By Barbara A. Fedders

Police officers have become permanent fixtures in public schools. The sharp increase in the number of school police officers over the last twenty years has generated a substantial body of critical legal scholarship. Critics question whether police make students safer. They argue that any safety benefits must be weighed against the significant role the police play in perpetuating a school-to-prison pipeline that funnels Black and Brown students and students with disabilities out of schools and into courts, jails, and prisons. In suggesting remedies for this problem, commentators have proposed several regulatory fixes. These include changes to the standards for evaluating students’ claims of constitutional rights violations, specialized police trainings, and voluntary agreements between law enforcement agencies and school districts that circumscribe the role of school police. Thus far, however, legal scholars have focused primarily on the “how” of school policing, eschewing the logically prior normative question of whether there should be police in schools at all. This Article takes up that question, and it argues that education policymakers should consider removal—rather than only regulation— of school police. In so doing, it makes three primary contributions to school-policing scholarship. First, it shifts the focus away from the safety debates that preoccupy scholars and policymakers, arguing that financial incentives for schools, security-theater concerns for administrators, and legitimacy-building interests of law enforcement equally explain school policing’s rise. Second, using critiques of community policing as an analytical framework, it illuminates a range of school-governance and pedagogical harms from school policing that exist separate from and antecedent to policing’s role in fueling the school-to-prison pipeline. Third, it puts grassroots movements against school policing in conversation with the prison abolitionist project and argues that insights from both should inform school-safety policymaking.

CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 109:1443, 2021.  

By  Anthony Morgan, Hayley Boxall, Christopher Dowling and Rick Brown

Focused deterrence approaches to domestic violence have been developed in the US to increase offender accountability and ensure appropriately targeted responses to victims. While innovative, the model has strong theoretical and empirical foundations. It is based on a set of fundamental principles and detailed analysis of domestic violence patterns and responses. This paper uses recent Australian research to explore the feasibility of adapting this model to an Australian context. Arguments in favour of the model, and possible barriers to implementation, are described. Based on an extensive body of Australian research on patterns of domestic violence offending and reoffending, and in light of recent developments in responses to domestic violence, this paper recommends trialling focused deterrence and ‘pulling levers’ to reduce domestic violence reoffending in an Australian pilot site. 

 Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 593. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.2020. 20p.

By: U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center

Preventing targeted violence in America is everyone's responsibility. Far too often, communities have witnessed mass injury and loss of life at the hands of an attacker, only to learn that the perpetrator had a long history of threatening or concerning behaviors. In many cases, the attacker's behavior was witnessed by community bystanders, some of whom sought to report their concerns to public safety officials. Unfortunately, many communities lack the structured systems to receive, evaluate, and respond to these reports in a way that reduces the likelihood of a violent outcome. The framework presented herein is the latest NTAC [National Threat Assessment Center] offering intended to support the violence prevention efforts of state and local law enforcement agencies. The steps that follow describe how agencies can adopt the principles of the Secret Service model to proactively identify and intervene with those who intend to carry out acts of targeted violence in their communities. These steps are not intended to be prescriptive, but rather offer a scalable blueprint that can be implemented by agencies varying in size, structure, and resources, all of which share the Secret Service's mission of preventing targeted violence.

United States. Secret Service. National Threat Assessment Center, Oct. 2024

By Rick Muir  

This report, produced in partnership with Virgin Media O2 Business, provides a strategic roadmap for police forces to make the most of digital systems, data and technology. It addresses the challenges with using technology, including upgrading outdated technology and unifying data management systems – both of  which will be critical to modernisation. We found that police forces are grappling with outdated legacy systems, complex procurement procedures, fragmented data-sharing, and a lack of digital knowledge and skills at all levels of policing. These challenges are stifling the full potential of data, digital and technology to transform modern policing. With expertise from an advisory panel of leaders across national policing, the report makes a number of recommendations to enable officers to work more efficiently and use data to empower them with real-time insights:

• Develop a national strategy for interoperability enabling all 43 police forces to integrate their technology and share data.

