By Kevin Petersen, David Weisburd, Sydney Fay, Elizabeth Eggins and Lorraine Mazzerole 

Police stops are associated with reductions in crime but also a broad range of negative individual-level outcomes.

Police stop interventions produce meaningful and significant reductions in crime without evidence of spatial displacement. However, people subject to stops are associated with significantly less desirable mental and physical health outcomes, attitudes toward police, and self-reported crime/delinquency. For some outcome measures, the negative effects of pedestrian stops are considerably more pronounced for youth, though the data did not permit a comparison of individual effects by race.

What is this review about?

Police stops have become one of the most controversial yet widely-used crime prevention strategies in modern policing. This intervention involves the police-initiated stop of an individual (or group of individuals) on the street, for the purpose of investigation and/or questioning. Police stops have been commonly used as a tactic to combat violent and gun-related crime.

Campbell Systematic Reviews. 2023;1

By Ranae Jabri

  Predictive policing algorithms are increasingly used by law enforcement agencies in the United States. These algorithms use past crime data to generate predictive policing boxes, specifically the highest crime risk areas where law enforcement is instructed to patrol every shift. I collect a novel dataset on predictive policing box locations, crime incidents, and arrests from a major urban jurisdiction where predictive policing is used. Using institutional features of the predictive policing policy, I isolate quasi-experimental variation to examine the causal impacts of algorithm-induced police presence. I find that algorithm-induced police presence decreases serious property and violent crime. At the same time, I also find disproportionate racial impacts on arrests for serious violent crimes as well as arrests in traffic incidents i.e. lower-level offenses where police have discretion. These results highlight that using predictive policing to target neighborhoods can generate a tradeoff between crime prevention and equity.

 Unpublished paper, 2021. 44p.  

By The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Washington Advisory Committee

The Washington Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights submits this briefing report regarding barriers to accountability for use of excessive force by law enforcement officers. The Committee submits this report as part of its responsibility to study and report on civil-rights issues in the state. The contents of this report are primarily based on testimony the Committee heard during public meetings held via video-conference from March to June 2021

Washington, DC: USCCR, 2022. 32p.-

By Richard A. Berk

  There are widespread concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in law enforcement. Predictive policing and risk assessment are salient examples. Worries include the accuracy of forecasts that guide both activities, the prospect of bias, and an apparent lack of operational transparency. Nearly breathless media coverage of artificial intelligence helps shape the narrative. In this review, we address these issues by first unpacking depictions of artificial intelligence. Its use in predictive policing to forecast crimes in time and space is largely an exercise in spatial statistics that in principle can make policing more effective and more surgical. Its use in criminal justice risk assessment to forecast who will commit crimes is largely an exercise in adaptive, nonparametric regression. It can in principle allow law enforcement agencies to better provide for public safety with the least restrictive means necessary, which can mean far less use of incarceration. None of this is mysterious. Nevertheless, concerns about accuracy, fairness, and transparency are real, and there are tradeoffs between them for which there can be no technical fix. You can’t have it all. Solutions will be found through political and legislative processes achieving an acceptable balance between competing priorities.  

  Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2021. 4:209–37  

By Liz Campbell, Nessa Lynch, Joe Purshouse, Marcin Betkier

  The use of automated facial recognition technology (FRT) is becoming commonplace globally and in New Zealand. FRT involves the use of an algorithm to match a facial image to one already stored in a system, is used in automated passport control and other border control measures, as a biometric identifier in the banking, security and access contexts, and on social media platforms and various other consent-based applications

  This report contributes to the understanding of how and when this rapidly emerging hnology should be used and how it should be regulated. It is centred in what has been described as the ‘second wave’ of algorithmic accountability – While the first wave of algorithmic accountability focuses on improving existing systems, a second wave of research has asked whether they should be used at all—and, if so, who gets to govern them.3 This project seeks to address the regulation gap through ascertaining how FRT can and should be regulated in New Zealand. While the benefits that might be offered by FRT surveillance are increasingly observable, its effect on civil liberties is subtler, but certainly pernicious. Given the potential for FRT to be used as a key identity and access management tool in the future, there are pertinent questions around how images are being collected and stored now by the private sector. Where are these images being stored? Who has access to this data? What else might the images be used for? Without a detailed appraisal of the benefits of state FRT surveillance, and an understanding of the ethical issues raised by its use, any framework for the regulation of this activity cannot hope to engender public confidence that its use is fair and lawful.

