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, 2019. 388p.

By Chris Giacomantonio

This book critically examines coordination work between police officers and agencies. Police work requires constant interaction between police forces and units within those forces, yet the process by which police work with one another is not well understood by sociologists or practitioners. At the same time, the increasing inter-dependence between police forces raises a wide set of questions about how police should act and how they can be held accountable when locally-based police officers work in or with multiple jurisdictions. This rearrangement of resources creates important issues of governance, which this book addresses through an inductive account of policing in practice.Policing Integration builds on extensive fieldwork in a multi-jurisdictional environment in Canada alongs.

Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 218p.

By Janet B. L. Chan

Police culture is often considered as both a cause of police deviance and an obstacle for police reform. In this study of police racism and police reform in Australia, Janet Chan provides a critical assessment of police initiative in response to the problem of policeSHminorities relations. The book examines the dynamics of change and resistance within an organization and captures the complexity and unpredictability of the change process. It questions the utility of the traditional conception of police culture and proposes a new framework for understanding the interrelationships among the structural conditions of police work, police cultural knowledge, and police practice. A highly original and valuable contribution to policing studies and studies of organizational reform, the book is both empirically rich and theoretically informed.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997, 267p.

By Peter Andreas and Ethan Nadelmann

In this illuminating history that spans past campaigns against piracy and slavery to contemporary campaigns against drug trafficking and transnational terrorism, Peter Andreas and Ethan Nadelmann explain how and why prohibitions and policing practices increasingly extend across borders. The internationalization of crime control is too often described as simply a natural and predictable response to the growth of transnational crime in an age of globalization. Andreas and Nadelmann challenge this conventional view as at best incomplete and at worst misleading. The internationalization of policing, they demonstrate, primarily reflects ambitious efforts by generations of western powers to export their own definitions of "crime," not just for political and economic gain but also in an attempt to promote their own morals to other parts of the world.

A thought-provoking analysis of the historical expansion and recent dramatic acceleration of international crime control, Policing the Globe provides a much-needed bridge between criminal justice and international relations on a topic of crucial public importance.

New York; Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006. 348p.

By Molly M. Simmons, Daniel Tapia, Richard H. Donohue, Denis Agniel, Matthew L. Mizel, Lisa Wagner, Amanda Charbonneau, Danielle Sobol

Under contract with Charlotte, North Carolina, the authors evaluated three of the six policing and public-safety recommendations in the city's SAFE Charlotte: Safety and Accountability for Everyone report. Recommendation 2 is about developing ways to implement a civilian response for low-risk duties. Recommendation 3 requested independent analysis of police–community member contact to determine the extent to which racial/ethnic bias is evident in policing in Charlotte. Recommendation 4 states that Charlotte's Community Policing Crisis Response Team should be expanded, and a specialized civilian responder model should be explored for those experiencing mental health crisis and homelessness.

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  The authors recommend two pilot programs: (1) a new team of clinicians who would deploy in pairs to provide services that could help address substance abuse, mental health, and homelessness and (2) a program that would delegate low-risk, low-priority calls to nonspecialized civilian responders. The estimated costs for the clinician team pilot would be approximately $850,000 for the first year. The estimated costs for the pilot of civilian responders for low-risk, low-priority calls would be approximately $1.4 million to $1.85 million for the first year. Local stakeholders should be involved in every aspect of development and implementation of all potential programs — from hiring to uniforms. The authors analyzed stop data, arrest data, and complaint data and found that Black residents in Charlotte were more likely to be stopped both as a driver and as a pedestrian and, when stopped, were more likely to be arrested.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2022. 203p.

By Sean E. Goodison, Jeremy D. Barnum, Michael J. D. Vermeer, Dulani Woods, Siara I. Sitar, Brian A. Jackson

Police often are the first (and sometimes the only) point of government contact for persons experiencing homelessness (PEH). Although it has been common for police to rely on traditional law enforcement powers in dealing with homelessness, many agencies have moved away from arrest-focused methods in favor of approaches that are designed to foster positive relationships with PEH, assess individual needs of each person or area, and guide homeless or unsheltered individuals to the services they require.

