By Tom Christoff, Benjamin Carleton, and Theron Bowman

The ability of a police department to act in a fair and just manner is vitally important to creating internal and external trust, which in turn increases the perception of legitimacy by those who work for the department and those the department serves. Law enforcement agencies across the U.S. have faced increased scrutiny from the public in the last several years, with the events of 2020 exacerbating already simmering community relationships. The City of Little Rock has experienced recent issues of internal and external legitimacy stemming from the officer-involved shooting of Bradley Blackshire, a Black man, who was killed by a Little Rock Police Department (LRPD) officer in February 2019. The incident, in which Mr. Blackshire was fired upon at least 15 times, led not only to backlash from the public, but also internal strife within the LRPD. Since the February 2019 incident, the City of Little Rock, LRPD, the Chief of Police, and other members of LRPD have been the subjects of various lawsuits. In response to calls from members and leadership of the LRPD for an investigation, the City of Little Rock, through a competitive bid, selected CNA’s Center for Justice Research and Innovation to conduct an independent audit of the LRPD. This report details the findings and recommendations of this targeted audit of the LRPD. The audit team used a variety of sources, including policies, training records, administrative data, and focus groups and interviews with LPRD personnel to assess the department. Throughout this report we identify both strengths and weaknesses of LRPD’s operations with in the following areas:

1. Personnel policies and procedures

2. Training and professional standards

3. Accountability system data

4. Performance evaluations

5. Promotional process

6. De-escalation

7. Cultural competency

8. Harassment

9. Nepotism

10. Handling of private and confidential information

11. Early Intervention System

12. Body-worn cameras

13. Vehicle pursuits

14. Asset forfeiture

15. Take-home vehicle

Overall, this assessment will help LRPD standardize processes and metrics related to these topic areas, ultimately improving officers’ and community members’ levels of trust in the department.

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2021. 104p.

By Zoë Thorkildsen, Bridgette Bryson, Emma Wohl, Kalani Johnson, Rodney Monroe, and Steve Rickman 

In late 2020, the City of North Charleston hired CNA to conduct a racial bias assessment of the North Charleston Police Department (NCPD). Beginning in March 2021, CNA undertook a comprehensive assessment of NCPD’s policies and practices, focusing on assessing racially biased practices and procedures. Assessments such as these, which touch on more than racial and social justice matters, help police departments gauge the status of their community relationships, especially amongst minority and disenfranchised communities. In addition, the assessment can help identify policies and practices that may unintentionally negatively affect the community, especially those who feel they have been marginalized. Through this assessment, the CNA team developed a strong objective understanding of NCPD’s operations in various areas including law enforcement operations, community-oriented policing practices, complaints, training, oversight and accountability, and recruitment, hiring, and promotions. We developed this report by reviewing community engagement programming documents, strategic plans, training lesson plans, training curriculum, general orders, department data, and sentiments from interviews with community members and NCPD personnel and community listening sessions. This report includes findings and associated actionable recommendations for the department. In developing our recommendations, we assessed the NCPD’s policy manual against emerging best practices.

CNA’s comprehensive assessment of NCPD included an examination of the following:

• Law enforcement operations

• Community-oriented policing practices

• Complaints

• Recruitment, hiring, and promotions

• Training

• Oversight and accountability

This assessment includes 67 findings and 139 recommendations. Our key findings include:

• Racial disparities are present in many of NCPD’s interactions with the community, indicative
  of potential systemic, organizational, or individual bias, and these disparities are deeply felt
  by the community.

• Community members have substantial concerns regarding NCPD’s police presence and
  perceived over-enforcement of certain individuals, community groups, and neighborhoods.

• NCPD’s School Resource Officer Program has room to improve to better serve the youth of
  the North Charleston community.

• NCPD lacks proper translation services and information for Spanish-speaking residents in the
  community.

• Although NCPD emphasizes community-oriented policing practices, not all officers in the
  department have embraced the importance of community policing.

