By The United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division and United States Attorney’s Offices Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Louisiana

On the evening of May 10, 2019, near Monroe, Louisiana, a Louisiana State Police trooper tried to stop a 49-year-old Black man named Ronald Greene for speeding and running a red light. Mr. Greene drove away. For 14 minutes, officers pursued him until he lost control of his vehicle, crashing on the side of the road. According to a sergeant that LSP regarded as its in-house use-of-force expert, what happened in the ensuing hours, weeks, and months was a “catastrophic failure in a million different directions.” Multiple LSP troopers and sheriff’s deputies arrived at the scene of the crash. They tased Mr. Greene repeatedly and pulled him out of his car. They punched him, dragged him by ankle shackles, and left him face down in the road. When Mr. Greene tried to roll onto his side, a trooper put his foot on Mr. Greene’s buttocks to hold him down on his stomach. That trooper later told a supervisor, “I’m trying to keep him laying down. I was going to sit him up, but I don’t want him spitting blood all over us.” Mr. Greene pleaded, “I’m scared. I’m your brother. I’m scared.” The LSP troopers deactivated or muted their body-worn cameras. When a supervisor arrived, he casually stepped over Mr. Greene, who laid moaning on the ground, and instead asked the troopers if they were ok. None of the troopers rendered aid to Mr. Greene, who became unresponsive and died before he reached the hospital. After Mr. Greene died, troopers filed reports attributing his death to a car accident. “We investigate crashes every day,” one trooper later told us. “No way someone died from a car crash with that damage.” One trooper who was there misdated the incident in an official report. LSP’s designated use-of-force expert at the time believed that was a deliberate attempt to cover up the incident. Another trooper miscategorized camera footage in LSP’s systems. And the supervisor who stepped over Mr. Greene’s body that night signed off on all the use-of-force reports. Over 15 months passed before LSP opened an Internal Affairs investigation into Mr. Greene’s death. In the intervening days and months, LSP troopers—including one involved in Mr. Greene’s death—would go on to assault more drivers. It was not until September 2020, 16 months after the incident, that LSP fired one of the troopers involved. It would take until 2021 for LSP to suspend a second trooper and fire a third who was involved in both Mr. Greene’s death and an assault of a different Black man. Mr. Greene’s death and its aftermath demonstrated serious failures at LSP—excessive force, improper supervision, ineffective training, and breakdowns in accountability. As our civil pattern or practice investigation revealed, these failures were not isolated, but part of a larger pattern or practice of law enforcement conduct that deprives people in Louisiana of their rights under the Constitution.

Following a comprehensive investigation, the Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that the Louisiana State Police engage in a statewide pattern or practice of using excessive force, which violates the Fourth Amendment. Our investigation, opened in 2022, also included examining whether LSP engages in racially discriminatory policing. At this time, we make findings only as to excessive force. Though this investigation reveals systemic problems, we recognize that most LSP troopers work hard to keep the public safe. We commend LSP troopers and staff who devote their professional lives to serving the community. LSP began making much-needed reforms after video of Mr. Greene’s death became public in 2021, two years after the incident. We believe those changes may have contributed to some recent improvements in use-of-force practices. The changes include revising LSP’s use-of-force policy, creating a Force Investigation Unit to investigate serious uses of force, and updating training programs. However, more reforms are needed to remedy the unlawful conduct we found. We describe recommended changes at the end of this report. We hope to work constructively with the State and LSP to implement these reforms.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, 2025. 32p.

By Jillian Long

Incidents of police-involved shootings resulting in the death of unarmed civilians, such as Andre Hill in 2020, Bijan Ghaisar in 2017, and Michael Brown in 2014, have raised concerns about law enforcement use of deadly force, particularly involving firearms. In light of these concerns, growing attention has been paid to less-than-lethal weapons (LLWs) and the role LLWs may play in providing law enforcement officers alternatives to the use of deadly force.

A multitude of weapons marketed as less-than-lethal alternatives to firearms are currently in use by federal, state, and local law enforcement, including batons, pepper sprays, and stun guns. There are also a number of LLWs in development, such as unmanned aircraft systems (drones) equipped with tear gas, rubber bullets, and TASERs.

