By Carl Lieberman

I examine how racial disparities in police use of force vary using new data covering every municipal police department in New Jersey. Along the intensive margin of force, I find disparities that disfavor Black subjects and are larger at higher force levels, even after adjusting for incident-level factors and using new techniques to limit selection bias. I then extend empirical Bayes methods to estimate department-specific racial disparities and observe significant differences across and within these hundreds of departments. Finally, I find that certain municipal factors are useful predictors of whether a department has a large racial disparity against Black civilians, but the most informative variables can change when considering different levels of force. These findings suggest that ignoring heterogeneity in police use of force misrepresents the problem and masks the existence of both departments with very large disparities and those without apparent disparities against Black civilians, but the variation even within departments may make identifying and treating inequitable departments difficult.

Washington, DC: Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau , 2022. 71p.

By Elizabeth Luh

Biased police officers may purposely mis-record, or mask, the race of citizens that they interact with in order to evade detection. Indeed, journalists uncovered widespread evidence of such masking among Texas Highway troopers from 2010 to 2015. I propose a new test of racial bias in the presence of masking that is more powerful than standard tests and is well-suited to explore the rich heterogeneity in bias. Using various data-driven techniques to detect masking, I estimate that 24% of 130,240 searches were masked, with over half being Hispanic drivers being mis-recorded as white when searches failed to turn up contraband. I find that Hispanic and white troopers are biased against non-white motorists, with Hispanic motorists being treated the most unfairly. Using my model, I also find evidence of institutional racial bias and ‘bad apple’ troopers across Texas.

Ann Arbor, MI: Department of Economics; University of Michigan at Ann Arbor2019. 45p.

By Jeremy West

Nonrandom selection into police encounters typically complicates evaluations of law enforcement discrimination. This study overcomes selection concerns by examining automobile crash investigations, for which officer dispatch is demonstrably independent of drivers’ race. I find State Police officers issue significantly more traffic citations to drivers whose race differs from their own. This bias is evident for both moving and nonmoving violations, the latter indicating a preference for discriminatory leniency towards same-race individuals. I show this treatment is unmitigated by socioeconomic factors: officers cite other-race drivers more frequently regardless of their age, gender, vehicle value, or characteristics of the local community.

Santa Cruz, CA: Economics Department, University of California at Santa Cruz, 2018. 37p.

By The U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Oklahoma Advisory Committee

In 1981, the Commission issued a seminal report on police practices in America, Who is Guarding the Guardians? Twenty years later the Commission issued a follow-up report, Revisiting Who is Guarding the Guardians? Both reports raised troubling concerns about insular police practices that undermine equal protection under the law. Now, forty years after the Commission’s first report on police practices, a number of public incidents involving police conduct have returned such concerns to the forefront of national conversation. The Black Lives Matter movement was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the death of Trayvon Martin.1 The movement has increasingly gained national attention since its founding through organizing and demonstrations against racial inequality, particularly police use of force against Black people. High profile incidents of deadly force by police include the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, OH, Walter Scott in North Charleston, SC, Sandra Bland, in Prairie View, TX, and many others. In June 2020, protests against police use of force, particularly force against Black victims, became one of the largest protest movements in U.S. history, with about 15 million to 26 million people in the United States participating in demonstrations. 2 These protests started in response to the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. The movement calls for widespread police reform and accountability for allegedly race-motivated violence against people of color, as well as calling for broader race equity in the U.S.3 On June 6, 2020 an estimated half a million people participated in public protests in nearly 550 places across the United States. As of July 3, 2020, there had been an estimated 4,700 demonstrations in all 50 states.

Washington, DC; The Commission, 2021. 26p.

By Matthew R. Durose and Lynn Langton

Examines the characteristics and experiences of persons age 16 or older who contacted police to request assistance in 2011.

Examines the characteristics and experiences of persons age 16 or older who contacted police to request assistance in 2011. The report describes the perceptions of residents about police behavior and response during these encounters. It details requests for police assistance to (1) report a crime, suspicious activity, or neighborhood disturbance; (2) report a non-crime emergency, such as a medical issue or traffic accident; and (3) seek help for a nonemergency or other reason, such as asking for directions or help with an animal problem. Data are from the 2011 Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS), a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which collects information from a nationally representative sample of persons in U.S. households on contact with police during a 12-month period.

Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2013. 12p.

By Lynn Langton and Matthew Durose

Examines the characteristics and experiences of persons age 16 or older who were stopped by police during traffic and street stops, and their perceptions of police behavior and response during these encounters.

