Reform proposals related to police officer hiring, training, and discipline

Police hiring, training, and discipline


• Police collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) • Ballotpedia CBA dashboard •Reform proposals •CBA areas of inquiry and disagreement •Arguments about police collective bargaining • Index of articles about criminal justice policy
Click here for more analysis of police hiring, training, and disciplinary requirements by state and city on Ballotpedia

This article does not receive scheduled updates. It contains information researched in 2023 and was last updated in 2024. If you would like to help our coverage grow, consider donating to Ballotpedia. Contact our team to suggest an update.

This page lists reform proposals related to the hiring, training, and discipline of police officers. It is part of Ballotpedia’s analysis of police hiring, training, and disciplinary requirements across the country. The following sections feature reform proposals from scholars and journalists.

Ballotpedia has tracked four types of reform approaches related to police hiring, 18 types of reform approaches related to police training, and 19 types of reform approaches related to police discipline. Click the list below to learn more about each reform proposal.

Reform proposals related to the hiring of police officers

Implement new strategies for recruiting potential officers. This approach argues that strategies for recruiting police officers are ineffective and that new strategies are needed to improve the effectiveness of the recruitment process.
Implement recruitment strategies to increase diversity (sex, race, etc.) of police departments. This approach argues that new recruitment strategies should be implemented to attract diverse police recruits.
Enhance selection criteria to ensure the hiring process is effectively selecting/hiring the best recruits. This approach argues that police departments should develop new selection criteria such as changing the entrance examinations and requirements for potential recruits.
Implement new strategies to improve officer retention. This approach argues that strategies such as increasing compensation and improving employee engagement are needed to prevent officer turnover and improve retention rates.

Reform proposals related to the training of police officers

Refine basic training to include training for responding to mental health crises. This approach argues that law enforcement basic training should be altered to include training on how to respond to calls involving people with mental illnesses.
Implement mental health programs to promote officer wellness. This approach argues that police departments should implement programs that focus on promoting officer wellness and avoiding burnout.
Develop national standards for police training. This approach argues that law enforcement basic training should follow a set of national standards to ensure that all law enforcement officers throughout the country are receiving training on the same skills and tactics needed for effective policing.
Implement community-oriented policing strategies to establish community trust. This approach argues that community-oriented policing strategies would improve police-community relations, reduce fear, and improve the public’s opinion of police agencies.
Create programs that address departmental racism and bias. This approach argues that police departments should create educational programs in an effort to prevent officers from behaving in a way that activists refer to as racist or biased towards civilians.
Alter training to include andragogical principles and promote a culture of self-directed learning. This approach argues that police training should follow andragogical principles of learning which promotes self-directed learning and problem-solving.
Reform training tactics to address use of force concerns. This approach argues that training practices should be reformed to include alternative tactics and strategies police can use to prevent the use of force during civilian encounters.
Develop policies to offer guidance for the use of conductive energy devices. This approach argues that clear policies are needed to offer guidance to police officers on how and when conductive energy devices (CEDs) should be used as an alternative to lethal force.
Incorporate de-escalation techniques into police training. This approach argues that law enforcement basic training should include training officers on de-escalation techniques to use in place of force in certain situations.
Implement trauma-informed policing practices. This approach argues that police officers should be trained to identify and understand trauma when addressing crime.
Encourage guardian mindset police training. This approach argues that police officers should be trained to adopt a guardian mentality as opposed to a warrior mentality, which means that police officers would be trained to focus on establishing community trust, safety, communication, and ethical policing.
Implement procedural justice practices and policies to improve police-community relations. This approach argues that implementing procedural justice into police training and policies will improve the legitimacy of the police and the willingness of the public to cooperate with the police.
Encourage transparency of policing policies to improve police-community relations. This approach argues that police policies should be publicly available and the public should be allowed to review departmental policies in an effort to establish a sense of transparency.
Encourage more responsive policing to address underenfocement. This approach argues that underenforcement is a problem in policing and that more responsive policing is needed to address it.
Allow officers to participate in creating and implementing new departmental policies. This approach argues that police officers should be involved in creating and implementing new departmental policies instead of allowing only outside stakeholders to be involved in creating new policy.
Implement education of laws and rights in the training curriculum. This approach argues that police training curriculum should be amended to include legal education about laws, court precedents, and constitutional rights.
Reimagine police culture and institutional roles. This approach argues that reenvisioning police culture and institutional roles is needed to improve performance.
Promote equal focus on crime prevention and citizens’ perceptions of police. This approach argues that police departments should promote equal focus on crime prevention and citizens’ perceptions of police when overseeing a community.