Some observers contend that LLWs offer the possibility of minimizing risk of death and serious injury to citizens and officers while simultaneously providing law enforcement with effective tools to incapacitate violent or noncompliant persons. Nevertheless, there is evidence that LLWs may present a number of potential health risks, lending credence to arguments that LLWs are less-than-lethal in name, but, depending on the circumstances of their use, can be lethal in practice. For example, a team of journalists led by the Associated Press, in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs at the University of Maryland and Arizona State University, documented over 1,000 deaths that followed local and state police officers’ use of less-than-lethal force from 2012 to 2021. Similarly, a 2019 Reuters investigation of deaths related to law enforcement use of TASERs found that 1,081 individuals had died after being hit by a police TASER from 1983 to 2017.

Should policymakers consider examining ways to legislate on the use of LLWs, numerous issues may garner attention. Currently, there is no single, universally accepted definition of less-than-lethal weapon, and the use of the term varies greatly among U.S. federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. Conceptualizing a definition for LLWs raises a number of questions, including whether LLWs should be defined

• under a label other than less-than-lethal,

• according to a common capability,

• according to a common operational utility,

• according to an intended use to minimize risk of death and permanent injury, or

• according to a common application.

Policymakers could consider whether it is beneficial to establish a statutory definition of less-than-lethal weapon. Codifying the meaning of LLWs could be useful in terms of clarifying what weapons are (and are not) classified as less-than-lethal, which may help sharpen the focus and potential efficacy of policies. On the other hand, some may argue that law enforcement agencies and departments are better suited to define LLWs and, thereby, address LLWs in their individualized use-of-force policies, based on their organization’s specific needs, duties, and circumstances.

Moreover, there are relatively little federal data available on law enforcement officers’ use of LLWs and, consequently, few studies analyzing the health effects caused by law enforcement’s use of such weapons. Policymakers may wish to direct a federal agency or department to conduct research into LLW injury and mortality. Based on these findings, policymakers could consider legislative actions to influence law enforcement use of LLWs, such as (1) passing a bill encouraging or limiting federal law enforcement officers’ usage of LLWs and (2) placing provisions on or withholding funding from existing federal grant programs to incentivize or discourage state and local law enforcement usage of LLWs.

R48365

Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, January 23, 2025I

27p.

By Mylan Denerstein

This is the Monitor’s 23rd report and second report focused on the compliance of the New York City Police Department’s (the “Department” or “NYPD”) Neighborhood Safety Teams (“NST”) and Public Safety Teams (“PST”) with constitutional requirements in executing stops, frisks, and searches. In March 2021, the NYPD initiated NST units in certain precincts to combat gun violence in high-crime areas. Officers in NST units engage in proactive stop, frisks, and searches, and generally they are not expected to respond to 911 calls-for-service. NST officers drive unmarked cars and wear uniforms distinct from those worn by NYPD patrol officers. In June 2023, the Monitor filed the Nineteenth Report of the Independent Monitor (the “19th Report”) with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which contained results of the Monitor team’s 2022 audit of the NSTs. That report concluded that NST officers performed substantially below constitutional standards and had a rate of unlawful Terry stops nine percentage points higher than their counterparts in regular patrol positions. In addition, the report concluded that supervisors in the Department failed to identify and remediate unlawful reported stops. To determine Fourth Amendment compliance with the stops, frisks, and searches conducted by NSTs since the filing of the 19th Report, the Monitor began a second, more comprehensive audit of NSTs and PSTs, another specialized proactive enforcement unit, to assess their compliance with court-ordered reforms. This follow-up report audits NST, PST, and regular patrol officers based on stops, frisks, and searches conducted in 2023. It compares NST officers with their counterparts on regular patrol and in PSTs and measures compliance rates of all supervisors and officers regardless of unit assignment. Based on the 2023 audit, the Report concludes that NST and PST officers are not performing stops, frisks, and searches at constitutional levels, and that supervisors of NST, PST, and patrol officers are not appropriately overseeing their officers. Some of the key findings are below: • This 2023 audit shows that NST officers’ constitutional compliance with respect to stops, frisks, and searches did not improve since the Monitor’s 2022 audit. • In the 2023 audit, NST officers had reasonable suspicion (and thus a lawful basis) for 75% of the reported Terry stops, slightly below the NST percentage of 76% compliance in the 2022 audit. • In the 2023 audit, NST officers made lawful stops at a rate of 75%, 17 percentage points lower than their patrol counterparts’ rate of 92%. • In the 2023 audit, PST officers also made lawful stops at a rate lower than patrol officers, with only 64% of their reported stops being assessed as lawful, which is 28 percentage points lower than their patrol counterparts’ rate of 92%. • In the 2023 audit, NST officers and PST officers overwhelmingly conducted self-initiated stops (70% and 77%, respectively, were self-initiated), while officers on routine patrol primarily conducted stops based on radio runs (68% were radio runs). • In the 2023 audit, regardless of the officer’s unit assignment (NST, PST, Patrol, or other), Terry stops based on a complainant/witness (100% lawful) or a radio run (94% lawful) were nearly all constitutional, while only 65% of self-initiated stops were assessed as lawful. • In the 2023 audit, NST officers had reasonable suspicion for only 58% of the frisks assessed and had a legal basis for only 54% of the searches assessed. • In the 2023 audit, despite significant numbers of unlawful stops, frisks, and searches, command-level supervisors of NST, PST, and Patrol officers only determined that 1% of stops were unlawful and 1% of frisks and searches were unlawful. • In 95% of the stop reports in this audit in which race was identified (N=385) and 93% of the BWC videos assessed (N=697), the person stopped was identified as Black or Hispanic. Of the 397 stop reports in which gender was indicated, 97% were male. Overall, in this audit, 89% of the individuals encountered were Black or Hispanic males. The NYPD must focus on supervisors ensuring implementation of constitutionally compliant stops, frisks, and searches. The Department must improve Fourth Amendment compliance levels and NST and PST units must be better supervised. The ball is in the Department’s hands, and the NYPD can do this. The law requires no less.

