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Understanding Subgroups Within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department: Community and Department Perceptions with Recommendations for Change

By Samuel PetersonDionne Barnes-ProbyKathryn E. BouskillLois M. DavisMatthew L. MizelBeverly A. WeidmerIsabel LeamonAlexandra Mendoza-GrafMatt StrawnJoshua Snoke, et al.

RAND Corporation researchers studied deputy subgroups within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) to help LASD and the county learn more about how these subgroups are formed, why they exist, and what actions might be taken if it is determined that these subgroups have a significant impact on LASD's mission. The research team formulated questions for an anonymous survey, confidential interviews, and focus groups with a range of LASD personnel and community stakeholders. The team collected interview and focus group data from 141 community leaders and members; interview data from 57 individuals, including members of LASD and other county stakeholders; and responses from 1,608 LASD survey participants. Sixteen percent of LASD survey respondents acknowledged that they had been asked to join a subgroup, with one-quarter of those being invited in the last five years (the survey did not directly ask whether participants belonged to a subgroup). Personnel had a wide array of views on the structure, function, risks, and value of the subgroups, but many recognized that the potential risks outweighed any functional value or other purported benefits. This matter negatively impacts community trust, and community members wanted to see that LASD was taking the matter seriously. Deputies expressed mixed opinions as to what actions they felt the department should take. Thirty-seven percent of respondents agreed that subgroups should be prohibited. These results suggest that this subject is divisive within LASD and that efforts for such

  • change could be met with some resistance.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2021. 230p.

The California Highway Patrol: An Evaluation of Public Contacts in Stop Data

By Emily Owens and Jaclyn Rosenquist

In order to better understand the role that race or ethnicity may play in who is stopped by their officers, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) provided the California Policy Lab (CPL) with a data set of 2,141,817 enforcement stops made by the CHP from January to December of 2019. The data was collected pursuant to California’s Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015 (RIPA). In order to extend the statistical analysis presented in the 2021 Annual RIPA Board Report, we evaluated enforcement stops in combination with non-enforcement stops using two generally accepted approaches to measure racially disparate policing: benchmarking and a hit rate analysis.

Los Angeles: California Policy Lab, 2021. 59p.

Building the Biometric State: Police Powers and Discrimination

By Chris Jones, Jane Kilpatrick, Yasha Maccanico

Attempts by the EU and its member states to step up identity controls by equipping police and immigration authorities with new biometric technologies are likely to see both ethnic minority citizens and non-citizens subjected to unwarranted intrusions into their everyday activities, argues a report published today by Statewatch. Building the biometric state: Police powers and discrimination looks at the gradual development and deployment of biometric technologies by EU institutions and member states over the last two decades. It finds that the EU has provided at least €290 million in public research funding to projects aiming to advance biometric techniques and technologies, and that policy development and implementation has been propelled by secretive police and policy networks that operate with little to no democratic scrutiny. It also provides case studies examining the deployment of biometric technologies in France, Italy and Spain, highlighting some of the issues that are likely to  arise as such technology becomes more widely used.

London: Statewatch, 2022. 34p.

Empowering the Police: Removing Protections: The New Europol Regulation

By Jane Kilpatrick, Chris Jones

The new rules governing Europol, which came into force at the end of June, massively expand the tasks and powers of the EU’s policing agency whilst reducing external scrutiny of its data processing operations and rights protections for individuals, says a report published today by Statewatch. Given Europol’s role as a ‘hub’ for information processing and exchange between EU member states and other entities, the new rules thus increase the powers of all police forces and other agencies that cooperate with Europol, argues the report, Empowering the police, removing protections. New tasks granted to Europol include supporting the EU’s network of police “special intervention units” and managing a cooperation platform for coordinating joint police operations, known as EMPACT. However, it is the rules governing the processing and exchange of data that have seen the most significant changes.

London: Statewatch, 2022. 55p.