Reform proposals related to the discipline of police officers

Eliminate qualified immunity. This approach argues that qualified immunity should be eliminated to allow police to be held responsible for misconduct that violates the law.
Modify qualified immunity doctrine. This approach argues that qualified immunity should be modified so that police could be held responsible for misconduct that violates the law in certain situations.
Restructure civilian payouts for police misconduct and require officers to carry liability insurance. This approach argues that police officers should be required to carry liability insurance and civilian payouts for misconduct cases should be restructured to make police departments responsible for those costs.
Restructure regulations for police union contracts. This approach argues that police union contracts should be restructured to remove certain protections for law enforcement officers and allow for police accountability.
Make disciplinary records and officer data publicly available through a federal database. This approach argues that a federal database should be created for documenting police officer disciplinary records and officer data in an effort to make misconduct information publicly available and increase police accountability.
Utilize more technology in order to hold police officers accountable. This approach argues that more technology should be used by police officers during their time on duty in order to be held more accountable when encountering civilians.
Utilzie less technology in order to hold police officers accountable. This approach argues that technology should not be frequently used by police officers during their time on duty in order to be held more accountable when encountering civilians.
Use litigation and judicial processes as a strategy for police reform. This approach argues that litigation and judicial processes, such as law U.S.C. § 14141, can improve policing in the United States.
Communicate policy changes and decision-making processes with officers to promote accountability and reduce misconduct. This approach argues that clear communication of law enforcement policy changes and decision-making processes with officers are needed to improve the perception of certain reforms.
Monitor the effectiveness of evidence-based approaches in mitigating police use of force. This approach argues that police departments should implement evidence-based approaches to reduce officer-involved shootings and other use of force incidents.
Involve multiple stakeholders in evaluating how discipline is handled. This approach argues that multiple parties should be involved in a police officer’s discipline, including the city government, civilian oversight committees, and local criminology scholars.
Establish a federal decertification process. This approach argues that a federal decertification process is needed to address police misconduct.
Establish a state-level decertification process. This approach argues that a state-level decertification process is needed to address police misconduct.
Adopt duty to intervene policies. This approach argues that police departments should promote policies that encourage officers to intervene while on duty when witnessing a fellow officer using excessive force.
Allow public interest in accountability to govern a police officer’s conduct, instead of LEOBORs. This approach argues in favor of public interest governing police officer accountability, instead of the police solely following the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights (LEOBORs).
Defund or divest from current policing practices. This approach argues that city, state, and/or federal agencies should provide less funding and resources to police departments and distribute that funding amongst mental health professionals and social services.
Implement oversight systems for addressing police misconduct. This approach argues that greater oversight by stakeholders, civilian committees, city officials, or legal scholars are needed to monitor police misconduct and disciplinary proceedings.
Enact systems to review a department’s culture to reduce misconduct. This approach argues that systems should be put in place to review a police department’s organizational culture in order to reduce misconduct.
Implement early intervention systems to address misconduct. This approach argues that early intervention systems should be implemented throughout police departments to discuss misconduct.

Hiring

This section contains reform proposals related to the way police departments recruit and hire new police officers.

Implement new strategies for recruiting potential officers

This proposal states that current strategies for recruiting police officers are ineffective. Proponents argue that new strategies should be implemented to improve the effectiveness of the recruitment process.

Lieutenant Shane Burleigh wrote, “Agencies must find a way to make people want to work for them for something other than just a paycheck. To accomplish this goal, agencies need to ask themselves the following questions:

Do the Police Department building, equipment and uniforms look modern and attractive?
Does the Police Department still have outdated policies and procedures that leave it vulnerable to litigation due to inadequacies or other liabilities?
Does the Police Department still have outdated hiring standards that preclude quality candidates because of the fact that they have facial hair or tattoos, or the fact that they tried Marijuana in high school?
Does the Police Department have a strong positive online and social media presence?
Does the Police Department demonstrate transparency by communicating its principles, values, and expectations?
Does the Police Department demonstrate inclusion and diversity within its ranks?
Does The Police Department have open door policies when it comes to our officers’ concerns and suggestions?”^[1]

Burleigh continued, “Centralized recruiting and hiring with a trained, dedicated team of officers, the stakeholders, will allow perspective [sic] applicants to know who they will work with if hired.”^[1]