Examines the characteristics and experiences of persons age 16 or older who were stopped by police during traffic and street stops, and their perceptions of police behavior and response during these encounters. It describes the outcomes of traffic and street stops by the reason for the stop; demographic characteristics of the persons stopped; race or Hispanic origin of the officers; and whether a ticket was issued, a search was conducted, or force was used. It also describes variations in perceptions of the police across characteristics and outcomes of traffic and street stops. Data are from the 2011 Police-Public Contact Survey, a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which collects information from a nationally representative sample of persons in U.S. households on contact with police during a 12-month period.

Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2013. 22p.

By Emma Pierson, et al.

To assess racial disparities in police interactions with the public, we compiled and analyzed a dataset detailing over 60 million state patrol stops conducted in 20 U.S. states between 2011 and 2015. We find that black drivers are stopped more often than white drivers relative to their share of the driving-age population, but that Hispanic drivers are stopped less often than whites. Among stopped drivers—and after controlling for age, gender, time, and location— blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be ticketed, searched, and arrested than white drivers. These disparities may reflect differences in driving behavior, and are not necessarily the result of bias. In the case of search decisions, we explicitly test for discrimination by examining both the rate at which drivers are searched and the likelihood searches turn up contraband. We find evidence that the bar for searching black and Hispanic drivers is lower than for searching whites. Finally, we find that legalizing recreational marijuana in Washington and Colorado reduced the total number of searches and misdemeanors for all race groups, though a race gap still persists. We conclude by o↵ering recommendations for improving data collection, analysis, and reporting by law enforcement agencies.

Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University, 2017. 24p.

By Alex Stepick, Steve Held, Cynthia S Hernandez, Cheryl Little and Susana Barciela

This report addresses the impact on Miami-Dade County of the Secure Communities program, currently one of the primary federal immigration enforcement programs administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). DHS claims that the program prioritizes the removal of convicted criminal aliens who pose a danger to national security or public safety, repeat violators who game the immigration system, those who fail to appear at immigration hearings, and fugitives who have already been ordered removed by an immigration judge.” Contrary to these policy goals, we found that 61% of individuals ordered for removal from Miami-Dade County are either low level offenders or not guilty of the crime for which they were arrested. By ICE’s standards only 18% of the individuals ordered for removal represent high priority public safety risks, and that number drops to a mere 6% when we apply local standards suggested by Miami-Dade County’s Public Defender. Interviews with detainees also reveal that often residents are stopped by police for no apparent reason and subjected to detention and deportation. Secure Communities in Miami-Dade County also has a disproportionately negative impact on Mexicans and Central Americans who constitute a relatively low percentage of the local population but a high percentage of those whom Secure Communities detained and removed.

Miami: Research Institute on Social & Economic Policy Center for Labor Research & Studies Florida International University and Americans for Immigrant Justice, 2013. 57p.

By Nik Theodore, et al.

Executive Summary This report presents findings from a survey of Latinos regarding their perceptions of law enforcement authorities in light of the greater involvement of police in immigration enforcement. Lake Research Partners designed and administered a randomized telephone survey of 2,004 Latinos living in the counties of Cook (Chicago), Harris (Houston), Los Angeles, and Maricopa (Phoenix). The survey was designed to assess the impact of police involvement in immigration enforcement on Latinos’ perceptions of public safety and their willingness to contact the police when crimes have been committed. The survey was conducted in English and Spanish by professional interviewers during the period November 17 to December 10, 2012. Survey results indicate that the increased involvement of police in immigration enforcement has significantly heightened the fears many Latinos have of the police, contributing to their social isolation and exacerbating their mistrust of law enforcement authorities.

Chicago: Department of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2013. 28p.

By National Police Agency

An overview of the history, organization, administration and policing functions of the police of Japan. Covers traffic police, security police, cyber security, police science, international cooperation. Includes statistics on arrests, crimes known and clear, traffic violations.

National Police Agency. Tokyo. Japan. 2001. 70p

By Roger Matthews

Armed robbery is a relatively rare but very serious crime, and the police response therefore needs to be as effective as possible. The importance of this is reflected by the national key objective on violent crime, and by the creation of the ACPO Armed Criminality Working Group whose advice was recently published in ‘Tackling Crime Effectively: Management Handbook 2’. This report summarises what is known about the extent and nature of armed robbery nationally, highlighting the very welcome reductions in the number of these crimes in 1994 and 1995. It goes on to examine the policing strategies in two very different forces - the Metropolitan Police and South Yorkshire Police - showing how the police response can be tailored to the particular environment and local circumstances. The value of proactive police work and the use of informants is clearly demonstrated in the Metropolitan Police, while the speed and quality of response to incidents was important in South Yorkshire.

London: Home Office Police Research Group, 1996. 58p.