• Invest in modern, scalable technology to transition from outdated systems to cloud-based platforms, real-time data and AI insights.

• Change the leadership culture to promote technological literacy at senior and executive leadership levels, ensuring that decision-makers understand the benefits of innovation and act accordingly.

London: The Police Foundation, 2024. 28p.

By The Criminal Justice Alliance and the National Black Police Association

This joint briefing by the Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA) and the National Black Police Association (NBPA) examines the treatment of Black and racially minoritised officers in the Metropolitan Police’s misconduct processes following the Baroness Casey Review of 2023. The briefing highlights that despite the Met’s pledges to reform, systemic racial discrimination persists. It details the personal experiences of several Black officers, revealing a culture of bullying, exclusion and a lack of meaningful support within the institution. The briefing calls for substantive changes, emphasising that without significant structural reform and genuine accountability, the Met will continue to fall short of its commitment to become an anti-racist police service.

London: Criminal Justice Alliance, 2024. 19p.

By Roberto Santos and Rachel Santos   

Domestic violence is an ongoing concern for both the police and the community, given its frequency, repeated nature, and seriousness. Research shows that the ability to intervene during early stages of emotional and verbal abuse or less physically injurious violence is critical to preventing future violence (Buzawa, Buzawa, and Starke 2017; Campbell et al. 2007; Campbell and Messing 2017). Domestic violence, which is also referred to as domestic abuse or family violence, is one or a pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading, or violent behavior. Intimate partner violence (IPV) occurs between current or former spouses or intimate partners or between individuals who have a child in common. Non-IPV occurs between individuals within a domestic circle—for example, immediate family members, other relatives, or caretakers. In any of these circumstances, the key is that there is a close relationship between the offender(s) and the victim(s). As the first responders, police are uniquely poised to play a key role in assisting social service and public health efforts to prevent and reduce domestic violence. Police may see problematic relationships and families before victim advocates, doctors, and other service providers are even aware there is a problem. Importantly, when serious domestic violence crimes do occur and the results are severe, often the community and the media ask how many times the police responded to the address and what actions the police took to prevent the crime. Consequently, identifying potentially violent situations as well as connecting victims and their families to resources and victim services, including emergency housing and legal services, as early as possible is critical to preventing escalation of the violence. Domestic-related calls for service are one of the most frequent categories law enforcement agencies respond to and are one of the most dangerous calls for officers. Yet many of these calls do not constitute a domestic violence crime or trigger an arrest. In law enforcement agencies around the United States, dispatchers use a “domestic disturbance” or “domestic violence” call type to alert responding officers to potential domestic violence issues based on the brief information provided by citizens who call 911. Once an officer arrives on scene and does an initial investigation, there may be no probable cause or even an allegation of violence, so no report is required to be taken. Because of this, the reality is that many domestic-related calls are cleared by officers without taking a report.1 Because most proactive domestic violence responses are initiated by a crime report, identifying repeat occurrences of noncriminal calls for service presents an opportunity for police to respond proactively with the potential to prevent future incidents of domestic violence. . Importantly, the most dangerous time can be when victims reach out for help or take the first step to leave an abusive relationship, which might explain why they do not make direct allegations—because they  This guide provides a process for proactive police response to short-term domestic-related problems that is encompassed within a larger proactive crime reduction approach called Stratified Policing. Stratified Policing is an organizational model that includes a framework and specific processes to accomplish the institutionalization of a multidimensional set of evidence-based proactive crime reduction strategies (Santos and Santos 2020). Stratified Policing has been developed to (1) provide police leaders a clear path for implementation and institutionalization of proactive crime reduction modeled after current police processes; (2) incorporate practical theory and evidence-based practices from place-based, problem-solving, person-focused, and community-based approaches; (3) use crime analysis to identify and prioritize crime problems to be addressed realistically by different levels within the organization; (4) lay out a specific and adaptable framework for incorporating small changes by rank and division into daily activities that all contribute to the larger practical approach; (5) use time from individuals throughout the organization as a resource and become more efficient without requiring additional or specialized resources; (6) ensure that individuals and divisions within the organization contribute based on what is realistic and neither is overburdened with responsibility or the work being done; (7) incorporate multifaceted formal and informal accountability that is fair and transparent; and (8) raise the expectations for everyone in the organization to contribute to crime reduction (Santos and Santos 2020, 6). The process described here is the application of one component of Stratified Policing for the shortterm problem of repeat calls for service at residences, called domestic-related repeat incidents or DRRI. Although this guide focuses on a particular type of activity, the process can also be used for other types of repeat calls for service, such as suspicious activity, drug activity, and alarms.     

