By The Police Executive Research Forum

For decades, enforcing laws against illegal drug trafficking, drug dealing, and drug possession was the primary role of police departments and sheriffs’ offices across the United States. During the Just Say No era of the 1980s and 1990s, arrests for illegal drug possession more than doubled as part of law enforcement’s efforts to deter and diminish drug use. Through time, however, the role of police and sheriffs has evolved and expanded as “demand-reduction policies” have become increasingly prominent. Today, for example, many police agencies administer naloxone, a life-saving medication that quickly reverses the effects of an opioid overdose. Police in some cities and towns also work to connect addicted persons with drug treatment and other services. In many jurisdictions, police have reprioritized their enforcement of laws against possession or use of illegal opioids. Police have had to adjust to what remains a major—and evolving—public health crisis. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an average of 128 people in the United States died every day in 2018 after overdosing on opioids. And there are reports that the COVID-19 pandemic may be resulting in higher numbers of overdose deaths.Through time, police responsibilities have grown to encompass at least three different roles on the frontlines of responding to the opioid crisis: 1. Emergency response. Preventing an opioid overdose from becoming a fatal opioid overdose. 2. Public safety. Helping individuals protect themselves from opioid-related harms. 3. Law enforcement. Investigating and disrupting opioid-related criminal activity.   

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. 2021  88p.  

By The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF)

When a police officer or sheriff’s deputy is killed in the line of duty, either in an act of violence by a criminal offender or in a motor vehicle crash or other accident, there is a time-honored response. Agencies conduct a thorough investigation to understand every detail of what happened, how it happened, and why. There is typically extensive news media coverage of the tragedy, and police executives and other leaders speak about the incident and the fallen officer. Officers are laid to rest with honors, and their survivors can receive emotional support and financial assistance through a combination of local, state, and federal programs. At the national level, the FBI, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, and other groups collect detailed data about line-of-duty deaths—how, when, and where they occurred—and these organizations issue periodic reports examining trends in officer fatalities. This information is used to develop policies, new training programs, and procurement of equipment that can help keep officers safe and prevent tragedies in the future.  

Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2019. 72p.

By James D. Sewell

Since the 1990s, law enforcement professionals have come to understand the impact of job stress on their personal and professional lives. Sadly, much of this awareness has come as a result of the negative manifestations that have become too observable: cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure; substance abuse and post-traumatic stress; abnormally high divorce rates and domestic violence; and, too frequently, suicide of law enforcement personnel. With police personnel suffering physical, psychological, medical, and behavioral issues as a result of such stress, the question becomes: How do we make sure our cops live . . . and live better, healthier, and more productive lives on and off the job? The answer—and the focus of this paper—begins with and requires effective and progressive law enforcement leadership. Contemporary law enforcement leadership cannot ignore the existence of the problems caused by stress, deny that job stress is an issue in any agency, or avoid taking action to ensure the health and well-being of their employees. It is clear that effective leaders cannot distance themselves from their personnel during times of stress or crisis, nor can they afford to send the unintentional message that they just do not care about those under their command. The personnel of an agency are its most valuable asset, and the actions of those at the highest level of an agency must recognize, respect, and reinforce that value.   

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2021. 44p.

By Keren Weitzberg

Despite widespread myths that the British police are unarmed and govern through consent, paramilitary-style policing has a long and ugly history in the UK and across the British Empire. This report looks at the increasingly blurry line between the police and military and the role of the UK in militarised policing globally. Challenging the idea that war and policing are fundamentally different powers, it examines the evolution of Britain’s policing industrial complex. It shows how a war mentality has infiltrated policing at various levels – from counter-terrorism to  anti-protest policing to border control to the policing of gangs.  

London: Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) , 2022. 56p.

By Michael German

Racial disparities have long pervaded every step of the criminal justice process, from police stops, searches, arrests, shootings an the country, federal, state, and local governments are doing far too little to proactively identify them, report their behavior to prosecutors who might unwittingly rely on their testimony in criminal cases, or protect the diverse communities they are sworn to serve.

Efforts to address systemic and implicit biases in law enforcement are unlikely to be effective in reducing the racial disparities in the criminal justice system as long as explicit racism in law enforcement continues to endure. There is ample evidence to demonstrate that it does.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 2020.

