By Travis Carter, Jedidiah Knode and Scott Wolfe  

This report presents the results from a racial/ethnic disparity analysis of Michigan State Police (MSP) traffic stops conducted in 2021. The goal of the analysis is to identify the extent of racial/ethnic disparities in MSP traffic stop behavior across MSP worksites (i.e., posts). The analyses are based on a leading empirical approach to assessing racial/ethnic disparities in traffic stop behavior—the veil-of-darkness (VOD). The analyses account for important structural differences across posts and their jurisdictions, such as the rate of violent crime and troopers per capita, as well as temporal factors that may shape traffic patterns and stop behavior (e.g., time of day, day of week) to help ensure the results are as informative as possible. Below, we briefly outline the methodology employed and summarize the main findings. When discussing the results from this report, it is important to recognize the difference between “disparity” and “discrimination.” Disparity in these traffic stop analyses refers to differences in racial/ethnic group representation based on presumed visibility of the driver. Disparity cannot identify intent, whereas discrimination inherently involves intent. Therefore, discrimination in traffic stop behavior refers to police officers intentionally stopping individuals based on their status in a racial/ethnic minority group. Discrimination can generate disparities by way of differential treatment of racial/ethnic groups, but disparities may also be the result of nondiscriminatory (e.g., environmental, situational, etc.) factors such as crime prevalence and driving pattern differences. This report and its findings can speak only to the extent of racial/ethnic disparity in MSP traffic stops. The data cannot ascertain whether racially discriminatory practices are occurring within MSP. Although disentangling disparity from bias is critical towards improving police practices, accurately identifying the existence of such disparity and its magnitude is an important precursor to this process. More information on the data collection process is provided in the body of the report. Next, we highlight the main takeaways from the analyses.   

East Lansing:  Michigan Justice Statistics Center School of Criminal Justice Michigan State University, 2022. 33p.

By Robin S. Engel,  Jennifer Calnon Cherkauskas, Nicholas Corsaro, Murat Yildirim

In 2002, the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) was one of the first state police agencies to initiate traffic stop data collection voluntarily. The current data collection effort is based on foundational work conducted with the same research team for more than a decade, beginning with initial planning in 1999. After discontinuing the data collection program in 2011, the PSP renewed its traffic stop data collection effort in 2021, which now continues in partnership with the National Policing Institute (the Institute). Given the variety of factors involved in police stop and enforcement decisions, it is beneficial for agencies to identify and better understand trends and patterns to enhance their ability to interact with the public safely and fairly. The voluntary collection and analysis of traffic stop data is consistent with recommended best practice, demonstrates dedication to transparency and accountability to the public, and continues the PSP’s commitment to evidence-based policing practices. This report documents the findings from statistical analyses of data collected during all member-initiated traffic stops by the PSP from January 1, 2022 – December 31, 2022. These data are reported by individual troopers after each member-initiated traffic stop, gathered and compiled by the PSP, and transmitted weekly to the Institute’s research team. Throughout each section of this report, information is presented at multiple organizational levels, reflecting the PSP’s organizational structure consisting of four Areas, 16 Troops, and 88 Stations. Presenting information in this manner illustrates differences and similarities across organizational units. It permits the identification of organizational and geographic groups that may appear as outliers, providing opportunities for closer examination and focused attention by PSP officials.  

Arlington, VA: National Policing Institute, 2023. 169p.

By Johann Koehler, Tony Cheng
We show how both the Chicago Police Department and the New York Police Department sought to settle uncertainty about their propriety and purpose during a period when abrupt transformations destabilized urban order and called the police mandate into question. By comparing annual reports that the Chicago Police Department and the New York Police Department published from 1877 to 1923, we observe two techniques in how the police enacted that settlement: identification of the problems that the police believed themselves uniquely well equipped to manage and authorization of the powers necessary to do so. Comparison of identification and authorization yields insights into the role that these police departments played in convergent and divergent constructions of disorder and, in turn, into Progressivism's varying effects in early urban policing.

Criminology, 2023:1-28

By Elizabeth Luh  

  Biased highway troopers may intentionally misreport the race of the stopped motorists in order to evade detection. I develop a new model of traffic stops that highlights the incentive for biased troopers to misreport their failed minority searches as White. Applying my model to the universe of highway searches in Texas from 2010–2015, I find evidence of widespread bias that varies substantially across troopers. Furthermore, misreporting increased the Hispanic search success rate by 17%. When misreporting became more difficult due to public scrutiny, misreporting troopers faced worse labor outcomes. This suggests an important role for increased accountability in data collection by law enforcement agents.

Unpublished paper, 2022. 54p.