New York: New York Police Department Monitor, 2025. 51p.

By Europol. Strategic Group on Technology and Ethics 

Europol was mandated in 2019 by the EU Justice and Home Affairs ministers to create an Innovation Lab to support the law enforcement community in the area of innovation. The Lab aims to identify, promote and develop concrete innovative solutions in support of the EU Member States’ operational work. These will help investigators and analysts to make the most of the opportunities offered by new technology to avoid duplication of work, create synergies and pool resources. The activities of the Lab are directly linked to the strategic priorities as laid out in Europol Strategy 2020+, which states that Europol shall be at the forefront of law enforcement innovation and research. The European Clearing Board for ‘Tools, Methods and Innovations in the field of technical support of operations and investigations’ (EuCB) was launched by the Heads of Europol National Units (HENUs) in their meeting of 5 November 2020. It is composed of Single Points of Contact (SPoCs) from the Europol Innovation Lab, all EU Member States and the four Schengen-associated countries. SPoCs meet regularly in plenary meetings, during which they update each other on innovative projects and tools and decide on new joint collaboration activities. The Strategic Group on Technology and Ethics was founded in 2021 under the umbrella of the EuCB. Currently, the group is composed of representatives from Australia, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. One of the objectives of the group has been to create these guidelines ‘Assessing technology in law enforcement: A method for ethical decision-making’ for the benefit of all EuCB members. A method for applying ethics in practical decision-making Digital transformation and technology are vitally important in enhancing order and security but may also pose a threat to fundamental rights and freedoms. This document presents a method for assessing novel technology from a perspective of widely accepted values and principles. The guidelines contain a description of the central values and ethical principles, and give examples in the form of use cases, illustrating how they may be applied in structured decision-making and evaluation, in situations involving new technology in law enforcement. The use cases show how the method can be helpful in forming transparent and understandable arguments for trustworthy decisions about the adoption and use of various types of technology in law enforcement. The values and principles discussed here are also valuable when cooperating European law enforcement authorities are in search of common moral ground in their respective practices. The work of the Strategic Group on Technology and Ethics is based on methods used in clinical ethics committees and insights from value-based practices in policing – in addition to studies of ethical guidelines for technology and a survey of values central to European law enforcement authorities. Part I of the guidelines explains the seven steps of the method, while Part II sets out use cases to illustrate the application of the method in practice. Precautions regarding the use cases It should be noted that the use cases in Part II have not been legally vetted. They serve to illustrate the present method, and although the conclusion of a use case may be that it is ethical to use the technology (under certain conditions), this should NOT be understood as a conclusion concerning its legality. Legal regulation of law enforcement’s use of technology exists on many levels, both nationally and internationally, and it is beyond the mandate and resources of the Strategic Group on Technology and Ethics to perform a legal assessment of each use case scenario. It is a virtue of the present guidelines that they provide for transparency concerning the principles and values taken into consideration by the decision-maker, and ensure that the making of a decision is specific with respect to local, political, social, cultural and economic contexts, and the technology in question. This also implies that the use cases will never merely be copied to a domestic setting. While they may provide guidance and inspiration, the decision-maker is always responsible for producing an original assessment that takes account of the concrete circumstances in the actual situation. Ethics and the law To the members of Europol, it is fundamental that any development and deployment of technology in law enforcement must be lawful. For the purpose of these guidelines, it is thus assumed that, in a concrete case, issues of legality have already been duly addressed according to appropriate procedures. In the field of new technologies in law enforcement, however, the law may sometimes lag behind, leaving grey areas that are open for interpretation. A structured ethical approach, as presented in these guidelines, may shed light on the values and principles involved, and suggest which interpretation is ethically defendable. In the same vein, the present value-based reflective method may play a constructive role in the legislative process, by making visible – and more understandable – the ethical concerns that legislators should take into account when striking the balance between freedom and security in the field of law enforcement. Law enforcement’s development and/or use of new technology also regularly raises issues related to fundamental rights, where law and ethics are closely intertwined and the lines between the two may become blurred. This, too, leaves space for the present method to contribute with new perspectives and enrich our understanding of the issues at stake. A ‘living’ document The intention is to make this a ‘living’ document, that is, a document that captures new technology as well as novel applications of technology already in use. This is provided for by the expansion over time of the collection of use cases, which may integrate further developments in this area on European and national levels. This should also be reflected in Initiatives for training in the use of the method. By its dynamic character the document aims to be a durable resource for law enforcement authorities and policy makers.

