By Nessa Lynch & Andrew Chen

Embedded facial recognition capabilities are becoming more common across a wide range of technologies, so it’s important Police understand the parameters and potential consequences of the use of this kind of technology.

Dr Nessa Lynch (an Associate Professor at Victoria University of Wellington) and Dr Andrew Chen (a Research Fellow at the University of Auckland) are two of New Zealand’s leading experts and academic researchers in the field of facial recognition technology. Over a six-month period Dr Lynch and Dr Chen were commissioned to explore the current and possible future uses of facial recognition technology and what it means for policing in New Zealand communities

The scope of their work included:

• defining facial recognition technology

• categorising the spectrum of use and its potential effect on individual and collective rights and interests

• exploring what Police currently does in this space, and what planned and unused capability exists within the organisation

• providing insights and evidence into international practice and operational advantages for public safety and crime control, as well as Treaty of Waitangi, ethics, privacy and human rights implications

• producing a paper with advice and recommendations on the safe and appropriate use of facial recognition technology in New Zealand policing.

Wellington, NZ: New Zealand Police, 2021. 84p.

By Marie Pryor, Kim Shayo Buchanan, and Phillip Atiba Goff

Swencionis & Goff identified five situations that tend to increase the likelihood that an individual police officer may behave in a racially disparate way: discretion, inexperience, salience of crime, cognitive demand, and identity threat. This article applies their framework to the realities of police work, identifying situations and assignments in which these factors are likely to influence officers’ behavior. These insights may identify opportunities for further empirical research into racial disparities in such contexts and may highlight institutional reforms and policy changes that could reduce officers’ vulnerability to risks that can result in racially unjust actions.

Annual Review of Law and Social Science , 16: 341-360. 2020.

By Anthony A. Braga, Brandon C. Welsh, Cory Schnell

Disorderly conditions are seen as a precursor to more serious crime, fear of crime, and neighborhood decline. Policing disorder is associated with reductions in crime, but only when community and problem-solving tactics are used. Aggressive, order maintenance based approaches do not seem to be effective.

What is this review about?

Policing social and physical disorderly conditions is rooted in the broken windows approach: disorder is a precursor to more serious crime, fear of crime, and neighborhood decline. Addressing disorder has become a central fixture of policing, especially in the United States. Yet, evaluations of the effectiveness of disorder policing strategies in controlling crime yield conflicting results.

Policing disorderly conditions can be divided into two main strategies: (a) order maintenance or zero tolerance policing, where police attempt to impose order through strict enforcement and (b) community policing and problem-solving policing, where police attempt to produce order and reduce crime through cooperation with community members and by addressing specific recurring problems.

This review examined the effects of disorder policing strategies compared to traditional law enforcement actions (e.g., regular levels of patrol) on the rates of crime, including property crime, violent crime, and disorder/drug crime. This review also examined whether policing disorder actions at specific locations result in crime displacement (i.e., crime moving around the corner) or diffusion of crime control benefits (i.e., crime reduction in surrounding areas).

Campbell Systematic Reviews, Volume 15, Issue 3. September 2019

By Stephen B Perrott

The recruitment of women and minority group members was intended to move Canadian police forces towards societal representation and to enhance services provided to, and improve relations with, women and racially marginalized groups. This review contemplates progress towards these goals at a time of extraordinary public dissatisfaction with Western policing. A rationale is offered for reconsidering the 50% representation target for women and it is emphasized just how little we yet know about racial bias in policing. The review ends with a call for rigorous, apolitical, research to untangle the complex interactions underscoring the considered questions within.

