By Dick M. Carpenter II, Kyle Sweetland and Jennifer McDonald

Code enforcement is supposed to be about protecting the public by discouraging— via monetary sanctions—dangerous driving and other hazardous personal conduct or property conditions. But in practice, local governments may also—or instead—use their code enforcement powers to raise revenue. This is taxation by citation. It is not a new phenomenon, but only in the past few years has it become an object of national concern. Despite the fresh spotlight, little is known about cities that engage in taxation by citation, beyond a few particularly egregious examples. To gain a better understanding of taxation by citation, this study explores the phenomenon through the lens of three Georgia cities—Morrow, Riverdale and Clarkston—that have historically relied on fines and fees from traffic and other ordinance violations for large proportions of their revenues. Consistent with case study research methods, we drew upon public data, a survey of and interviews with residents, photo and video records, and direct observation of the three cities and their municipal courts, which process the cities’ citations. Our results show: Over a five-year period, Morrow, Riverdale and Clarkston generated on average 14% to 25% of their revenues from fines and fees, while similarly sized Georgia cities took in just 3%. Such high levels of fines and fees revenue account for the second largest proportion of the cities’ revenues and may indicate taxation by citation. The three cities’ fines and fees revenues peaked in 2012 before beginning to decline as tax revenues increased. These trends generally correspond to the recession of the late 2000s and early 2010s and the subsequent recovery. This suggests the cities—which are poorer than average, face uncertain economic futures and have few means of generating substantial revenues—may have seen

fines and fees as a way out of a budget crunch. The sample cities issued many of their citations for traffic and other ordinance violations that presented little threat to public health and safety. Traffic violations posed only moderate risk on average, while property code violations were primarily about aesthetics. This suggests the cities are using their code enforcement powers for ends other than public protection.

To process citations, Morrow, Riverdale and Clarkston have their own courts, which are created and funded by the cities. These courts function as highly efficient revenue collectors. They process more cases than courts in similarly sized cities, and nearly everyone coming before them pleads or is found guilty. The three cities have few legal provisions preventing them from using their code enforcement powers for reasons other than public protection—or from violating citizens’ rights in the process. Cities may pay a price for taxation by citation. Morrow, Riverdale and Clarkston residents with recent citations reported lower levels of trust in government officials and institutions than residents without, suggesting cities that use code enforcement for revenue or other non-public safety reasons may undermine trust and cooperation in their communities. Taken together, these findings suggest taxation by citation is a function of the perceived need for revenue and the ability to realize it through code enforcement. Moreover, the phenomenon may be a matter of systemic incentives. City leaders need not set out to pick the pockets of residents. Instead, they may see fines and fees revenue as the answer to their cities’ problems and, absent obstacles such as independent courts or robust legal protections for people accused of ordinance violations, find themselves able to pursue it. And once in effect, the mechanisms necessary for taxation by citation—such as supremely efficient court procedures—may stick, becoming business as usual and ensuring fines and fees remain a reliable source of revenue. Our findings also suggest taxation by citation is shortsighted. Cities may gain revenue, but they may also pay a price for it in the form of lower community trust and cooperation. To avoid this outcome, cities should find other ways of shoring up their finances and use their code enforcement powers only to protect the public—and then only with meaningful safeguards for citizens’ rights in place.

Arlington, VA: Institute for Justice, 2019. 60p.

By Samuel Langton, Stijn Ruiter, Tim Verlaan

This paper describes the scale and composition of emergency demand for police services in Detroit, United States. The contribution is made in replication and extension of analyses reported elsewhere in the United States. Findings indicate that police spend a considerable proportion of time performing a social service function. Just 51% of the total deployed time responding to 911 calls is consumed by crime incidents. The remainder is spent on quality of life (16%), traffic (15%), health (7%), community (5%), and proactive (4%) duties. A small number of incidents consume a disproportionately large amount of police officer time. Emergency demand is concentrated in time and space, and can differ between types of demand. The findings further highlight the potential implications of radically reforming police forces in the United States. The data and code used here are openly available for reproduction, reuse, and scrutiny.