Europol 2025. 30p.

By Gregory D. Breetzke and Luna Asefaw Girmay

Research examining the crime drop has become increasingly popular with a plethora of studies showing how crime has declined since the 1990s. The vast majority of this research has, however, emanated from the United States and other ‘Western’ countries. In this study, we undertook a national-level analysis of crime trends in South Africa from 2010 to 2019 using official police data. Results showed that crime did drop marginally in the country over the study period although there is substantial variability in crime decline by crime type and geography. Moreover, various socio-demographic characteristics, such as income inequality, were found to possibly influence the temporal trends of crime in the country observed. These findings underscore the importance of context-specific analyses in understanding decadal crime trends and highlight the need for targeted, geographically nuanced approaches to crime prevention in South Africa

Security Journal (2025) 38:14

By Susan Olzak

An underlying premise of democratic politics is that protest can be an effective form of civic engagement that shapes policy changes desired by marginalized groups. But it is not certain that this premise holds up under scrutiny. This paper presents a three-part argument that protest (a) signals the salience of a movements’ focal issue and expands awareness that an issue is a social problem requiring a solution, (b) empowers residents in disadvantaged communities and raises a sense of community cohesion, which together (c) raise costs and exert pressure on elites to make concessions. The empirical analysis examines the likelihood that a city will establish a Civilian Review Board (CRB). It then compares the effects of protest and CRB presence on counts of officer-involved fatalities by race and ethnicity. Two main conjectures about the effect of protest are supported: Cities with more protest against police brutality are significantly more likely to establish a CRB, and protest against police brutality reduces officer-involved fatalities for African Americans and Latinos (but not for Whites). But the establishment of CRBs does not reduce fatalities, as some have hoped. Nonetheless, mobilizing against police brutality matters, even in the absence of civilian review boards.

Forthcoming. “Does Protest Against Police Violence Matter? Evidence from U.S. Cities, 1980-2019.” American Sociological Review., 83 p.

By Rylan Simpson ,Leigh Grossman

Purpose

Longstanding debates in policing regard the optimal method of patrolling the community. One question that often gets raised is if patrol officers should be deployed in single-crewed (i.e., one-officer) or double-crewed (i.e., two-officer) units? As part of the present research, we empirically examine the call-related output of patrol units by crewed status in Oakland, California.

Methods

Drawing upon calls for service data from the Oakland Police Department, we retrospectively reconstructed the patrol environment to assess the call-related output of single- versus double-crewed units. We also explored potential variation in the output of double-crewed units as a function of pairing characteristics (e.g., regularly partnered versus not regularly partnered).