The Police Journal Volume 96, Issue 1, March 2023, Pages 26-44

By Yvon Dandurand, Paul Maxim and Darryl Plecas

Strained police relations with visible minorities are reflected in the fact that these minorities are much less likely than other citizens to view the police as legitimate, fair, or trustworthy, or to report crime to the police. Police in and outside of Canada have long understood the importance of improving their relationship with minorities, and in this regard, they have undertaken multiple initiatives intended to improve minority-police relations. Considerable resources and energy were devoted to trying to enhance police relationships with various visible minority groups. These efforts have included extensive outreach initiatives, force-wide sensitivity training for police officers, substantial recruitment and promotion of minorities, and policy changes relating to police practices. Have those efforts made any significant difference in how visible minorities view the police? This study was undertaken as a step toward understanding how the relationship between police services and their host communities has evolved over the years. It examined the extent to which police efforts aimed at improving police-minority relations over the past 20 years have improved perceptions of the police among visible minority groups in Canada (with special attention to British Columbia). More specifically, the study examined the degree to which attitudes of visible minorities over that 20-year period between 1999 and 2019 can be distinguished from those of the overall population in Canada and British Columbia – with special attention to the matter of crime victims’ contacts with police. The core analysis for this study involved a comparison of data from Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey (GSS) panels on Canadians' Safety (Victimization) conducted in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019. The findings of the analysis tell a simple story. The GSS national data collected over a period of twenty years do not show significant improvements in how visible minorities in British Columbia and in Canada perceive the police. Visible minorities hold more negative views of police behaviour than non-minorities. Minorities are less likely than non-minorities to agree that police treat people fairly or do a good job in approaching people. Since the turn of the century, minorities’ views of police behaviour and fairness have generally worsened. Notably, by 2019 those views had become more negative than at any time in the previous twenty years. By then, survey results indicated that less than half of visible minorities agreed that police treat people fairly and do a good job in the way they approach people.

Vancouver, BC: International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy, 2022.62p.

By Steven M. Chermak, Joshua D. Freilich and Zachary Shemtob

This article examines issues related to training as it pertains to domestic terrorism in general and responding to far-right extremists in particular. First, it hightlights current training practices and training focused on the far right. Second, it details knowledge about the nature and extent of the threat posed by far-right extremists. Third, a review of the empirical research indicates that training could be enhanced if three key issues are emphasized: Future training should promote a better understanding of the contours of the far right; discuss the unique geographic, crime-incident, and structural characteristics of the far right; and describe the need to examine all ideologically motivated crimes, regardless of whether they are also defined as terrorist. The conclusion discusses how training could be enhanced by strategically integrating the existing knowledge base.

Criminal Justice and Behavior 2009; 36; 1305 DOI: 10.1177/0093854809345630.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

By Jovana Jezdimirovic Ranito

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “…September 16, 2007, Nisour Square in Baghdad, Iraq: Blackwater contractors, working under a State Department contract, kill 17 civilians and injure 20 during a firefight. Fast forward to September 11, 2009, Washington, DC: a Court of Appeals dismisses the charges against contractors and claims they were under US government contractor immunity. More recently, in 2014, after a number of appeals regarding the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court's decision about Abu Ghraib, which ended with a dismissal of charges, detainees filed a suit against contractors again, but still without a favorable outcome. Also, in 2015, in Washington, DC, four of the Blackwater contractors involved in the Nisour Square Massacre received a sentence from a federal judge after years of dismissals and new trials. These lengthy sentences were thrown out on August 4, 2017, by Federal Appeals Court and it ordered a new trial.

These examples are just the most reported ones, but they illustrate well the state of the US regulation regarding private security contractors operating in combat zones overseas…”

Switzerland. Palgrave Macmillan. 2019. 233p.

By David Klinger

What's it like to have official sanction to shoot and kill? In this brilliantly written, controversial, and compelling book, author David Klinger - who himself shot and killed a suspect during his first year as an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department - answers this and many other questions about what it's like to live and work in the place where police officers have to make split-second decisions about life and death: The Kill Zone.

Klinger, now a university professor, writes eloquently about what happens when police officers find themselves face-to-face with dangerous criminals, the excruciating decisions they have to make to shoot or to hold their fire, and how they deal with the consequences of their choices.

San Francisco. Jossey-Bass. 2004. 304p.

By Kwong, Jamie

From the document: "Climate change could have mission-altering impacts on the U.S. nuclear deterrent. This paper examines the range of climate change challenges and threats that could detrimentally affect each leg of the U.S. nuclear triad in different and increasingly serious ways. In doing so, the paper helps to advance broader, ongoing efforts to account for climate change in U.S. national security policies. It also aims to inform and help initiate a larger conversation about the vulnerabilities of all nuclear weapons programs to climate change. Gaining greater clarity about these vulnerabilities now is essential to mitigating the worst effects of climate change on nuclear weapons in the future."

Washington. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 2023. 52p.

By United States. Office Of The Director Of National Intelligence; Intelligence Community (U.S.)