Watching Police, Watching Communities

By Mike McConville and Dan Shepherd

From the early 80s community policing has been held up as a new commitment to the ideals of service and the rejection of coercive policing styles. The idea was to encourage a partnership between the public and police in which community needs would be met by officers on local beats. Today, Government ministers and senior police officers depict Neighbourhood Watch, the centrepiece of the scheme, as a great success. However, Watching Police, Watching Communities reveals that most schemes are dormant or dead. The authors trace the causes of scheme failure to the lack of commitment to community policing by police forces. Most importantly, they find a police rank-and-file culture which celebrates aggression, machismo and the assertion of authority especially against areas occupied by ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged groups.

London; New York: Routledge, 2005, 284p.

Community Policing: National and International Models and Approaches

By Mike Brodgen and Preeti Nijhar

Community policing has been a buzzword in Anglo-American policing for the last two decades, somewhat vague in its definition but generally considered to be a good thing. In the UK the notion of community policing conveys a consensual policing style, offering an alternative to past public order and crime-fighting styles. In the US community policing represents the dominant ideology of policing as reflected in a myriad of urban schemes and funding practices, the new orthodoxy in North American policing policy-making, strategies and tactics. But it has also become a massive export to non-western societies.

Cullompton, UK: Willan Publishing, 2005. 259p.

Community Policing in Indigenous Communities

Edited by Mahesh K. Nalla and Graeme R. Newman

Indigenous communities are typically those that challenge the laws of the nation states of which they have become—often very reluctantly—a part. Around the world, community policing has emerged in many of these regions as a product of their physical environments and cultures. Through a series of case studies, Community Policing in Indigenous Communities explores how these often deeply divided societies operate under the community policing paradigm. Drawing on the local expertise of policing practitioners and researchers across the globe, the book explores several themes with regard to each region:

How community policing originated or evolved in the community and how it has changed over time The type of policing style used—whether informal or formal and uniformed or non-uniformed, whether partnerships are developed with local community organizations or businesses, and the extent of covert operations, if any The role played by community policing in the region, including the relative emphasis of calls for service, the extent to which advice and help is offered to citizens, whether local records are kept of citizen movement and locations, and investigation and arrest procedures.

  • The community’s special cultural or indigenous attributes that set it apart from other models of community policing Organizational attributes, including status in the "hierarchy of control" within the regional or national organization of policing The positive and negative features of community policing as it is practiced in the community Its effectiveness in reducing and or preventing crime and disorder. The book demonstrates that community policing cannot be imposed from above without grassroots input from local citizens. It is a strategy—not simply for policing with consent—but for policing in contexts where there is often little, if any, consent. It is an aspirational practice aimed to help police and communities within contested contexts to recognize that positive gains can be made, enabling communities to live in relative safety.

Boca Raton, FL: London; New York: CRC Press, 2013. 396p.

Community Policing and Peacekeeping

Edited by Peter Grabosky with the assistance of Christine Nam

In modern industrial societies, the demand for policing services frequently exceeds the current and foreseeable availability of public policing resources. Conversely, developing nations often suffer from an inability to provide a basic level of security for their citizens. Community Policing and Peacekeeping offers a fresh overview of the challenges of community policing in advanced societies and peacekeeping in weak nations, demonstrating how going beyond traditional models of police work can provide solutions in troubled communities. Responding to the needs of the community Featuring contributions from world-class scholars, this volume emphasizes the importance of cultural and political sensitivities in police work. Offering comparative perspectives from the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, South Africa, and China, it explores the paradigm of community policing that involves consultation with community members, responsiveness to their security needs, collective problem-solving to identify the most appropriate means of meeting these needs, and mobilization of police services.

  • Exploring the challenges and pitfalls of these collaborative efforts, the book examines how traditional models of police work have evolved to embrace the needs of communities. Keeping peace at home and abroad The second part of the book focuses on police peacekeeping efforts in countries torn apart by civil strife. It includes chapters on police collaboration with the United Nations, Australian and Canadian efforts abroad, CIVPOL (civilian police peace operations), and programs in Papua New Guinea and Cambodia. The book shows how expanding the role of the police beyond the limits of fighting crime can help contribute to safer, more stable communities.

Boca Raton, FL; London; New York: CRC Press, 2019. 392p.