By United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Intelligence

From the Document: "(U) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI or the Committee) has long expressed interest in reviewing the United States Government (USG) counterintelligence (CI) enterprise to identify actions needed to enhance its posture, capabilities, and responsibilities in response to contemporary foreign intelligence entity (FIE) threats. The Committee tasked the Audits & Projects Team (Team) with conducting a targeted organizational assessment of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC or the Center)--the statutory head of U.S. CI--to understand whether this entity is properly authorized, resourced, and structured to carry out its mission. 'This report seeks to (1) identify the key challenges facing NCSC in carrying out its mission and (2) capture a range of opinions from CI experts on those challenges and potential ways forward.'"

United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Intelligence 2022. 153p.

By Patrick J. Carr

With the close proximity of gangs and the easy access to drugs, keeping urban neighborhoods safe from crime has long been a central concern for residents. In <em>Clean Streets, Patrick Carr draws on five years of research in a white, working-class community on Chicago’s South side to see how they tried to keep their streets safe. Carr details the singular event for this community and the resulting rise of community activism: the shootings of two local teenage girls outside of an elementary school by area gang members. As in many communities struck by similar violence, the shootings led to profound changes in the community's relationship to crime prevention. Notably, their civic activism has proved successful and, years after the shooting, community involvement remains strong.

Carr mines this story of an awakened neighborhood for unique insights, contributing a new perspective to the national debate on community policing, civic activism, and the nature of social control. <em>Clean Streets offers an important story of one community's struggle to confront crime and to keep their homes safe. Their actions can be seen as a model for how other communities can face up to similarly difficult problems.

New York: New York University Press, 2005. 209p.

By Joshua J. Skoczylis

This book explores the successes and failures of the Prevent strategy, which was developed by the UK Government to help stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It provides a holistic overview of the policy's formation, delivery, and impact on Muslim communities. Based on interviews with former Ministers, senior policy makers, frontline professionals and community focus groups, Joshua Skoczylis also analyses the various impacts of policy and organizational tensions. These include the ambiguous scope of Prevent, the idea of community cohesion, and funding and evaluation issues.

The Local Prevention of Terrorism highlights the difficulties in applying terrorism prevention policies and the limitations of their impact. It shows that strategies such as Prevent may have particularly negative effects on Muslim communities, undermining their trust and perceptions of legitimacy. In its use of a large body of primary data and up-to-date analysis, the book will be of great interest to policymakers as well as scholars studying terrorism and security.

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 312p.

By Lily Gleicher

Despite the juvenile justice system’s shift from punitive-oriented to rehabilitation-oriented correctional approaches, post-commitment youth recidivism continues to be a significant issue. While the number of incarcerated juveniles in Illinois has consistently decreased over the years, the recidivism rate remains high. To better understand the extent of Illinois youth recidivism, researchers measured three-year rearrest and reincarceration rates among a sample of youth released from state juvenile correctional facilities. Over the three-year period post-release from the juvenile state correctional facilities, 87 percent of youth were rearrested, 55 percent were recommitted to a state juvenile correctional facility, and 54 percent were committed to an adult correctional facility. While Illinois has made efforts to reform juvenile justice in the state, recidivism remains high for those who are sentenced to a juvenile correctional facility. These rates likely reflect that youth committed to juvenile corrections generally have more complex needs and require more intensive, individualized, wrap-around programs and services to be successful in the community.

Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 2019. 34p.

By Amnesty International Netherlands

Tthe current use of electro-shock weapons as well as the governing regulations in The Netherlands raise serious concerns and therefore Amnesty International calls the Dutch police to: – suspend the use of electro-shock weapons by all police units currently using them until a suitable legal and operational framework for their use has been set up that is in line with the obligations of The Netherlands under international human rights law and standards and – until this is done – to withdraw all electro-shock weapons distributed; – refrain from widespread distribution of electro-shock weapons in day-to-day policing; – cease any police interventions in mental health institutions in all situations and circumstances that do not amount to immediate life threatening emergencies (e.g. hostage situations). … This briefing sets out the background to the current pilot project conducted by the Dutch police on the general deployment of electro-shock weapons in day-to-day policing (I.). It further provides a summary of the Amnesty International’s main findings regarding the human rights concerns of the first pilot phase as well as the overall set up of the project and its interim evaluation (II.). These findings are then more in detail explained and elaborated in section III., followed by a conclusion and some recommendations (IV.).

Amsterdam: Amnesty International, 2018. 27p.