From the document: "Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and in the wake of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act passed by Congress in 2004, Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte signed out the Intelligence Community's (IC) first National Intelligence Strategy. The strategy explained that the Intelligence Community's clear charge was to: [1] Integrate the domestic and foreign dimensions of U.S. intelligence so that there are no gaps in our understanding of threats to our national security; [2] Bring more depth and accuracy to intelligence analysis; and [3] Ensure that U.S. intelligence resources generate future capabilities as well as present results. Now, almost twenty years after our first strategy was issued, the Intelligence Community's charge remains just as clear, even as the strategic environment has changed dramatically. The United States faces an increasingly complex and interconnected threat environment characterized by strategic competition between the United States, the People's Republic of China (PRC), and the Russian Federation, felt perhaps most immediately in Russia's ongoing aggression in Ukraine. In addition to states, sub-national and non-state actors--from multinational corporations to transnational social movements--are increasingly able to create influence, compete for information, and secure or deny political and security outcomes, which provides opportunities for new partnerships as well as new challenges to U.S. interests. In addition, shared global challenges, including climate change, human and health security, as well as emerging and disruptive technological advances, are converging in ways that produce significant consequences that are often difficult to predict. [...] The six goals outlined in this National Intelligence Strategy have emerged as our understanding of the kinds of information, technology, and relationships needed to be effective in the future has expanded."

Washington. United States. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Intelligence Community (U.S.). 2023.

By Goldberg, Zach

From the document: "Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in media and public attention to police brutality and racial bias. By some measures, the volume of media references to these topics has been greater over the past decade than ever before. Google search behavior shows that Americans are consuming this messaging ('Figure 1'), and their attitudes toward police--particularly Democrats' and liberals' attitudes--have responded accordingly. Confidence in police has never been lower, while antipolice sentiment, perceptions of police brutality and racism, and support for defunding the police have never been higher. So much have perceptions of racist policing grown that, as of 2021, more than half (52%) of Democrats felt that levels of racism were greater among police officers than other societal groups (up from 35% in 2014). Fears of the police among black Americans have increased to the point that, in 2020, roughly 74% of black respondents to a Quinnipiac University poll said that they 'personally worry' about being the victim of police brutality, compared with 64% and 57% who said so in 2018 and 2016, respectively. Yet these trends in media coverage and public perceptions seem divorced from empirical reality. A stark illustration of this was provided by a nationally representative survey conducted in 2019 by the Skeptic Research Center, which found that nearly 33% of people--including 44% of liberals--thought that 1,000 or more unarmed black men 'alone' were killed by police in 2019. In fact, according to the Mapping Police Violence (MPV) database, 29 unarmed black (vs. 44 white) men were killed by police that year."

NY. Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. 2023. 50p.

By Yadav, Kamya; Riedl, Martin J.; Wanless, Alicia; Woolley, Samuel C.

From the document: "Companies, politicians, and governments are constantly working to motivate audiences to think and act favorably toward them. Think of a billboard promoting a fast-food chain, a political campaign video on YouTube, or a government-led polio vaccination drive. But some influence operations go too far and undermine democracy, which depends on the integrity of information. Can influence operations be assessed to distinguish those that are acceptable from those that are not? This paper explores three potential criteria--transparency in origins, quality of content, and calls to action--to assess the acceptability of an influence operation in the context of democracies."

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 2023. 30p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

Edited by Ori Swed and Thomas Crosbie

FROM THE PREFACE: “This book started as a known unknown. We knew and admired the rich body of work being produced by political scientists, international relations scholars, legal scholars and historians (as well as a handful of sociologists) on the emerging private military and security industry. We knew about and were concerned with the political consequences of this development, with its nasty barbs of undermining legitimacy, stability and professionalism in the conduct of war and security operations. And we knew that we didn't know what this meant from a sociological perspective. With time, this known unknown transformed before our eyes into an unknown known. In other words, we realized that many of our fellow sociologists were as concerned as we were with establishing and promoting a sociological perspective on the privatization of security. The problem changed from one of disciplinary neglect to one of disciplinary resistance. In The Sociology of Privatized Security, we present a collection of nine chapters written by more than a dozen sociologists on a topic that is widely discussed in the public sphere but almost absent from the discipline. The book came about for that very reason: we want to bring this important topic into disciplinary discussion, to push our collcagues to take seriously the global trend toward privatizing security and military affairs as something that really matters to contemporary societies and to social life…”