Burleigh continued, “With technology, agencies can streamline several processes. For example, if an applicant lives hours or days away, documents can be signed and sent electronically. Some of the supporting documentation for an applicant’s background investigation, such as transcripts and tax records, can be requested and delivered electronically. The pandemic has taught us that interviews and meetings that used to take place face-to-face can now take place through applications such as ZOOM and Go to Meetings. With these applications, people may not be able to receive a personal handshake, but they can still observe facial expressions and body language, which are important communication signals that people must see each other to obtain.”^[1]

Burleigh wrote, “What recruiters should be doing instead is actively seeking out potential applicants. The author’s suggestion to departments is to have a dedicated team that visits local colleges and develops relationships with advisors, not just in the Criminal Justice department but also in the Business, Psychology, and Humanities departments, and in any other program that the college offers that can be applicable to law enforcement work. Arrange to set up recruiting tables on campus and have them staffed by the department’s rank and file officers so that the prospective applicants are speaking to the people that they would be working with, not just those that they would be working for.”^[1]

Burleigh wrote, “Local law enforcement academies that are open to general enrolment are a natural recruiting ground, but when the author first started contacting the academy coordinators, he was surprised to learn that most of the local law enforcement agencies were not already doing the same.”^[1]

Burleigh wrote, “Another suggestion is to learn from the US military’s recruiting tactics and have a recruiting team start spending time at local high schools. Even though the students have not reached the age required by most departments for employment, they are close, and it may help develop an interest in law enforcement and garner future applicants.”^[1]

Burleigh continued, “When recruiters discuss going where the applicants are, they must keep in mind that most are online and can be reached through traditional web pages and message boards such as Indeed, Monster, and Glassdoor, to name a few, and perhaps even more effectively through social media applications such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Departments should make sure they have a strong web and social media presence and should designate someone from the recruitment team to administer the online accounts.”^[1]

Burleigh wrote, “[T]he department needs to be recruiting only those applicants that share in the department’s ideals, vision, principles, and sense of community. Experience and education should be relevant only if the person shares in those ideals.”^[1]

Burleigh wrote, “Hiring an onboarding manager who can coordinate and schedule the process will solve [the problems associated with training new officers].”^[1]

Michael F. Aiello wrote, “Due to the significant influence on two of the four job outcomes, departments should consider adopting PJ content in line with this quasi-experiment. A department’s self-portrayal is an important part of the swirling narratives and counter-narratives around policing (Aiello, 2014), and can serve as a marker for candidates as well as the general public about how the agency understands their mission. These changes to recruitment materials were minimal, involving only the inclusion of two additional lines of text, and paid dividends for organizational fit and job attraction. Online recruitment materials, along with a department’s website and social media presence, represent some of the most critical opportunities to carefully consider how to best present the agency’s workforce, goals, and relationship to the public. Based on these results, departments should critically examine their online and printed recruitment materials, and if they want to adopt or currently practice PJ policing, ensure this orientation to police work is clear throughout.”^[2]

In a dissertation, Liam Doyle wrote, “Law enforcement organizations should increase the law enforcement recruiters’ understanding and value for recruiting millennial candidates, develop law enforcement recruitment-specific skills, and develop comprehensive law enforcement recruitment-specific online presence.”^[3]

Doyle continued, “[T]he researcher found law enforcement recruiters identified they were deficient in law enforcement recruiter-specific skills due to a lack of training. Developing a skills training program should identify what skills recruiters use, such as public speaking, sales, and marketing, to determine best practices in obtaining new training. Each of these skills is a learned behavior and should be learned in a formalized setting and then demonstrated and receive feedback to ensure knowledge transfer has occurred.”^[3]

Doyle continued, “There are several steps to implementing a new training program. Clark and Estes’ (2008) research recommends a process of design, development, and then implementation to close the learning gap. When designing an effective training model, training should be clear and linked to performance and organizational goals (Lark & Estes, 2008). Building a training course should include a detailed introduction to the course and clearly defined objectives the learner will achieve upon completing the course (Clark & Estes, 2008). Failing to include details about what the training will cover or what the learner will learn will allow them to establish their own learning benchmarks, which may be below the organizational standards and expectations. Additionally, clearly establish learning objectives help assist the learner in ensuring that knowledge transfer has occurred.”^[3]

Doyle wrote, “To obtain information on what drives Millennials to seek careers in law enforcement, recruiters should survey Millennial applicants, analyze acquired data, and use those results to understand why Millennials want to become Law Enforcement Officers. Harnessing this information could also allow law enforcement recruiters to understand better how to target and recruit Millennials more effectively.”^[3]