Community Policing, Chicago Style

By Wesley G. Skogan , Susan M. Hartnett

In describing successes and limitations of the CP program in Chicago and experimental districts where the CP program was first employed, the authors trace the CP program from its inception to its application in the field and examine the roots of CP and the implementation of CP in the context of political, racial, and fiscal realities. The first chapter of the book defines CP and describes some of the obstacles to making it work in practice. The second chapter discusses the conditions leading to the adoption of CP in Chicago, while the third chapter details the planning process and the eventual deployment of police officers to carry out the CP program. The fourth chapter discusses Chicago's CP program, known as CAPS (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy). Other chapters explore the public's vital role in CP, linkages between the police and other city agencies, the impact of CP on the quality of life, and lessons learned from Chicago's experience. The authors conclude the CP program has resulted in substantial benefits for most Chicago residents.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 268p.

Los Angeles Police Department Meltdown: The Fall of the Professional-reform Model of Policing

By James Lasley

Once considered among the most respected police departments in the world, the LAPD suffered a devastating fall from grace following the 1991 police officer beating of Rodney King and the Los Angeles riots stemming from the officers’ acquittal in 1992. Unique to the literature of policing, management, and policy studies, <STRONG>Los Angeles Police Department Meltdown: The Fall of the Professional-Reform Model of Policing presents what can be considered the first and only existing research document truly explaining the reasons behind the LAPD’s demise. The book reveals a special inside study performed by the author under the exclusive authority of LAPD Chief of Police Daryl Gates to investigate why the department had begun to disintegrate following the Rodney King incident, and how, if possible, it could be salvaged. The findings presented are based on first-hand written accounts of LAPD officer informants who describe their observations of the department’s meltdown as it occurred. These accounts explain why the crime-fighting enforcement style of the once highly regarded Professional-Reform Model of policing (coined at the LAPD) was abandoned in police departments across the nation in favor of the less aggressive community-based policing model.   Lost for some 20 years under mysterious circumstances after collection and storage at the LAPD, these officer informant materials were recently retrieved and made available for analysis. They are presented in their entirety in this book. In every respect, this work is the final word on why and how the LAPD—a police organization emulated throughout the world—ultimately self-destructed after 41 years of serving and protecting the City of Angels.

Boca Raton; London; New York: CRC Press, 2012. 294p

Exploring Police Integrity: Novel Approaches to Police Integrity Theory and Methodology

Edited by Sanja Kutnjak Ivković and M. R. Haberfeld

This work provides an innovative new look at police ethics, including results from an updated version of the classic Police Integrity Questionnaire, including new social and technological advances. It aims to push the study of police research further, expanding on and testing police integrity theory and methodology, the relationship between community and integrity, and the influence of multiculturalism and globalization on policing and community attitudes.
This work brings together experienced scholars who have used the police integrity theory and the accompanying methodology to measure police integrity in eleven countries, and provide advance and sophisticated explorations of the topic. Organized into three thematic sections, it explores the testing methodology for international comparisons, insights into police-community relations, and explores police subcultures.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2019. 388p.

Police Corruption in the NYPD: From Knapp to Mollen

By Steven V. Gilbert

Police Corruption in the NYPD: From Knapp to Mollen explores how the New York Police Department experienced two major investigations within a quarter of a century. It compares the states of corruption within the NYPD during the Knapp and Mollen commissions, examining why corruption continued and why the revealed ethical breaches became more serious. It also discusses how corruption was enhanced even after accountability and responsibility were assigned to department administration. The book gives in-depth discussions of the Knapp and Mollen reports and relates the history and relevance of efforts to combat corruption and to improve police practices. It uses empirical data from interviews and current NYPD recruit training documents as reference materials in examining police practices. It also identifies failures of leadership that contributed to the systemic ethical degeneration of the NYPD. Police Corruption in the NYPD goes beyond the training of ethics and enforcement by delving into the departmental failures that permit officers to develop from being merely unethical to becoming criminals. By presenting and analyzing theories of corruption from current authorities, it lays a foundation for critical discussion and comparison between commissions as well as current department ethical training and practices

Boca Raton; London; New York: CRC Press, 2016. 176p.