NY. Palgrave Macmillan. 2009. 292p.

by Trevor Johnston, Erik E. Mueller, Irina A. Chindea, Hannah Jane Byrne, Nathan Vest, Colin P. Clarke, Anusree Garg, Howard J. Shatz

Violent nonstate actors (VNSAs) obtain money from multiple sources, both licit (e.g., donations and legitimate businesses) and illicit (e.g., extortion, smuggling, theft). They use that money to pay, equip, and sustain their fighters and to provide services to local populations, which can help build support for the groups, allowing them to extract resources, gain safe havens, and challenge state authority and territorial control. In this way, financial resources can prolong conflicts and undermine stabilization efforts after the fighting ends. Countering VNSA financing plays a critical role in degrading such organizations. Various means are available to disrupt financing. These include kinetic means, such as destroying resources or neutralizing leadership, and nonkinetic means, such as targeted financial sanctions and legal remedies. The counter–threat financing (CTF) tools that work best for transnational groups may not work as well for national ones, and some tools may prove counterproductive in certain situations. Which tools to use in a given case is not always obvious. The authors draw lessons from efforts against five VNSA groups to discover, in each case, how they financed their activities and for what purposes, as well as which methods to counter this financing worked best and which were counterproductive. The authors then consider what the U.S. Army can do to support counter–terrorism financing efforts.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2023. 386p.

by James V. Marrone, Todd C. Helmus, Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, Christopher Santucci

The number of programs dedicated to countering violent extremism (CVE) has grown in recent years, but a fundamental gap remains in the understanding of the effectiveness of such programs. A 2017 RAND Corporation report documented that only a handful of such programs have been subject to rigorous evaluations of effect. Such evaluations are critical because they help ensure that programming funds are dedicated to the most-effective efforts. Evaluations also play a critical role in helping individual programs improve the quality of service provision.

This report presents the results of an evaluation designed to assess the impact of a CVE-themed radio talk show, Ina Mafita, broadcast in northern Nigeria in 2018–2019. RAND researchers studied this program by recruiting more than 2,000 northern Nigerians via text message from a research panel administered by a mobile phone–based market research company. The participants were randomly assigned to listen to either the treatment program of interest, which is intended to address underlying factors promoting instability and support for Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, or to a nontreatment control program. Specifically, RAND researchers examined the effects of the program on listeners' beliefs about the importance of being a role model and the value of local committees in reintegrating at-risk youth, as well as their views of kidnap victims. The report details the research design and findings and offers recommendations for improving such evaluations in the future.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2022. 32p.

by Elizabeth Bodine-Baron, James V. Marrone, Todd C. Helmus, Danielle Schlang

This report presents the results of an evaluation designed to assess the effects of countering violent extremism (CVE)–themed social media content used in a campaign to promote tolerance, freedom of speech, and rejection of violence in Indonesia. RAND Corporation researchers studied the effects of the campaign by recruiting a sample of Indonesian youth on Facebook and randomly assigning them to a treatment condition that exposed participants to CVE social media posts or a control condition. This report details the research design and findings and offers recommendations for improving such evaluations in the future.

The group Search for Common Ground (SFCG) worked with a market research firm to design content for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter using two different hashtags developed specifically for the CVE campaign: #AkuTemanmu ("I am your friend") and #CapekGakSih ("Aren't you tired?"). RAND researchers recruited 1,570 participants from Indonesia via a series of Facebook advertisements. They assigned participants either to a treatment group that viewed SFCG's CVE content or to a control group that viewed non-CVE placebo content that consisted of advertisements from Indonesian entertainment media and retail companies, as well as public service announcement campaigns.

The results indicate that audiences recognized and liked the CVE-themed content at levels comparable to control content, and there were positive effects regarding attitudes toward promoting inclusivity online, although the effect was the result of an unusual, sudden drop in attitudes of control group participants. There also were strong, significant negative treatment effects regarding respondents' attitudes toward living in separated communities.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020. 82p.

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

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

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

By Internet Society

From the introduction:

In 2023, we will:

• Engage in at least 900 advocacy activities

• Urge government officials to make pro-

  encryption statements at least 10 times

• Encourage governments or press to reference Internet Society encryption-focused documents or statements at least 30 times

Internet Society.2023. 21p.

By The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF)

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

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

By James D. Sewell

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

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