Monash University, 2020. 118p.   

By Cameron Holley, Tariro Mutongwizo, and Clifford Shearing

  This review explores past and future shifts in policing and criminology scholarship that have shaped, and been shaped by, what is done to enhance safety within political domains. Investigating established policing conceptualizations, the review demonstrates how the ideal of state-delivered safety as a public good was challenged by a sizeable policing industry, giving rise to debates about legal context, service provision, and conceptualizations of policing and security nodal arrangements. This review argues that these understandings are now confronted by new harms and new conceptualizations of social institutional affairs. Interrogating these claims through an examination of the Anthropocene and technologies of cyberspace, we canvass debates and show that a shared focus of attention for the future of policing will be a decentralization of security and an expansion of private security governance professionals (both human and nonhuman)  

Annual Review of Criminology,  3:341-358, 2020

By Rachel Harmon

Coercive policing is conducted mostly by means of commanding officers usually cannot use force unless they have first issued an order. Yet, despite widespread concern about force and coercion in policing, commands are both underregulated and misunderstood. Officers have no clear legal authority to give many common commands, almost no departmental guidance about how or when to issue them, and almost no legal scrutiny for many commands they give. Scholars rarely study commands, and when they do, they get them wrong. As a result of vague law and inadequate analysis, basic questions about police commands—what role they play, where officers get authority to issue them, and how law regulates them—remain unanswered. Instead, officers interact with the public in a legal gray zone, a recipe for illegitimacy and conflict. This Article offers initial answers to these questions. First, it explains the constitutivecommands play in policing: Long-standing law dictates that officers usually cannot compel people, including by stop or arrest, without issuing commands that impose new legal duties. Second, it contends that although statutes sometimes authorize specific commands, officers’ authority to issue many orders comes from—and is limited by—officers’ authority to stop, search, and arrest suspects. Third, the Article argues that the legal functions commands serve—namely, generating and communicating legal duties—dictate that lawful orders must satisfy three constraints: They must be authorized by state law; they must obey constitutional limits; and they must provide adequate notice and opportunity for individuals to comply. These constraints are embedded in the law, but few avenues exist for challenging commands. Courts have therefore not defined or enforced limits on command authority well, except when commands violate constitutional rights. Courts can easily do better, and legislative and departmental action could clarify, extend, and enforce appropriate limits on police authority.

Rachel Harmon, Law and Orders, 123 Colum. L. Rev. 1 (2023).

By Lakomy, Miron; Bożek, Maciej

From the document: "Researchers who study online terrorism and political violence face a broad spectrum of risks to their safety and wellbeing. Awareness of the challenges researchers face in this subdiscipline has remained relatively low for years. Since the launch of Islamic State's propaganda campaign on the internet, which skilfully deployed scenes of death and dying to influence online audiences, that awareness has increased. Subsequently, some researchers have reported that prolonged exposure to terrorist content can be harmful across many wellbeing dimensions. This research project aims to determine if exposure to terrorist propaganda may be a factor in causing trauma for researcher or their development of mood disorders. Our study is founded on two research methods: an online survey and a novel experiment. The online survey was completed by a group of recognised terrorism researchers who were asked about their opinions and experiences related to the impact of their research activities on mental health. The experiment used a biofeedback device and an eye-tracker to measure the short-term psychophysiological response of researchers to ordinary content available on the internet (Control Group) and certain types of terrorist propaganda (Experimental Group). The reactions of both groups, primarily their eye fixation and skin conductance, were subsequently compared."

Global Network On Extremism And Technology (Gnet. 2023. 44P.

By 21CP Solutions.