POLICE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH 2023, VOL. 24, NO. 5, 523–538

By Samuel Langton, Tim Verlaan, Stijn Ruiter

Analyses of emergency calls for service data in the United States suggest that around 50% of dispatched police deployment time is spent on crime-related incidents. The remainder of time is spent in a social service capacity: attending well-being checks and resolving disturbances, for instance. These findings have made a considerable contribution to the discourse around public perceptions of the police and the distribution of public funds towards (or away) from law enforcement. Yet, an outstanding issue remains. No investigation has been undertaken into whether findings are robust to the different ways in which ‘time spent’ is operationalized in these studies. Using dispatch data for Amsterdam during 2019, this study compares three operationalizations of ‘time spent’. Additionally, in order to provide some context on the potential mechanisms through which these different operationalizations might yield different results, we report on dispatch numbers per incident category and provide an initial exploration into ‘multi-dispatch’ incident types. We find that general proportional breakdowns are fairly robust to the time measure used. However, for some incident categories (e.g. Health) and incident types (e.g. Shootings), analyzed in isolation, the results are not robust to the different operationalizations. We propose that the mechanism explaining this lack of robustness can be traced to the high dispatch numbers for specific incident categories and types, particularly those with an imminent threat to life.

Crime Science volume 12, Article number: 20 (2023)

By David Taylor

Creating a Policed Society? Provides an analysis of the evolution of policing and its impact on society in the West Riding of Yorkshire during the Victorian era. Unlike many previous police histories, which have focussed on specific (mainly urban) forces, it looks at developments across a region and brings out the complex and ongoing debates about policing, the diversity of police provision and the varied impact and responses that took place. As well as drawing on earlier works devoted to specific towns, the book offers a wide-ranging approach that utilises a range of hitherto underused sources that provide important insights into the details of police experience, both individual and collective. The book is structured around three major problem areas that have a relevance beyond the bounds of the West Riding. They are: (1) the extent to which the various police forces can be seen to be efficient; (2) the extent to which the Victorian West Riding can be seen as a policed society; and (3) the extent to which the policing in the county can be described as consensual. The author argues, firstly, that, despite ongoing problems retention, discipline and ill-health, most late-Victorian forces in the West Riding satisfied their local and national masters of their efficiency and were significantly less inefficient than their mid-century counterparts. Secondly, it is argued that notwithstanding the limitations to police powers, the Victorian West Riding was recognisably a policed society (or more accurately, a collection of policed societies), not least in the eyes of the majority of the local community. Finally, despite clear demonstrations of popular hostility to the police, in towns and country, in the third quarter of the nineteenth century and the persistence of anti-police sentiments, particularly in certain districts and among certain social groups, it is argued that, by a realistic and dynamic (rather than absolutist) definition of policing by consent, the Victorian West Riding was policed more by consensus than coercion.

Huddersfield, UK: University of Huddersfield Press. 2024. 429p.

By Europol

This report is the first of its kind to analyse in depth the characteristics that make criminal actors particularly threatening. Enhancing law enforcement’s understanding of their functioning and core capabilities will further strengthen the fight against serious and organised crime. It is essential as a complement to a commodity-based approach. Context: enhancing our understanding of criminal networks 1 Europol, 2021, European Union Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment, A corrupting influence: the infiltration and undermining of Europe’s economy and society by organised crime, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, accessible at https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/ sites/default/files/documents/socta2021_1.pdf 2 Belgian presidency, Council of the European Union, Priorities, accessed on 8 February 2024, accessible at https://belgian-presidency.consilium.europa.eu/ en/programme/priorities/ 3 European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the EU roadmap to fight drug trafficking and organised crime, COM/2023/641 final, 18 October 2023, accessible at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52023DC0641 Serious and organised crime is omnipresent and continues to represent a major threat to the internal security of the European Union (EU). In order to fight it effectively, law enforcement needs to understand the key areas where it should prioritise resources. The threat posed by organised crime is often assessed through the dimension of criminal markets and criminal activities. However, the picture is incomplete without analysing the capabilities and intent of its key players. One key approach is to focus on and address the most threatening criminal networks that affect the internal security of the EU. Understanding their critical strengths is paramount as these are the criminal networks that exert significant negative impact on the societies and economies of EU Member States. The EU Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA) 2021 brought the changing relationships between criminal actors into focus in an organised crime landscape that is characterised by a networked environment where cooperation between criminals is fluid, systematic and profit-driven.1 The concept ‘criminal network’ reflects the nature of the current criminal landscape, which is complex and includes a variety of criminal associations. Criminal networks involve collaboration between groups and individuals – groups of different organisational character, and individuals who are either embedded within a particular network or operate outside of it. This analysis brings to light the characteristics of those criminal networks that pose the highest threat to the EU’s internal security. The aim is to strenghten our understanding of criminal networks, in order to help policy makers and law enforcement make informed policy and operational decisions to tackle them. This report responds to several initiatives that highlight the need to enhance our understanding of what shapes the threat of criminal networks, including by the EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers and the current Belgian Presidency of the EU Council.2 The results of the analysis will complement the commodity-based assessment of the EU SOCTA 2025 with a deeper criminal-actor focused analysis. It will also support the EMPACT Operational Action Plan on High-Risk Criminal Networks on developing a methodology to identify the most threatening criminal networks. It forms part of the EU roadmap to fight drug trafficking and organised crime under Action 4.  

Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.2024. 60p.

By Roy S. Gutterman

The shocking epidemic of police brutality, highlighted by recent cases including the George Floyd killing, continues to inspire protests and efforts to reform police activity. Reforms often encompass all branches of government—legislative, administrative and executive, and, of course, the courts. The Fourth Estate, the press, also plays an important role in serving as a check on government power and abuses, particularly in police brutality matters. Opening up public records, specifically police disciplinary reports, misconduct complaints, and other records, has come to the forefront of efforts for police reform. Numerous recent cases of police brutality and police killings of citizens, often people of color, stopped by police, sometimes police with long records of prior abuses, helped incorporate public scrutiny into the public discussion on police abuses. Officers in several high-profile cases had a long paper trail of previous complaints and abuses. Had this information been publicized earlier, the conventional wisdom is that perhaps they might not have been on the job to commit additional crimes under the color of law. Thus, media organizations and individual journalists exercising their First Amendment rights delve into public records and use them as the backbone for disseminating information about important public issues. Police misconduct certainly falls within the ambit of important news coverage. One important outgrowth of these dramatic and life-and-death cases has been legislation intended to open up police misconduct records to public scrutiny, which in some states have been locked behind restrictive and anti-democratic laws aimed at keeping these public records from the people who need them the most: the public. This Article will look at a series of laws and the subsequent legal challenges seeking to unlock police misconduct public records with a particular focus on New York Civil Rights Law section 50-a, which was repealed in January 2020 to lift the blanket shielding release of police disciplinary and misconduct files. The law was initially enacted in the 1970s to prevent criminal defense attorneys from securing law enforcement disciplinary and complaint files to impeach police witnesses. Over the decades, though, the blanket exemption also meant that journalists and media organizations could not employ public records requests to adequately and thoroughly cover police misconduct or other employment matters involving corrections officers, firefighters, and some other government officials who make life-and-death decisions, and those who should be subject to public scrutiny. In addition to recent dramatic and life-and-death cases, a 2018 New York Court of Appeals decision strictly interpreted the statute to uphold withholding law enforcement disciplinary records in a far-reaching public records request. In the short time since the repeal, section 50-a has been the subject of nearly a dozen lawsuits. State trial courts have issued rulings on 50-a litigation in a dozen reported opinions, and in late 2022, two Appellate Division decisions offered the first word on the law from a higher court. In one case, a municipality, the City of Rochester, signaled that it intended to appeal the ruling to the state high court, the Court of Appeals. Following the repeal, efforts to seek police misconduct records continue to make their way through the administrative process and the courts. In New York, challenges continue to flow through the system. Despite the two recent Appellate Division opinions, word from the state’s high court, the Court of Appeals, may be needed to clarify how the 50-a repeal should be interpreted and what standards will apply to both lower courts and, more importantly, the police departments and municipalities holding those records. It is no surprise that those seeking the release of police disciplinary and misconduct records following the repeal have been stymied by government officials, buttressed by police unions and a general antipathy for public scrutiny. Even in cases where courts have ordered agencies to comply with records requests, at least one municipality reported that it would likely take up to two years or more to comply or turn over documents (continued)

Hofstra Law Review, vol. 52(3) 2024, 41p.

By Shelley S. Hyland

This report describes the purpose for developing the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD), a centralized repository of official records documenting instances of law enforcement officer misconduct as well as commendations and awards to help inform hiring, job assignment, and promotion decisions. It also provides statistics on the NLEAD’s records, the federal law enforcement officers included, and its usage. This is the first annual report, and it covers NLEAD records for events occurring in calendar years 2018 to 2023 and usage of the NLEAD from January 1, 2024 to August 31, 2024.

Launched on December 18, 2023, the NLEAD was established in accordance with Section 5 of Executive Order 14074, Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices To Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety. The Justice Management Division was given responsibility for developing and maintaining the NLEAD, and BJS was given responsibility for producing the annual report.

Highlights

● As of September 20, 2024:

○ All federal law enforcement agencies required to report to the

NLEAD (N=90) and four additional agencies voluntarily submitted records or submitted documentation that they had zero qualifying incidents for all their officers for 2018–2023.

○ There were 4,790 records of federal officer misconduct and 4,011 federal law enforcement officers in the NLEAD for 2018–2023.

