil unrest such as what occurred in Minneapolis after Mr. Floyd’s murder.

External review commissioned

In February 2021, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) contracted with Wilder Research to conduct an external review of the state’s response to civil unrest that occurred May 26-June 7, 2020, following the murder of George Floyd. DPS requested that the review:

• Objectively evaluate what the state did well and did not do well.

• Identify actions and options that may have produced different, or possibly better, outcomes.

• Provide recommendations to the Commissioner of Public Safety to assist state and local governmental units, including cities and counties, in responding effectively to potential periods of regional or statewide civil unrest in the future.

St. Paul: Wilder Foundation, 2022. 129p.

By David Spencer

‘The Wicked and the Redeemable’ reveals that:

• Despite representing nine percent of the nearly six million people convicted of a criminal offence between 2000 and 2021 prolific offenders receive over half of all convictions.

• The Crown Prosecution Service is taking far longer to charge suspects than ever before. It now takes an average of nearly 44 days compared to 14 days seven years ago. These delays are putting vulnerable victims at risk of considerable harm as a result of wholly unnecessary bureaucracy.

• The number of cases that have been outstanding for more than 6 months (the expected standard) has quadrupled in the last four years to 30,384 cases. This is part of the biggest ever Crown Court backlog in history (with 64,709 cases now outstanding – double the number four years ago).

• Despite already having more than 45 previous convictions, ‘Hyper-Prolific Offenders’ are sent to prison on less than half of all occasions (47.3%) on conviction for an indictable or either-way offence. For ‘Prolific Offenders’, those with 16 previous convictions or more, the number falls to less than a quarter being sent to prison on conviction (24.4%) for an indictable or either-way offence.

London: Policy Exchange, 2023. 54p.

By Yale Law School

Executive summary The primary goal of this project was to explore how gun violence prevention work impacts individuals considered at high risk of being directly impacted by gun violence. The current study aimed to elevate the voices of gun violence prevention program participants and impacted communities who can best attest to the influence and power of the message and services received. Gun Violence Prevention Models and Projects The Group Violence Intervention (GVI) model used in this work is a focused-deterrence strategy that targets groups of people at high risk of gun violence. GVI is facilitated by law enforcement agencies that identify individuals who are associated with or members of groups responsible for shootings. These individuals receive an anti-violence message from law enforcement agencies partnered with community representatives and social services providers. In New Haven, CT, Project Safe Neighborhoods (2002) and Project Longevity (2012) are current initiatives modeled after the GVI strategy. Cure Violence is a public health approach to address violence as a disease to be treated by violence interrupters in the community that mediate conflicts. One prominent community-based organization that modeled the Cure Violence Approach in New Haven, CT is Connecticut Violence Intervention Program (CTVIP). The Community Perspective Numerous evaluations across the nation highlight the success of the GVI and Cure Violence programs. However, many of these policy evaluations do not include the perspectives of the people closest to the problem and they also fall short of addressing the complexities and concurrent, environmental factors underlying participation within GVI initiatives. To this end, the current study explored how individuals at high risk of gun violence benefit from gun violence prevention services whether simultaneously participating in a GVI strategy or not. The current study emphasized why the field of gun violence prevention policy needs studies that are designed to elucidate the critical components of such programs from the community perspective, with results that show that the theory of change accurately represents the impact mechanisms at work on the ground. This project, therefore, proposed an exploratory, qualitative study of initiatives to address gun violence in New Haven, CT. The goal was to explore how gun violence prevention work impacts individuals considered at high risk of being perpetrators or victims of gun violence.

New Haven, CT: Yale Law School, The Justice Collaboratory , 2024. 49p.