Results

Our results revealed that single- and double-crewed units handled similar numbers of calls for service, although sometimes of potentially different types, in similar amounts of time. Our results also revealed that the output of double-crewed units was similar regardless of the pairing characteristics examined.

Conclusions

Whereas many police agencies deploy their patrol officers in single-crewed units, other police agencies deploy their patrol officers in double-crewed units. Overall, we find limited variation among the output of patrol units by crewed status. We discuss our results in the context of research and practice.

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 94, September–October 2024, 8 p.

By Mapping Police Violence

Every year Campaign Zero works to make this data accessible and understandable to the public via Mapping Police Violence, a platform tracking civilians killed by U.S. law enforcement. This report aims to provide key takeaways concerning incidents of police violence that resulted in a civilian being killed in 2024. Mapping Police Violence relies on local journalism, and sources news through our system which collects, filters, and processes the data. While we strive to employ official data sources from local and state government agencies, we believe it is important to continue collecting data from publicly accessible media sources. This allows us to identify gaps in government data, and further triangulate and validate the data. As per our methodology, all incidents go through a multi-layered review process. It is likely that the number of incidents may increase in the coming months because some police killings and their circumstances are not reported until weeks or months later.

Campaign Zero, 2025. 4p

By R. Shute and M Mecray

Context Service weapon activity, including instances where an officer’s firearm is drawn, pointed, or discharged, plays an important role in understanding events transpiring during a police–public encounter. Detection, documentation, and communication of these events in a way that is accurate, timely, and dependable is vital for enhancing transparency and accountability of law enforcement service weapon use. About this Report The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) requested the Criminal Justice Technology Testing and Evaluation Center (CJTTEC) to investigate the landscape of commercially available and emerging technologies that could meet this need. CJTTEC conducted a review of technologies capable of detecting when a service weapon has been unholstered, pointed, or discharged; documenting when a law enforcement officer discharges their service weapon (or initiating documentation such as body-worn camera (BWC) recordings in such incidents); and communicating the information to dispatchers. CJTTEC’s methodology to understand this technology landscape included secondary research (e.g., reviewing patents, trade literature, press releases, news articles, and publications) and primary research with technology experts, product representatives, and researchers. This brief provides a high-level summary of technology systems capable of documenting, detecting, and communicating service weapon activity, focusing specifically on technology integrated into or onto the weapon, in a holster, in a BWC, in a wearable device, or in environmental sensing tools. Conclusion Although no single commercially available tool is capable of detecting, documenting, and communicating service weapon activity, law enforcement agencies may be able to rely on a suite of products to help them address these needs.

Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2024. 15p.

By David Spencer and Alexander Tait

British policing, and the criminal justice system more widely, is in crisis. Great swathes of the public believe that those who commit crimes do not suffer sufficient consequences for their actions.1 They witness police officers being told to consider making fewer arrests,2 and a low likelihood of offenders being charged or summonsed to court.3 When they look at the criminal courts, the public see huge delays4 and lenient sentences for those that have broken the law.5 The public observe individuals in their neighbourhoods continuing a life of crime, when they should be in prison. There is a significant distance between how tough on crime and criminals the public believe the police and criminal justice system should be, and how tough on crime and criminals the public believe the police and criminal justice system currently are. We call this the ‘Toughness Gap’. And this is not just about public perception. While overall crime may have fallen over the 30 years, this headline obscures an explosion in many types of crime – including an increase in criminal offences by 12% over the last year alone.6 Robbery increased from 62,354 offences in 2021 to 82,437 in the year to September 2024.7 Knife crime increased by 88.6% between 2015 and 2024.8 Police recorded incidents of shoplifting increased by 23% between 2023 and the year to September 2024 – the highest levels since current records began over 20 years ago.9 Fraud increased by 19% over the last year.10 Between 2010 and 2018 over 70% of police stations in London were closed.11 Between 2010 and 2017 the number of police officers in England and Wales was cut by 19%, before a rapid recruitment exercise replaced some of the officers lost.12 By 2024 the number of police officers was still 3% below 2010 levels.13 As part of its ‘A Portrait of Modern Britain’ project, Policy Exchange commissioned exclusive polling on the views of the British public across a wide range of areas – including on crime and policing. This report reveals that a distinctive electoral battleground has opened on crime and policing. We reveal two key trends. (i) Firstly, there is a clear mandate for the police to adopt a tougher approach to crime than they are currently perceived to be taking. This finding is observed across every major demographic group (age, sex, ethnicity), every economic grouping and amongst supporters of every political party. (ii) Secondly, Reform UK is establishing itself as the political home for those who are most likely to be dissatisfied with policing and those who believe there is the greatest gap between how tough olicing should be and how tough policing currently is. These two trends come with lessons and warnings for other political parties – particularly the incumbent Labour Government.

