By James Yates

  Background In 2013, after a lengthy trial, United States District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin found that the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), violated City residents’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and that the City did so with deliberate indifference to NYPD officers’ “practice of making unconstitutional stops and conducting unconstitutional frisks.” In addition, the Court found that the City had a “policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data . . . [that] resulted in the disproportionate and discriminatory stopping of Blacks and Hispanics in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.” In a “Remedies Opinion,” a Monitor was appointed by the Court with authority to implement reforms related to training, documentation, supervision and discipline. Subsequently, the Court (Hon. Analisa Torres, D.J.) requested the preparation of an indepth, critical examination of the efficacy, fairness, and integrity of the City’s policies, practices and procedures with respect to police misconduct during stops. This Report is intended to meet the Court’s directive for a study of the NYPD disciplinary process as it relates to Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment compliance in investigative encounters. Summary Description of NYPD Discipline Any recount of NYPD’s disciplinary process will aim at a moving target. Modifications in the disciplinary process utilized by or imposed upon NYPD are in constant flux. In the last five years alone, there has been a blizzard of reforms, outlined in the Report, to New York City and State laws governing discipline, not to mention a variety of changes in rules and regulations within the Department and related agencies, many of which have been, and continue to be, the subject of active litigation and modification. While it is useful, in the Report, to cite data describing or summarizing disciplinary results at various moments in time and to highlight individual disciplinary cases of note, the main thrust of the Report is not transitory data or individual case studies, but rather, as directed by the Court, a look at policies, practices and procedures. At the outset, the Report reviews processes within the police department itself. While the Civilian Complaint Review Board (“CCRB”) may be the most recognized venue for reviewing claims of police misconduct, the Board handles a small minority of examinations of police conduct. CCRB investigates fewer than 5,000 complaints each year. As many as 50,000 misconduct reviews are performed by other divisions or personnel within the Department. They include the Internal Affairs Bureau (“IAB”), a Force Investigation Division (“FID”), the Office of the Chief of Department (“OCD”), Borough Adjutants, Borough Investigating Units (“BIU”) and local Command Officers (“CO”). [Please note: a dictionary of acronyms used throughout the Report is attached as Appendix 2.] Police activity is also scrutinized by a variety of audits conducted by or overseen by the Quality Assurance Division (“QAD”), a unit within the Department, including audits of radio dispatch communications, arrests, and police self-inspection examinations. Separate from the Department’s disciplinary process, an Early Intervention Committee (“EIC”) reviews officer history when certain signals of potential misconduct are  triggered. Other outside agencies regularly monitor potential misconduct, including the Commission to Combat Police Corruption (“CCPC”), the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD (“OIG-NYPD”), the NYC Commission on Human Rights (“CCHR”) and a state agency, the Attorney General’s Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office (“LEMIO”). Finally, thousands of complaints undergo scrutiny by way of claims lodged with the New York City Comptroller’s office and lawsuits filed in state and federal court. There is no cognizable attempt to coordinate the various reviews of police misconduct. Without full coordination, cooperation and sharing of information, the mere fact of split or concurrent investigations of any given encounter can lead to confusion or delay. Civilian Complaint Review Board The CCRB is comprised of fifteen members. Five members are appointed by the City Council; five members are appointed by the Mayor; one member is appointed by the Public Advocate; a Chair is appointed jointly by the Mayor and the City Council Speaker; and three members, with law enforcement experience, are designated by the Police Commissioner. Within CCRB, panels of three of the fifteen members are assembled to review closing reports and recommendations prepared by the investigative staff. Members are assigned to panels on a rotational basis. The Board has adopted a rule, not required by law, that each decisional panel shall have one of the police designees as a member. This leads to police designees hearing a greater volume of cases than other appointees. As an adjustment, more recently, CCRB sends some cases to panels without a police designee, but, if the panel substantiates misconduct, the matter is then sent for a second review attended by a police designee. In essence, misconduct may not be substantiated unless approved by a panel with a police designee. The Report discusses the impact of that decision. Disciplinary Recommendations to the Police Commissioner Findings of officer misconduct arrive at the Police Commissioner’s desk by dint of two highways: a substantiated finding referred from a CCRB panel to the Police Commissioner or one sent after an internal police department investigation. For minor or technical infractions within the Department, local commands/precinct commanders are authorized to impose discipline directly. All other recommendations for discipline are referred to, and left to, the discretion of the Police Commissioner, who may accept or reject a finding and who will then decide whether to impose a penalty, guidance, or neither. Disciplinary proceedings are either formal or informal. Formal discipline is administered through a trial process where Charges and Specifications are served detailing the allegations of misconduct. A deputy within the Department, sitting as a trial commissioner, receives evidence and makes a recommendation of guilty or not guilty along with a recommendation for a penalty or guidance or neither. The hearing is open to the public and the officer is entitled to representation. There may be several hundred such hearings in a given year. New York State Law requires that the trial commissioner be a deputy of the Police Commissioner if the subject officer faces possible termination. An Appellate Division ruling, barring hearings before an independent administrative hearing officer, has extended that provision of law to require that all trials come before a departmental deputy as the hearing officer, even in the more usual case where termination is not sought by the prosecuting authority. Informal discipline, which is much more common, occurs at the precinct or in the Department outside the trial process, when an officer “accepts” a “command discipline” along with the recommended or negotiated outcome. Absent extraordinary circumstances, stop and frisk misconduct is addressed by informal discipline. At the conclusion of an investigation or trial, CCRB or a trial commissioner (a departmental deputy), as the case may be, will determine if an allegation is substantiated by a preponderance of the evidence. Investigations and trials are not bound by strict rules of evidence. Hearsay is admissible and may form the basis for a finding. In formal proceedings at Departmental trials a verdict of Guilty or Not Guilty is rendered by the Trial Commissioner along with a recommendation for discipline or guidance if Guilty. Whether an allegation of misconduct is substantiated by CCRB or found by a Trial Commissioner, the Police Commissioner is not constrained to follow the recommendations and may vary the finding, alter a penalty, or decide upon no disciplinary action (NDA). The variance may be based upon the Commissioner’s: (i) disagreement with the factual findings; (ii) a different understanding of the applicable law or rules; (iii) a desire to exercise lenity—imposing a lesser penalty or no penalty; or (iv) any combination thereof. While various provisions of law require an explanation by the Police Commissioner in certain cases of disagreement with the findings of CCRB or a trial commissioner, the explanatory letters are often unclear as to whether the modification is based upon disagreements with factual findings, legal conclusions, or a simple desire to modify a penalty. The unfettered reach of the Commissioner’s authority is a point of frequent public debate.   

