By Police Executive Research Forum

This report, the 30th in PERF’s Critical Issues in Policing series, represents the culmination of 18 months of research, field work, and national discussions on police use of force, especially in situations involving persons with mental illness and cases where subjects do not have firearms. The Critical Issues series has always focused on the most consequential emerging issues facing police agencies. In 2016, no issue is of greater consequence to the policing profession, or to the communities we serve, than the issue of police use of force. Beginning in the summer of 2014 and continuing over the past year and a half, our nation has seen a series of controversial cases, many of them captured on videos taken by the police, bystanders, or nearby security cameras. These events have sparked protests across the country and soul-searching among police executives. They have also threatened community-police relationships in many areas and have undermined trust. This report is grounded in four national conferences; a survey of police agencies on their training of officers on force issues; field research in police agencies in the United Kingdom and here at home; and interviews of police trainers and other personnel at all ranks, as well as experts in mental health

Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2016. 136p.

By The Expert Review Panel

The concerns identified in this report, though not unique, are serious and will require significant attention by the Department’s leadership and the City. There is important learning from the reforms being undertaken by other agencies for Fort Worth as it continues its efforts to operate according to its stated values and policies. The Department has many characteristics of a modern, professional police department. The leadership of the Department revised its policies and procedures in an effort to conform to nationally recognized best practices. In place are the basic structures, accountability committees, and review processes that one would expect in a department of its size. It has built a new academy and converted its training curriculum away from a military style boot camp to a scenario and classroom-based academic setting. Investments in technology have given managers the tools necessary to effectively and efficiently hold officers accountable to policy and law, as well as to identify and address gaps in policy, training, supervision, or widespread practices. Both the Department’s and the City’s leadership have taken steps to create legitimacy in all of Fort Worth’s communities. …. However, the actual experience of some members of the community, especially people of color and those in low-income neighborhoods, is very different. Daily encounters are far too often characterized by a “command and control” approach to policing that leads to avoidable uses of force and creates tension with residents who encounter police officers. The failure to use effective de-escalation techniques continues to be a significant issue that has increased mistrust. Accountability for aggressive police tactics is frequently anemic or ineffective and can place form over substance, missing both individual and systemic problems. Compounding the issue, the Panel heard reports from supervisors in the Department that middle managers were discouraged from raising issues unless there had been a complaint or a public outcry.

Fort Worth, TX: Expert Review Panel, 2022. 97p.

By Christie Gardiner

This report describes the findings of a recent survey of a nationally-representative sample of local law enforcement agencies on the role of higher education in policing. The survey was completed by 958 agencies (116 which employ 250 or more officers and 842 which employ fewer than 250 officers) from every state in the nation. This is the largest and most comprehensive non-governmental study ever conducted on the role of higher education in policing on a national level. It is also the first study in forty years to provide substantial information about higher education policy and practice in small departments.

Washington, DC: Police Foundation, 2017. 76p.

By Dermot S. Barr

This thesis explores the intergroup dynamics during the development of rioting at two sites in Greater Manchester in 2011, Pendleton, in Salford, and Manchester city centre. The primary theoretical contribution of this thesis is to the Elaborated Social Identity Model of the development of conflict (ESIM, Drury & Reicher 2000). Through detailed analysis of how the intergroup dynamics informed the development of the two riots, and participants’ subjective experiences, the thesis confirms and extends the ESIM understandings of the social psychological processes involved in escalating intergroup conflict.

Manchester, UK: University of Manchester, 2018. 420p

By Charles Branas, Shani Buggs, Jeffrey A. Butts, Anna Harvey, Erin M. Kerrison, Tracey Meares, Andrew V. Papachristos, John Pfaff, Alex R. Piquero, Joseph Richardson Jr., Caterina Gouvis Roman, and Daniel Webster

This report summarizes the collective judgment of an experienced group of researchers who were free to consider all evidence, unconstrained by the conventional priority given to randomized controlled trials (RCT). The most rigorous studies in the field of community violence are RCTs, but many focus on individual behaviors only, failing to account for the full social context giving rise to those behaviors, including social and economic inequities, institutionalized discrimination, and the racial and class biases of the justice system itself. To synthesize evidence in an inclusive manner, one must be aware of social context and prioritize solutions that help to address structural impediments while still providing immediate interventions to reduce violence. Unless research evidence is considered in this context, potentially effective strategies may be overlooked simply because they target community-level change rather than individual change, and for that reason are difficult to evaluate and the research literature to back them up is inevitably less rigorous and less prominent.