By Scot Wortley, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Erick Laming and Carae Henry

Police use of force is a crucially important issue. It directly engages with issues of public safety and the safety of law enforcement officers. However, when done improperly, police use of force can cause the unnecessary death or serious injury of civilians, undermine public trust in the police, and compromise the legitimacy of the entire criminal justice system. Finally, police use of force can erode social cohesion and contribute to radicalization, riots and other social control issues. Unfortunately, despite its importance, police use of force has been subject to surprisingly little empirical research––especially in the Canadian context. The following report attempts to address this gap. The authors of this report were retained by the Canadian Criminal Justice Association (CCJA) to examine police use of force in Canada. The project, funded by Public Safety Canada, addresses several important research questions: 1) How often do the police in Canada use physical force against civilians? 2) Is police use of force more common in some police jurisdictions than others? 3) Has use of force increased or decreased over the past ten years? 4) What regions of the country have witnessed the greatest declines in police use of force? What policies or practices contributed to these declines? 5) What are best practices with respect to police use of force? How can use of force be reduced while simultaneously ensuring public safety and the safety of police officers? 6) What is the state of Canadian research on police use of force? How can data collection and research on police use of force be improved?

Ottawa: Canadian Criminal Justice Association, 2021. 150p.

By John R. "Rick" Brown and Robin S. Engel

This report documents the results from comprehensive analyses of use of force incidents reported by the CSPD, specifically focusing on understanding how, when, why, and against whom officers use force, as well as the context of police encounters with the public, from both the community and officer perspectives. The purpose of this study is to examine current practices and identify opportunities to reduce the frequency and severity of use of force incidents, racial/ethnic disparities in force, and injuries to both officers and citizens through improvements to policies, training, and supervision. This report includes nine sections: (1) Introduction, (2) Review of CSPD Policies and Practices, (3) Data and Research Methods, (4) Physical Force and Weapons Used, (5) Types of Force, Force Effectiveness, and Injuries, (6) Pointing of Firearms, (7) Community Perspectives, (8) CSPD Officer Perspectives, and (9) Recommendations. This executive summary provides an overview of the primary findings from each of these report sections.

Colorado Springs: Colorado Springs Police Department, 2022. 280p.

By Michael R. Smith, Robert J. Kaminski, Geoffrey P. Alpert, Lorie A. Fridell, John MacDonald, and Bruce Kubu

Findings show that the use of physical force and hands-on control increase the risk of injury to officers and citizens. Increasing levels of suspect resistance were associated with an increased risk of injury to both officers and suspects. Regarding the use of pepper spray by officers, the multiagency analysis indicated that its use reduced the probability of injury to suspects by 70 percent. For officers, the use of pepper spray increased the probability of injury by 21 to 39 percent. Regarding the use of conducted electrical devices (CEDs), they significantly reduced the probability of injuries, after controlling for other types of force and resistance. Aside from officer force and suspect resistance variables, few other factors correlated with injury outcomes. In the multiagency models, male suspects were twice as likely as females to be injured in a use-of-force event. The presence of a male suspect slightly increased the risk of injury to officers compared to female suspects. In Seattle, WA, where officer gender was available for inclusion in the models, female officers were more than twice as likely as male officers to be injured in use-of-force events. The study used a nationally representative survey of U.S. law enforcement agencies to provide an overview of how less-lethal force technologies, training, and policies are linked to use-of-force events. Data from three agencies were analyzed separately in order to identify individual and situational predictors of injuries to officers and citizens during use-of-force events. Use-of-force records from 12 police agencies were combined and analyzed, and a longitudinal analysis was conducted in order to determine the effect on injury rates of the adoption of the Taser by 2 police agencies.

Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2011, 172p.

By Jonas Hansson, Miguel Inzunza and Isabelle Stjerna Doohan

From an international perspective, recent years have seen an increase in the use of conducted energy weapons (CEWs), which are used to control potentially dangerous and uncooperative people. In 2019 the Norwegian National Police Directorate launched a two-year trial of CEWs in daily police work. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the National Police Directorate’s CEW trial and to explore the public’s perceptions of police use of CEWs. The current study found that CEWs are mainly used against individuals who are mentally unstable and exhibit aggressive and dangerous behaviour. The findings showed that CEWs fill the gap between pepper spray or batons and firearms and complement other forcible means. The findings from the interviews showed that the officers could resolve the situations before the introduction of CEWs, but with CEWs they could do so with less intrusive force and a lower risk of injury. … The citizen survey results indicate that citizens believe police officers can be trusted with decisions related to the use of force. The survey also showed that citizens who had received some information on CEWs were significantly more positive towards CEWs than those who had no information. Further, the group with information on CEWs also stated that they would feel more secure if police in their vicinity were equipped with CEWs

Umeå, Sweden: Umea University, 2021. 59p.