September 19, 2024. 503p.

By Brittany C. Cunningham, Bryce E. Peterson, Daniel S. Lawrence, Michael D. White, James R. Coldren, Jr., Jennifer Lafferty, Keri Richardson

Over the past decade, thousands of law enforcement agencies in the United States have adopted body‑worn cameras (BWCs) (Hyland, 2018). The rapid diffusion of these devices has been driven by several factors, most notably numerous controversial uses of force by police against community members of color and evidence suggesting that BWCs can produce a range of positive outcomes like reductions in complaints and uses of force (Braga et al., 2018; Peterson & Lawrence, 2021; Sutherland et al., 2017), added evidentiary value in investigations and downstream court proceedings (Huff et al., 2023; Todak et al., 2023), and enhanced perceptions of procedural justice and police legitimacy (Demir et al., 2020; McCluskey et al., 2019). The demand for police BWCs has continued unabated into the 2020s (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2022; White & Malm, 2020), and interest has now expanded to corrections. By 2023, at least ten state prison systems have begun the process of deploying BWCs, with many local jails following suit (Bogel-Burroughs, 2022; Brodie et al., 2020; Welsh-Huggins, 2021; Winton, 2021). Despite this expansion, there is limited research on the impact of these devices in prisons or jails. There are also fundamental differences between correctional and law enforcement settings that researchers must consider. For example, correctional officers interact with incarcerated residents on a more consistent and long-term basis than police interact with civilians. Prisons and jails also include a high concentration of vulnerable populations, including people under serious psychological distress and experiencing mental and behavioral health challenges (Maruschak et al., 2021). Another potential concern is that BWCs are redundant in prisons and jails because these environments are already saturated with stationary surveillance cameras (Allard et al., 2006). Although the stationary camera networks in many correctional facilitates are outdated and suffer from blind spots (Lawrence et al., 2022), it is not yet clear whether BWCs offer any added benefits beyond what is captured through these extant systems. For example, can BWCs provide additional evidentiary value in the investigation of misconduct incidents or staff uses of force? The current brief seeks to address this knowledge gap by examining the footage of response-to-resistance (RTR) events produced by BWCs compared to stationary closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in a correctional setting. The following sections describe the background of the current study, our approach to reviewing BWC and  stationary CCTV camera footage, and our key findings.

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2023. 16p.

By Brittany Cunningham, Jessica Dockstader, Zoe Thorkildsen

Officer safety is of critical importance in an era of increased risk for law enforcement officers. Law enforcement officers (hereafter, “officers”) respond to some of the most unpredictable, traumatic, and violent encounters of any profession.1 Although much of an officer’s workday entails repetitive interactions, some calls for service or self-initiated interactions by police officers may escalate into dangerous encounters. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Program, between 2010 and 2018, an average of 51 officers died in a felonious killing per year. LEOKA defines a felonious killing as an “incident type in which the willful and intentional actions of an offender result in the fatal injury of an officer who is performing his or her official duties.” Regardless of how officer line-of-duty deaths, assaults, or injuries occur, the consequences are tragic and complex, affecting officers’
work and home life.2 Just as de-escalation, defusing, and crisis intervention tactics are paramount today, so is officer safety. This brief provides an accessible resource for law enforcement agencies, line officers, and their stakeholders (e.g., policy-makers, training instructors) to inform the development of targeted training, policies, and practices to promote officer safety while in the line of duty. Specifically, this brief offers the following:

•  a summary of officer safety risks related to calls for services, traffic-related encounters, ambushes, and blue-on-blue encounters;

• recommendations for promoting officer safety related to tactical preparedness; and

• real-world policing initiatives that serve as examples of practices in the field to improve officer safety.

