Author: scott prell

How police departments’ loosely-written and poorly-enforced rules enable off-duty police misconduct

NOTE: This is a multipart series.

Across the U.S., police officers moonlight in bars, clubs, and private security jobs with little oversight. A CBS News and Howard Center investigation reveals how weak policies allow misconduct, corruption, and threats to public safety to persist.
— Read on www.cbsnews.com/projects/2026/moonlighting/off-duty-police-officer-misconduct/

New York Bans Anonymous Calls to Child Abuse Hotline — ProPublica

New legislation will require callers to the state child abuse hotline to identify themselves. ProPublica’s reporting in 2023 found that many anonymous callers made false allegations that led to intrusive investigations of families’ lives.
— Read on www.propublica.org/article/new-york-bans-anonymous-child-welfare-reports

Two Judges on the Sixth Circuit Determine that a Man Reaching for a Holstered Weapon was Not a Threat – Objectively Reasonable

We hold that police officers with probable cause to search a car may inspect passengers’ belongings found in the car that are capable of concealing the object of the search.
— Read on www.objectivelyreasonable.com/2025/12/26/two-judges-on-the-sixth-circuit-determine-that-a-man-reaching-for-a-holstered-weapon-was-not-a-threatis-wearing-a-full-face-ski-mask-in-the-month-of-may-during-the-day-in-a-high-crime-neighborhood-sus/

Get the copy of the Court Decision HERE

Statistical Transparency of Police. STOP

Executive Summary

House Bill 2355 (2017) mandates all Oregon law enforcement agencies to submit officer-initiated traffic and pedestrian stop data to the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission (CJC).

The resulting Oregon Statistical Transparency of Policing (STOP) Program, housed at the CJC, was created with assistance from the Oregon State Police (OSP) and the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST). This is the seventh annual report to the Oregon Legislature by the STOP Program examining data submitted by law enforcement agencies.

Table 0.1 reports descriptive statistics for

Tier 1 (100+ officers),

Tier 2 (25 – 99 officers), and

Tier 3 (<25 officers) agency stops.

Most drivers stopped were white and male. All minority races combined accounted for almost 30% of stops by larger (tier 1) agencies and a smaller portion, just over 20%, for smaller agencies, reflecting differences in urban and rural driving populations.

Read the report here:

www.ci.oswego.or.us/sites/default/files/STOP Report 2025.pdf

Report: Reduce crime with more cops on the streets

A recent report from the John Locke Foundation, outlines the four elements of this intensive community policing policy:

hiring more police officers
increasing salaries 
providing state-of-the-art training and support 
deploying officers as peacekeepers in high-crime, high-disorder neighborhoods
— Read on www.carolinajournal.com/report-reduce-crime-with-more-cops-on-the-streets/

Get a .PDF of the report HERE