Police Corruption: Deviance, Reform and Accountability in Policing

By Maurice Punch

The book portrays police corruption as consisting of many deviant and criminal practices in the context of policing that may change character over time. Corruption is defined in a broad, multifaceted way that has the common thread of abuse of policing authority and the trust of the community. Its most serious forms involve criminal conspiracies that use specialized professional knowledge, contacts, and power to both commit crimes and evade detection. Typologies of corruption are identified, along with the forms of corruption that emerge in diverse policing environments. Also discussed are the pathways officers may take into corruption and their rationalizations for their corrupt and criminal behaviors. The book rejects the overarching portrayal of police corruption as caused by a few individual "bad apples" while promoting the metaphor of "bad orchards," meaning that police corruption stems from corrupting police subcultures and temptations related to institutional failures and the nature of policing. Comparative analyses are made of police corruption, scandal, and reform in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. The analyses examine issues of control, accountability, and the new institutions of oversight, such as the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) for England and Wales, at a time when external oversight of police has become a prominent feature of anticorruption efforts.

Cullompton, Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2009. 296p.

Routledge Handbook of Private Security Studies

Edited by Rita Abrahamsen and Anna Leander

This new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of current research on private security and military companies, comprising essays by leading scholars from around the world. The increasing privatization of security across the globe has been the subject of much debate and controversy, inciting fears of private warfare and even the collapse of the state. This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the range of issues raised by contemporary security privatization, offering both a survey of the numerous roles performed by private actors and an analysis of their implications and effects. Ranging from the mundane to the spectacular, from secretive intelligence gathering and neighbourhood surveillance to piracy control and warfare, this Handbook shows how private actors are involved in both domestic and international security provision and governance. It places this involvement in historical perspective, and demonstrates how the impact of security privatization goes well beyond the security field to influence diverse social, economic and political relationships and institutions. Finally, this volume analyses the evolving regulation of the global private security sector. Seeking to overcome the disciplinary boundaries that have plagued the study of private security, the Handbook promotes an interdisciplinary approach and contains contributions from a range of disciplines, including international relations, politics, criminology, law, sociology, geography and anthropology.

London; New York: Routledge, 2015. 296p.

Cybersecurity is Patient Safety: Policy Options in the Health Care Sector

By Office Of Senator Mark R. Warner

From the Introduction: "Over the past decade, the American public has witnessed increasingly brazen and disruptive attacks on its health care sector that jeopardize sensitive personal information, delay treatment, and ultimately lead to increased suffering and death. In 2021, cybersecurity attacks on health care providers reached an all-time high, with one study indicating that more than 45 million people were affected by such attacks in 2021 - a 32 percent increase over 2020. The health care sector is vulnerable to cyberattacks for a number of reasons, including its reliance on legacy technology, a wide and highly varied attack surface (that only grows more complex from the ever-increasing number of connected devices), a high-pressure environment where even the slightest delay can have life-or-death consequences, funding constraints, and an outdated mode of thinking that views cybersecurity as a secondary or tertiary concern."

Office Of Senator Mark R. Warner . 2022. 36p.

Homelessness in California: Causes and policy considerations

By Jialu L. Streeter

For decades, California has had one of the country’s largest
populations of unhoused people. In recent years, however,
the challenges have severely worsened for the Golden State.
The homelessness counts in California rose by 42 percent
between 2014 and 2020, while the rest of the country had a
9 percent decrease. On any given night, the state has more
than 160,000 homeless persons.

California’s homeless crisis is associated with high housing
costs, inadequate shelter spaces, deinstitutionalization,
and changes in the criminal justice system.

Stanford, CA: The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), 2022. 13p.