From the Introduction: The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing was established by Executive Order under then President Barack Obama on December 18, 2014. President Obama charged the task force with identi- fying best practices and offering recommendations on how policing practices can promote effective crime reduction while building public trust. Since the publication of the task force’s final report in May 2015, there have been more than 133 national, state, or local task forces, councils, and working groups responding to police violence in communities throughout the country.1

The nation remains in a policing crisis, and too many poor communities of color face the adverse conditions of poverty and economic exclusion that aggravate the relationship between communities and police. The 2015 report by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing remains a significant influence on policing reform, but the country still confronts police violence that undermines community trust and confidence.

Task Force on 21st Century Policing: A Renewed Call to Action. Chicago: 21CP Solutions, LLC. 2023. 40p.

By Durham, John H.

From the document: "Following Special Counsel [Robert] Mueller's report, on May 13, 2019, Attorney General [William] Barr 'directed United States Attorney John Durham to conduct a preliminary review into certain matters related to the 2016 presidential election campaigns,' and that review 'subsequently developed into a criminal investigation. [...] On October 19, 2020, the Attorney General determined that, 'in light of the extraordinary circumstances relating to these matters, the public interest warrants Mr. Durham continuing this investigation pursuant to the powers and independence afforded by the Special Counsel regulations.' [...] [This] review and investigation, in turn has focused on separate but related questions, including the following: [1] Was there adequate predication for the FBI to open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation from its inception on July 31, 2016 as a full counterintelligence and Foreign Agents Registration Act ('FARA') investigation given the requirements of 'The Attorney General's Guidelines for FBI Domestic Operations' and FBI policies relating to the use of the least intrusive investigative tools necessary? [2] Was the opening of Crossfire Hurricane as a full investigation on July 31, 2016 consistent with how the FBI handled other intelligence it had received prior to July 31, 2016 concerning attempts by foreign interests to influence the Clinton and other campaigns? [3] Similarly, did the FBI properly consider other highly significant intelligence it received at virtually the same time as that used to predicate Crossfire Hurricane, but which related not to the Trump campaign, but rather to a purported Clinton campaign plan 'to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,' which might have shed light on some of the Russia information the FBI was receiving from third parties, including the Steele Dossier, the Alfa Bank allegations and confidential human source ('CHS') reporting? [...] [4] Was there evidence that the actions of any FBI personnel or third parties relating to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation violated any federal criminal statutes, including the prohibition against making false statements to federal officials? [...] [5] Was there evidence that the actions of the FBI or Department personnel in providing false or incomplete information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ('FISC') violated any federal criminal statutes? [...]"

U.S. Department of Justice. 2023. 316p

By John Comiskey

Abstract: This study identified and analyzed the utilization of theory in college homeland security curricula in the United States. Faculty and program directors with diverse academic and professional backgrounds actively teach theory from multiple fields and disciplines to help prepare students for the field, address homeland security problems, and to grow and mature the field. The most prevalent theories which are taught as part of college homeland security curricula constellate around leadership, risk management, security, social identity, and terrorism themes. Homeland security, however, lacks a grand theory or overarching framework. Essentially, homeland security is an eclectic discipline or field of study that seeks to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the threats and hazards that pose the greatest risks to the Nation.

Journal of Homeland Security Education. Volume 7 (2018). 17p.

By Neighborhood Analytics and St. Norbert College Strategic Research Institute

At the request of and in cooperation with the City of Milwaukee Fire & Police Commission, in 2022, the Strategic Research Institute at St. Norbert College (SRI) and Neighborhood Analytics, LLC partnered to conduct the fourth wave of the City of Milwaukee Police Satisfaction Survey. The purpose of this survey was to measure resident perceptions regarding a range of issues relevant to the Milwaukee Police Department; satisfaction with and trust in the police, perceptions of safety and police visibility, views on various kinds of police contacts, and exposure to crime. The survey was structured to provide estimates of both city-wide opinion as well as estimates of opinion within each police district. Data collection for the mixed-mode RDD (Random Digit Dial) telephone/ABS (Address-Based Sampling) mail survey occurred between September 9th, 2022 and November 23rd, 2022. Of the 1,003 completed interviews, 44.7% were conducted via telephone and 55.3% via ABS online survey. The response rate for the RDD sample was approximately 4.3%, while the response rate for the ABS sample was approximately 1.1%. The margin of error for unweighted sample statistics is ±3.1% at the 95% confidence level. Surveys were conducted in both English and Spanish. MAJOR FINDINGS:  36% of Milwaukee residents are “not very” or “not at all satisfied” overall with the Milwaukee Police Department in 2022, compared to 21% in 2019.  Overall satisfaction decreased among every demographic and socioeconomic subgroup of Milwaukee residents, and regardless of recent contact with police or recent exposure to crime. The largest increases in dissatisfaction occurred among white residents, residents 30-44 years of age, homeowners, those with 4-year degrees or higher, and those with no recent instances of victimization. The largest gap in opinion across groups of Milwaukee residents is generational, with younger residents far more likely to express dissatisfaction when compared with those in older age groups.