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2021. 24p.

By Christopher M. Sun, James R. “Chip” Coldren, Jr., Keri Richardson, and Emma Wohl

Law enforcement agencies continue to develop new and innovative strategies to better support and police the communities they serve, from integrating gunshot detection technologies into dispatch systems to improve response times during shootings, to collaborating with local health and social service organizations to address issues such as homelessness or substance abuse in comprehensively ways. Over the past 10 years, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), in partnership with the CNA Institute for Public Research (IPR), has supported law enforcement agencies across the country in implementing innovative policing approaches through the Strategies for Policing Innovation Initiative (SPI, formerly the Smart Policing Initiative). SPI supports not only the development and implementation of innovative policing strategies, but also the research partnerships that result in in-depth analyses and rigorous evaluations of these strategies to advance what is known about effective and efficient policing practices. This report examines SPI’s accomplishments since its inception in 2009 and explores some of the major themes across SPI initiatives in both policing and policing research, including the following:

• Reductions in violent crime

• Improved crime analysis capabilities in police agencies

• Evolution of research partnerships with SPI sites

• Collaborative partnerships with agencies, organizations, and community stakeholders

• Integration of technology into policing

Arlington VA: CNA, 2019. 20p

By Benjamin Carleton, Tammy Felix, Monique Jenkins, Stephen Rickman, Chief Robert C. White (retired), Tom Woodmansee, and Michael Speer,   A. Nicole Phillips, Brian G. Remondino, and Kimberly L. Sachs

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a Minneapolis police officer. Community bystanders captured the event on video, which was shared widely on social media and resulted in community outrage, an FBI investigation, a civil rights investigation, and the firing and arrests of all four involved officers. The compelling video—8 minutes and 46 seconds of Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd—quickly spread amongst social media, cable news stations, and major news outlets, sparking strong reactions both within the Minneapolis community and across the nation. This incident contributed to a growing public perception of biased and sometimes brutal treatment of African Americans by police officers. This incident occurred within the context of other recent shootings and deaths of African Americans at the hands of police officers. George Floyd’s cries of “I can’t breathe” harken back to 2014 and the in-custody death of Eric Garner by use of a chokehold. More recently, with the shooting deaths of Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Breonna Taylor, and Philando Castile, many Americans reached a tipping point in their patience with systemic racism and the pace of police reforms, leading to nationwide protests. The day after the killing of Floyd, protests in the city of Minneapolis ended with a march to Minneapolis Third Precinct Headquarters. Tensions rose as protestors threw water bottles, and police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. Protests resumed the following day. Once again, in the evening hours, protest led to confrontations with police, who responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash bangs. Later that evening in nearby neighborhoods, windows of businesses were broken, some stores were looted, and two buildings were set ablaze. For the remainder of the week, Minneapolis experienced ongoing protests and damage to public buildings, looting, fires, and civil disturbances across the City. Protests and civil disturbances surfaced in other cities, beginning in earnest in Philadelphia on May 30. For the next several weeks, Philadelphia experienced peaceful protests coupled with civil unrest resulting in looting, vandalism, and burning of buildings. Police deployed tear gas, rubber bullets, and other crowd control munitions and tools, sometimes directly affecting Philadelphia residential neighborhoods. In the aftermath, Mayor James Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw announced plans “to engage an independent consultant to conduct a comprehensive examination of the City’s response to recent protests and other activities, which will include investigations of the Philadelphia Police Department’s use of force.” Police Commissioner Outlaw stated that “the Department’s commitment to reform must include an assessment of how police responded to the very protests that called for change.” She also pledged to make public a final comprehensive report. The City of Philadelphia contracted CNA (a nationally recognized, well-established, non-profit research organization with extensive experience in police assessments) along with Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, LLP (a Philadelphia-based law firm with extensive experience in conducting government and corporate internal investigations) to conduct the after-action analysis of the City’s response to the Floyd protests. The City committed to an independently conducted analysis and openly provided the consulting team access to relevant data and personnel needed to perform the analysis. The purpose of this after-action analysis is to provide the PPD and other City officials with an enhanced understanding of what happened during the Floyd protests, and to provide guidance on improving future PPD and City responses. This report is a “forward-thinking document” that emphasizes developing recommendations and remedial actions that will strengthen PPD and the City’s future responses to demonstrations, protests, and civil unrest. Importantly, this analysis is not an investigation of wrongdoing (which will be addressed by other agencies), but rather an effort to provide a roadmap to PPD and support agencies to apply best practices and lessons learned for more effective responses in the future. The timeline for this analysis extends from the national events leading up to the Philadelphia protests beginning the afternoon of May 30, 2020, through June 15, after which there was a falloff in the number, size, and tenor of the protests. This analysis focuses on the actions taken by PPD, coupled with the nature and extent of support of other agencies in response to these protests and civil disturbances. This report does not broadly examine PPD policy, training and practices, but rather focuses on those relevant to this response.

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2020. 110p.