By The International Association of Chiefs of Police

This guide provides evidence-based policing practices (EBPP) for small, rural, and tribal agencies. The information comes from published research studies and working group conversations with command staff from various small, rural, and tribal agencies. In this guide, we use the terms small and rural or small, rural, and tribal broadly. The types of agencies that fall within these categories vary in terms of size, crime rates and types, and community characteristics. More than 12,000 local police agencies in the United States are “small” or serve small populations—75 percent employ fewer than 25 sworn officers, and 71 percent serve populations of fewer than 10,000 residents (Hyland and Davis 2019). However, not all small agencies serve rural communities. For example, some small agencies serve independent towns within densely populated metropolitan areas. On the other hand, some county police agencies with hundreds of sworn officers serve predominantly rural communities (e.g., Yang et al. 2018). Police agencies that serve tribal communities operate within a unique cultural, historical, and legal context. While we use the terms small, rural, and tribal somewhat interchangeably, the main guiding principle for police agencies trying to implement evidence-based policing is that strategies, interventions, and practices must be specific, tailored, and based on the best available information relevant to the department and jurisdiction. This is with the understanding that there is no one-size-fits-all approach.   

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2021. 64p.

By Ruth Halkon and Rick Muir

The United Kingdom has the reputation of having some of the safest roads in the world. Yet there is increasing evidence that they are becoming more dangerous. On average around 25,000 people are killed or seriously injured on our roads each year. This number had been constant for the last decade, following many years of reductions. Now the most recent data shows a five per cent rise in fatality rates, the first significant increase in 40 years. Improvements in technology may have made cars safer for those inside them, but there is evidence that these bigger, heavier vehicles are more hazardous for those on the outside. Cyclists and pedestrians may be doing their bit for the environment, but they are putting themselves at risk in streetscapes designed for cars. More needs to be done to facilitate such green transport methods if we are to emulate the models set by our European neighbours.  

London: The Police Foundation, 2022. 51p.

By The Sentry

In a country plagued by horrific violence and rampant corruption, South Sudan’s National Security Service (NSS) stands out as particularly ruthless, secretive, and well-funded. Fear of the NSS is pervasive in South Sudan, and for good reason. Its personnel have been involved in widespread, grave human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture, and illegal detention, and the organization operates without regard for basic human rights or the personal rights of civilians laid out in the South Sudanese constitution, including freedom of assembly, freedom from torture, and the rights to fair trial and litigation.The Sentry found that, to cement its control and power in South Sudan, the NSS has employed a two-pronged strategy of state capture and repression. Corporate records reviewed by The Sentry reveal a vast network of companies with NSS shareholders, ranging from media and publishing to natural resources and logistics. The oil, finance, and media sectors particularly suffer from NSS involvement both in terms of economic capture and repression. NSS personnel have occupied key posts in state institutions, and the NSS itself has had a role in approving private company operations in the lucrative mining and security sectors. In this way, the NSS has been able to access off-budget finances and diverted revenues, all while sidestepping oversight and operational scrutiny. In turn, the NSS has funded a campaign of surveillance, intimidation, and horrific violence against civilians, activists, and journalists. The NSS has interfered with civil society and the press, suppressed freedom of…..

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  speech, and illegally detained and permanently silenced those who spoke out against the regime. In interviews with The Sentry, several South Sudanese in civil society organizations and in the media sector expressed concern that they might be targeted by the NSS if they spoke openly about corruption or other government issues. Operating under the supervision of President Salva Kiir, the NSS and its activities have gone far beyond their original remit, largely unchecked. This has created a vicious cycle in which a highly militarized agency has gained ever more power and wielded it with increasing brutality. In order to end the NSS campaign of egregious human rights abuses and economic capture, decisive action must be taken to curb its powers of detention and arrest, cut off the sources of its off-budget revenue, and ensure civilian oversight mechanisms are established, empowered, and effectively implemented. Civil society and the media must be protected so that they can hold the NSS and the government accountable, and the government of South Sudan must enforce its own constitution, which demands that the NSS respect human rights, democracy, and civilian oversight—the very cornerstones of a promising future for the people of South Sudan.

Washington DC: The Sentry, 2022. 36p.