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. 2023. 44p.

By Alex Chohlas-Wood, Marissa Gerchick, Sharad Goel, Aziz Z. Huq, Amy Shoemaker, Ravi Shroff, and Keniel Yao

 We describe and apply three empirical approaches to identify superfluous police activity, unjustified racially disparate impacts, and limits to regulatory interventions. First, using cost-benefit analysis, we show that traffic and pedestrian stops in Nashville and New York City disproportionately impacted communities of color without achieving their stated public safety goals. Second, we address a longstanding problem in discrimination research by presenting an empirical approach for identifying “similarly situated” individuals and, in so doing, quantify potentially unjustified disparities in stop policies in New York City and Chicago. Finally, taking a holistic view of police contact in Chicago and Philadelphia, we show that settlement agreements curbed pedestrian stops but that a concomitant rise in traffic stops maintained aggregate racial disparities, illustrating the challenges facing regulatory efforts. These case studies highlight the promise and value of viewing legal principles and policy goals through the lens of modern data analysis—both in police reform and in reform efforts more broadly.

The University of Chicago Law Review [89:2: Pages 441-475 March 2022  

By William Cai, Johann Gaebler, Justin Kaashoek, Lisa Pinals, Samuel Madden, Sharad Goel

Past studies have found that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely than White drivers to be pulled over by the police for alleged traffic infractions, including a combination of speeding and equipment violations. It has been difficult, though, to measure the extent to which these disparities stem from discriminatory enforcement rather than from differences in offense rates. Here, in the context of speeding enforcement, we address this challenge by leveraging a novel source of telematics data, which include second-by-second driving speed for hundreds of thousands of individuals in 10 major cities across the United States. We find that time spent speeding is approximately uncorrelated with neighborhood demographics, yet, in several cities, officers focused speeding enforcement in small, demographically nonrepresentative areas. In some cities, speeding enforcement was concentrated in predominantly non-White neighborhoods, while, in others, enforcement was concentrated in predominately White neighborhoods. Averaging across the 10 cities we examined, and adjusting for observed speeding behavior, we find that speeding enforcement was moderately more concentrated in non-White neighborhoods. Our results show that current enforcement practices can lead to inequities across race and ethnicity.

PNAS Nexus, Volume 1, Issue 4, September 2022, 

By: Clifford Karchmer

Traditional police response to crime has been reactive, yet nationwide trends toward problem-oriented and community-oriented policing have changed this approach in many departments. Over the past decade, police executives have shifted to more proactive policing and have instituted collaborative programs with a wide range of community groups and other organizations to prevent crime. These programs likely have contributed to decreasing rime, with most success demonstrated by the vast reduction in the nation’s homicide rate.

This report reviews current trends in homicide rates, the changing police perspective on homicide prevention, and summarizes innovative police department programs as captured in a Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) exploratory project that examined the homicide prevention practices of over 70 police departments. The goal of this report is to highlight successful policing strategies and programs offered by departments in cities that have reduced homicide. Descriptions of homicide prevention strategies and key program elements common to successful police departments around the country may serve as a guide to other police executives seeking to reduce homicide in their communities.

Homicide Prevention, October 2002

By Beth A. Colgan

Highly publicized killings of people by law enforcement during traffic stops have led to a growing interest in traffic enforcement reform. While some see automated traffic enforcement and unarmed civilian units as a way to decrease interactions with law enforcement in hopes of decreasing police killings, it fails to address traditional traffic enforcement’s budgetary and racial problems. This article argues that this shift may lead to more enforcement of other codes that can create opportunities for violence and revenue extraction in overpoliced communities of color. The article concludes with a urging for more expansive and systemic changes to account for the revenue-generating economy of traffic enforcement.    