London: Policy Exchange, 2025. 35p.

By Rick Muir and Felicity O’Connell 

Emily is on the phone to a 999-call handler. She is worried because a man who has been stalking her has been seen by a neighbour in a nearby street. While the call handler is talking to Emily and trying to reassure her, the call is being automatically transcribed into an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can search police databases. When Emily mentions the man’s name and address, the AI software discovers that the man has a firearms licence and alerts the call handler that the police need to get to Emily’s house straight away. Police Constable Tony Williamson1 has come across an elderly woman of British Pakistani heritage seemingly distressed in the street. He asks her if he can help, but she does not speak English. PC Williamson turns on the live translation tool on his mobile device and he asks her again. As she speaks, the woman’s words are translated in real time into his earpiece. She says that she is worried because her son Mohammed did not come home from school. This was three hours ago, and she has been trying to look for him. She says her son has a history of mental health problems and often goes missing. PC Williamson types ‘what’s your son’s name and date of birth?’ into the translation app on his phone and intuitively the keyboard is offered in Urdu. The woman types in the answer. The officer can run an immediate search across police databases for any information about her son. A full profile of her son Mohammed Iqbal1 is generated, including a list of addresses with which he is associated. The officer calls the case in and escorts Mrs Iqbal home while reassuring her that officers are now looking for her son. These are just two examples of the way AI powered technology could enhance the way that the police are able to serve the public. Policing is at its heart a complex information business, but it has struggled to make full use of the data stored on its many often outdated systems. AI could be transformative in policing because it can turn this wealth of data into actionable intelligence at the touch of a button. However, the AI revolution poses a whole set of legal and ethical questions for the police and society. How far should the police go in using AI to keep communities safe? Could these technologies make the police too effective, in that they may be able to know much more about us and pry into our private lives to an unprecedented degree? How can we be assured of the reliability and accuracy of the AI tools being deployed? How do we feel about machines making or guiding decisions as to whether a crime should be investigated, or someone should be charged with a criminal offence? Which policing decisions ought to be reserved for human beings? There are important technical, organisational and cultural questions too. Is the data the police hold ready for the AI revolution? Do police leaders understand the technology they are using? Are there the skills in the police workforce to properly exploit the potential of AI? Is the police service organised in such a way that it can properly make use of these new technologies? In this report we explore these and other questions in the following ways: 1. We set out a brief history of the development of AI and define some of the terms used to describe its different forms. 2. We describe some of the ways in which AI is currently being used by UK policing and explore how it might be used in the future. 3. We identify eight challenges for the more widespread use of AI for policing purposes. 4. We make a number of recommendations for policymakers and police leaders intended to help policing make the most of the AI revolution, while maintaining public trust and confidence and protecting rights and freedoms. The report is based on research undertaken between March and September 2024. This included a review of relevant academic and grey literature, interviews with 18 operational and strategic police leaders, policy makers, industry and civil liberties representatives, and a survey of chief information officers in English and Welsh police forces. 

London: Police Foundation, 2025. 28p.

By George Shaler, Alison Grey, Lucy Tumavicus, Tara Wheeler, Clare Murray, Robyn Dumont

In the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s killing four years ago, many people campaigned for police reform to hold law enforcement more accountable for their actions. At the same time, many law enforcement supporters pushed back, maintaining that in the midst of the pandemic and surge in crime that followed, a more robust law enforcement presence was needed. In response to the demand for greater accountability, various legislative and policy proposals were put forth. Most notably, in June 2020, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, H.R. 7120, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill would have held law enforcement officers accountable for misconduct in court, improved transparency through data collection, and reformed police training and policies. It would have required federal uniformed officers to wear body-worn cameras (BWCs) and would have required state and local law enforcement to use existing federal funds to ensure the use of those cameras.