Jeremy M. Wilson and his coauthors wrote, “Agencies must prepare themselves for hiring by first assessing their staffing needs.” The authors proposed several recommendations for achieving this, which included the development of an assessment team, identification of the department’s budget and revenue, specification of organizational goals and values, determination of benchmarks to establish staffing needs, and integration of the community into the hiring process.^[4]

Wilson and his coauthors also proposed recommendations for internal and external strategies for attracting candidates. These included building employee referral networks, creating a recruitment unit, searching for recruits within the department, assessing employee-engagement strategies, using various forms of internet media and other electronic media, branding the department, using community liaisons to reach recruits, allowing on-site visits, attending career fairs, considering the value of youth programs for recruitment, and targeting second-career applicants.^[4]

Bruce Taylor and his coauthors wrote, “[B]ased on our interview results, agencies should consider taking a strategic approach by either pooling resources with other agencies in order to find qualified recruits, or forming a strategic committee to determine new recruiting methods. Agencies might also seek out venues that are physical in nature (such as setting up an information booth at a sporting event) to market policing, as these people might be more willing to seek out a highly physical career. On the other end of the extreme, for future planning, agencies can visit young students to talk about the elements of being a police officer. This could help create a positive image for officers. Agencies can also proactively help applicants meet the screening requirements and testing standards for becoming an officer. Agencies need to consider using some of these and other promising practices if they hope to recruit and maintain a viable work force well into the future.”^[5]

In a report to summarize the RAND Center on Quality Policing’s National Summit on Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment, Jeremy M. Wilson and Clifford A. Grammich said, “The summit also pointed to several steps police agencies can take to improve their recruiting and retention. In particular, participants noted the following:

In a highly competitive market, partnering with local criminal justice programs, administering frequent exams, and providing recruiting bonuses proved successful.
In a rapidly growing community, a marketing campaign appealing to characteristics such as selflessness, patriotism, and community orientation, which the agency desired and candidates shared, helped attract candidates. Developing a cadre system letting recruits 'recycle' through the academy as necessary also helped improve their processing.
In a community that had to rebuild after a catastrophe, focused research on recruitment and retention, including an analysis of salary and benefits, helped a department reverse its slide and stabilize its numbers.
In a very large community, multiple initiatives, from selling the department’s 'brand' to recruitment web sites and hotlines to improving pay, are all necessary to maintain the required force size.
In a community seeking to rapidly increase its police force for specific community needs, streamlined processes allowing candidates to be hired within three weeks of passing an exam helped improve recruitment, while changes in pay and other work practices helped maintain retention.
In a department struggling to attain diversity that reflects that of the community, the lack of a recruiting budget and restrictions such as residency requirements can limit success.
In a department seeking to improve recruitment and retention simultaneously, making the nature of policing more appealing to candidates seeking 'white-collar' status, instilling pride in the department, and demonstrating to veterans how new techniques (e.g., community policing) serve traditional purposes (e.g., developing leads to capture criminals) all work.
More generally, police agencies should focus on newer means of advertising and marketing, such as the Internet, for improving their recruiting, although their own employees will remain a very important recruiting resource.
Police agencies can learn from military experience in different stages of the career cycle in market-driven, hierarchical rank systems.
Agencies that find themselves with little or no resources for recruiting can still improve their recruiting efforts by centralizing leadership for those efforts, spreading the word when they are hiring, identifying untapped local markets, prioritizing applications, and rewarding their most effective recruiters.
Finally, because retention can eliminate much of the need for recruiting, agencies should focus on the 'internal' reasons that may drive away effective employees and should work to augment the reasons officers choose to stay with a department.”^[6]

Implement recruitment strategies to increase diversity (sex, race, etc.) of police departments

This proposal argues that new recruitment strategies should be implemented to attract diverse police recruits.