By Magnus Lofstrom, Brandon Martin and Steven Raphael

We analyze the disparate effects of a recent California sentencing reform on the arrest, booking, and incarceration rates experienced by California residents from different racial and ethnic groups. In November 2014 California voters passed state proposition 47 that redefined a series of felony and “wobbler” offenses (offenses that can be charged as either a felony or misdemeanor) as straight misdemeanors, causing an immediate 15 percent decline in total drug arrests, an approximate 20 percent decline in total property crime arrests, and shifts in the composition of arrests away from felonies towards misdemeanors. Using microdata on the universe of arrests in the state in conjunction with demographic data from the American Community Survey, we document a substantial narrowing in inter-racial differences in overall arrest rates and arrest rates by offense type, with very large declines in the inter-racial arrest rate gaps for felony drug offenses. Conditional on being arrested, we see declines in bookings rates for all groups, though we find a larger decrease for white arrestees. This relatively larger decline for white arrests is largely explained by difference in the distribution of arrests across recorded offenses. Despite the widening of racial gaps in the conditional booking rate, we observe substantial declines in overall booked arrests that are larger for African Americans and Hispanics relative to whites. For some offenses (felony drug offenses), inter-racial disparities in jail booking rates narrow by nearly half. Finally, we use data from the American Community Survey to analyze…..

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  change in the proportion incarcerated on any given day and how these changes vary by race and ethnicity. For these results, we present trends for the time period spanning the larger set of policy reforms that have been implemented in the state since 2011. We observe sizable declines in the overall incarceration rate for African Americans, with the largest declines observed for African American males. The one-quarter decline in total correctional populations in the state coincided with sizable narrowing in inter-racial difference in incarceration rates.  

Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics (IZA),  2019. 55p.

By  Frank Edwards, Hedwig Leeb  and Michael Espositoc

We use data on police-involved deaths to estimate how the risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States varies across social groups. We estimate the lifetime and age-specific risks of being killed by police by race and sex. We also provide estimates of the proportion of all deaths accounted for by police use of force. We find that African American men and women, American Indian/Alaska Native men and women, and Latino men face higher lifetime risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. We find that Latina women and Asian/Pacific Islander men and women face lower risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. Risk is highest for black men, who (at current levels of risk) face about a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by police over the life course. The average lifetime odds of being killed by police are about 1 in 2,000 for men and about 1 in 33,000 for women. Risk peaks between the ages of 20 y and 35 y for all groups. For young men of color, police use of force is among the leading causes of death.

PNAS Journal Article: 6p.

By Manja Nikolovska and Shane Johnson  

On 30 January 2020 the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak of Covid-19 a “Public Health Emergency of International concern” which posed an unprecedented threat. Chief police officers recognised that quick decisions needed to be taken, working with partners to ensure public safety and to help contain the spread of the virus. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) assumed the lead for the national policing response, using an enhanced cross portfolio command structure named Operation Talla. The work described in this report was commissioned by the NPCC and conducted by the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL, in consultation with Op Talla, to understand the effects of the pandemic on the policing response and future impacts. Here, we report the findings of the (Delphi) study, the aims of which were to elicit expert opinion from a wide range of UK law enforcement agency stakeholders (LEAs) to understand their perspectives about the police response to the pandemic, how the pandemic affected policing, what worked well and should continue, how the pandemic affected crime, and how crime might change as a consequence of other future drivers of changes (e.g. climate change, Brexit and technological change). The key aims of the study were to: • Systematically assess learned experiences of policing during the disruption to inform future policy • Contribute towards LEAs readiness to police future disruptions and operate under “normal” conditions • Anticipate future crime trends • Inform policing strategy and policy The main report covers all of the themes…..

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  identified. Here, however, we discuss only those themes for which there was a clear consensus that motivated one or more recommendations.

London:  Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL , 2022. 76p.

By Cynthia Lum, Christopher Koper, et al.

The COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in early 2020 and continuing through 2022, has been one of the largest, if not most impactful public health crises in recent history. With over one million lives lost in the United States at the time of writing, the pandemic significantly impacted all aspects of social, economic, and civic life. Given this, the short and long-term impacts on criminal justice processes and institutions were significant. This report documents an in-depth case study of the impacts of the pandemic on a large, suburban police agency, the Fairfax County (Virginia) Police Department (FCPD) in Fairfax, Virginia. Near the nation’s capital, Fairfax County is home to a diverse and large populace, with a police department of approximately 1,400 sworn officers serving over 1.1 million people. The pandemic severely disrupted life in the county, as it did in many other jurisdictions across the United States. Faced with this unprecedented and fast-moving public health crisis, the police department had to adjust its policies, deployment, human resources strategy, and interactions with the community quickly. These changes focused on keeping the department’s workforce safe from COVID while simultaneously carrying out the agency’s mandate of maintaining public safety. Early in the pandemic, the Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Assistance implemented its Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding Program, which provided funds to eligible states, local government units, and tribes to strengthen the prevention, preparation, and response to COVID-19 and foreseeable related…..

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  problems in the future. 1 George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (GMU-CEBCP) partnered with the FCPD to apply for this award as a sub-award recipient to study the impacts of the pandemic on the department. The study aimed to assess the pandemic's impacts on crimes, disorders, and other public safety concerns, police operations and deployment, community-police relationships, and other organizational impacts. The goal of this study was not only to document the impacts of COVID-19 on FCPD but to provide lessons learned and recommendations for other agencies and FCPD to strengthen their prevention, preparation, and response for future public health crises.   

Fairfax, VA:   Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University , 2022. 206p.

Edited by Jacob Copeman and Giovanni da Col

Fakes, forgery, counterfeits, hoaxes, frauds, knock-offs—such terms speak, ostensibly, to the inverse of truth or the obverse of authenticity and sincerity. Do all cultures equally spend an incredible amount of energy and labor on detecting differences between the phony and the genuine? What does the modern human obsession with fabrications and frauds tell us about ourselves? And what can anthropology tell us about this obsession? This timely book is the product of the first Annual Debate of Anthropological Keywords, a collaborative project between Hau, the American Ethnological Society, and L’Homme, held each year at the American Anthropological Association meetings. The aim of the debate is to reflect critically on keywords and terms that play a pivotal and timely role in discussions of different cultures and societies, and of the relations between them. This volume brings together leading thinkers to interrogate the concept of fake cross-culturally, including insightful contributions by Jacob Copeman, Giovanni da Col, Veena Das, John Jackson Jr., Graham Jones, Carlo Severi, Neil Thin, and Alexei Yurchak.

Chicago: Hau Books (Distributed the University of Chicago Press), 2018. 142p.

By Sylvia Tidey

A sympathetic examination of the failure of anti-corruption efforts in contemporary Indonesia. 
Combining ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Kupang with an acute historical sensibility, Sylvia Tidey shows how good governance initiatives paradoxically perpetuate civil service corruption while also facilitating the emergence of new forms of it. Importing critical insights from the anthropology of ethics to the burgeoning anthropology of corruption, Tidey exposes enduring developmentalist fallacies that treat corruption as endemic to non-Western subjects. In practice, it is often indistinguishable from the ethics of care and exchange, as Indonesian civil servants make worthwhile lives for themselves and their families. This book will be a vital text for anthropologists and other social scientists, particularly scholars of global studies, development studies, and Southeast Asia.

Chicago: Hau Books (Distributed by the University of Chicago Press, 2022. 250p.

By The Policing Project at NYU School of Law

The right to engage in peaceful demonstration is a cornerstone of American democracy. Yet sometimes police fail to strike the right balance, approaching demonstrations as a threat to public safety, rather than as an expression of constitutionally protected rights. This results in bad outcomes, for protestors and for police. The Policing Project’s new guidance provides an overview of how to police demonstrations to protect public safety and democratic freedoms. Drawn largely from what policing leaders themselves have identified as best practices as well as evidence-based research, we outline a clear approach that emphasizes transparent communication, de-escalation, and a healthy relationship between police and the communities they serve.

New York: NYU School of Law, 2020. 14p.

By Katie Bollman

  In less than a decade, body-worn cameras rose from rarity to standard amongst local law enforcement in the U.S. as agencies sought to enhance trust, transparency, and accountability of officers. However, this policing tool also generates large quantities of a new source of data for criminal courts: footage of criminal defendants. This data can provide evidence pertinent to a criminal case, but at a cost of attorney time. Using rich case data from Virginia state courts from 2006-2020 and a new body-worn camera data set I investigate whether local law enforcement adoption of body-worn cameras changes court filings, criminal case dispositions, time to disposition, and other case outcomes. I find evidence that body-worn cameras affect interactions between police and members of the public, but that these effects are restricted to a small subset of cases. Once cases enter the courts, I find that in the aggregate, contrary to expectations, both case processes and resolutions are unresponsive to the influx of data generated by body-worn camera footage.