By The New South Wales Police Force

The NSW Police Force (NSWPF) responds to more than 60,000 mental health incidents in the community every year and this figure has increased by around 10 per cent annually since 2018. In most cases a criminal offence has not been committed, there is no threat of violence and a weapon is not involved. This report looks at the NSWPF response to mental health incidents in the community.

Purpose

• Examine the demand on the NSWPF in responding to mental health incidents in the community.

• Review the training officers receive.

• Defining the role of police in responding to mental health incidents in the community.

• Reviewing the current operational model.

• Develop potential options for alternate response models.

Findings

The report noted that while police are best equipped to respond to incidents involving criminality and public order, other health professionals are able to provide more appropriate care for people experiencing mental health crises.

It also acknowledged that police, as the primary responder, can potentially escalate a situation and that the high volume of police deployment to mental health related matters can also have flow on impacts to other community safety issues, limiting resources of police to respond to other matters.

Actions

• The NSWPF and NSW Ministry of Health have set up a working group of senior officials to consider the findings of the report and to develop options for an alternative response.

• Additionally, the NSWPF has newly established the Mental Health Command to strengthen engagement and enhance police interventions when responding to mental health incidents.

• The Command will provide oversight, strategic guidance and advice as well as engage with external stakeholders.

Publisher Government of New South Wales

By University of Pennsylvania Crime and Justice Policy Lab and California Partnership for Safe Communities

Violence reduction in the U.S. is benefitting from excellent research (and ongoing research agendas) into specific interventions that can be evaluated and replicated. However, more is needed. The fact that so many cities continue to struggle with serious violence despite record investments in new programs indicates that the field needs a broader approach. WHAT’S MISSING? There is a crucial gap holding back the field of violence reduction: an understanding of not just what programs or strategies to adopt, but how to manage and govern on the city level to reduce serious violence. This was the primary conclusion of a 2022 expert convening. Running a rigorous violence intervention program in a particular community is very challenging. Assembling, implementing, and sustaining an effective city-level strategy is an even more complex and difficult task. The challenge of developing successful citywide strategies is enormously important, often ignored, and a large part of why cities are failing to sustainably reduce violence. The convened group comprised several important perspectives: people who have led city violence reduction offices (Jeremy Biddle, Sasha Cotton, Reygan Cunningham), people who help cities and city partners develop their violence prevention capacity (Vaughn Crandall, Fatimah Loren Drier, David Muhammed) and academic experts (Anthony Braga, Shani Buggs, Rodrigo Canales, Daniel Webster). The group was led by the University of Pennsylvania Crime and Justice Policy Lab (CJP) and the California Partnership for Safe Communities (CPSC), working with key leads from the White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative and the Ballmer Community Violence Reduction Initiative (CAPS). (See Appendix A for more on the convening. This document describes the group’s conclusions and exploration of the current gap in research, implementation, governance, and ongoing management that challenges the violence reduction field, including suggestions of three areas where investment and effort could make a near-term impact: RESEARCH: Ongoing study of how cities structure, manage, and govern violence reduction efforts to establish baselines against which to assess near-term efforts and make long-term progress. Key action research questions, which could be applied to particular cities or systematically across cohorts, include: How are cities currently structuring their violence intervention efforts? Where does management and government authority for producing reductions in community violence reside? To what extent are citywide violence intervention efforts informed by basic analyses of community violence? What are the shortfalls for the ways in which cities use current analyses of their problems? How can cities build internal capacity for problem analysis and governance structures to ensure these analyses are used? What role does city government-based infrastructure play in administering and managing violence intervention strategies? What role does community-based infrastructure play in administering and managing violence intervention strategies? How are these government and community efforts resourced—monetarily, administratively, in terms of personnel, and over time? What key management capacities can be identified that correlate with success, or lack thereof, in producing and sustaining city level reductions in community violence? TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: Using action research and existing evidence to help cities develop effective strategies and strengthen political governance, management, and key capacities. At present, technical assistance providers are filling capacity gaps at the local level—while technical assistance will likely always be needed to help cities get started or course-correct as they go, the field needs useful frameworks for improving city-level systems aimed at reducing community violence. POLICY: Engaging the field on how to sustain and enhance violence reduction efforts through policy development, governance, and management. Mayoral offices or statewide offices of violence prevention, strong community-based intermediaries, and other governing entities may be better able to provide structural support to violence reduction strategies when those offices and entities are supported by strong standards of practice  

Oakland, CA: California Partnership for Safe Communities, 2023. 13p.   

By Anthony A.Braga, John M.MacDonald,  Stephen Douglas,  Brian Wade,  Benjamin Struh

The evaluation literature suggests that focused deterrence strategies are effective in reducing gun violence. However, focused deterrence is notoriously difficult to implement and sustain. The history of focused deterrence implementation failure raises questions about its viability as a gun violence prevention strategy. Stockton, California, implemented focused deterrence three times during the past 25 years. In its most recent version, Stockton officials explicitly designed the strategy to be a permanent feature of the city’s violence prevention portfolio. Although program caseloads diminished over the course of the COVID-19 pandemicandthestrategyfacedleadershipandresource challenges, Stockton’s efforts prevented the program from being discontinued and, for those gang members who did receive treatment, delivered a robust gun violence prevention strategy. A quasi-experimental evaluation showsthattreated gang members wireless likely to be shot and reduced their violent offending relative to similar untreated gang members. The focused deterrence impacts also appear to spill over to gang members who were socially connected to treated gang members. 