Chief Penny E. Harrington, the first female chief of the Portland Police Bureau, wrote, “To successfully increase the number of women in policing, law enforcement agencies should develop a specific plan of action that targets women in the recruiting process and emphasizes the agency’s desire to significantly increase the number of women in its ranks. The plan should also seek to recruit candidates who possess qualities necessary to for successful community policing.”^[7]

Chief Harrington continued with the following points:

“A. Forming a Recruitment Committee: A committee should be convened to assist in the development of a recruitment program. Successful targeted recruiting requires that the recruitment committee have active support and resource commitment from the head of the law enforcement agency. Small agencies can accomplish these activities by pooling their resources with other agencies in their region, thereby developing and implementing a recruiting program that fits the needs of all. Ideally, a recruitment committee will consist of persons committed to increasing diversity by gender and race within the law enforcement agency.”
“B. Designing Recruitment Brochures and Posters The recruitment brochure is an opportunity for a law enforcement organization to describe the job of a police officer and to encourage women to apply for that job. Frequently, recruitment brochures and posters are outdated and do not reflect current policing philosophies. Brochures should emphasize community policing and the skills needed to be successful in that approach to law enforcement. Brochures should not imply that time spent in patrol is short and that officers can move into specialty positions rapidly. Typically, women are attracted to careers in law enforcement because they want to help their communities. Brochures should stress the important role that law enforcement officers play in working with the community to prevent and solve crime problems. In addition, brochures should describe the testing process in enough detail for applicants to understand exactly what will be expected of them. This is especially important when describing the physical agility testing process. Legal counsel should review the completed brochure.”
“C. Establishing a Recruiting Team Part of the success of a good recruitment campaign depends on the personnel selected as recruiters. Many women are apprehensive about applying for the job of law enforcement officer and they do not have a clear understanding of what the job entails. They want to know how they will be treated as a law enforcement officer and need detailed information about the selection process. They want to know about the law enforcement academy and training process. They have questions about pregnancy leave and other family-related issues, and they want to talk to women who are currently doing the job. Persons selected as recruiters should be especially enthusiastic about increasing the numbers of women in the agency. Assignment as a recruiter should be viewed as a desirable, career-enhancing opportunity. Recruiters should be able to respond to the questions women have about policing. While it is crucial that recruiting teams include as many female representatives of the law enforcement agency as possible, recruiters should not be selected solely because of their gender. Individuals should be selected who are unbiased, enthusiastic advocates, good speakers, and good listeners.”
“D. Training Recruiters Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies standard 31.1.2 requires ‘Individuals assigned to recruiting activities are knowledgeable in personnel matters, especially equal employment opportunity as it affects the management and operations of the agency.’ … We support these recommendations and add that the training of recruiters should also include information about the following:

the agency’s pregnancy and family leave policies
issues unique to women in law enforcement
reasons why women may not have considered law enforcement as a career”

“E. Finding Sources of Women Recruits Community organizations and businesses can be invaluable in recruiting women. Agencies need to form partnerships with community groups–particularly those promoting career opportunities for women–and enlist them in the drive to increase the numbers of women in law enforcement. Businesses and organizations can be asked to assist with resources, distribution of recruitment materials and applications, and training for the written and physical examinations.”
“F. Incentive Programs Most law enforcement agencies report that the best source of new recruits is current law enforcement officers. This is often an untapped source for recruiting women, and agencies are often unsure how to motivate their staff to locate potential recruits. Some law enforcement agencies have developed a unique incentive program. This plan rewards officers for bringing in a recruit who is qualified to perform the duties of a community law enforcement officer and who has the knowledge, skills, and experience the department is seeking. Rewards may take the form of money, extra time off, or other benefits.”
“G. Youth Outreach Programs Some law enforcement administrators tend to not emphasize recruiting and youth outreach programs until they have openings to fill. This does not always result in finding the best available candidates. Recruitment efforts should be ongoing. Many of the approaches described in this plan, such as use of the media, advertisements, career fairs, and contacts with community colleges and organizations, can and should be implemented year round. Some agencies have taken a long-term approach to recruiting by implementing programs in middle and high schools in their community. By interesting students at an early age in a career in law enforcement, the organization can develop an ongoing pool of highly motivated, qualified applicants.”
“H. Monitoring Recruitment Efforts Once a recruitment program is implemented, it should be continually monitored and evaluated to determine what works and what changes may need to be implemented. To effectively monitor and evaluate recruitment efforts, the application for law enforcement officer should contain questions about how the applicant learned about the position. In addition, when potential candidates call the recruiting office, they should be asked how they heard about the positions. At least once every 6 months the recruitment committee should meet and review the recruitment program. Careful data should be kept in order to determine which pieces of the recruitment plan are successful. Successful programs should be expanded and unsuccessful programs should be discontinued or modified. Because targeted recruiting can only be successful in conjunction with a commitment to retention of qualified women, agencies should also keep records of the comparative retention rates of women and men.”
“I. Recruiting for State Agencies In many state law enforcement agencies, outdated policies that require newly hired employees to make a major geographic move in order to be hired are having an extremely negative impact on hiring individuals who have families or partners who are unable to relocate. Some agencies also require employees to make continuous geographic moves to progress up the career ladder, again with an adverse effect on the officer’s personal life. The requirement for geographic relocation places an unreasonable burden on the spouse or partner who is forced to seek new job opportunities with every geographic move. Agencies need to review the requirement for geographic movement as a prerequisite for upward mobility. It is a factor that drastically cuts the pool of qualified applicants — both men and women. Having a policy that only requires employees to be assigned within their immediate region in order to receive a promotion would relieve the concerns many officers face about working and child-rearing.”
“J. Recruiting for Sheriff’s Departments Many sheriff’s departments are responsible for correctional systems in addition to traditional field enforcement and investigative duties. Therefore, newly hired law enforcement officers may be required to serve in a correctional facility for a period of time at the beginning of their careers. This can be a disincentive for some potential candidates. The training opportunities and experience gained in the correctional setting should be emphasized as an advantage for newly hired officers. Correctional duties offer candidates the opportunity to work with clients in a controlled environment that enhances their abilities to investigate crime in the patrol or detective setting. Assignments in jail facilities also offer unique shift schedules conducive to family and educational needs. Working in corrections can also give a long-time employee job variety and end-of-career options.”^[7]