• Members of the North Charleston community have expressed a desire to better understand
  the roles, responsibilities, policies, practices, and operations of the department.

• Many community members have not filed complaints even after negative experiences with
  NCPD personnel, and the complaint process is confusing to most.
  • NCPD has a strong commitment to hiring and retaining personnel that reflect the ethnic,
  racial, and gender composition of the North Charleston community. They have an established
  plan to specifically recruit women and people of color.

• NCPD’s officers have not been consistently trained in topics of critical importance for 21st
  century policing.

• Community members expressed high confidence in Chief Burgess and his abilities to
  meaningfully engage with the community.

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2021. 124p.

By Rachel Johnston, Daniel S. Lawrence, Benjamin Carleton, Harold Medlock, Thomas Christoff, Keri Richardson, and Scott E. Wolfe

The ability of a police department to act in a fair and just manner is vitally important to creating internal and external trust, which in turn increases the perception of legitimacy by those who work for the department and those the department serves. Law enforcement agencies across the US have faced increased scrutiny from the public in the last several years, with the events of 2020 exacerbating already simmering community relationships. The City of East Lansing, through a competitive bid process, selected CNA’s Center for Justice Research and Innovation to conduct an assessment of fair and impartial policing in the East Lansing Police Department (ELPD). This report details the findings and recommendations of this assessment of the ELPD. The assessment team used a variety of sources, including policies, training records, administrative data, employee surveys, and interviews with ELPD personnel to assess the department. Throughout this report we identify both strengths and weaknesses of the ELPD’s operations within the following areas:

1. Organizational Justice and Culture

2. Community Relations, Interactions, and Perspectives

3. Training and Technology

4. Traffic Enforcement

5. Use of Force and Complaints

6. Early Intervention System

In this executive summary, we present a summary of the findings of our assessment and a summary of the key recommendations offered to the ELPD and the city. We encourage interested individuals to read the details in the body of this report, where they will find detailed the supporting evidence associated with our 72 findings and 92 recommendations. See Appendix E for the full list of findings and recommendations. Through review of policy, procedures, and practices, as well as collected and analyzed data, the assessment team discovered the following key findings:

Summary of Key Findings

ELPD Data

• The manual entry of information into the ELPD use-of-force report creates data inconsistencies.

• The ELPD does not collect all necessary information important to use-of-force events.

• The method ELPD uses to record information pertaining to uses of force does not allow for each specific combination of event, involved officer, type of force, sustained injuries, and involved community member to be assessed.

• Demographic information collected during a traffic stop cannot easily be connected to traffic stop information in the calls-for-service database.

Organizational Justice and Culture

• Several ELPD policies appear to use boilerplate language that is not sufficiently tailored to ELPD.

• Several ELPD policies are poorly written.

• Some ELPD policies include language that serves as an accountability escape clause.

• Some ELPD processes rely on the discretion of the Chief of Police, which at times may be unnecessary or inappropriate.

• Morale among ELPD employees is reported to be low.

• About half of ELPD survey respondents feel that ELPD’s procedure for investigating complaints is not a fair process.

Community Relations, Interactions, and Perspectives

• ELPD Policy 300-21 (Interacting with People Who Have Mental Illness/EIP) requires significant revision.

• ELPD Policy 400-11 (Juvenile Matters) predominantly focuses on processes and considerations for juvenile suspects and does not adequately explain processes and considerations for juvenile victims and witnesses.

• ELPD Policies 100-12 (Media Relations/Officer Involved Critical Incident Information Sharing) and 47-13 (Social Networking/Social Media) do not indicate whether ELPD operates any official social media accounts or what the protocols would be for the operation of such accounts.

• ELPD Policy 3-20 (Civil Disorders) requires significant revision. The current policy includes outdated practices and is not consistent with best practices.

• Several ELPD survey respondents noted that they often do not feel supported by community groups and local stakeholders.