Criminology & Public Policy, 2024. 

By  Elizabeth Carlson and Charles Wheeler

During his first administration, former President Trump adopted aggressive anti-immigrant policies, which included family separation, a ban on individuals from Muslim-majority countries, stringent border policies like the Remain in Mexico and Title 42, and attempted terminations of programs such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for several national groups. Attorneys and representatives for immigrants had some success in pushing back against the administration’s most extreme measures through litigation and advocacy. Should they return to the White House, Trump and his supporters have promised to enact an even more draconian anti-immigrant agenda, including a commitment to conducting the largest mass deportation in U.S. history, ending birthright citizenship (which is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment), and revoking humanitarian protections for those already in the United States. Many of these efforts, of course, will be challenged in court. This article summarizes 10 likely immigration initiatives under a second Trump administration. It seeks to educate members of the public who value the crucial role and myriad contributions of immigrants and refugees — past and present — in the United States. It will also outline how advocates can fight to protect their clients from these measures.

Journal on Migration and Human Security 1–15 © 2024.

By H. Douglas Ott and Alysson Gatens

The nature of police work may at times involve stressful situations such as the threat of, and actual, physical harm and witnessing the human toll of violence. The stress of the job combined with organizational stressors may severely impact police officers and their work. Stress can lead to substance misuse and disorders, trauma, and suicide. Police departments can address officer stress through interventions, such as counseling, peer support groups, and stress management training. This article summarizes literature on the effects of police officer stress and trauma. Police officers that embrace active coping styles may be better able to handle stress  

Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information. Authority 2022. 14p.

By: Auzeen Shariati and Rob T. Guerette

Traditional criminology has focused on the criminal nature of offenders as a means for reducing crime. In contrast, situational crime prevention (SCP) is a process of multiple stages, and seeks to understand where, when, and how crime incidents occur. Similar to epidemiology, SCP has sought to alter environments which host crime behavior in order to make them less suitable for offending. Based on an analysis of the incidence and distribution of a given crime problem, the SCP approach then identifies risk factors, formulates and implements appropriate solutions, and evaluates the results. In this way, the individual “propensity” of offenders, like individual diagnoses, becomes less important, at least as a means of prevention. This chapter discusses in more detail the situational crime prevention approach. Following a brief description of its historical development, the theoretical foundations are presented. An overview of the process and types of prevention techniques are then outlined followed by a discussion on the existing evidence of effectiveness.

December 2017 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-44124-5_22

By: John E. Eck and Tamara D. Madensen

Problem-oriented Policing is a theory of policing, but does not contain a theory of problems. Situational crime prevention is a theory of problems, but does not contain a theory of an implementing institution. The paper shows why without Situational Crime Prevention, problem-oriented policing would have difficulty working. An analogy is drawn to lichens and it is asserted that any useful theory of policing must be like a lichen.

January 2012, DOI: 10.4324/9780203154403

By: Tahir Maqsood, Sajjad A. Madani, Bahadar Nawab, Shakir Ullah, Ingrid Nyborg

Community-oriented policing (COP) as a model has found widespread acceptance throughout the world both in developed and developing countries. Similarly, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been embraced by many developed countries to augment COP initiatives. However, very little is known about the application of ICTs in COP in developing countries, particularly South Asia. In this article, we review the current ICT-based COP initiatives by focusing on some of the selected projects from developed countries and South Asia. The paper has used COP in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan as a case. While meaningful insights can be derived through learning from the experiences of developed countries, we highlight some major issues and challenges that are likely to be faced while implementing ICT based COP in South Asia. Moreover, we provide an overview of some exciting opportunities that arise as a result of embracing ICTs to enhance COP efforts for building trusting community-police relations and hence improving human security in the region.

Journal of Human Security | 2019 | Volume 15 | Issue 2 | Pages 21–40

By: Federico del Castillo

In the broad context of Uruguay’s police reform, the Ministry of Interior is implementing a pilot Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) program in Montevideo since late 2012. This research examined the obstacles confronted by the program throughout its implementation. Using a grounded theory approach, qualitative data was collected through 20 semi-structured interviews with members of the Uruguay National Police (UNP) of different ranks. Findings were analyzed based on the following categories: a) contextual factors; b) theoretical and practical inaccuracies; c) characteristics, skills and actions of project managers; d) resistance and motivational issues; e) resources; f) external support and cooperation. Consistent with research conducted on POP in other settings, findings suggest the program confronted a diverse set of obstacles over its implementation corresponding to all but one of the proposed categories. The study concludes with a series of recommendations to inform future POP endeavors by the UNP.

November 2017

By: Gary Cordner and Elizabeth Biebel

Problem-oriented policing was first introduced in an article by Herman Goldstein in 1979. It was formally field-tested in the 1980s in Baltimore County (Cordner, 1986) and Newport News (Eck and Spelman, 1987), given a wider audience through an Atlantic Monthly magazine article in 1989 (Wilson and Kelling), and systematically described and explained in Goldstein's 1990 book. Today, it is widely regarded as the most analytical and intellectually challenging strategy in the police arsenal.