Key Findings: 

• Nonpayment of economic sanctions stemming from traffic tickets may trigger arrest warrants, vehicle impoundment, or a suspended driver’s license, which may carry additional costs.

• Law enforcement uses traffic codes as a weapon to implement pretextual stops to make traffic-based forfeitures.

• Research suggests revenue generation may push law enforcement officers away from investigating violent and property offenses and toward traffic enforcement and drug interdiction.

• Studies suggest law enforcement’s ability to retain forfeiture revenue has helped motivate the war on drugs.

Recommendations: 

• Afford a statutory right to counsel in cases involving fines and forfeitures.

• Require a criminal conviction before forfeiture in nearly all cases.

• Eliminate the federal Equitable Sharing program or pass laws that prohibit participation in the program.

• Reduce law enforcement dependency on fines, fees, and forfeiture revenue by redirecting them elsewhere

North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 100, 889-958 (2023)

By Haberman, C., Ruhland, E., Frank, J., Kelsay, J. & Desmond, J.

This report outlines the results of surveys assessing citizens’ views of the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD) and its response to shootings in Cincinnati’s Price Hill neighborhood before and after the implementation of ShotSpotter, an acoustic gunshot detection system. An acoustic gunshot detection system uses sensors to detect gun fire. For ShotSpotter, the sensors listen for gunshot noises. When gunshot-like noises are detected, the sound waves are analyzed and reviewed by technicians at ShotSpotter’s headquarters who determine if the sound was a gunshot or something else, such as fireworks. If the noise is determined to be a gunshot, then police are dispatched to the scene. The precise shooting scene is located by triangulating gunshot sounds across sensors. The time from gunshot to dispatch is roughly 60 seconds.1 ShotSpotter allows police to quickly respond to gunfire incidents, even if residents do not call 911, to make an arrest at the scene. Research suggests roughly 88% of gunshots recorded by ShotSpotter are not reported to the police by residents.2 It follows that implementing ShotSpotter may improve residents’ perceptions of CPD and its response to shootings because police are now responding to all gunfire incidents. This report assesses if that was the case when ShotSpotter was implemented in Cincinnati’s Price Hill neighborhood in July 2019.   

Cincinnati, OH: Institute of Crime Science, University of Cincinnati, 2020. 17p.

By Shima Baradaran Baughman  

In recent years, the national conversation in criminal justice has centered on police. Are police using excessive force? Should they be monitored more closely? Do technology and artificial intelligence improve policing? The implied core question across these national debates is whether police are effective at their jobs. Yet we have not explored how effective police are or determined how best to measure police effectiveness. This Article endeavors to measure how effectively police perform at their core function of crime. The metric most commonly used to measure police effectiveness at crime-solving is a "clearance rate:" the proportion of reported crimes for which police arrest a person and refer them for prosecution. But clearance rates are inadequate for many reasons, including the fact that thy are highly manipulable. This Article therefore provides a set of new metrics that have never been used systematically to study police effectiveness-referred to as "criminal accountability" metrics. Criminal accountability examines the full course of a crime to determine whether police detect and ultimately resolve the committed crime. Taking into account the prevalence and the number of crimes police solve, the proportion of crimes solved in America is dramatically lower than we realize. Only with a clearer conversation, rooted in accurate data about the effectiveness of the American police system, can we attempt a path toward increased criminal accountability and public safety. 

Alabama Law Review [Vol. 72:1:47  2020.