New York: John Jay College Research Advisory Group on Preventing and Reducing Community Violence, 2020. 42p.

By Lorraine Mazerolle,Adrian Cherney,Elizabeth Eggins,Lorelei Hine and Angela Higginson

Multiagency responses to reduce radicalisation often involve colla-borations between police, government, nongovernment, business and/or community organisations. The complexities of radicalisation suggest it is impossible for any single agency to address the problem alone. Police‐involved multiagency partner-ships may disrupt pathways from radicalisation to violence by addressing multiple risk factors in a coordinated manner.Objectives:1. Synthesise evidence on the effectiveness of police‐involved multiagency interventions on radicalisation or multiagency collaboration. Qualitatively synthesise information abouthowthe intervention works (me-chanisms), interventioncontext(moderators), implementation factors and eco-nomic considerations.Search Methods:Terrorism‐related terms were used to search the Global PolicingDatabase, terrorism/counterterrorism websites and repositories, and relevantjournals for published and unpublished evaluations conducted 2002–2018. Thesearch was conducted November 2019. Expert consultation, reference harvestingand forward citation searching was conducted November 2020.Selection Criteria:Eligible studies needed to report an intervention where policepartnered with at least one other agency and explicitly aimed to address terrorism,violent extremism or radicalisation. Objective 1 eligible outcomes included violentextremism, radicalisation and/or terrorism, and multiagency collaboration. Only impact evaluations using experimental or robust quasi‐experimental designs were eligible. Objective 2 placed no limits on outcomes. Studies needed to report anempirical assessment of an eligible intervention and provide data on mechanisms,moderators, implementation or economic considerations.Data Collection and Analysis:The search identified 7384 records. Systematic screening-identified 181 studies, of which five were eligible for Objective 1 and 26 for Objective 2.

Oslo, Norway: Campbell Collaborative, 2021. 88p.

By Chuka Emezue, Jo-Ana D. Chase,Tipparat Udmuangpia and Tina L. Bloom

A growing body of research shows the promise and efficacy of technology-based or digital interventions in improving the health and well-being of survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). In addition, mental health comorbidities such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression occur three to five times more frequently in survivors of IPV than non-survivors, making these comorbidities prominent targets of technology-based interventions. Still, research on the long-term effectiveness of these interventions in reducing IPV victimization and adverse mental health effects is emergent. The significant increase in the number of trials studying technology-based therapies on IPV-related outcomes has allowed us to quantify the effectiveness of such interventions for mental health and victimization outcomes in survivors. This meta-analysis and systematic review provide critical insight from several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the overall short and long-term impact of technology-based interventions on the health and well-being of female IPV survivors.

Oslo, Norway: Campbell Collaborative, 2022. 69p.

By Joshua C. Hinkle, David Weisburd, Cody W. Telep and Kevin Petersen

POP is a proactive policing strategy developed by Herman Goldstein, who argued that the standard reactive model of policing was ineffective as it was overly focused on the means of policing (number of arrests, average response time, etc.) rather than the end goal of reducing crime and enhancing community safety. He suggested that police could be more effective if they were more proactive and researched root causes of crime, and developed tailor-made responses. This review assesses the effectiveness of POP interventions – defined as those programs which generally followed the tenets of the SARA model (scanning, analysis, response, assessment) developed by Spelman and Eck – in reducing crime and disorder and fear of crime, and improving citizen perceptions of police.

This update of a Campbell systematic review assesses the effectiveness of problem-oriented policing in reducing crime and disorder. It summarises the evidence from 34 studies: 28 from the USA, five from the UK and one from Canada.

Oslo, Norway: Campbell Collaboration, 2020. 86p.

By Robert J. Abbott

Founded by Peter the Great in 1718, Russia’s police were key instruments of tsarist power. In the reign of Alexander II (1855-1881), local police forces took on new importance. The liberation of 23 million serfs from landlord control, growing fear of crime, and the terrorist violence of the closing years challenged law enforcement with new tasks that made worse what was already a staggering burden. This book describes the regime’s decades-long struggle to reform and strengthen the police. The author reviews the local police’s role and performance in the mid-nineteenth century and the implications of the largely unsuccessful effort to transform them. From a longer-term perspective, the study considers how the police’s systemic weaknesses undermined tsarist rule, impeded a range of liberalizing reforms, perpetuated reliance on the military to maintain law and order, and gave rise to vigilante justice. While its primary focus is on European Russia, the analysis also covers much of the imperial periphery, discussing the police systems in the Baltic Provinces, Congress Poland, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Siberia.