● In 2018–2023, 63% (3,031) of incidents in the NLEAD were for sustained complaints or records of disciplinary action based on findings of serious misconduct.

● From January 1, 2024 to August 31, 2024, 9,985 searches were conducted on records in the NLEAD.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2024. 15p.

By P. Jeffrey Brantingham , George Tita and Denise Herz

The City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) program was conceived as a comprehensive response to gang violence. Unlike most comprehensive approaches, suppression was excluded from the primary model. Program services including community engagement, gang prevention and intervention services, and street-based violence interruption, were formally launched in late 2011. Strict geographic eligibility criteria mean that GRYD services were available in some Los Angeles communities and not others. Using the geographic structure of GRYD, we use a place-based difference-in-differences model to estimate the effect of GRYD services on both violent and property crime. The analyses suggest a reduction in violent crime of around 18% in areas exposed to GRYD Comprehensive Strategy services, including aggravated assault and robbery. Similar declines are not observed in property crimes including burglary and car theft. Comparison with evaluations of placed-based gang injunctions demonstrate that GRYD is able to achieve nearly one-half of the reductions in crime without a suppression focus.

Justice Evaluation Journal

Volume 4, 2021 - Issue 2

By The New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller (OSC)

The New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) examined over 500 motor vehicle stops conducted by New Jersey State Police (NJSP) that ended with no enforcement. OSC looked at body-worn camera footage of stops that are rarely, if ever, watched—stops where tickets were not given, arrests were not made, and no one was even ordered to exit their vehicle. Most of the traffic stops OSC reviewed started with the trooper briefly explaining the reason for the stop and requesting a driver’s license, registration, and insurance. But in more than one out of four stops reviewed, the motorist presented a courtesy card, asserted a personal relationship with a law enforcement officer, or even flashed a law enforcement badge. When that happened, the side-of-the-road interactions

between the motorists and the stopping troopers shifted, and in some cases, shifted dramatically.

Sometimes, the motorist boldly handed over a courtesy card, occasionally in lieu of driving credentials, and the stop resolved relatively quickly with the trooper offering some version of “you’re good.” Other times, a driver volunteered “my dad is a lieutenant” or “my best friend works at [insert name of any law enforcement agency]” and received remarkably solicitous treatment from the trooper. This was the case even when the drivers were stopped for dangerous traffic infractions, such as driving more than 100 miles per hour or suspected drunk driving. The most serious consequence the troopers imposed in these stops was advising the motorists that they left a voicemail message for the law enforcement officer named on the courtesy card or invoked as a friend or relative. In one instance of suspected drunk driving, the trooper also warned the driver to “stay off my highway,” after reminding him how bad things would be if he crashed under the circumstances.

OSC’s Police Accountability Project initiated this investigation in response to multiple reports that New Jersey law enforcement officers’ exercise of discretion in motor vehicle stops is often influenced by improper factors, such as courtesy cards given to or purchased by motorists. OSC reviewed more than 3,000 minutes of body-worn camera footage, which included 501 traffic stops conducted by a sample of NJSP troopers over a ten-day period in late 2022. In doing so, OSC found evidence of a two-tiered system in which motorists with ties to law enforcement—no matter how tenuous—were given preferential treatment.

Among the findings:

● Courtesy cards—which are given out by police labor associations and sold by private companies online—appear to be in wide usage and function as accepted currency. Of the 501 stops OSC reviewed, 87 motorists presented courtesy cards which came from municipal police departments, county and state agencies, as well as inter-state and out-of-state law enforcement agencies. They all appeared to be equally effective at getting motorists released without enforcement.

● Motorists who asserted personal relationships with law enforcement have similarly strong social capital that often has the same effect as a courtesy card. In ten percent of the stops, the motorist did not present a courtesy card but cited a relationship to a law enforcement officer and was able to evade any consequences, even for serious motor vehicle violations. In one stop, a driver was speeding 103 miles per hour. The trooper released her after she said her father was a lieutenant. Another motorist, stopped for tailgating, speeding, and

driving over the median in a tunnel, was released promptly after he cited a friendship with a law enforcement officer.

● Many active duty law enforcement officers were observed using their official government position to get out of a ticket. Some volunteered that they were law enforcement, some flashed badges, and in one instance, a trooper sitting in the back seat of a car offered up his badge number.

● Troopers’ decisions to grant preferential treatment to motorists who have courtesy cards or asserted close personal relationships with law enforcement seem to be having a discriminatory impact. White motorists were more likely to hold a courtesy card or assert a relationship to law enforcement. Of the 87 courtesy cards observed in the sample, for instance, 69 were presented by White drivers, while Black, Hispanic/LatinX, Asian, and other drivers presented a combined 18 courtesy cards.