Milwaukee: Neighborhood Analytics; De Pere, WI: St. Norbert College Strategic Research Institute , 2023. 84p.

By Michael Skidmore

‘Disruption’ has become central to the state’s response to serious and organised crime, a framework for rationalising, directing and accounting for the work in this important area of policing. In public policy it is presented as a distinct mode of crime control, however, the specific nature of the activities or outcomes encompassed by disruption remain unclear. It is comprised of an eclectic mix of policing activity for targeting the diverse criminality that falls within the scope of the serious and organised crime policy framework (HM Government, 2018). And it has been subjected to little external scrutiny, with limited coverage in the existing research literature. The lack of conceptual clarity and gaps in empirical evidence are not simply academic concerns, they obscure the efficacy, accountability and legitimacy of disruption policies and interventions and their real-world value. The aim of this paper is to unpack the concept of disruption so to better understand its characteristics as a distinct mode of crime control. The paper reviews the existing literature to examine the nature of disruption and highlight the gaps in evidence and understanding. It identifies a number of key questions to be explored in our wider ongoing research to examine the meaning, application, and value of disruption for tackling serious and organised crime. These findings will be published in a subsequent Police Foundation report.

London: The Police Foundation, 2023. 13p.

By Genevieve Lennon, Nicholas R. Fyfe, with John McNeill and Fraser Sampson

The Principles for Accountable Policing (hereafter ‘The Principles’) are intended to provide a practical baseline which will inform the practice and structure of accountable policing. The Principles apply to the police and oversight bodies. The Principles have been drafted primarily with public bodies in mind but are applicable to all forms of policing. The first section sets out the 12 Principles. They are divided into four parts. Part A describes general principles that underpin all accountability. Part B discusses the conduct of accountability and how it can be carried out. Part C examines participation in accountability. Part D focuses on implementation and evaluation. The second section expands upon each principle, detailing the relevant evidential base. Reflecting the focus of the workshops, most examples are drawn from the various police forces across England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The third section provides a reference guide which can be used to check how accountable the police are. It is organised as a simple checklist.

The Police Foundation, UK, 2023. 35p.

By Baroness Casey

Misconduct data, extracted from the Met’s Centurion systems This dataset contains information on all allegations (18,589), cases (10,252), and officers/staff (12,856) involved in misconduct issues (formally) from April 2013 – March 2022. The difference in these numbers is due to the fact that one case may involve several allegations against several individuals. And, as several officers may also be involved in more than one conduct case in the time period, the number of individual officers and staff in the data is actually 8,917. These allegations are only internal, i.e. initiated by Met staff, officers, or their families, not complaints from the general public, which are held on a different dataset. This dataset includes information on the nature of the allegation, the outcomes and decisions made, information on the subject of the allegation and key data around times, dates, and jurisdictions. The Review has taken an exploratory approach to this complex dataset, conducting descriptive statistical analysis on all components of the data to identify trends, changes, and outliers. It should be noted that this data is significant, but can never be fully accurate as many variables depend on the recording practices of individuals, which can vary between people and time. Nevertheless, the numbers are so significant that we are confident in our conclusions. The basis of our analysis is financial years (Apr-Mar), we measure the number of allegations/cases which have been received in each financial year. Some other performance analyses measure instead the number of case/allegations which have been finalised in a specific year. We have chosen the former approach for two reasons (1) it gives us a person-centred understanding of the misconduct system i.e. the experience of those making complaints / being complained about (2) it allows us to look at the impact of changes to legislation which do not apply retrospectively i.e. if a case was received in 2015, the rules changed in 2016, and the case was finalised in 2017, the 2016 rules would not apply. However, because we count all allegations and cases made in the period, not just the finalised ones, the closer we get to the contemporary day, the higher the percentage of cases/allegations which have not yet received an outcome becomes. Because of this, throughout, we have included red lines to indicate where the unknown percentage is too large to draw conclusions for that year.