Budapest–Vienna–New York: Central European University Press, 2022. 235p.

By Morgan C. Williams Jr., Nathan Weil, Elizabeth A. Rasich, Jens Ludwig, Hye Chang, and Sophia Egrari

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are an increasingly common tool for police oversight, accountability, and transparency, yet there remains uncertainty about their impacts on policing outcomes. This paper reviews what we know about the benefits of BWCs and how those benefits compare to the costs of this new technology. We make two contributions relative to existing research. First, we update prior meta-analyses of studies of the impacts of BWCs on policing outcomes to incorporate the most recent, and largest, studies carried out to date in this literature. This additional information provides additional support for the idea that cameras may affect a number of policing outcomes that are important from a social welfare perspective, particularly police use of force. Second, we carry out a benefit-cost analysis of BWCs, as financial barriers are often cited as a key impediment to adoption by police departments. Our baseline estimate for the benefit-cost ratio of BWCs is 4.95. Perhaps as much as one-quarter of the estimated benefits accrue to government budgets directly, which suggests the possibility that this technology could, from the narrow perspective of government budgets, even pay for itself.

Chicago: Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago, 2021. 32p.

By Philip Matthew Stinson, Sr., John Liederbach, Steven P. Lab and Steven L. Brewer, Jr

There are no comprehensive statistics available on problems with police integrity, and no government entity collects data on all criminal arrests of law enforcement officers in the United States. Police crimes are those crimes committed by sworn law enforcement officers with the general powers of arrest. These crimes can occur while the officer is either on- or off-duty and include offenses committed by officers employed by state and local law enforcement agencies. This study provides a wealth of data on a phenomena that relates directly to police integrity— data that previously did not exist in any useable format. The first goal of the study is to determine the nature and extent of police crime in the United States. The objective for this goal is to determine the incidence and prevalence of officers arrested. A second goal is to determine what factors influence how an agency responds to arrests of its officers.

Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University, 2016. 671p.

By William H. Sousa and George L. Kelling

This study evaluates explanations that have been advanced for the sharp decline in crime in New York City during the 1990s. The authors consider arguments that crime in New York City during the 1990s. The authors consider arguments that crime drops have been the result of socio-economic factors, such as an improving economy, falling numbers of teenaged males, and declining use of crack cocaine. They also consider the argument that police interventions—particularly the enforcement of laws against minor crimes, known as "broken windows" policing—played a major role.

New York: Manhattan Institute, Center for Civic Innovation, 2001. 32p.

ByTanaya Devi and Roland G. Fryer Jr,

This paper provides the first empirical examination of the impact of federal and state "Pattern-or-Practice" investigations on crime and policing. For investigations that were not preceded by "viral" incidents of deadly force, investigations, on average, led to a statistically significant reduction in homicides and total crime. In stark contrast, all investigations that were preceded by "viral" incidents of deadly force have led to a large and statistically significant increase in homicides and total crime. We estimate that these investigations caused almost 900 excess homicides and almost 34,000 excess felonies. The leading hypothesis for why these investigations increase homicides and total crime is an abrupt change in the quantity of policing activity. In Chicago, the number of police-civilian interactions decreased by almost 90% in the month after the investigation was announced. In Riverside CA, interactions decreased 54%. In St. Louis, self-initiated police activities declined by 46%. Other theories we test such as changes in community trust or the aggressiveness of consent decrees associated with investigations -- all contradict the data in important ways.

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2020. 63p.

By Bocar A. Ba and Roman G. Rivera

Does policing the police increase crime? We avoid simultaneity effects of increased public oversight during a major scandal by identifying events in Chicago that only impacted officers’ self-imposed monitoring. We estimate crime’s response to self- and public-monitoring using regression discontinuity and generalized synthetic control methods. Self-monitoring, triggered by police union memos, significantly reduced serious complaints without impacting crime or effort. However, after a scandal, both civilian complaints and crime rates rise, suggesting that higher crime rates following heightened oversight results from de-policing and civilian behavior simultaneously changing. Our research suggests that proactive internal accountability improves police-community relations without increasing crime.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, 2019. 89p.