By Trisha Rhodes

In 2017, the Little Rock Police Department (LRPD) was awarded the BJA Technology Innovation for Public Safety (TIPS) grant. LRPD created the Crime Guns Intelligence Unit (CGIU) in March of 2018 with the primary goal of reducing violent gun crimes in Little Rock, particularly in a historical hotspot of gun crime. Once assigned, CGIU detectives began processing backlogs in ballistic evidence. A crime analyst assigned to the unit collected data to track case information and conducted link analysis to identify the connections between incidents, evidence, and suspects. ShotSpotter gunshot detection devices were deployed in mid-December of 2018. In addition to technological advancements, CGIU formed a working group with partner agencies to collectively examine violent gun incidents and develop solutions. Partners met monthly and discussed ways of improving evidence collection and investigation of cases to increase prosecution outcomes. Meetings allowed partners to communicate more openly and frequently to share intelligence and quickly address potential obstacles toward reaching program goals. As a result of meetings, LRPD developed new policies surrounding the collection of ballistic evidence and strengthened relationships with other agencies, including the ATF, Arkansas State Crime Lab, FBI, Pulaski County Prosecutor’s Office, and U.S. Attorney’s Office. Further, the CGIU has since expanded efforts to serve as a state Crime Guns Intelligence Center and work with surrounding police agencies and crime analysts. To assess CGIU's efforts to meet program goals, the City of Little Rock and LRPD hired a research partner from U.A. Little Rock to evaluate the CGIU program. The evaluation team collected data on violent gun crimes, processing of ballistic evidence, arrest clearance rates, and the prosecution of gun crime cases at the state and federal levels. Below is a summary of key findings from the evaluation of the LRPD CGIU program, which are covered in more detail in the report. Key Findings Violent Gun Crime Trends • Between 2017-2020, the City of Little Rock experienced a monthly average of 3 gun-involved homicides, 11 non-fatal shootings, 14 terroristic acts, 19 robberies, and 186 shots fired. o Gunshot alerts accounted for 80% of incidents. o Excluding gunshots, the following percentages1 show the breakdown of each crime type: ▪ 7% homicides ▪ 24% non-fatal shootings ▪ 29% terroristic acts ▪ 40% robberies. Within the ShotSpotter Zone2, there was an average of about 1 (0.65) gun-involved homicide, 3 non-fatal shootings, 3 terroristic acts, 2 robberies, and 46 shots fired per month between 2017-2020. o Gunshot alerts accounted for 85% of incidents. o Excluding gunshots, below are the percentages of each crime type: ▪ 8% homicides ▪ 34% non-fatal shootings ▪ 30% terroristic acts ▪ 28% robberies • In the ShotSpotter Zone, non-fatal shootings and terroristic acts accounted for more incidents. Fewer incidents were robberies compared to the city as a whole. • Year-to-date comparisons of citywide violent gun crime trends revealed differences by crime type. o The subtotal of crime incidents (excluding shots fired) decreased in 2018 from 686 to 466 and remained at 491 in 2019. However, crime generally increased late in 2019 and 2020 to 654 incidents with sharp increases in non-fatal shootings and terroristic acts. o Non-fatal shootings decreased from 141 to 103 in 2018 and stayed stable in 2019. They increased to 188 in 2020. o Gun-involved terroristic acts decreased from 180 to 135 in 2018 and held there until rising to 216 in 2020. o Gun-involved homicides remained relatively stable (higher in 2020 compared to 2018 and 2019, though about the same as in 2017). o Gun-involved robberies dropped from 320 in 2017 to 195 in 2018 and remained there through 2020. • ShotSpotter Zone year-to-date comparisons showed some similarities in trends of non-fatal shootings, terroristic acts, and total crimes; however, gun-involved homicide and robbery trends were different compared to the city. o The subtotal of incidents (excluding shots fired) decreased from 109 to 93 between 2017-2018. They decreased further to 81 in 2019. However, violent gun incidents increased to 116 in 2020, which was somewhat higher than 2017 levels. o Non-fatal shootings decreased from 37 to 29 in 2018 and held there in 2019. However, they rose to 38 in 2020  o Gun-involved terrorist acts decreased from 39 to 20 in 2018, increased slightly to 25 in 2019, and increased to 36 in 2020. o Gun-involved homicides increased from 6 to 11 in 2018, stayed about the same in 2019, and decreased to 4 in 2020. o Gun-involved robberies increased from 27 to 33 in 2018, dropped to 15 in 2019, and increased to 38 in 2020. • In addition to year-to-date comparisons, statistical analyses tested the relationships between the timing of CGIU program components and changes in gun violence trends. The evaluation team examined the moment in time when CGIU formed (March 2018) and the moment when ShotSpotter was fully deployed (January 2019). There were differences by crime type. o Across the city and within the ShotSpotter Zone, there were statistically significant reductions in violent gun crimes (homicides, non-fatal shootings, terroristic acts, and robberies) associated with the full deployment of ShotSpotter in January 2019. While no significant changes in crime were tied to the exact date CGIU was established, violent gun crimes did trend lower in 2018 and 2019 as noted above. It is possible that program effects were more gradual, rather than immediate and that other factors aside from evidence collection/processing and investigation influenced crime trends. ▪ There was a reduction of 18 incidents per month in the city and 1 incident per month in the ShotSpotter Zone immediately after ShotSpotter was implemented. o Analyses of gun-involved homicides did not provide evidence of an effect of the CGIU or ShotSpotter on homicides. The sample size of homicides was likely too small to identify a significant effect. It is also likely that other factors (both internal and external to LRPD) affected homicide trends. o Data indicated a likely short-term decrease in non-fatal shootings citywide immediately following the initiation of the CGIU but not at later time points. This pattern did not appear evident within the ShotSpotter Zone. o When looking at gun-involved terroristic acts alone, there were relatively slight changes in crime rates both citywide and in the ShotSpotter Zone that were not directly associated with the CGIU program. o Gun-involved robberies decreased following the use of ShotSpotter; however, this trend did not appear in the ShotSpotter Zone. o Gunshot reports declined before the formation of the CGIU and remained relatively stable until 2020. There was no indication that gunshots increased across the city broadly, though there was an expected uptick in gunshots in the ShotSpotter Zone in 2019. Most likely, the ShotSpotter devices were better able to detect gunshots (as opposed to relying on citizens to report them).  (continued)

