Tag: Police Use of Force

A Study of Bias in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s Threat Assessment Process – National Policing Institute

A Study of Bias in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s Threat Assessment Process – National Policing Institute

There is a link for a .pdf to the report at the webpage.
— Read on www.policinginstitute.org/publication/a-study-of-bias-in-the-washington-d-c-metropolitan-police-departments-threat-assessment-process/

Reducing Deaths in Law Enforcement Custody:  Identifying High-Priority Needs for the Criminal Justice System

Congress enacted the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 (DCRA) to address the lack of reliable information about law enforcement–related deaths and deaths in correctional institutions. The U.S. Department of Justice has conducted several activities designed to respond to the provisions specified in the DCRA legislation, as well as their own federal mandates, toward a comprehensive understanding of the prevalence and characteristics of deaths that occur in law enforcement custody. Despite these efforts, no national data collection program currently describes all deaths that occur in law enforcement custody. These data are critical to support strategies to reduce such deaths; to promote public safety through appropriate responses to reported crimes, calls for service, and police-community encounters; and to build trust with communities.

See more and get a copy of the report HERE

Public Report — Chicago Use of Force Community Working Group

Public Report on the Use of Force Community Working Group—Chicago

The Use of Force Community Working Group1 has achieved transformative changes to the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) Use of Force policies. These changes are the result of the Community Working Group’s leadership and advocacy and have the potential to reduce CPD violence and make the people of Chicago safer. This Report, issued by the community members who served on the Working Group, highlights those changes and describes the greatest shortcomings in CPD’s force policies still in need of change. It is critical that Chicagoans are informed both about our progress and about the areas where it remains crucial for people to speak out and advocate for change. We recommend that the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability immediately take up these recommendations for a better and safer Chicago. One of the greatest lessons we learned in this process is that change is not self-executing: it happens only when the people of Chicago make it happen.

See the report here:

https://www.law.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/2022-09/2022.09.22_UOF_WG_Report_upload.pdf

Discrimination and Disparities: Is Policing a Bigger Problem Than Crime? | OLD PARKLAND CONFERENCE – YouTube

Excellent discussion give it a listen!!

Are racial disparities in arrests and incarceration evidence of racist policing? Is over-policing a primary threat to the safety of black communities, as Black Lives Matter activists and others have argued in recent years? Should we reduce police resources and prosecute fewer crimes? Do black men have more reason than others to fear law enforcement? Is the drug war driving “mass incarceration”? Jason Riley engaged with Janice Rogers Brown, Roland Fryer, and Rafael Mangual on these questions and more
— Read on m.youtube.com/watch

Detroit Area Police Department Used Images of Black Men for Shooting Target Practice

If the police still use those targets there should have been an explanation about the targets and its purpose or how there are used. Those targets have been in use for as long as I can remember. This could mean for 30 years. I would like to know the origin on how they were designed and why many police departments used them. They may have been free through the federal or state government. There was a dog, female hostage, and a white male with a chain or a knife

My PD adapted the targets by covering the weapon with other objects like a phone, wallet, other weapon, or non-weapon object. This way when the target would present you never new if it was a threat. The officer would have to scan to see if the target had a weapon. This made officers constantly disregard any stereotypes and focus on hands and if the target was armed with a weapon. This improved training. This should have been explained to the boy scout group.

Boy Scouts discovered the targets, some of them pierced with bullet holes, while touring a police department headquarters just outside Detroit.
— Read on www.vice.com/en/article/4axdp9/detroit-police-black-men-shooting-range-targets

An excellent discussion on Policing QPP 56: Peter Moskos and Alex Vitale, moderated by Michael Fortner – Peter Moskos

Excellent discussion on Policing

This is truly a must listen for all criminal justice students interested in policing. 

QPP 56: Peter Moskos and Alex Vitale, moderated by Michael Fortner – Peter Moskos
— Read on qualitypolicing.com/qpp-alex-vitale-and-michael-fortner/

Police Killings: Road Map of Research Priorities for Change | RAND

Research Questions

What types of research on killings committed by police officers might help reduce these killings?
What types of data on killings committed by police officers might help reduce these killings?
In this report, RAND Corporation researchers summarize what is currently known about killings committed by police officers in the United States and identify existing evidence about various ways to prevent these killings. A relatively large body of research on these topics exists, but these studies often suffer from methodological shortcomings, largely stemming from the dearth of available data. Recognizing the need for more-rigorous work to guide efforts to reform police — and, more specifically, to reduce police killings — the authors present work focused on the development of a research agenda, or a road map, to reduce police killings. The report, based on an extensive literature review as well as interviews with policing experts, contains a series of recommendations for areas in which research efforts may be most effective in helping inform policymaking and decisionmaking aimed at reducing police killings.

The authors identified six focus areas — foundational issues (such as racial inequities, police culture, and police unions), data and reporting, training, policies, technology, and consequences for officers. Reviewing the priority research topics in each focus area, similar themes emerged, especially around the need for more-extensive and more-systematic data collection and around the use of agency policies to better govern a range of operations related to police violence, such as data collection and reporting and technology.

In this report, the authors use the terms police killings, police violence, and police shootings to describe these types of police behaviors, whether wrongful or not. The authors identify specific instances of these behaviors as misconduct, illegality, wrongful, or excessive when those descriptions apply.
Key Findings

The authors identified research priorities that include the following:

Incorporate a racial lens into studies on reducing police violence and police killings.
Conduct research on aspects of law enforcement that teach and reinforce traditional police culture and norms and on how reform efforts might overcome resistance stemming from culture and norms.
Conduct research on the role of unions in preventing accountability to agency policies and in shaping the outcomes of cases involving police killings.
Explore additional data sources and data that could provide a more reliable representation of a police violence incident, including nonfatal incidents; situational factors surrounding incidents; and the use of technology prior to, during, and after an incident.
Improve data collection on officer consequences after police killings.
Establish meaningful metrics for use across agencies by identifying standard data elements that agencies should collect, and prioritize data accuracy.
Move away from self-reported data on body-worn camera (BWC) use by conducting BWC footage reviews and incorporating alternative data sources for incident reviews.
Add to the overall training evaluation literature to understand the current state of training in the United States and develop a consensus on what training should be in place in all agencies.
Identify the mechanisms by which specific policies reduce police violence, and identify what combination of policies is most effective at reducing police violence.
Undertake research on the overall effects of using other technologies on lethal force.
Study the role of prosecutors in shaping the outcomes of cases involving police killings.
— Read on www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1525-1.html