By Desmond Ang

Nearly a thousand officer-involved killings occur each year in the United States. This paper documents the large, racially-disparate impacts of these events on the educational and psychological well-being of Los Angeles public high school students. Exploiting hyperlocal variation in how close students live to a killing, I find that exposure to police violence leads to persistent decreases in GPA, increased incidence of emotional disturbance and lower rates of high school completion and college enrollment. These effects are driven entirely by black and Hispanic students in response to police killings of other minorities and are largest for incidents involving unarmed individuals.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, 2020. 81p.

The synthetic opioid crisis in North America has increased fatal overdose rates to unprecedented levels within a matter of a few years. It involves new technologies, a new source of supply (the chemical industry in China), and new forms of distribution (the internet and mail). These elements are perhaps even more difficult to suppress than other supply sources from foreign countries. This has led to an assumption that nothing can be learned from prior experience in trying to control drug markets.

This paper applies the insights of the “focused deterrence” approach developed by David Kennedy and Mark Kleiman, which involves using multiple levers to attain a specific policy goal. We conclude with some specific suggestions for local and national supply-control agencies— including the need to focus more on regulating rather than reducing markets to minimize harm, and to distinguish between markets not yet swamped by fentanyl or in transition and those where the drug is entrenched. Strategies appropriate in one context may not serve well in another.

Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2020. 21p.

By Liz Ward, Sian Nicholas and Maria Willoughby

The Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) ran initially from June 2008 until March 2009 and aimed to reduce teenage knife crime in ten police force areas in England and Wales. TKAP Phase II was then launched and the programme re-branded into the Tackling Knives and Serious Youth Violence Action Programme. Phase II ran from April 2009 to March 2010 in 16 police force areas (the original ten TKAP forces and six new areas)1 and aimed to reduce all serious violence involving 13- to 24-year-olds using a range of enforcement, education and prevention initiatives.

London: Home Office, 2011. 67p.

By Law Library of Congress, Global Legal Research Center

This report examines the weapons and equipment generally at the disposal of law enforcement officers in several countries around the world. It also provides, for each of these countries, a brief overview of the rules governing the use of weapons by law enforcement officers. Precise and reliable information on the weapons and equipment of some countries’ police forces was often difficult to find. Nevertheless, certain interesting facts and patterns emerged from the Law Library’s research.

Washington, DC: Law Library of Congress, Global Legal Research Center, 2014. 106p.

The Knife Crime Prevention Programme: Process Evaluation

By Grant Thornton UK LLP

The Knife Crime Prevention Programme (KCPP) is an intervention which aims to reduce the prevalence of knife carrying and use by young people. Young people are referred to the programme if they are aged between 10 and 17 and have been convicted of an offence where a knife or the threat of a knife is a feature. The programme is based on a national delivery framework, with flexibility for local adaptation. It was rolled out as part of the Home Office ‘Tackling Knives Action Programme’ (TKAP). This process evaluation was commissioned to:  provide a picture of the implementation and delivery of KCPP  explore participants’ knowledge, perceptions and attitudes to knife crime before and after the programme  explore staff attitudes to the programme.

London: Youth Justice Board for England and Wales 2013. 29p.

By International Union of Railways

Metal theft is a big problem for railway networks as thieves target signalling cables, overhead power lines and even metal fences to sell it for scrap. Railway networks are designed to fail safe, which means that when a cable is cut, trains are brought to a stop. This protects passengers but can lead to long and frustrating delays while the problem is examined and fixed safely. This type of crime causes considerable disruptions and the costs that are associated with replacing and repairing the damage often massively exceed the value of the metal stolen. Loss of communication networks and damage to railway tracks also raise public safety concerns. A large proportion of railway networks funds come from the government, so these thefts are, ultimately, at the taxpayer’s expense. It is clear that the stolen metal is often transported across several borders and sold as scrap or for recycling far away from the actual scene of the crime. Thus, both national and international cooperation and collaboration initiatives are needed to raise awareness, provide expertise and best practice to allow the exchange of ideas between all parties involved. Therefore, only a structured and common approach can provide a wide and extended set of solutions.

Paris: International Union of Railways, 2013. 12p.