• Trust between community and police could further be strengthened.

• The community perceives a disconnect between the ELPD and the City Council and Independent Police Oversight Commission.

• The ELPD staffing may not be adequate for the current requirements and future community initiatives.

Training and Technology

• Less Lethal and Defensive Tactics are high liability and should be addressed separately in policy.
  The firearms training and assessment policy language is unclear, and it does not specifically state what encompasses the firearms training and assessment program.

• ELPD Policy 100-21 (Annual In-Service Training) has numerous areas that could use improvement and strengthening.

• Overall, ELPD Policy 300-22 (Mobile Video Recorder) does provide a framework for the department’s operations but could be improved in areas such that would strengthen clarity for procedures related to transparency and accountability.

• Overall, many of the policies related to technology are vague and left room for ambiguity and alternative interpretation.

• Several ELPD survey respondents feel that training could be improved to help officers be prepared for some of the critical situations they face in the field.

• The East Lansing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion training provided at the City level by Truth & Titus was a missed opportunity for police staff.

Traffic Enforcement

• ELPD Policy 300-26 ([Traffic] Enforcement Options) is very comprehensive and provides good direction to officers.

• White drivers accounted for the majority of traffic stops from August 2021 to July 2022, although Black drivers were the second-most stopped individuals. The number of traffic stops declined from August 2021 to July 2022 by similar degrees across each racial group of the driver.

• The amount of stops by race relative to the population indicates that Black drivers are stopped to a greater extent than White drivers; however, the “veil of darkness” analysis finds that Black drivers are stopped by a statistically nonsignificant magnitude of 1.08 compared to non-Black drivers. Furthermore, the risk of being stopped as a Black driver during the daylight portion of the inter-twilight period is similar to stops for Black drivers made during the dark period, and this difference is not statistically different when compared to all other drivers.

Use of Force and Complaints

• ELPD Policy 100-3 (Complaint Intake and Management) requires significant revision, as the policy does not adequately and clearly describe the complaint intake and management process.

• ELPD Policy 12-20 (Response to Resistance) positively emphasizes the sanctity of life and the importance of de-escalation, but the policy can go a step further.

• ELPD Policy 12-20 (Response to Resistance) problematically allows for the use of head stabilization.

• Eighteen percent of ELPD officers were involved in three or more complaints during the period analyzed.

• Twenty-two percent of ELPD officers were involved in 7.5 or more use-of-force events per year during the period analyzed.

• One-quarter of the use-of-force events involved disorderly conduct or a mental health investigation, while arrests that involved offenses against family and children, burglary/home invasion, and obstruction-type events each resulted in a use of force more than 50 percent of the time.

• The ELPD predominately uses low levels of force in its use-of-force events; 62 percent of the types of uses of force involved either a handcuffing, a control hold or takedown, or other physical contact. However, the other largest type of use of force, which accounted for 24 percent, was a weapon display.

• Black community members are arrested more frequently than would be predicted based on their proportion of the East Lansing population compared with White community members. Among those arrested, use-of-force levels were slightly elevated for Black community members compared with White community members. However, when controlling for event characteristics and demographics in more rigorous statistical analyses, these differences are not observed.

Early Intervention System

• The ELPD’s aggregate-threshold approach to its early intervention system (EIS) is overall reasonable given agency characteristics.

• Despite being considered wellness oriented, the ELPD’s EIS approach has the potential to be considered disciplinary.

• The ELPD unnecessarily limits the input of officers’ direct supervisors in evaluating and acting upon an EIS alert.

• The ELPD’s EIS approach can be expanded to include a peer-comparison element.

• ELPD Policy 200-7 (Early Warning System) should be revised.

• The training on EIS focuses on the technical process of navigating the Guardian Tracking software.

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2022. 145p.