Working Paper, Michigan State University, 2021. 54p.

By Kirat Kaur Kalyan & Peter Keeling  

It is irrefutable that citizens should enjoy freedom of movement and an expectation of an uninterrupted private life; these protections underpin our democracy and uphold our fundamental human rights. These expectations are acutely relevant to the use of stop and search and it is essential that all powers exercised by the police are used lawfully, only when necessary and are proportionate, but more importantly, that they are seen to be so. The assessment and recommendations set out in this report provide a valuable commentary on the expectations communities have as to how the police should operate when tackling violent crime and upholding the law, as well as providing an important reminder that policing is underpinned by public consent. As well as providing a constructive interpretation on the value of stop and search powers and the importance of active monitoring arrangements, the report provides helpful examples of where police forces and communities have successfully come together to stimulate improvements in police operational activity as well as promote confidence that officers are acting in the public interest and with proper regard to the Codes of Conduct that govern their powers and the use of force.

London: Criminal Justice Alliance,  2019.  24p.

By Amal Ali and Nina Champion

  It is widely accepted that policing is most effective when it secures the co-operation, trust, and confidence of the public. The police themselves recognise that these features are critical to their relationship with the public and form an important part of their day-to-day working culture. This co-operation, trust and confidence is being undermined by unfair and disproportionate stop and search practices. Such practices cause alarm and distress to members of the public, damage trust and confidence in policing, and make the police’s job more difficult overall. We therefore believe that due to the harms outlined in this report, the government must urgently repeal the harmful s.60 police power and instead invest in working with communities to improve trust and confidence and tackle the root causes of violent crime. Furthermore, insufficient scrutiny of stop and search powers means that the police are not effectively being held to account where there is evidence of unfair and discriminatory use of these powers. Fair and effective community scrutiny for all police forces should be mandated, adequately resourced and supported by an independent national body. Section 60 (s.60) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order (CJPO) Act 1994 allows a constable in uniform to stop and search any pedestrian, or any vehicle for offensive weapons or dangerous instruments. This legislation was originally introduced to tackle football hooliganism and the threat of serious violence at football games. Today, s.60 permits officers to search a person or vehicle in anticipation of violence if an officer of or above…..

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  the rank of inspector ‘reasonably believes that incidents involving serious violence may take place in any locality’. These powers are only to be authorised in a designated area for a specific period of time.

London: Criminal Justice Alliance, 2021.  38p.

By Amber Evans, Patrick Olajide, Isabella Ross and Jon Clements

In our previous research, focusing on adults, we found that despite support for the use of stop and search powers in principle, there were deep misgivings among Black adults about the way stop and search was carried out in practice, as well as the general service and treatment they received from the police. For Black children, these misgivings were amplified. They have less trust in the police than children from every other ethnic group, and less trust than Black adults do. This report, which is the second of three publications related to our research project, focuses specifically on the views of children and teenagers. It is based on findings from three focus groups with predominantly Black or Black and Mixed ethnicity children, and a survey of 1,542 ten to 18 year olds, 100 of whom were Black.   

London: Crest Advisory, 2022. 55p.

By Amber Evans, Patrick Olajide and Jon Clements

In recent years, the police use of stop and search powers has become a totemic issue - many have argued that it is the main (or primary) cause of low confidence among Black communities in the UK, when compared to the rest of the population. However, our research, which draws on the most comprehensive survey of Black adults’ views about policing ever conducted in England and Wales, suggests that Black people’s concerns about the use of stop and search cannot be viewed in isolation; instead their attitudes towards its use by the police are shaped by, and closely connected to, their experience of policing as a whole. Black adults expressed at least as much concern about a perceived failure by policing to get ‘the basics’ right for their communities, such as responding to emergencies, investigating crime and engaging with victims, as they did about the use of stop and search. This report, which is the first of three publications related to this research, and specifically focuses on the views of adults.  

London: Crest Advisory. 2022. 97p.