By Max Kapustin, Terrence Neumann and Jens Ludwig

How can we get more ‘output,’ and of the right sort, from policing? The question has only taken on greater importance with recent, widely publicized instances of police misconduct; declines in public trust in police; and a rise in gun violence, all disproportionately concentrated in economically disadvantaged communities of color. Research typically focuses on two levers: (1) police resources, and (2) policing strategies or policies, historically focused on crime control but increasingly also on accountability, transparency, and fairness. Here we examine a third lever: management quality. We present three types of evidence. First, we show there is substantial variability in violent crime and police use of force both across cities and within a city across police districts, and that this variation is related to the timing of police leader tenures. Second, we show that an effort to change police management in selected districts in Chicago generates sizable changes in policing outcomes. Third, as part of that management intervention the department adopted a predictive policing tool that randomizes which high-crime areas it shows to officers. We use that randomization to generate district-specific measures of implementation fidelity and show that, even within the context of a management intervention designed to improve implementation of the department’s strategies, there is variability in implementation.

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2022. 104p.

By Aaron Chalfin, Benjamin Hansen, Emily K. Weisburst & Morgan C. Williams, Jr.

We report the first empirical estimate of the race-specific effects of larger police forces in the United States. Each additional police officer abates approximately 0.1 homicides. In per capita terms, effects are twice as large for Black versus white victims. At the same time, larger police forces make more arrests for low-level “quality-of-life” offenses, with effects that imply a disproportionate burden for Black Americans. Notably, cities with large Black populations do not share equally in the benefits of investments in police manpower. Our results provide novel empirical support for the popular narrative that Black communities are simultaneously over and under-policed. 

 American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 139-158, June.

By Stephen Wu

Objective.This study analyzes the relationship between the race of a city’s police chief and the incidence of fatal shootings by police officers.Methods.The Washington Post’s “Fatal ForceDatabase” is used to calculate per-capita rates of fatal shootings by police officers occurring between January 1, 2015 and June 1, 2020 for the 100 largest cities in the United States. I compare fatal shooting rates for cities with police chiefs of different races, both unadjusted and adjusted for differences in city characteristics.Results.Rates of fatal shootings by officers are almost 50 percenthigher in cities with police forces led by white police chiefs than in cities with black police chiefs.Of the 30 cities with the highest rates of fatal shootings, 23 have police departments led by whites and only four have departments led by blacks, while of the 30 cities with the lowest rates, 16 have police departments led by blacks and only 11 are led by whites. Differences in fatal shooting rates persist after controlling for city characteristics.Conclusion.Leaders in the highest position of au-thority may have a powerful effect on the culture of a police department and its resulting behavior.Each year, there are approximately 1,000 fatal shootings by police officers across theUnited States, a statistic that has been fairly steady over the course of the last several years.With recent efforts to track and compile more comprehensive data, researchers have been increasingly studying the factors that contribute to these deaths. Prior research has looked at many factors surrounding fatal officer-involved shootings, including racial and demo-graphic information of both officers and victims, situational and location characteristics,and structural and organizational factors. This study contributes to the literature by look-ing at one as of yet unstudied factor: the race of a city’s police chief.Much of the prior work on police shootings has focused on the demographics of vic-tims. Edwards, Lee, and Esposito (2019) show that age and race are significant factors in determining the risk of being killed by police. Specifically, individuals between the ages of20 and 35 have the highest risk of all different age groups. They also find that blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans are significantly more likely to be killed by police than whites. An important distinction between sheriffs and police chiefs (or commanders, commissioners, captains,and superintendents) is that sheriffs are directly elected, while other top leaders are appointed by the mayor or city council. Sheriff’s departments also may have additional duties for their jurisdictions including supervision of correctional facilities and providing court security. There are only two cities in the data with elected sheriffs,and the analysis is not affected by eliminating these two departments.

SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Volume 102, Number 1, January 2021

By Michael Gennaco, Stephen Connolly and Julie Ruhlin

In the summer of 2019, Vallejo officials were responding to a time of transition for the City’s Police Department. The chief was newly retired, and the search for a new leader was underway against a backdrop of recent incidents – including fatal officer-involved shootings – that had prompted public concern and even demonstrations. It seemed as if a number of individual encounters were fitting all too well into larger, troubling narratives about American law enforcement: deadly force under disputed circumstances that affected minority subjects to a disproportionate extent, and strained relationships with residents that arose from and contributed to that reality while raising issues of trust and public confidence. Leadership within Vallejo’s city government decided that the time was right to take a step back and to assess the Department’s strengths, challenges, and opportunities in a new way. The City engaged an outside consultant to conduct this assessment.

This report is the product of that review. It was prepared by OIR Group, a team of private consultants that specializes in police practices and the civilian oversight of law enforcement. Since 2001, OIR Group has worked exclusively with government entities in a variety of contexts related to independent outside review of law enforcement, from investigation to monitoring to systems evaluation. Our members have provided oversight in jurisdictions throughout California, as well as in several other states.

Playa del Rey, CA:  OIR Group, 2020. 74p.