By Benjamin Carleton, Brittany Cunningham, Zoe Thorkildsen

Policing is an evolving field; law enforcement agencies are being asked to do more with limited resources, forcing agencies and their relevant stakeholders (e.g., policy makers, other justice system agencies, community organizations) to continuously look for new ways to reduce crime, keep communities safe, and effectively allocate resources. The use of predictive analytics has evolved in the last several decades as a promising response to reduce and prevent crime. Predictive analytics in policing “is a data-driven approach to characterizing crime patterns across time and space and leveraging this knowledge for the prevention of crime and disorder” (Fitzpatrick et al. 2019). Traditionally, law enforcement agencies have operated using primarily reactive measures, such as rapid responses to 911 calls, random patrols, and a greater focus on criminal investigations (Brayne 2017; Fitzpatrick et al. 2019). To operate more proactively, agencies have increasingly employed predictive analytics that informs crime prevention strategies. For example, agencies across the US have implemented a number of strategies (e.g., hot spot detection, targeted offender lists, and risk terrain modeling) and software programs that use a variety of predictive analytics to forecast where and when crimes are most likely to occur and to identify offenders and groups or individuals at risk of becoming victims of crimes. Predictive analytics builds on traditional crime analysis practices (e.g., identification of crime trends and patterns). In addition to identifying crime trends and patterns based on crimes that have already occurred, predictive analytics goes a step further, forecasting where and when crime is likely to occur or who is likely to be involved in criminal behavior. It equips agencies with knowledge (i.e., data) to help inform where they should target police operations and resources. Agencies can use this knowledge to operate more efficiently and effectively in their crime reduction efforts and resource allocations. It is important to understand that predictive analytics cannot tell the future very well. These predictions rely on past data and assume that future criminal activity will be similar to that reflected in extant data (sometimes factoring in anticipated future changes). This reliance on past data also means that predictive techniques can reinforce systemic bias, racial and otherwise, present in past justice system actions. The objective of this brief is to provide an accessible resource for law enforcement agencies and their stakeholders (e.g., crime analysts, policy makers, and researchers) interested in learning more about the role of predictive analytics in police operations. Specifically, this brief offers the following:

• Summarizes the use of predictive analytics to inform policing operations

• Distinguishes between approaches to predictive analytics (person-based and place-based)

• Highlights the emergence of machine learning algorithms as a preferred predictive analytics technique

• Delineates considerations and limitations brought forth in recent literature that law enforcement agencies must consider when using predictive analytics to reduce and prevent crime

• Summarizes several research studies and real-world policing initiatives as examples of how the use of predictive analytics can inform policing practice

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2000. 32p.

By Anthony Petrosino, Trevor Fronius and Trent Baskerville

School-based policing programs started as far back in the USA as the 1950s and became more popular in part as concerns about school safety increased. After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the scrutiny of municipal police extended to school policing, and the concerns that policing exacerbates the school-to-prison pipeline, particularly for Black and Brown children, led several districts to remove officers from their schools. However, some of these same districts have reinstated police following widespread reports of fighting and behavioural issues among students after nearly 2 years of sporadic education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper discusses some of the recent trends and high lights evidence from several systematic reviews of evidence on the efforts of school policing, including a large-scale effort for the Campbell Collaboration. A more recent evaluation published since the reviews were done is also discussed. Finally, the article highlights a report to Congress by the National Institute of Justice and concludes with policy implications and a future agenda for research.

Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, Volume 18, 2024, 

By Hunter M. Boehme, Scott M. Mourtgos

On March 1, 2022, correspondence from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters stated that officers can no longer use minor infractions (e.g., equipment violations) as a pretextual reason to further investigate drivers for criminal behavior. If LAPD officers are to execute a discretionary stop, they must activate their body-worn cameras and reasonably articulate to the civilian why they are being investigated. The intent is to reduce racial/ethnic disparities in stops and build trust of the police within the community. Critics of the policy argue that elevated crime rates will result due to the crime suppression effect of such stops. This study examines racial differences in stops before and after the policy change, as well as whether Part 1 violent and property crimes increased. Descriptive findings show that while the counts of stops, arrests, and contraband seizures during stops decreased, the percentage of non-White civilians stopped decreased only minimally following the intervention. Results from using Bayesian synthetic control methods indicate an increase in both violent and property crimes post-intervention compared with the synthetic counterfactual. The increase in violent crimes has a low probability of being different from the counterfactual, whereas the increase in property crimes has a high probability, suggesting that the intervention led to a real change in property crimes compared with what would have been expected under the counterfactual.