While this legislation passed the House in both the 116th and 117th Congress, it failed to gain passage in the Senate each time and was not enacted. Despite this failure, among police reform initiatives, the use of body-worn cameras has received the most widespread bipartisan support. While some reformers would like to quicken the pace, the adoption of BWCs by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies continues to increase. Here in Maine, local, state, and federal funding has enabled agencies to purchase BWCs and implement their use.

Today, when high-profile events occur, there is often both an expectation that video footage exists and public pressure on law enforcement officials to release that footage. Civilians view the mere presence of a body-worn camera as the most important tool in the evaluation of allegations of use of force in police-civilian encounters. However, citizen access to BWC video depends on location. Each state has its own public records law that determines when and how the public may have access to BWC footage. Some states, like Maine, have not addressed BWC footage specifically. Therefore, the laws governing the release of BWC footage in Maine are aligned with existing public record laws and exemptions that are open to interpretation.

Maine Statistical Analysis Center, University of Southern Maine., 2024. 75p.

By Kristin Turney, Alexander Testa, & Dylan B. Jackson

Objective. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between mother–youth closeness and stigma stemming from police contact. Background. Research increasingly indicates that stigma stemming from police–youth encounters links police contact to compromised outcomes among youth, though less is known about the correlates of stigma stemming from this criminal legal contact. Close mother–youth relationships, commonly understood to be protective for youth outcomes, may be one factor that buffers against stop-related stigma, especially the anticipation of stigma. Method. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a sample of youth born in urban areas around the turn of the 21st century, to examine the relationship between mother–youth closeness and stop-related stigma. Results. We find that mother–youth closeness is negatively associated with stop-related anticipated stigma but not stop-related experienced stigma. We also find that the relationship between mother–youth closeness and stop-related anticipated stigma is concentrated among youth experiencing a non-intrusive stop. Conclusion. Close mother–youth relationships may protect against stigma stemming from criminal legal contact.

 Journal of Marriage and Family 85(2):477–493. 2023

By Kristin Turney

Research shows youth police contact— a stressor experienced by more than one-quarter of urban-born youth by age 15—has deleterious mental health consequences for both youth and their mothers. Less is known about how youth’s fathers respond to this police contact, despite differences in how men and women respond to stress and relate to their children. I use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the association between youth police stops and depression among youth’s fathers. Results show that fathers of youth stopped by the police, compared to fathers of youth not stopped by the police, are more likely to report depression, net of father and youth characteristics associated with selection into experiencing youth police stops. This association is concentrated among non-Black fathers and fathers of girls. The findings highlight how the repercussions of youth criminal legal contact extend to youth’s fathers and, more broadly, suggest that future research incorporates the responses of men connected to those enduring criminal legal contact. 

  J Urban Health (2023) 100: 269–278 pages

By Kristin Turney

Objective. The goal of this study is to examine the association between parental incarceration and parent–youth closeness. Background. Despite the established complex repercussions of incarceration for relationships between adults, and the well-known intergenerational consequences of parental incarceration, little is known about how incarceration structures intergenerational relationships between parents and children. Methods. In this article, I use data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3408), a cohort of children followed over a 15-year period, to examine how parental incarceration is associated with relationships between youth and their (incarcerated and non-incarcerated) parents. Results. Results suggest three conclusions. First, parental incarceration is negatively associated with closeness between youth and their incarcerated parents. Second, the timing of first parental incarceration is important. Parental incarceration in early or middle childhood is negatively associated with closeness between youth and their incarcerated parent, and parental incarceration in adolescence is positively associated with closeness between youth and their non-incarcerated parent. Third, relationships between parents themselves explain some of the association between paternal incarceration in early childhood and father–youth closeness. Conclusion. Taken together, these findings advance our understanding of both the relational and intergenerational consequences of criminal legal contact and our understanding of the correlates of parent–youth relationships and, in doing so, highlights how family ecological contexts contribute to inequality.

‍ J. Marriage Fam. 2023; 1–23 pages

By Kristin Turney

 A family systems perspective suggests the repercussions of adolescent police contact likely extend beyond the adolescent to proliferate to the broader family unit, but little research investigates these relationships. I used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal survey of children who became adolescents during an era of proactive policing, to examine the relationship between adolescent police contact and four aspects of family life: mothers’ parenting stress, mothers’ monitoring, mothers’ discipline, and the mother-adolescent relationship. Adolescent police contact, especially invasive police contact, is associated with increased parenting stress, increased discipline, and decreased engagement, net of adolescent and family characteristics that increase the risk of police contact. There is also evidence that suggests adolescent police contact is more consequential for family life when mothers themselves had experienced recent police contact. These findings suggest the repercussions of police contact extend beyond the individual and proliferate to restructure family relationships.  