To better understand the potential challenges of the law enforcement response to homelessness, the RAND Corporation and the Police Executive Research Forum, on behalf of the National Institute of Justice, convened a workshop of practitioners and researchers to discuss current law enforcement responses to homelessness and identify the highest-priority needs to support and improve existing efforts. During this meeting, four major themes were identified. First, there is a common set of factors underlying homelessness that law enforcement can address. Second, homelessness and overall health and wellness are deeply intertwined issues that should be treated together. Third, effective responses require the collaboration of stakeholders across governments, the private sector, and the community. Finally, acquiring and sharing data is necessary to understand the nature and scope of homelessness in each jurisdiction and to measure the effect of any implemented strategies. All four of these themes are vital to understanding the current challenges confronting the implementation of innovative police responses to homelessness.

Santa Monica, CA: 2020. 32p.

By Michael J. D. Vermeer, Dulani Woods, Brian A. Jackson

Recent nationwide protests against police use of force and perceptions of systemic racism in law enforcement in the United States have sparked renewed conversation about problems in the U.S. criminal justice system. Much of this conversation has been focused on the idea of "defunding the police." In this Perspective, the authors describe police leaders' and practitioners' views on defunding the police — that is, budgeting less money for police and more for other public safety strategies — and explain why revisiting the role of law enforcement in society could have broader appeal than some think. To do this, the authors draw on experience in workshops held over the past seven years by the Priority Criminal Justice Needs Initiative. In these workshops, police leaders and practitioners have voiced frustration with being the default party that is expected to respond to many complex social problems, such as homelessness, substance use, and mental health crises. Practitioners argue that nonenforcement strategies are often more effective than policing in solving many of these problems. Therefore, the authors suggest that there might be significant law enforcement support for some "defunding" strategies — as long as these efforts relieve some of the unrealistic expectations on police. The authors also describe current police functions that could be reassigned to other community partners, discuss factors that communities must consider if they choose to reallocate police functions, and note evidence of broader support for such reforms in the general population.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020. 20p.

By Tracy C. Krueger, Sean Robson, Kirsten M. Keller

A guiding tenet of community policing is that trust and mutual respect between law enforcement and communities will more effectively address long-standing and complex public safety issues. One strategy to help establish such confidence is for law enforcement to adequately represent the demographic characteristics of the community it serves. Working to achieve this strategy can be challenging, however, because not everyone will be aware of, qualified for, or interested in a law enforcement career. The Colorado State Patrol (CSP) seeks to better reflect the demographic representation of the state of Colorado. This report offers an exploratory examination of how CSP's recruiting and selection policies and procedures relate to that objective. By integrating a review of CSP documents, interviews with CSP experts, and research and industry best practices, the authors identified potential barriers to diversity in CSP's early career stages and provide recommendations to mitigate and remove these barriers. This work is meant to act as a preliminary road map to assist CSP's future efforts in diversifying the demographic representation of its workforce. Barriers to diversity include the composition of the current workforce, the nature of the job, relocation requirements, and the lengthy hiring process. Recommendations include assessing propensity to apply, determining why applicants drop out, adjusting application windows, exploring strategies to shorten background investigations, and providing a realistic job preview.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2019, 26p.

By John S. Hollywood, Dulani Woods, Sean E. Goodison, Andrew Lauland, Lisa Wagner, Thomas J. Wilson, Brian A. Jackson

The National Institute of Justice tasked RAND to host a panel of law enforcement experts to identify high-priority needs for innovation in law enforcement, covering advances in technology, policy, and practice. The needs discussed in this report can help prioritize research, development, and dissemination efforts in ways that will provide the greatest value to law enforcement practitioners.

The panel identified four top findings. First, there is a need to improve practitioners' knowledge of available research and technology, starting with a central knowledge repository and research on how to improve dissemination and training methods. Second, there is a need for practices and technologies to improve police-community relations, both to improve encounters with the public and to improve community relations more broadly. Third, there is a need to improve the sharing and use of information in a range of ways. These include means to get crime analysis capabilities to all agencies (including small and disadvantaged agencies), software development to reduce information overload, and model proposal and contract language to make systems interoperable. Fourth, there is a need to reduce backlogs in forensic processing; panelists suggested broadening U.S. Department of Justice forensic grants outside of DNA to help address the backlogs.

Additional high-priority needs included further development of policies and use cases for unmanned aerial vehicles, best practices for selecting and using personal gear, and improving defenses against active shooters. The latter included improving both suspicious activity reporting processes and efforts to educate the public on responding to an active shooter. There is also a need for a review of technologies that might improve officers' health.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017, 152p.

By Radley Balko

The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But according to investigative reporter Radley Balko, over the last several decades, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as an other—an enemy.