● NJSP policy requires troopers to request and review driving credentials (driver’s license, vehicle registration, and proof of insurance) for all stopped drivers. Yet, drivers without courtesy cards or a close relationship with law enforcement were more likely to have all three driving credentials requested and verified by the trooper, more likely to have the trooper take the extra step of conducting a full motor vehicle lookup in the computer, and more likely to be given some form of a warning.

● An overall analysis of the full sample revealed racial disparities that went beyond courtesy cards. White and Asian drivers were less likely to have all three of their credentials requested and verified when compared to Black and Hispanic/LatinX drivers. And Hispanic/LatinX drivers who were stopped were generally subjected to a more thorough computerized lookup. Most striking, troopers conducted computerized lookups of Hispanic/LatinX drivers 65 percent of the time, while looking up White drivers only 34 percent of the time.

● Out of the 501 stops that resulted in no enforcement, 232 related to speeding. At least 80 of those stops were for 20 or more miles per hour over the speed limit. Speeding is one of the common causes of traffic fatalities.

In short, this two-tiered system of justice that provides differing treatment for those with law enforcement connections and those without is unethical, discriminatory, and fundamentally unfair. It also contributes to making New Jersey roads less safe. Traffic fatalities on New Jersey roads continue to rise, with fatal crashes at the end of November 2024 already well surpassing the number of fatal crashes from the prior year. Impaired driving and speeding are some of the leading causes of accidents. Millions of public dollars are allocated to law enforcement agencies throughout the state to prioritize safety

initiatives and adherence to traffic laws. Yet for some drivers, these priorities do not seem to apply.

For these reasons, and those set forth in more detail below, OSC makes 11 recommendations and has also made appropriate referrals. OSC’s findings also make clear that regular review of no enforcement stops could provide valuable insight into officer discretion and also could reveal why particular data trends persist, highlight the need for training or retraining and updates to policies, and ensure that the motor vehicle laws are being enforced fairly and equitably. While some of the drivers in this sample had courtesy cards or asserted relationships to law enforcement, many did not, and yet still avoided any consequences for often serious violations.

Trenton: New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller, 2024. 38p.

By Graham Farrell

The vehicle theft rate in the United States declined 80 percent between 1990 and 2020. Remarkably, this remains unexplained. This study examines historical evidence including reports to Congress plus automobile industry data from the Federal Register. Legislation incentivised security improvements that were fitted to high-risk vehicles from the late 1980s. Analysis of the industry data fnds that theft of vehicles with electronic engine immobilizers declined 80 percent relative to a matched control group and theft of new secure vehicles declined before older vehicles. Theft declined gradually over the years as secure vehicles permeated the national vehicle feet, the prolonged decline reflecting the arms race between manufacturers’ responses and offender effort to circumvent security. The study concludes that the electronic engine immobilizer caused the great American car crime decline. If this induced declining crime more generally, the electronic engine immobilizer may be the most important crime prevention device of recent history.

Security Journal (2025) 38:10

By Dongpil Son · Boyeong Im · Jaeseok Her · Woojin Park · Seok-Jin Kang · Seung-Nam Kim

Nighttime activities have significantly increased in cities, underscoring the growing importance of nocturnal lighting in fostering emotional stability and comfort of people. This study utilized simulated virtual reality (SVR) technologies to investigate the relationship between lighting environment and fear of crime in narrow residential streets. We created virtual models replicating a typical low-rise residential area in Seoul, Korea, diversified into eight environments representing different times of day with corresponding lighting scenarios (natural light, streetlamps, and interior building lights). One hundred recruited young adult participants were asked to experience four randomly selected environments and rate their perceived level of fear of crime while wearing a head-mounted display. The ordinal logistic regression analysis demonstrated that fear of crime was influenced not only by natural light but also significantly by artificial lights on streets and inside buildings.

Specifically, while a decrease in natural illuminance contributes to an increase in fear of crime in general (especially shortly after sunset), the role of natural illuminance was minimized immediately after streetlamp activation. After p.m. 8:30, when other light sources are relatively constant, fear of crime was significantly influenced by the proportion of interior building lights turned on. In residential areas where preventing light pollution is also crucial, a comprehensive strategy is necessary rather than solely focusing on improving illuminance levels to create safe and comfort lighting environment