Little Rock, AAR: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Justice Research & Policy Center, 2021. 102p.  

By Human Impact Partners

The construction of police training facilities, or “Cop Cities,” is on the rise in the US, with 69 projects currently planned across 47 states. This report examines the public health impacts of these facilities, and reveals the broader and intersecting harms that militarization and policing pose to the health of all people and our planet. We highlight the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a controversial 85-acre, $109.65 million police training construction project in Atlanta, Georgia, known to community organizers as “Cop City,” to illustrate four key pathways by which the construction of police training facilities harms health:

1. The expansion of policing

2. The destruction of the climate

3. Undermining Indigenous sovereignty

4. State repression of resistance

Each section describes the associated public health harms, followed by evidence-based public health solutions to promote health:

1. Invest in health instead of punishment

2. Advocate for green spaces and climate justice

3. Land back for Indigenous reparations

4. Protect community power and civil rights

We also recommend critical actions for each pathway that federal, state, Tribal, and local governments can take to prevent ongoing and future harms to public health, improve accountability, and support community safety for all.  While this brief focuses on Atlanta’s Cop City and the current social justice movement there, we hope this research will support continued resistance to the construction of police training facilities across the US. 

Berkeley cA: Human Impact Partners, 2024. 42p.

By Xiaohong Wang, Daniel Jones, Jiangnan Zeng

We draw on statewide data from North Carolina to examine the impacts of racial and ethnic representation in city councils on policing. Specifically, we focus on out- comes of traffic stops; e.g., whether a driver receives a warning or a citation after being stopped. We first document large Black-white and Latino-white disparities in the like- lihood of consequence (arrest or citation) after a traffic stop. We then use a difference- in-differences design, focusing on changes following (narrow) elections of nonwhite (rather than white) councilmembers, and find that increased nonwhite council representation significantly reduces Black-white gaps in stops and actions taken after a stop. The magnitude of the reduction is similar with and without officer fixed effects, suggesting that results are largely driven by individual officer-level behavior change rather than a change in the composition of the police force.

Unpublished paper, 2024. 