Policy Implications: This study provides preliminary evidence that emerging policies intended to restrict discretionary stops may not have the intended effect on racial disparities in police traffic stops. Instead, agencies passing similar policies may expect to see the potential unintended consequence of a spike in jurisdictional property crimes. We argue that such types of stops across a jurisdiction may have a general deterrent effect on more common and calculative crimes such as property crimes. To combat violent crimes, agencies should consider focusing discretionary stops in known hot spots. Further, our findings offer implications for research on the effects of de-policing on crime. Police agencies should monitor potential unintended impacts of these policies if enacted and be prepared to deal with such consequences.

Criminology & Public Policy Volume 23, Issue 3: Special Issue: Policing Practice and Policy Aug 2024 Pages 515-799

By Brenden Beck,  Joseph Antonelli,  Angela LaScala-Gruenewald

Research Summary: Following high-profile police killings, many U.S. cities banned officers from using chokeholds and other neck restraints. The evidence for such bans, however, is limited. To test whether use-of-force policies prohibiting neck restraints are related to fewer police killings, we use three modeling approaches to analyze 2183 U.S. cities between 2009 and 2021. Police killings were lower in places that adopted neck-restraint bans and the bans were associated with less crime and fewer assaults on officers, net of controls. Because officer labor unions can affect use-of-force policies and the frequency of police killings, we also analyzed them, finding unionization increased the likelihood a city had a neck-restraint ban and had a null or negative association with police killings.

Policy Implications: Adopting a neck-restraint ban is likely an effective way to reduce deaths due to police use of force with minimal collateral consequences. The bans operate through a diffuse discouragement of many types of lethal force or as a part of an array of use-of-force policies. Their direct relationship to asphyxiation deaths remains unclear. Officer unionization is unlikely to change the frequency of police killings, except through its association with stricter use-of-force policies.

Criminology & Public PolicyVolume 23, Issue 3: Special Issue: Policing Practice and Policy Aug 2024 Pages 515-799

By Ruth Halkon 

Police use stop and search powers to search people who they suspect to be in possession of unlawful items, such as illegal drugs, weapons, or stolen property. The power is seen by the police as a valuable tool in the fight against crime, both deterring offenders and preventing further offending. However the evidence on its effectiveness is mixed, and there are gaps in the data, particularly surrounding its use in the UK context. Moreover, stop and search is associated with potential harm, both to individuals and to communities as a whole. This briefing will examine the current evidence in relation to stop and search and how it is practiced in the UK, examining in particular questions of its disproportionate use against young people and those from minority ethnic groups 

London: The Police Foundation, 2024, 26p.

By Marly van Bruchem, Karin Proost, Joris van Ruysseveldt & Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard

Studies on bystander behavior showed that bystanders regularly intervene in conflicts and crime in public in order to de-escalate, yet these studies focus solely on the way citizens manage situations in the absence of police. Bystanders, however, are also present while police officers carry out their work and might help or challenge their performance. Based on 15 interviews with police officers and participant observation during 12 police shifts in the Netherlands, this study provides insights into the way officers perceive bystanders and experience their actions. Police officers describe bystanders as a dilemma they have to face during encounters: they want to convey a positive and fair image of themselves towards bystanders, yet also want to control the situation and show their authority. The diversity of bystander actions and the dilemmas officers face imply that more attention should be given to bystanders of police action in both research and training.

Police Practice and Research, An International Journal, June 2024