Questions linger, however, about the implementation and practicality of problem-oriented policing (POP). The SARA process (scanning, analysis, response, assessment) for carrying out POP is analytically and creatively demanding, as well as time-consuming. Some observers question whether police have the knowledge and skill to implement the SARA process properly. Police officers often question whether they have the time to do so.

The research reported here carefully examined problem-oriented policing in practice by ordinary police officers in one agency - the San Diego, California Police Department. The objective was to discover and describe the reality of everyday, street-level POP as practiced by generalist patrol officers. San Diego was chosen because of its reputation as a national leader in problem-oriented policing.

200518, 06/19/2003, 98-IJ-CX-0080

By: Mark Ungar and Enrique Desmond Arias

In every part of Latin America, unprecedented levels of violence have even led to questions about the underlying quality of democratic rule. In response to this crisis, governments have enacted an array of policies, ranging from repressive mano dura crackdowns and adoption of new technology to the reform of criminal justice systems. But one of the most popular approaches to reform efforts has been community-oriented policing (COP), a strategy popularised in the USA in the 1990s, which is based on close collaboration between the police and the neighbourhood residents. COP focuses on the causes of crime
rather than simply responsding to it by empowering citizens, building police
community partnerships, improving social services and using better crime statistics. Street patrols, policy councils and youth services are some of the many COP programmes being adopted in Latin America and other regions. As other authors emphasise, this reform also entails restructuring of police forces to make them more flexible and responsive. Skogan and Hartnett (1997), for example, stress decentralisation of authority and foot patrols to facilitate citizen-police communications and public participation in setting police priorities and developing tactics.

The results of these efforts, however, have been very uneven. Some programmes have shown considerable success while others have faced many difficulties and either been defunded or left to expire of their own accord. Why do some projects succeed where others fail? More importantly, what can Latin American policy-makers learn from past experiences in the region in order to develop more effective and successful policies for the future?

This edition of Policing and Society takes a step towards answering these questions by bringing together security officials, practitioners and scholars to offer detailed analyses of community reform efforts at the local, regional and national levels throughout Latin America. The articles cover programmes in Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil. By detailing the challenges facing reform and how to overcome them, these cases provide an important compendium about community policing in Latin America that will help practitioners and policy-makers build effective durable programmes. This introduction highlights critical issues that the individual articles develop further. Those challenges, as contributors discuss, fall along two main dimensions: support for community policing by key actors, from Presidents to neighbourhood residents, and a continuity of that support through the entire process of community policing creation, from initial proposals to programme evaluation.

Policing & Society, Vol. 22, No. 1, March 2012, 1
13

By: David Weisburd, Stephen D. Mastrofski, Ann Marie McNally, Rosann Greenspan, James J. Willis

This paper provides the first national description of CompStat programs, considered in the framework of strategic problem solving. Relying on a survey of American police departments conducted by the Police Foundation, we examine the diffusion of CompStat programs and the nature of CompStat models throughout the Untied States. We also assess the penetration of models of strategic problem solving more generally into American policing. Our findings document a process of “diffusion of innovation” of CompStat-like programs in larger police agencies that follows a rapid pace. At the same time, our data suggest that many elements of strategic problem solving had begun to be implemented more widely across American police agencies before the emergence of CompStat as a programmatic entity, and that such elements have neem adopted broadly even by departments that have not formally adopted a CompStat program.

CompStat holds out the promise of allowing police agenices to adopt innovative technologies and problem-solving techniques while empowering traditional polcie organizational structures. However, our analysis suggests that at this stage, what most characterizes CompStat department and distinguishes them from othrs is the development of the control element of this reform. This leads us to question whether the rapid rise of CompStat in American police agencies can be interpreted more as an effort to maintain and reinforce the “bureaucratic” or “paramilitary” model of police organization (that has been under attack by scholars for most of the last two decades) than as an attempt to truly reform models of American policing.

Volume 2, Number 3, 2003, PP 421-456

By: Gloria Laycock and Graham Farrell

This paper discusses some of the difficulties encountered in attempting to introduce ideas derived from research on repeat victimization to the police services of the United Kingdom. Repeat victimization is the phenomenon in which particular individuals or other targets are repeatedly attacked or subjected to other forms of victimization, including the loss of property. It is argued that repeat victimization is a good example of the kind of problem solving envisaged by Goldstein and discussed in his original conception of problem-oriented policing.

Crime Prevention Studies, vol. 15 (2003), pp. 213-237.