Virtual Reality (2025) 29:8

By Lara Trautman

Long a bit player in the growing movement to reimagine the criminal justice system, prosecutors are finally entering the spotlight. Leveraging the tremendous authority of the office, they have begun to reshape the flow of criminal cases and nudge outcomes in a more productive direction. These early successes, however, should not obscure a broader truth: they cannot do it alone. Prosecutorial efforts can only realize their lofty potential for positive change with the active and enduring support of state legislatures. With unparalleled power over everything from charging decisions to plea bargaining, it may seem as though prosecutors could bend the justice system to their will without any assistance. Yet, the reality is much more complicated. For example, expansive charging and pretrial decision-making is relatively ineffective without the provision of strong alternatives to traditional prosecutorial pathways. Likewise, low funding can stymie individualized consideration of cases while poor data collection can get in the way of evidence-based policy. And here is where the legislature can and must step in. Only they have the power to remove many of these external roadblocks to constructive and beneficial prosecutorial action. Rewriting the law and adjusting appropriations can ensure that prosecutors have the tools, authority and discretion necessary to transform prosecution. Accordingly, this brief is offered as a guide for those legislators who wish to become allies in the prosecutor-driven reform movement by proposing specific actions legislatures can take to support prosecutors who are attempting to improve the criminal justice system in their jurisdictions

R STREET SHORTS NO. 88 April 2020

Washington, DC: R Street, 2020. 5p.

By Nila Bala and Emily Mooney

Seventeen-year-old William Miller was simply trying to go to a morning dentist appointment, when two adults—a school resource officer and school discipline assistant—blocked off the exit and threatened him with suspension if his car proceeded further. William explained that his absence was excused and that he could provide a note supporting the legitimacy of the excuse upon his return. But the officer and assistant continued to block the exit and tell him that, unless he got a parent on the line, he would be considered truant if he left. At one point, body cam footage shows the teenager attempting to pull his car around the deputy’s golf cart, only for the police officer to say, “You’re going to get shot if you come another fucking foot close to me. You run into me, you’ll get fucking shot.” William does not proceed further, but the arguments between the 17-year-old and two adults continue for several minutes. Seemingly unbeknownst to them, William’s mother had already called the school earlier to inform them of his absence and grant her permission. Nevertheless, River Ridge High School later suspended William for multiple weeks and then expelled him due to the incident. The adults involved faced no admonishments or repercussions for their behavior. Incidents like these should cause all people to question the role and priorities of police who interact with children in school settings. After all, children are different from adults, and William’s behavior, although perhaps immature, is far from unexpected. Developmental research (and any parent’s anecdotal accounts) suggest youth, especially teenagers, are often highly-impulsive and risk-loving. Given these facts, responses to their misbehavior—William’s attempt to go around the golf cart in this instance—should be crafted with care and informed by youth development principles. However, accounts like this, along with others in Miami and Chicago, demonstrate that this is not always how police youth interactions are handled. And, even the most well-intentioned police officers may cause more harm than good by unnecessarily introducing youth to the justice system, interacting with youth in a manner that leads to a negative impression or by exacerbating racial and ethnic disparities in the system. Accordingly, this policy study seeks to provide an overview of the current state of policing within school settings. It will then focus on identifying conservative priorities for police to uphold in this context, acknowledging that schools and communities often ask police to do more than they are best equipped for or should do. And it will offer potential policy considerations for positive change.

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 196 March 2020

Washington, DC: R Street, 2020. 8p.

By Lars Trautman

As defined by convictions, sentence lengths, and the relentless enforcement of the law, for decades, conservatives have prized “toughness” above all other attributes in assessing a prosecutor’s worth. Indeed, until recently, this same mindset permeated conservatives’ approach to nearly every other aspect of the criminal justice system. But then something interesting happened. Starting in Texas and quickly spreading to other “red” states and beyond, conservatives began to realize that mentality actually undermined the very goals they were pursuing. From public safety to fiscal probity, individual liberty to human dignity, a “smart on crime” approach that addressed underlying causes of crime proved better able to deliver than the old status quo that all too often relied on incarceration as the antidote to societal ills. Reform has followed in nearly every state2 and even managed to pass a notoriously divided Congress. The legislative focus of these conservative efforts to date, however, belies the intrinsically local nature of criminal justice. The fates of the overwhelming majority of individuals who come into contact with the criminal justice system are determined by a collection of county, town and city officials. Perhaps foremost among these is the local district attorney. After all, while a judge may act as the king in his court, only the district attorney has the ability to influence criminal proceedings in every single courtroom across her jurisdiction. The district attorney’s office is thus a natural channel for new criminal justice ideas. This realization has helped to propel a growing movement on the political left to elect “progressive prosecutors” who wield the broad powers of the office to further liberal criminal justice goals relating to decarceration and racial justice, among others.5 Plaudits have come from all corners for many of these efforts6 and the result is a coherent narrative around what it means to be a liberal-minded prosecutor in the twenty-first century. Of course, plenty of reasonable and just prosecutors have no aspirations to ever wear the “progressive” label, nor would their constituents want them to. This raises two related questions for prosecutors who reject this progressive mold, yet nevertheless yearn to be smarter and more even-handed than their predecessors: can the disruption of traditional prosecutorial practices align with a more conservative worldview and what does the center-right path toward more fair and effective prosecution look like? The answer is that a conservative prosecutor can and should challenge current prosecutorial practices by striving to become a more productive prosecutor in the broader sense of the term. This means ensuring that every prosecutorial decision is productive insofar as it produces an outcome that actually improves community wellbeing. It requires a subtle understanding that a charge, conviction or sentence is not itself the outcome, merely a factor building toward one that includes a safer community and rehabilitated defendant. Ultimately, trading a penchant for tough prosecutors for those who are productive in this manner will allow conservatives to forge a more constructive prosecutorial identity that does a better job of efficiently pursuing justice and keeping their communities secure and whole