By Temitope, O. Awodiji  and  John Owoyemi 

In this study, 10 communities in the North Western area of New Mexico are used to examine the efficacy of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) concepts in urban settings. The research looks at the connection between crime rates and urban architecture in Luna by combining secondary data from the Unified Crime Report (UCR) with findings from earlier studies on topography and architectural features. It is accepted that several CPTED initiatives have limitations, such as dependence on secondary data and the need for more thorough research, even while they show promise in lowering crime and improving safety. Among the recommendations are the inclusion of primary data collecting and the consideration of socioeconomic issues. Policymakers, urban planners, and community stakeholders may establish more fair and effective methods to promote safer urban environments by considering these recommendations. By providing insights into the challenges of creating surroundings that support community safety and well-being, this study adds to the continuing conversation on crime prevention and urban planning. 

Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST) ISSN: 2458-9403 Vol. 11 Issue 4, April - 2024 

By The Honorable Edwin Meese III and John G. Malcol

It is a time of change and transition for many in America’s law enforcement community. Across much of the nation, police and sheriffs find themselves on the front lines of the opioid crisis, struggling to deal with the scope of the epidemic and the new challenges and dangers to officers it presents. At the same time, communities are increasingly turning to law enforcement officials to address other issues, such as dealing with disruptive or downright violent individuals suffering from mental illness, placing still further demands on these departments. tackling these diverse and multitudinous missions without compromising community safety is often a difficult proposition, particularly in light of the budgetary and resource constraints many law enforcement agencies face. All the while, police and sheriffs are facing internal pressures as experienced officers retire and departments work to attract young, talented recruits and diversify their ranks. those tasks are made all the more difficult by persistent narratives in mainstream and social media that paint policing as “systemically racist”—and which have the effect of encouraging antipathy towards the profession. What is needed now are thoughtful, innovative approaches to tackling these challenges. In this effort, America’s midsize police departments and sheriff’s offices are helping to lead the way. these agencies are large enough to test solutions applicable to much larger departments, but small enough to remain agile and adaptable in the face of changing circumstances, making them well-suited to serving as laboratories of innovation. Recent history bears this out. Some midsize departments have discovered creative means of overcoming funding limitations to properly equip their officers. Law enforcement leaders have developed new programs for community outreach and engagement, which have built trust and eased tensions within their jurisdictions. Some have demonstrated the value of better educating their officers on history—including the undisputed fact that many agencies once enforced racist laws (or neutral laws in a discriminatory manner)—to build empathy and reduce tensions with members of the community. And departments are increasingly training officers in tactics and techniques to de-escalate confrontational situations, as well as employing new technologies—such as data-driven policing, body-worn cameras, and even drones—to improve their operations. With these issues in mind, in January 2018, the Heritage Foundation convened its second policing.  Strategy Summit. While the 2017 summit focused on the major cities’ police and the nation’s largest departments, this summit brought together a diverse group of leaders from midsize law enforcement agencies across the country, along with representatives from national law enforcement organizations, police unions, and professionals with extensive federal, state, and local experience. As was the case with the first Policing Strategy Summit, this meeting had three principal objectives: 1. Identify the most pressing problems that law enforcement agencies face today, including the breakdown in trust, adequacy of training, proper use of new technologies, media, and community relations, and the gathering and sharing of data; 2. Identify the best practices and most innovative approaches that law enforcement authorities are employing to address these problems and combat crime; 3. Identify the most effective means of communicating with public and political leaders, building trust improving police-community relations, and bringing the needs and concerns of police agencies to the attention of federal officials. the following represents the proceedings of the Policing Strategy Summit. It does not necessarily reflect the views of specific attendees or organizations but seeks to capture the wide-ranging discussion that took place at the summit.   

Washington DC: The Heritage Foundation, 2024. 31p.