By Citygate Associates, LLC

The City of Berkeley (City) retained Citygate Associates, LLC (Citygate) to conduct a Workload Organizational Study of the Police Department (Department). This assessment includes a review of the adequacy of current and future deployment systems, staffing levels throughout the Department, sustainable alternatives, beat structure, overtime, and organizational structure. The methodology utilized in this study can be found in Section 1 of this report. Citygate’s review includes a detailed analysis of the data that drives staffing recommendations including data related to police unit response times, crime, calls for service, and overtime. The review also includes a staffing analysis of supervision, management, and support functions within each division of the Department. Our work was combined with a review of the City’s ongoing efforts related to alternative response methods to non-police or low-level emergencies and other care needs in the City. This transition is already underway to provide appropriate alternative services to the community when a traditional 9-1-1 police patrol response is not necessary. Citygate’s assessment encompasses recommendations to support the Department’s success over the next five to seven years. Overall, this report contains 74 key findings and 54 specific, actionable recommendations. Findings and recommendations are presented in their narrative context in Sections 2 through Section 7. A comprehensive list of all findings and recommendations is presented sequentially in Section 8. Recommendations are also presented in Table 1 of this Executive Summary. POLICY CHOICES FRAMEWORK Currently, there are no mandatory federal or state regulations directing the level of police field service staffing, response times, and necessary outcomes. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) recommend methods for determining appropriate staffing levels based on local priorities. The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) provides standards for 9-1-1 call answering, and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International (APCO) and the International Academies of Emergency Dispatching (IAED) provide best practices that illuminate staffing needs for communications centers providing dispatch services. Using a data-driven framework as advocated in this report—and already embraced and practiced by the Department—the City can continue to engage the community in adapting future public safety services to utilize alternative and community-focused, non-police officer strategies to address community-wide, neighborhood, and social issues. Personnel costs are often the most significant cost center in any department budget. One of the City Council’s greatest challenges is managing scarce fiscal resources and allocating them wisely across the vast needs of municipal government public safety operations. The recommendations in this Workload Organizational Study are made based on best practices, Citygate’s experience, and guidelines established by professional industry organizations. The City’s fiscal capabilities and non-9-1-1 alternative services delivery measures must be considered when weighing these recommendations. GENERAL SUMMARY OF CITYGATE’S ASSESSMENT Citygate commends the Department and the City for its many innovative, forward-looking, and community-focused programs, including its Transparency Hub; the Mental Health Division’s Mobile Crisis Unit; the Specialized Care Unit, which provides crisis service with no police involvement; the prioritization of employee wellness; the Community Services Bureau (CSB) and its community liaisons; and the Bike Team. Residents can call 9-1-1 for life-threatening emergencies and can ask dispatchers for mental health support. All Mobile Crisis Team (MCT) calls may be accompanied by firefighter-paramedics or police officers, who ensure safety at the scene while allowing the MCT to assist. If such calls are made when MCT members are off duty, City police officers have extensive experience helping people through mental health and substance abuse crises, and regularly utilize de-escalation and crisis intervention strategies. Further, the City’s Specialized Care Unit (SCU) is a partnership program with Bonita House, Inc. Staff assigned to the SCU will respond to those undergoing a mental health- or substance-use-related crisis without police involvement. The Chief of Police has also recently created a new Deputy Chief’s position and a new unit: the Office of Strategic Planning and Accountability (OSPA). The Office of Strategic Planning and Accountability will report directly to the Chief and will serve as a pivotal entity in enhancing data driven approaches in policing performance, Departmental accountability, risk management, and oversight—as well as addressing community and external stakeholder needs. Throughout Citygate’s assessment, Citygate found a department with high professionalism at all levels and a staff willing to implement new ideas and technologies to improve policing in the City. The members of the Department are extremely dedicated to the community they serve. No organization is perfect, and many of the findings and recommendations in this report are items the Department is aware of and is already taking steps to implement. Some changes will take time and require resources as part of the Department’s normal budgeting process. All of the City’s work to date and the issues researched for this study present two policy challenges for the Council and community to work together on—not to the exclusion of one or the other. Both challenges require resources because, if one set of services falls short, other services and overall public well-being can be negatively impacted. 