London: Metropolitan Police, 2022. 21p.

By Baroness Casey of Blackstock DBI CB

The Met has faced significant challenges over the last ten years. Many of these have been beyond their control. These include austerity, changes in crime patterns, greater non-crime demand and a regulatory system that makes it difficult to get rid of people who corrupt the Met’s integrity. The Crown Prosecution Service and the courts are also under acute pressure. This impacts the effectiveness of the Met, and makes the criminal justice system overall much less effective. Significant societal shifts are rightly making us less tolerant of crimes such as domestic abuse, rape and child abuse as well as discrimination. Public expectations on policing are therefore greater. London too is always changing. Its population is expanding, and is swelled by thousands of commuters daily and millions of visitors each year. It is more diverse in terms of nationalities, ethnic and faith groups, and sexuality than other UK cities. The majority of the population are not from White British ethnic backgrounds, one in five do not have English as their main language, and London has greater extremes of wealth and poverty than other parts of the UK. In contrast, Met officers are 82% White and 71% male, and the majority do not live in the city they police. As such, the Met does not look like the majority of Londoners. Traditional volume crime (such as burglary and theft) has declined, while low volume but more serious offences such as violence against the person, and sexual offences have significantly increased from 17% of all crimes in 2012-13 to 31% in 2022-23. Such cases take longer to investigate and resolve. Domestic abuse-related crimes have doubled over ten years to nearly 100,000 a year and the number of reported rape cases have increased fourfold. But the number of officers investigating them has not increased at the same rate. This places more demand on police detective services in particular, while there is a national shortage of detectives. Like other public services, austerity has profoundly affected the Met. In real-terms, the Review has calculated that the Met now has £0.7 billion less than at the start of the previous decade, meaning its budget is 18% smaller. This is enough to employ more than 9,600 extra Police Constables at full cost. It has lost 21% of its civilian staff and two thirds of its Special Constables while the number of Police Community Support Officers has halved. Between 2010 and 2022 it closed 126 police stations. Specialist units and functions have been prioritised, including through ring-fenced Government funding. Together, this has eroded frontline policing, weakening the strongest day-to-day point of connection with Londoners, as well as impacting the Met’s reactive capabilities, its response levels, and its response to male violence perpetrated against women and children. The model of policing by consent, pioneered in London and admired and copied around the world, requires the Met to both earn and maintain public trust in everything it does. However, there is declining public confidence and trust in the institution. Public trust has fallen from a high point of 89% in 2016 to a low of 66% in March 2022. Public confidence in the Met to do a good job locally has fallen from high points of 70% in 2016 and 2017 to a low of 45% in March 2022. People from Black and mixed ethnic groups have lower trust and confidence in the Met, scoring 10 to 20% lower than average on trust and 5 to 10% lower on confidence, although declining scores among White Londoners mean that gap is closing. Among those who responded to surveys undertaken for the Review, three quarters of Met employees and two in five Londoners think the Met’s external reputation is poor. Black Londoners are even more likely to say its reputation is poor. A series of scandals involving the Met and the Met’s response – playing them down, denial, obfuscation, and digging in to defend officers without seeming to understand their wider significance – combined with this loss of trust, are strong indicators of fundamental problems.

London: Metropolitan Police, 2023. 363p.

By Daniel DiSalvo

Protests and riots erupted in cities around the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis last summer. Many criticisms of law enforcement ensued, and many observers and activists focused on police unions for supposedly protecting bad cops, thereby undermining police–community relations. Today, this claim is commonplace from writers across the political spectrum.[1] To improve policing in the U.S., the argument goes, job protections enshrined in union contracts and state statutes, which the unions have long fought for, have to be pared back.