Today’s armored-up policemen are a far cry from the constables of early America. The unrest of the 1960s brought about the invention of the SWAT unit—which in turn led to the debut of military tactics in the ranks of police officers. Nixon’s War on Drugs, Reagan’s War on Poverty, Clinton’s COPS program, the post–9/11 security state under Bush and Obama: by degrees, each of these innovations expanded and empowered police forces, always at the expense of civil liberties. And these are just four among a slew of reckless programs.

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  In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians’ ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative shows how over a generation, a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.Description text goes here

New York: PublicAffairs, 2013. 400p.

By Regina G. Lawrence

When police brutality becomes front-page news, it triggers a sudden, intense interaction between the media, the public, and the police. Regina Lawrence ably demonstrates how these news events provide the raw materials for looking at underlying problems in American society. Journalists, policy makers, and the public use such stories to define a problematic situation, and this process of problem definition gives the media a crucial role in our public policy debates.

Lawrence extensively analyzes more than 500 incidents of police use-of-force covered by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times from 1985 to 1994, with additional analysis of more recent incidents such as as the shooting of Amadou Diallo in New York. The incidents include but are not limited to those defined as "police brutality." Lawrence reveals the structural and cultural forces that both shape the news and allow police to define most use-of-force incidents, which occur in far greater numbers than are reported, she says.

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  Lawrence explores the dilemma of obtaining critical media perspectives on policing policies. She examines the factors that made the coverage of the Rodney King beating so significant, particularly after the incident was captured on video. At the same time, she shows how an extraordinary news event involving the police can become a vehicle for marginalized social groups to gain entrance into the media arena.

  In contrasting "event-driven" problem definition with the more thoroughly studied "institutionally driven" news stories, Lawrence's book fills a major gap in media studies. It also offers a broader understanding of the interplay between the criminal justice system and the media in today's world.Description text goes here

Berkeley: Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. 254p.

By Jyoti Belur

Extrajudicial executions by law enforcement officers have blighted parts of the world for generations, but criminological coverage has been superficial and selective. It has often been presented as a problem specific to countries associated with military rule, dictatorial regimes and colonial heritage. Permission to Shoot?: Police Use of Deadly Force in Democracies brings a new dimension to the problem of police abuse of deadly force by concentrating on the social and political settings in India and the United States, both large democracies and vibrant superpowers. The research in the book is based on primary sources—interviews with police officers of varying ranks: with those who are involved in the killings; with those who facilitate such operations, and with those who are mute spectators. The book deals with universal, fundamental themes such as: • Why is it that in a democratic country the abuse of police powers can appear to be overtly and tacitly encouraged? • What motivational techniques and justifications are used to override social norms governing moral conduct, centring on the sector of society mandated to use deadly force against civilians? • What makes ordinary, decent human beings do horrible things? Permission to Shoot? seeks to provide broad guidelines and recommendations for reforms in policing policy and practice. The research peels back the opaque communication that often surrounds this issue, but more than that it shows how that kind of communication acts to support the practice itself.

New York: Springer, 2010. 226p.

By Desmond Ang, Panka Bencsik, Jesse Bruhn and Ellora Derenoncourt

How do high-profile acts of police brutality affect public trust and cooperation with law enforcement? To investigate this question, we develop a new measure of civilian crime reporting that isolates changes in community engagement with police from underlying changes in crime: the ratio of police-related 911 calls to gunshots detected by ShotSpotter technology. Examining detailed data from eight major American cities, we show a sharp drop in both the call-to-shot ratio and 911 call volume immediately after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Notably, reporting rates decreased significantly in both non-white and white neighborhoods across the country. These effects persist for several months, and we find little evidence that they were reversed by the conviction of Floyd’s murderer. Together, the results illustrate how acts of police violence may destroy a key input into effective law enforcement and public safety: civilian engagement and reporting.

Cambridge, MA: Working paper, Harvard Kennedy School, 2021. 27p.

By Shelley Hyland, Lynn Langton and Elizabeth Davis

This report presents data on the threat or use of nonfatal force by police against white, black, and Hispanic residents during police contact. This report describes the characteristics of the contact, the type of force threatened or used, and the perceptions that force was excessive or the police behaved properly during the contact. It also examines trends in the threat or use of force and the relationship between officer and driver race and Hispanic origin in traffic stops involving the threat or use of force. Data are from the 2002, 2005, 2008, and 2011 Police- Public Contact Surveys, which were administered as supplements to the National Crime Victimization Survey.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2015. 17

By Robert C. Davis, Nicole J. Henderson and Christopher W. Ortiz

This report examines the outcomes of the consent decree between the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice and the Pittsburgh Police Bureau.