Challenge #1 Maintain Emergency and Needed Police Services Commensurate to Current Demands  Citygate found that many sections of the Department—especially Patrol and the Communications Center (Dispatch)—suffer from a shortage in staffing, which frequently necessitates overtime or diverting staff from other units to fill vacancies in Patrol.  Many sworn members, particularly those with supervisory responsibilities, are responsible for several ancillary duties and often find themselves spending increasingly more time on administrative tasks apart from their primary duties, which include leadership and supervision in the field.  The Department also faces hurdles in recruiting, hiring, and training new staff while keeping pace with attrition as the public perception of the law enforcement profession evolves. To heighten the focus on recruiting, the Chief has recently assigned a full-time Recruitment Officer.  Overall, from 9-1-1 call receipt to the arrival of the right resource in response to a specific incident—whether Patrol, Investigations, Traffic, Mobile Crisis Team, etc.—there are multiple current limitations adversely affecting the Department’s efforts to meet the high volume of calls for assistance received every hour.  Staffing shortages and technical limitations affect morale, overtime, recruitment, and retention. Challenge #2 Grow Non-9-1-1 Services to Support Berkeley’s Compassionate and Caring Human Services The City is actively working on reimagining public safety, a process initiated in 2021. City goals emphasize a more holistic, integrated, and community-centered approach to society’s needs that do not require an emergent police/fire/ambulance response. The City’s goals, and the work the City has already started, aim to address these needs by incorporating a range of professionals and response strategies.  Alternatives to a police patrol response require the programs to be developed and non-sworn personnel to be hired—such as Community Service Officers (CSOs) and specialists for response to people experiencing homelessness-related issues or mental health crisis.  Building the desired enhanced programs requires planning, mid-managers, recruitment, training, and quality of care oversight—all of which the Department is strained to provide currently.  The Specialized Care Unit (SCU) is an innovative partnership program between the City of Berkeley and Bonita House, Inc. The SCU currently operates 24 hours per day Sunday through Wednesday. The SCU also operates from 6:00 am to 4:00 pm Thursday through Saturday. When someone calls 9-1-1, they can ask public safety dispatchers for support related to mental health or substance-use issues, which may also come in the form of the Mental Health Division’s Mobile Crisis Unit. Firefighter-paramedics or police officers may also accompany all Mobile Crisis Unit calls, while an SCU response is one with no police involvement. The SCU can be reached directly if someone is undergoing a mental health- or substance-use-related crisis and needs assistance.  The Vision Zero Action Plan is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all. It is, first and foremost, an engineering strategy that aims to design and build Berkeley streets to eliminate severe and fatal traffic injuries. Equity-driven Vision Zero traffic enforcement utilizes the best possible data and is focused on areas of the City where engineering and education efforts have already been implemented.  The Berkeley Police Department’s online Transparency Hub shares Police Department policies, actions, and data with City partners and community stakeholders. This data includes police stop data to ensure fair and impartial policing through an analysis of calls for service, use of force, and current trends.  The Department’s four Area Coordinators serve as community liaisons for the Department. They can help with long-term problems such as persistent issues with illegal dumping or abandoned vehicles. CITYGATE’S RECOMMENDATIONS AND GOALS Throughout this assessment, Citygate provides recommendations to serve the Department in its efforts to achieve the following six goals: 1. Increasing staffing in some areas and deploying and redeploying staff where and when they are most needed based on accurate and timely data and analysis. 2. 3. In the context of employee wellness and accountability, carefully evaluating the various collateral duties many employees are assigned, giving particular attention to supervisors who are often being pulled from their supervisory roles. Continuing efforts to track and manage overtime and limiting its use to when it is necessary. 4. 5. 6. Continuing the Department’s strong and creative efforts related to data analysis to drive performance and continuous improvement. Continuing the Department’s strong focus on employee wellness. A focus on wellbeing not only benefits individual employees but also promotes a healthier work environment, reducing the risk of fatigue and enhancing Departmental morale. Improving employee retention and prioritizing employee morale. The benefits of improving police morale are many, including better service for the community, more community trust in the Department, and a motivated, purposeful workforce. Citygate analyzed current capabilities to project future needs for the Department, with actionable recommendations and strategies provided for implementation based on the growth and development of the City. If this study’s recommendations are implemented over several fiscal years:  The Department will be well positioned to deepen its ability to provide proactive policing.  The community will be able to increase interaction with partners in the Department to foster joint crime prevention strategies.  The prevention of crime and disorder and the closure of investigations of serious incidents will increase.  When the public interacts with Berkeley police, they will know them and trust them to be fair—and will not assume they are representative of what is wrong with policing elsewhere in America. SUMMARY OF POLICE SERVICES FINDINGS BY TOPIC Organizational Summary At the time of Citygate’s analysis, the Department was operating with an authorized (budgeted) total staffing level of 313.20 employees, which includes 181 total authorized sworn staff. The Department is currently organized into four major divisions—Operations, Investigations, Professional Standards, and Support Services—each commanded by a Police Captain. The Chief of Police recently informed staff of a planned Departmental reorganization that will result in the creation of a new Deputy Chief’s position and a new Office of Strategic Planning and Accountability (OSPA). The reorganization will also entail a Captain being promoted to Deputy Chief, and units within the current Professional Standards Division being transferred to other Departmental offices or divisions. ....continued....    

Berkeley, CA: Citygate Associates, 2024. 155p.

By: RHENA FE P. TONDO, LESSEL R. FRANCO, HASNA T. GUMANDOL, MARK E. PATALINGHUG

As the philosophy of policing shifts from a traditional to a community-based approach, its implementation needs to be assessed. The study determined the program implementation of community-oriented policing in the town of Dumingag Zamboanga del Sur and its effectiveness in crime reduction from 2014 to 2018. The study employed a descriptive-survey method with the questionnaire checklist as the main instrument used in gathering the data and information. The survey questionnaire underwent an evaluation process by field expert and tested using Cronbach’s alpha. Weighted Arithmetic Mean, Percentage and ANOVA were the statistical tools used in the data analyses. The participants were PNP, residents, and Barangay Officials of Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur. The results showed that PNP and Barangay officials perceived that the extent of community-oriented policing in Dumingag was implemented without lapses. However, residents rated that the implementation has minimal lapses. The study also revealed that there was a reduction of crimes committed for the past five years of the implementation. The result shows a significant difference among the perceived extent of implementation of the three groups of respondents.

IOER INTERNATIONAL MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH JOURNAL, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DEC., 2020