By The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science

 In 2019, the Chicago Police Department, in partnership with the Policing Project at New York University (NYU), implemented the Chicago Neighborhood Policing Initiative (CNPI). This initiative is composed of two interrelated goals: To measure CNPI’s impact, CORNERS built a multi-method research design capturing perspectives of residents and police in CNPI districts through in-depth interviews, systematic observations at police and community meetings and events, quasi-experimental statistical analyses, and analysis of key documents detailing CNPI activities.

Chicago: The Center, Northwestern University, 2023. 66p.

By The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

This document was developed through efforts by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC or Council) Intelligence and Information Sharing Working Group, to develop guidelines for local and state agencies in relation to the collection, analysis, and dissemination of terrorism-related intelligence (i.e., the fusion process). Those efforts laid the foundation for the expansion of the Fusion Center Guidelines to integrate the public safety and private sector entities. The guidelines are intended to ensure that fusion centers are established and operated consistently, with enhanced coordination efforts, strengthened partnerships, and improved crime-fighting and antiterrorism capabilities. Key elements include: sector-specific information and sharing plans; identification of goals for the fusion center; creation of a representative governance structure and collaborative environment for intelligence sharing among local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies, public safety agencies, and the private sector; utilization of memoranda of understanding (MOUs), non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), and other agency agreements, as appropriate; leveraging of databases, systems, and networks to maximize information sharing; creating environments that promote communication among entities; development and publication of privacy and civil liberties policies; ensuring appropriate security measures for the facility, data, and personnel; integration of technology, systems, and people; achievement of a diversified representation of personnel based on the needs and functions of the center; ensuring adequate personnel training; provision of multitiered educational program for intelligence-led policing and information sharing; offering a variety of intelligence services and products to customers; developing and adhering to a policies and procedures manual; defining expectations and performance measurement for determining effectiveness; establishing and maintaining the center based on funding availability and sustainability; and the development and implementation of a communications plan among personnel, officers, and the general public. The eighteen guidelines provided reflect those key concepts; the document includes eight appendices.

Washington, DC: DHS, 2023. 104p..

By Brenden Beck

Between 2016 and 2021, more than 400 unarmed people were killed by police during traffic stops. In addition, metropolitan areas that rely more on revenue from fines and fees experience more police killings. This study analyzed over 2,700 U.S. municipalities from 2009 to 2018 to describe the type of municipalities that collect the most money in monetary sanctions and investigate whether killings by police are more frequent in places that rely on fines and fees revenue. The author found that suburbs with larger Black populations rely the most on revenue from monetary sanctions and that municipalities that rely on such revenue have more police killings. This suggests municipalities’ fiscal landscape not only influences police contact with the public but also influences police violence. 

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences February 2023, 9 (2) 161-181

By Ram Subramanian, Jackie Fielding, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, Hernandez Stroud, and Taylor King    

Financial incentives throughout the criminal justice system encourage punitive enforcement and sustain mass incarceration. Realigning them will require action from municipalities to the federal government.

New York Brennan Center for Justice, 2022. 73p.

By Daniel C.K. Chow 

The proliferation of counterfeits for sale on e-commerce sites has created new and more dangerous challenges to brand owners than counterfeits sold through brick and mortar establishments. Most brand owners are currently focusing their efforts on simplifying and streamlining Notice and Takedown (“NTD”) procedures set up by ecommerce platforms to remove illegal listings. The shortcomings of these efforts are that NTDs do not directly reach the counterfeiter who remains free to conduct its illegal activities with impunity and that NTDs do not prevent delisted counterfeiters from reappearing in short order under a new fictitious name and identity. Brand owners should seek to induce China to rigorously enforce its recently enacted Electronic Commerce Law (“ECL”), which was designed by China’s lawmakers to create a “choke point” that excludes counterfeiters and other unscrupulous merchants from gaining access to online accounts. The ECL requires multiple layers of government review and approval that were designed so that they can be satisfied only by legitimate and economically viable business entities. To date, e-commerce sites in China do not strictly comply with the ECL, and U.S.-based ecommerce sites do not require any compliance whatsoever with the ECL. Rigorous enforcement of the ECL should result in preventing counterfeiters from gaining access to e-commerce sites based in China and the United States and should lead to a decrease in sales of counterfeits on the internet. 

Ohio State Legal Studies Research Paper No. 676. 52 Seton Hall Law Review 1053 (2022)

By Liberty, et al.

Whatever our postcode or the colour of our skin, we all deserve to grow up in communities where we are cared for and given the tools we need to flourish in life. But instead of investing in young people or providing support to deal with the causes of social problems, the government has given the police more powers to try and tackle the symptoms of these issues. This has led to more and more people being treated unfairly by the police, rather than being given the help they need. Our communities need investment, so that together we can create spaces and services that we know will give our young people the best chance in life. And we need to roll back the powers of the police so no-one faces harsh and traumatising treatment at the hands of police. That’s why a coalition including Liberty, have launched a groundbreaking report calling for a new approach to tackling serious youth violence, with the powers of the police rolled back and more funding and support given for young people to thrive., 

London?: 2023,Liberty, 133p.

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 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 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