Social Problems 70(1): 2023, 256–273

By Kristin Turney

Police stops are a pervasive form of criminal justice contact among adolescents, particularly adolescents of color, that have adverse repercussions for mental health. Yet, the mental health consequences of adolescent police stops likely proliferate to parents of adolescents exposed to this form of criminal justice contact. In this article, I conceptualize adolescent police stops as a stressor, drawing on the stress process perspective to examine how and under what conditions this form of criminal justice contact damages the mental health of adolescents’ mothers. The results, based on data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, suggest three conclusions. First, the mental health consequences of adolescent police stops proliferate, increasing the likelihood of depression and anxiety among adolescents’ mothers. These relationships persist across modeling strategies that adjust for observed confounders, including adolescent characteristics such as delinquency and substance use. Second, the relationship between adolescent police stops and mothers’ mental health is contingent, concentrated among mothers with prior exposure to the criminal justice system (either via themselves or their adolescents’ fathers). Third, mothers’ emotional support buffers the relationship between adolescent police stops and mothers’ mental health. Taken together, this research highlights the role of police exposure as a stressor that is experienced vicariously and that has contingent consequences and, accordingly, documents the expansive and proliferating repercussions of police contact. Given the concentration of police contact among marginalized adolescents, including adolescents of color, these findings highlight another way the criminal justice system exacerbates structural inequalities. 

Social Forces 100(3):1142–1169.2022, 28 p.

By Alexander Testa,  Kristin Turney,  Dylan B. Jackson,  Chae M. Jaynes  

In response to the changing nature of policing in the United States, and current climate of police–citizen relations, research has begun to explore the consequences of adolescent police contact for life outcomes. The current study investigates if and under what conditions police contact has repercussions for future orientation during adolescence and the transition into young adulthood. Using data from the Pathways to Desistance study, a multisite longitudinal study of serious offenders followed from adolescence to young adulthood, results from a series of fixed-effects models demonstrated three main findings. First, personal and vicarious police contact, compared with no additional police contact, are negatively associated with within-person changes in future orientation. Second, any exposure to police contact, regardless of how just or unjust the contact is perceived, is negatively associated with future orientation. Third, the negative association between police contact and future orientation is larger for White individuals compared with that for Black or Hispanic individuals. Considering the importance of future orientation for prosocial behavior, the findings suggest that adolescent police contact may serve as an important life-course event with repercussions for later life outcomes.

Criminology. 2022; 60: p. 263–290

By Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission

New and emerging technologies, like remote working using video and online technologies, generative artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up the delivery of services or undertake administrative tasks, and using social media to reach a wider audience are now common practice across the public sector. While advancements in technology and innovations in public service delivery are helping the public sector to deliver more efficient and effective services, they also increase fraud related risks by making it more difficult for fraudulent conduct to be detected, investigated, and prosecuted. This is because advanced technology can offer anonymity, psychological distance, speed and efficiency, and personalisation not seen before. This combined with current economic conditions, such as the rising cost of living, may increase the motivation for fraud by public sector employees or contractors. While technological advancements are changing almost all aspects of fraud, the CCC’s corruption work has identified three areas that are particularly prone to technology-related fraud threats: • procurement • recruitment • grant funding, regulation, and licensing.

State of Queensland: Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission, 2024. 4p.

In 2018, Queensland was the first Australian jurisdiction to provide police with new powers to conduct searches in cases where:

A missing person meets the definition of a ‘high-risk missing person’ because they are either: under the age of 13 or are at risk of serious harm if not found as quickly as possible

A police officer holds a reasonable suspicion that searching a particular place may locate the person or provide information relating to their disappearance, and

The occupier of the place cannot or will not give consent for the search to occur.

These provisions are contained in Chapter 7, Part 3A of the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (Qld).

Under section 879 of the Act, the CCC was required to review the provisions.

The CCC’s review identified that although the powers are rarely used, they proved to be a useful and valuable tool to progress investigations. It has made two recommendations for consideration by government.

State of Queensland, AUS: Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission: 2024. 22p.