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 193 January 2020

Washington, DC: R Street, 2020. 6p.

By Lars Trautman

In many ways, the criminal justice system is the epitome of government control; it is also a system marked by high costs and poor outcomes, especially for juveniles. Seeking to build a more effective system, Florida established its civil citation and similar diversion programs to provide an alternative path for juveniles accused of committing low-level offenses. These programs empowered civil society and community members to contribute at all levels, including as program operators, treatment and service providers, and as a source of volunteers for government managed programs. The results of this public-private partnership have been largely positive, including boasting the lowest recidivism rate of all of the programs under the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice’s purview, which suggests the value of empowering civil society to help address criminal justice issues.

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. 22p;

By SteVon Felton

The 1991 beating of Rodney King and the subsequent acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers responsible for the attack sparked massive riots and protests across the nation. Following an investigation by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, Congress granted the attorney general the power to investigate “a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers that violates Constitutional or federal rights.” In cases of a proven pattern or practice of police misconduct, the court may use a federal, court-enforced order, known as a consent decree, as a mechanism to force police departments to address institutional failures. Under such orders, a law enforcement agency and the Justice Department, overseen by an independent monitor, negotiate and establish concrete benchmarks to determine which reforms will constitute the successful end of the decree. Since the first consent decree in 1994, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department has conducted over 65 investigations and entered into 40 reform agreements with police departments across the country. According to the Division, these negotiations are most effective when they can “ensure accountability, transparency and the flexibility to accomplish complex institutional reforms.” Indeed, a number of studies have now confirmed that consent decrees helped resolve management and oversight issues in cities such as Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Cincinnati.4 However, while federal consent decrees have their place in promoting systemic policy change, they consistently fail to effect local and cultural change within departments. Several factors contribute to this phenomenon. For starters, as is often the case, centralized models like federal consent decrees cannot adequately adjust to localized systems of knowledge and regional distinctions between departments. Because they target local governments rather than individuals, the reform agreements reached by the DOJ and local law enforcement agencies often fail to sustain cultural change.5 Moreover, within some police departments, consent decrees lack the very thing that is perhaps most important to their success—the support of officers. Without buy-in from individual officers, police departments often disregard best practices that they view as externally forced upon them. And because policing is a profession that allows substantial discretion, in some departments officers openly ignore state and federal policies.6 Given the localized nature of police-citizen interactions, a top-down approach to police reform is virtually guaranteed to be unsuccessful. In light of these failures, the New Orleans Police Department’s Ethical Policing is Courageous (EPIC) program provides an alternative structure that begins with officers’ localized knowledge level and ends with systemic change. By allowing officers to police themselves, EPIC utilizes them and their experiences as resources to promote meaningful change

R STREET SHORTS NO. 70 April 2019

Washington, DC: R Street, 2019. 5p.

By Sophia Hunt, Claudia Nmai, and Matthew Clair

This report summarizes perceptions of policing among a racially and socio-economically diverse sample of 37 people who faced criminal charges in the Hall of Justice, a courthouse in San Jose, California, between August 2021 and March 2022. A majority of criminal defendants we interviewed reported negative perceptions of personal police treatment, but a considerable minority reported positive perceptions. Among those who reported negative perceptions, two criticisms were common: (1) individual police officers’ violence, abuse, and fabrication of evidence; and (2) systemic policing practices that are overly intrusive and estrange certain disfavored groups in the Bay Area, such as the unhoused. Among those who reported positive perceptions, some believe that, despite their personal experiences of positive treatment, police do not treat everyone fairly and policing quality varies by context and the race of the policed person. Alongside these perceptions, a handful of defendants in the sample offered visions for changing policing. Two notable visions were: (1) reallocating resources from police departments toward other city services or under-resourced groups; and (2) reforming police departments in ways that reduce discrimination and abuse. While we discuss variation along demographic characteristics in our sample, we foreground how the range of experiences and visions of policing in San Jose have implications for policymakers and future research.