Authors Janne E. Gaub and Kristy Holtfreter wrote, “The renewed call for a more representative police force is one of several aspects of proposed reform efforts (Armstrong, 2020; Roman ,2020). Research shows that a more diverse police force, especially in terms of sex, can have enormous benefits for departments. Specifically, improving gender parity can increase internal perceptions of legitimacy and fairness (Riccucci et al., 2014) and creates external benefits related to improved access to justice for crime victims (Shuck, 2018).”^[8]

Gaub and Holtfreter continued, “With renewed interest in increased representation in policing (Roman, 2020; Stoughton et al., 2020), advocates must ensure that agencies do not simply make cursory attempts to increase diversity through selection and hiring only to undercut those changes during the probationary period.”^[8]

Enhance selection criteria to ensure the hiring process is effectively selecting/hiring the best recruits

This proposal argues that police departments should develop new selection criteria in order to improve the success of the hiring process. This can include changes to entrance examinations and requirements for potential recruits, such as higher education.

Billy Henson and his coauthors proposed, “First, there is a need to reform the process so that selection criteria are related to success, if possible. This may require developing hiring criteria that are empirically related to the tasks that officers actually perform on the street. The purpose would be to create a validated job-related selection process.”^[9]

In a dissertation, Amani R. Edwards proposed, “Despite some differences and hesitancy, some of the main redesign ideas provided by police officers are as follows,

Pass/fail examination – by creating a pass/fail examination, the eligible pool widens to include more individuals. Police officers often expressed potentially good recruits being left out of the process simply because they were not able to score well on a test. A pass/fail system would allow those individuals to potentially reach the interview process and become police officers. This also diminishes the bias that mostly good test-takers become examinations.
Scenario-based testing – this cost more money and time but has been pushed by two officers (William and Luke). Scenario-based testing would decrease the implicit-bias that many believe to be inherit in the examination, while also showing departments how someone would react in various situations. While reactions are often determined on training, these tests are assumed to also determine personality traits and other characteristics, while providing police departments knowledge about their recruit’s biases and reactions prior to training.
No more rule of 3 – the rule of three states (simply) that the top three candidates on the eligible list must be contacted for recruitment before the next three candidates can. Essentially, to recruit candidates, police officers must start from the top of the list to the bottom. The issue with the rule of three mainly comes from smaller departments who prefer candidates from their towns. The rule of 3 may keep them from selecting a good candidate with community connections, simply because of their score (which is already regarded as a poor determinant of merit). The Rule of Three further accentuates the disconnect between police departments and the civil service, pitting what departments and the civil service believe is necessary to do the job, versus what the examination actually produces.”^[10]

Per the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Kevin P. Morison highlighted three major themes:

“Hiring candidates who share the values and vision of the community and the department. This section explores how some agencies are using the hiring process to do more than disqualify individuals who fail to meet basic standards. Rather, more and more agencies are using the process to ‘hire the positive’—that is, to attract and ultimately hire people who reflect the values and vision of the law enforcement agency and the community. This section also explores new ways of thinking about such traditional disqualifiers as past drug use (an increasingly complex matter, given the trend toward marijuana legalization or decriminalization in many states) and applicants’ financial difficulties (which may be a result of poor economic conditions nationwide). This section also examines the role of polygraph exams, psychological screenings, and the National Decertification Index, a relatively new and underused tool to help agencies screen candidates in a more comprehensive, multijurisdictional fashion.
Making the hiring process more efficient. Traditionally, the police hiring process in most agencies has been slow and cumbersome. As a result, some agencies are losing qualified candidates to other departments, and in some cases, the policing profession is losing highly attractive candidates to other professions. This section of the report explores what some agencies are doing to shorten the hiring process and make it more efficient and user-friendly to applicants. Forum participants emphasized that speed and efficiency in hiring are especially important among the younger generations—Millennials and Generation Z —who make up the bulk of people now entering the workforce.
Advancing diversity and inclusiveness in the hiring process. This section examines how agencies are meeting their goals of building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the communities they serve, while also ensuring high-quality candidates and a process that is fair to everyone. Hiring Forum participants described new approaches to ‘growing their own candidates’ through programs such as police explorers, cadets and internships. They also discussed the important role that background investigators play not just in screening and evaluating candidates, but also in shaping the ‘culture’ of an agency.”^[11]

Professor Laurie O. Robinson wrote, “When President Obama asked my White House Task Force cochair, Chuck Ramsey, and me if there was one area we would have delved into if given more time, we said that area was recruitment. American policing in the future will be shaped by the men and women now coming into the police academies, yet at a time when there are calls for advancing a ‘guardian’ culture in policing, many training academies are still organized as military-style boot camps emphasizing a ‘warrior’ approach (Rahr and Rice 2015). A focus on social interaction (Wolfe et al., this volume)—rather than solely tactical skills like shooting well—will better meet the needs of twenty-first-century policing (President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing 2015). Authors in this volume have added to our understanding, as well, about what recruiters might take into account. Ridgeway, in his analysis of New York City Police Department (NYPD) data, finds evidence that officers hired later in their careers are at a lower risk of shooting, and Goff cautions that less confident officers are more likely to approve of excessive force and less likely to embrace their agency’s use of force policies. Their findings should be shared with police officials.”^[12]

In an evidence-based assessment of the recommendations made by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Cynthia Lum and her coauthors wrote, “While the research is not conclusive on the impact of higher education on police performance, agencies should consider encouraging higher education, and when resources allow it, incentivize higher education.”^[13]

Implement new strategies to improve officer retention

This proposal argues that strategies need to be implemented to prevent officer turnover and improve retention rates. These strategies can include increasing compensation and improving employee engagement and department effectiveness.

Author W. Dwayne Orrick wrote, “As agencies attempt to identify the reasons for employee attrition, they should also try to determine the reasons why others stay. By surveying and conducting ‘stay’ interviews with high performing veteran employees, the agency can likely determine factors that influence their decisions to remain in the agency. As part of this process, the goal is to determine factors that are pulling individuals into the agency as well as individual traits in persons who are more likely to stay and fit within the agency. The agency should identify what employees want and provide it.”^[14]

Author Orrick continued, “Never before has the recruitment and retention of police personnel been as critical or as challenging for police organizations as it is today. To address these challenges successfully, law enforcement leaders must examine the process in an entirely different manner. This process will require a constant review of the labor market, compensation systems, leadership, recruiting techniques, supervision of recruiters, employer brands, leadership and operational management systems, and retention systems. Quite simply - when recruiting and retaining personnel, every detail is important and deserves attention.”^[14]

According to Wilson and coauthors, “[T]here are some practices they can adopt to improve recruitment and retention and, hence, their ability to meet the demand for services. First, planning, analysis (including analysis of demographic trends), and surveys and interviews with officers about job satisfaction can help agencies understand their prospects for attracting and keeping officers. Second, agencies can reduce turnover by offering realistic job previews to candidates and requiring contracts with new employees. Third, agencies can attract and retain candidates by enhancing compensation and other benefits. Fourth, agencies can increase retention through greater employee engagement, including efforts to increase employee input in decisionmaking and other evaluation and feedback opportunities. Improving organizational effectiveness through better hiring and management practices can improve the agency’s image not only with employees but also with the community.”^[4]

Wilson and coauthors continued, “Unfortunately, the research on what agencies can do to reduce turnover appears to rely more on anecdotal accounts than on empirical analysis. Nevertheless, in this section, we highlight existing knowledge about several strategies, citing evidence where it exists, but cautioning that each strategy should be considered critically, given the lack of rigorous analyses. … These broad ideas for addressing turnover are broken down further into the following suggestions:

Planning and Analysis
Reducing the Financial Impact of Turnover
Enhancing Compensation and Other Benefits
Employee Engagement
Improving Organizational Effectiveness"^[4]

Training

This section contains reform proposals related to the way police departments train police officers.