In 1994, the United States Congress expanded the powers of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department by granting it the authority to file civil lawsuits against States and municipalities that display a "pattern or practice" of police misconduct. The department has filed six lawsuits, all of which have been settled out of court through consent decrees. These decrees specify the reforms the police agencies must implement; the first consent decree was negotiated in Pittsburgh, PA. Researchers at the Vera Institute of Justice questioned whether the use of this new Federal intervention power could make a sustainable difference in the operation of local law enforcement agencies.

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  Researchers studied the Pittsburgh Police Bureau both before and after the consent decree was lifted in 2002. Research methods involved observations of police in field and management settings, interviews with key officials and community leaders, focus groups with police officers, surveys of citizens, and reviews of the Federal monitor's reports and police data. Findings indicated two key factors were most responsible for the quick compliance with the terms of the decree: the leadership displayed by the police chief and guidance received from the Federal monitor. Several changes were made to the way the police agency operated, including the addition of new systems to track the use of force, traffic stops, and searches, as well as new procedures to increase officer accountability and new policies and training. Despite budget cutbacks, these new reforms remain in place and the surveys of community leaders and citizens indicate significant improvements in police services. Problems remain however, as front-line police officers complain about tighter management and citizens continue to voice concerns about police misconduct. The overall findings suggest that this type of Federal intervention can bring lasting improvements in police accountability. Description text goes here

New York, NY: Vera Institute of Justice, 2005. 62p.

By Jamein Cunningham, Donna Feir and Rob Gillezeau

Do collective bargaining rights for law enforcement result in more civilian deaths at the hands of the police? Using an event-study design, we find that the introduction of duty to bargain requirements with police unions has led to a significant increase in non-white civilian deaths at the hands of police during the late twentieth century. We find no impact on various crime rate measures and suggestive evidence of a decline in police employment, consistent with increasing compensation. Our results indicate that the adoption of collective bargaining rights for law enforcement can explain approximately 10 percent of the total non-white civilian deaths at the hands of law enforcement between 1959 and 1988. This effect is robust to a contiguous county approach, accounting for heterogeneity in treatment timing, and numerous other specifications. While the relationship between police unions and violence against civilians is not clear ex-ante, our results show that the popular notion that police unions exacerbate police violence is empirically grounded.

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics , 2021. 75p.

By Tanaya Devi and Roland G. Fryer, Jr.

This paper provides the first empirical examination of the impact of federal and state "Pattern-or-Practice" investigations on crime and policing. For investigations that were not preceded by "viral" incidents of deadly force, investigations, on average, led to a statistically significant reduction in homicides and total crime. In stark contrast, all investigations that were preceded by "viral" incidents of deadly force have led to a large and statistically significant increase in homicides and total crime. We estimate that these investigations caused almost 900 excess homicides and almost 34,000 excess felonies. The leading hypothesis for why these investigations increase homicides and total crime is an abrupt change in the quantity of policing activity. In Chicago, the number of police-civilian interactions decreased by almost 90% in the month after the investigation was announced. In Riverside CA, interactions decreased 54%. In St. Louis, self-initiated police activities declined by 46%. Other theories we test such as changes in community trust or the aggressiveness of consent decrees associated with investigations -- all contradict the data in important ways.

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2020. 673p

By Frank R. Baumgartner; Derek A. Epp; Kelsey Shoub

Suspect Citizens offers the most comprehensive look to date at the most common form of police-citizen interactions, the routine traffic stop. Throughout the war on crime, police agencies have used traffic stops to search drivers suspected of carrying contraband. From the beginning, police agencies made it clear that very large numbers of police stops would have to occur before an officer might interdict a significant drug shipment. Unstated in that calculation was that many Americans would be subjected to police investigations so that a small number of high-level offenders might be found. The key element in this strategy, which kept it hidden from widespread public scrutiny, was that middle-class white Americans were largely exempt from its consequences. Tracking these police practices down to the officer level, Suspect Citizens documents the extreme rarity of drug busts and reveals sustained and troubling disparities in how racial groups are treated.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 294p.

By Greg Ridgeway

In 2002, the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD) joined with other agencies and organizations to improve police-community relations in the city. This report focuses on the analysis of racial disparities in traffic stops in Cincinnati. The authors find no evidence of racial differences between the stops of black and those of similarly situated nonblack drivers, but some issues can exacerbate the perception of racial bias.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009. 93p.

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.