Court Listening Project, Report no. 1. Court Listening Project ((c/o Matthew Clair, Stanford University) 2022, 15p.

By John Bansemer, Greg Rattray and Franklin Lee

The R Street Institute has conducted a study of the challenges associated with improving state and municipal responses to cyber attacks. This study leverages existing reports, interviews with defenders at the state and municipal level, experts studying these challenges, as well as workshops conducted in conjunction with the New York Cyber Task Force. It describes the shape of the challenges and offers recommendations for action to improve state and municipal cyber response capabilities. Further, understanding the associated challenges and extending the work on the recommendations within this report requires significant follow-on efforts. This report seeks to engage and assist those on the front line—governors, mayors, personnel, and state and local governmental organizations. While the federal government and the private sector play key roles, they were not the specific focus of this study

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 229 May 2021, 13p.

By Lars Trautman and Camille Infantolino

As with so many facets of American life, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic hit the criminal justice system like a tsunami, upending existing practices and forcing leaders to rapidly consider new approaches. The fast-spreading, deadly contagion added new urgency to long-festering issues, especially the problems associated with the sheer number of individuals contained within and processed through the system. To protect those working within jails and prisons or those facing the prospect of becoming confined, jurisdictions adopted new policies to reduce the number of individuals entering the system altogether, or at least its correctional facilities. One of the primary ways in which jurisdictions grappled with that priority was by instituting new alternatives to arrest. Across the country, jurisdictions expanded citations in lieu of arrest, deprioritized police stops for minor transgressions, and changed how they received and responded to certain civilian complaints. In each of these instances, the policy shifts suited the COVID-19 situation especially well because of their propensity to reduce unnecessary human contact, particularly in close quarters. Of course, whether jurisdictions retain and even expand these measures, or whether additional jurisdictions follow suit, will depend on more than simply their immediate health benefits. In addition to considering how well the policies lived up to their promises of saving resources, avoiding unproductive police encounters and reducing government interference in individuals’ lives, local authorities will have to weigh the political and public reaction to their introduction. Indeed, one obstacle to alternatives to arrest that has existed since long before the pandemic is fear about how the public will respond to their adoption. Accordingly, the present brief addresses some of these concerns by delving into COVID-19- inspired shifts in alternatives-to-arrest policy and examines how these changes were received in the popular press.

R STREET SHORTS NO. 98 December 2020, 4p.

By Matthew B. Ross

 1. Introduction In November 2021, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (NJOPIA) engaged the author of this study for the purpose of conducting an independent analysis of traffic stops made by the New Jersey State Police (NJ-SP). Based on the author’s extensive experience working with state and local policymakers to develop early warning systems for identifying police disparities, the NJ OPIA requested that the analysis focus on the central question of whether there was disparate treatment on the part of NJ-SP towards racial and ethnic minorities.2 After cleaning and linking all of the raw data provided by the New Jersey Office of Law Enforcement Professional Standards (NJ-OLEPS), the analytical sample used in this analysis consisted of 6,177,109 traffic stops made by NJ-SP from 2009 to 2021. In the full analytical sample, 60.52 percent of traffic stops were made of White non-Hispanic motorists while 18.8 percent were Black/African-American and 13.44 percent were Hispanic/Latinx. The overall volume of minority motorists stopped by NJ-SP increased from 35.34 percent in 2009 to 46.28 percent in 2021. The overarching finding from the analysis of the NJ-SP data from 2009-21 is that there was extremely strong evidence of a large and persistent disparity both is the decision to stop as well as the decision to engage in post-stop enforcement like search, vehicular exits, use of force, and arrest. In general, the results were estimated with a very high degree of statistical confidence, survived multiple robustness tests, and were found across most years and troops/stations. In the opinion of this study’s author, these disparities represent strong empirical evidence that NJ-SP is engaged in enforcement practices that result in adverse treatment towards minority motorists. Following best practices, this study applies an ensemble of the most reliable statistical tests available in the scientific literature. The intuition of this approach is that the shortcomings of any individual test are overcome by the totality of the evidence produced by a multitude of tests examining a broad set of enforcement outcomes.

Boston: Northeastern University, 2023. 44p.