By John Macdonald, Viet Nguyen Viet,  Shane T. Jensen,  and Charles C. Branas

Objective: Place-based blight remediation programs have gained popularity in recent years as a crime reduction approach. This study estimated the impact of a citywide vacant lot greening program in Philadelphia on changes in crime over multiple years, and whether the effects were moderated by nearby land uses. Methods: The vacant lot greening program was assessed using quasi-experimental and experimental designs. Entropy distance weighting was used in the quasi-experimental analysis to match control lots to be comparable to greened lots on pre-existing crime trends. Fixed-effects difference-in-differences models were used to estimate the impact of the vacant lot greening program in quasi-experimental and experimental analyses. Results: Vacant lot greening was estimated to reduce total crime and multiple subcategories in both the quasi-experimental and experimental evaluations. Remediating vacant lots had a smaller effect on reducing crime when they were located near train stations and alcohol outlets. The crime reductions from vacant lot remediations were larger when they were located near areas of active businesses. There is some suggestive evidence that the effects of vacant lot greening are larger when located in neighborhoods with higher pre-intervention levels of social cohesion. Conclusions: The findings suggest that vacant lot greening provides a sustainable approach to reducing crime in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and the effects may vary by different surrounding land uses. To better understand the mechanisms through which place-based blight remediation interventions reduce crime, future research should measure human activities and neighborly socialization in and around places before and after remediation efforts are implemented.

J Exp Criminol. 2022 September ; 18(3): 639–664.

By Ben Grunwald, John Rappaport, Kyle Rozema

We investigate the labor market consequences of police discipline for serious misconduct. To do so, we use data on employment for all Florida law enforcement officers and on 1,818 incidents of misconduct recorded by the state licensing board between 2000 and 2016. We find that discipline increases at least sixfold the likelihood that an officer separates from their department and the likelihood that their law enforcement career in Florida ends. We also find, however, that unions protect officers from at least one-fourth of the consequences of discipline. Our results suggest that the common narrative that police officers wear a badge of impunity is not always accurate.

Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2024-55,

By Mike McLively and Brittany Nieto

Oakland, considered for many years to be among the most dangerous cities in America, has cut its annual shootings and homicides nearly in half since 2012. Now, city leaders and activists from around the country are traveling to Oakland to learn from this remarkable success. Oakland gives us reason to hope that reducing gun violence in our most impacted communities is possible, and a basic framework for how to get there. In 2012, after several failures and facing great pressure from community activists, Oakland city leaders committed to launching a citywide violence reduction strategy, known as Oakland Ceasefire, with the help of technical experts from the California Partnership for Safe Communities (CPSC). Oakland Ceasefire is an ongoing partnership between community members, social service providers, and law enforcement officials, who work together to reduce violence, build police-community trust, and improve outcomes for high-risk individuals. The strategy has five main components: Analysis of violent incidents and trends, referred to as a problem analysis, to identify individuals at the highest risk of participating in serious violence. Oakland’s problem analysis revealed several misconceptions about the city’s violence dynamics. It also showed that only 400 individuals—just 0.1% of Oakland’s total population—were at the highest risk for engaging in serious violence at any given time. Oakland Ceasefire partners intervene with this population. Respectful, in-person communications with high-risk individuals to warn about the risks of ongoing violence and provide a genuine offer of assistance. With Oakland Ceasefire, these communications primarily take the form of call-ins, interventions in which stakeholders communicate with small groups of those most at risk of serious violence, and custom notifications, a personalized method of heading off imminent violence. Relationship-based social services are provided to high-risk individuals through the Oakland Unite network of community-based organizations. Oakland Unite is a unique city agency that uses taxpayer money to fund organizations that provide services like intensive mentoring, economic and educational training, and direct assistance to victims of violence and their families. Narrowly focused law enforcement actions by the Oakland Police Department’s (OPD) Ceasefire Section, in addition to ongoing, department-wide training in the principles of procedural justice and other strategies to improve police-community relationships. Since reforming its approach to violence, OPD has seen a dramatic increase in its homicide solve rate, while use-of-force incidents and complaints against the department are on the decline. An intentional management structure built around regular communication between Oakland Ceasefire partners and city leaders to stay on top of changing violence dynamics and track progress toward yearly violence reduction goals. Regular meetings include weekly shooting reviews, bimonthly coordination meetings, and performance reviews led by Oakland’s mayor.     

Giffords Law Center, Faith in Action, and the Black and Brown Gun Violence Prevention Consortium, 2019. 107p/