Health and Health Care While Experiencing a Cycle of Homelessness and Incarceration

By Sarah Gillespie,Devlin Hanson,Nicole DuBois,Cary Lou,Christine Velez,Jennifer Esala,Tracey O'Brien

In 2016, the City and County of Denver launched the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB) to shift resources from expensive emergency services to more permanent, affordable housing and supportive services. The initiative aimed to increase housing stability and decrease jail stays for people trapped in the homelessness-jail cycle. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Evidence for Action program, the Urban Institute launched a health outcomes study as a complement to the ongoing SIB evaluation. This report focuses on the year before people were enrolled in the SIB evaluation, giving us a picture of the status quo for health services in Denver for people experiencing cycles of homelessness and incarceration.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 59p.

Costs and Offsets of Providing Supportive Housing to Break the Homelessness-Jail Cycle: Findings from the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative

By Sarah Gillespie, Devlin Hanson, Josh Leopold, Alyse D. Oneto

In 2016, the City and County of Denver launched the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB) to shift resources from expensive emergency services to more permanent, affordable housing and supportive services that can be difficult to fund without up-front capital. The initiative aimed to increase housing stability and decrease jail stays for people trapped in the homelessness-jail cycle. This report details the costs of supportive housing provided by the Denver SIB and the costs and cost offsets associated with supportive housing’s effects on outcomes across the housing and homelessness assistance, criminal justice, and health care systems.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 49p.

Breaking the Homelessness-Jail Cycle with Housing First: Results from Denver’s five-year supportive housing program show a better way to invest in people and communities

By Mary K. Cunningham, Devlin Hanson,Sarah Gillespie,Michael Pergamit,Alyse D. Oneto,Patrick Spauster,Tracey O'Brien,Liz Sweitzer,Christine Velez

Homelessness is growing in communities across the United States as housing becomes increasingly unaffordable and public systems fail to support people who need assistance, forcing thousands to sleep outside or in shelters. Without access to housing and services, many people experiencing chronic, or long-term, homelessness are trapped in a homelessness-jail cycle—rotating in and out of jail, detoxification centers, and emergency health care. This cycle doesn’t help people access the assistance they need to find stability, and it comes at a major cost to taxpayers. Rather than paying for the consequences of leaving people in homelessness, communities could invest in housing and services that end this harmful pattern. Results from the five-year Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB) show how both people and public budgets benefit when communities take this proactive approach.ess, communities could invest in housing and services that end this harmful pattern. Results from the five-year Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB) show how both people and public budgets benefit when communities take this proactive approach. The Denver SIB, launched in 2016 by the City and County of Denver, aimed to increase housing stability and decrease jail stays among people who were experiencing chronic homelessness and who had frequent interactions with the criminal justice and emergency health systems.

  • The Denver SIB, which provided supportive housing (a permanent housing subsidy and intensive services) to help participants stay housed, used a Housing First approach. Housing First programs don’t require participants to meet any preconditions, and they are built on the idea that secure, affordable, and permanent housing must be available before people can work on other challenges, such as mental health or substance use disorders. The Urban Institute, with partners from The Evaluation Center at the University of Colorado Denver, tracked implementation of the Denver SIB and evaluated its effects between 2016 and 2020. The evaluation used a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard for determining a program’s impact, that included 724 people: 363 people were in the treatment group (referred to the supportive housing program) and 361 people were in the control group (receiving services as usual in the community).

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 94p.

Alternatives to Arrests and Police Responses to Homelessness: Evidence-Based Models and Promising Practices

By Samantha Batko, Sarah Gillespie,Katrina Ballard,Mary K. Cunningham

In response to unsheltered homelessness, communities often turn to punitive responses: issuing ordinances that criminalize homelessness, clearing homeless encampments, and arresting people. This results in people becoming trapped in a cycle of homelessness and jail. The solution to this cycle is Housing First, an evidence-based strategy that has been proven to help people stay in housing and improve their quality of life. Until housing is available at the scale needed to end homelessness, communities can improve outcomes for people enduring unsheltered homelessness and for the community as a whole by considering promising innovations that prioritize inclusive public space management and shift the role of law enforcement agencies from policing homelessness to solving homelessness in partnerships with service providers. This report reviews the evidence for housing as the solution to homelessness and emerging evidence for inclusive public space and alternative crisis response policies and practices.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2020. 35p.