While these claims are plausible, we know less than we should about the role that police unions play in protecting abusive officers and undermining police–community relations. Although some academic literature on police unions exists—in which many of the findings suggest that the unions inhibit effective and accountable policing— the subject has not been intensively studied.[2] Therefore, we do not know exactly what the reduction of job protections for officers or the alteration of collective bargaining could achieve; reformers and the public should keep their expectations in check.

That said, state and local elected officials reacted quickly to Floyd’s death and have passed new laws that seek to reduce police violence against civilians and improve public confidence in the police.[3] Some of the changes impinge on policies enshrined in existing collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).

This paper assesses the role of police unions in creating job protections for officers and how the recent wave of legislation interacts with collective bargaining and union contracts; and it identifies areas in which policymakers should concentrate in future rounds of collective bargaining in order to improve the performance of police departments and enhance public trust in them.

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2021. 12p.

By Pradhi Aggarwal, Alec Brandon, Ariel Goldszmidt, Justin Holz, John A. List, Ian Muir, Gregory Sun, Thomas Yu

Given news reporting in recent years, many readers are likely familiar with research which finds that, conditional on an encounter, police officers are more likely to enforce a law, conduct a search, or use force when a civilian belongs to a racial minority group. In other words, once they are stopped, minorities are more likely to face some police action. However, what research has yet to show is whether minorities are stopped more in the first place.

This new paper addresses the issue of minority status and the likelihood of police encounters by reviewing driving data from Lyft records in Florida from August 2017 to August 2020, totaling over 40 billion observations. These data allow the authors to explore whether minority drivers, because they are minorities, are more likely to be stopped and to be issued a citation. To examine this question, the authors focus on citations for speeding.

Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, University of Chicago: Working Paper, 2022. 27p.

By The Halifax Regional Municipality, Mass Casualty Commission

Policing and public safety in HRM is very dynamic and uncertain. This is a complex and dynamic period of time for policing in Nova Scotia. The policing model in HRM and Nova Scotia more broadly is garnering significant attention from the public. There is pressure to transform the way policing services are delivered and costs are increasing at rates that exceed the Consumer Price Index. Taxpayers are facing increasing concerns about affordability. Notably, this study has occurred in parallel with the ongoing Mass Casualty Commission (the Commission) which is conducting an independent public inquiry to examine the April 18-19, 2020 Mass Casualty Incident in Nova Scotia. The findings of the Commission are unknown at this time but will likely have significant implications for policing in HRM and Nova Scotia. At the same time, the Department of Justice is completing a review of the province’s policing standards. That process is also likely to impact the policing operations and requirements in HRM. The HRM Public Safety Strategy is also under renewal. The renewed Strategy is focused on community based approaches to safety and reimagining responses to health and social services. The relationship between the HRP and RCMP is being challenged. It has been noted consistently in this study and the proceedings of the Mass Casualty Commission that the relationship between the RCMP and the Halifax Regional Police (HRP) is becoming increasingly strained resulting in an increasing safety risk profile. The proceedings of the Commission and stakeholder interviews completed as a part of this study have clearly highlighted that collaboration, integration, and the strength of the relationship between the RCMP and HRP is deteriorating. The events of the Mass Casualty Incident on April 20, 2020 and the subsequent proceedings have likely contributed to additional strain between the two services. The current policing model is not integrated. Despite what might be commonly perceived in the community - the HRP and RCMP do not operate in an integrated policing model. HRM currently has a dual policing model, meaning two services operating in parallel as discrete service providers.

Halifax, NS: Halifax Regional Municipality, 2023. 424p.

By Emilee Green and Orleana Peneff

Local police are expected to use the least amount of force necessary against citizens, both in self-defense and in defense of others. Although relatively rare, many incidents of excessive, and even lethal, force used by police have been documented, particularly in situations involving people of color. Specifically, Black Americans are more likely to be killed during a police encounter than White Americans. The public has called for further investigation, data collection, and research on police use of force. This literature review provides an overview of theories on why police use of force occurs. Theories are based on officer characteristics, types of situations, organizational norms, and police policies and procedures. The review includes data and research on use of force including disparities in its use.

Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 2022. 18p.