Refine basic training to include training for responding to mental health crises

This proposal states that law enforcement basic training should be altered to include training police officers on how to respond to calls involving people with mental illnesses.

Professors Judy Hails and Randy Borum wrote, “Providing intensive training to all officers may be helpful in some ways, but it does not inherently create a specialized response. The key distinction is this: Training all officers assumes that - as a result - all officers will be equally skilled in responding to these specialized calls. Research and experience suggests that this is not the case (Borum, 2000). In contrast, the CIT [crisis intervention team] program identifies the officers with the greatest interest, most amenable attitudes, and best interpersonal skills, then provides them with intensive training and deploys them specifically as a first-line response to these specialized calls.”^[15]

In an article on policing in England and Wales, Professor John LM McDaniel wrote, “Police officers should make every effort to learn the policies of their own organisation and those of partnering agencies, attend voluntary mental health awareness training and strive to act ethically during every encounter. Police managers, in turn, need to develop clear oversight of the nature of mental health policing. Strategic planning, training and direction and control should be informed by systematic data collection and analysis of all manner of encounters between police officers and people who appear to be suffering from mental disorders.”^[16]

McDaniel continued, “From an accountability and transparency perspective, HMIC [Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary] should consider widening the focus of its annual inspections to ensure that a basic standard of policing is being delivered across all manner of mental health-related encounters, not just in thematic areas such as domestic violence. Regular and thorough inspections are likely to be more effective than relying on the external police complaints mechanisms, such as the IPCC [Independent Police Complaints Commission], to shape police practices since people with mental disorders are often unlikely to complain out of fear of being disbelieved, discredited or blamed for taking up police time (Koskela et al., 2016).”^[16]

McDaniel wrote, “An ethos of accountability, transparency and ethics needs to inform and permeate the mental health function of public policing.”^[16]

In an evidence-assessment of the recommendations made by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Cynthia Lum and her coauthors wrote, "Local governments and communities should collaborate to implement evidence-based behavioral support programs in schools to limit the use of arrest and other formal criminal justice sanctions in schools. This effort will require a coordinated response among many agencies, including police departments, school districts, local government agencies, and community members.”^[13]

Lum and her coauthors also wrote, “Agencies are encouraged to incorporate CIT training into basic recruit and in-service training. While more rigorous studies are needed (see below), there is evidence suggesting such training can, at the very least, improve officer knowledge and attitudes toward interactions with the mentally ill. The CIT framework also emphasizes de-escalation, and thus reinforces recommendations from Pillar 2.”^[13]

The Chicago Police Accountability Task Force’s proposed the following reforms:

“Establish a smart 911 system for OEMC [Office of Emergency Management Communications], allowing residents to pre-enter information on mental health or other issues that would be instantly available to OEMC operators.”
“Create a multi-layer co-responder system where mental health providers work with OEMC and CPD [Chicago Police Department] to link individuals to treatment.”
“Expand significantly the Crisis Intervention System for CPD and other first responders.”
“Create a 'Mental Health Critical Response Unit' within CPD that is responsible for mental health crisis response functions, training, support, community outreach and engagement, cross-agency coordination and data collection.”^[17]

Implement mental health programs to promote officer wellness

This proposal argues that police departments should implement programs that focus on promoting officer wellness and avoiding burnout. These changes include training programs that emphasize the importance of emotion regulation and self-improvement, as well as promoting mental health counseling.

Daniel M. Blumberg and his coauthors said, “Police agencies must see the value of a psychologically skilled officer and demand that training academies emphasize development of these skills in their police recruits.”^[18]

Professors John J. Sloan III and Eugene A. Paoline III wrote, “A second area in which restructuring of basic training hours should occur is in the core area of self-improvement. While ensuring that prospective officers have some base level of health and fitness is obviously important in preparing them for the physical demands that are associated with policing, the fact that stress management receives just 5.85 hours of instruction on average - less than one full day of the approximate 21 week training period or about one-eighth of the hours of training received in the area of ‘health and fitness’ - strikes us as seriously problematic. Given the current depth and breadth of understanding about the impact of stress on officer health (see Jetelina et al., 2020), stress management should receive far greater prioritization as part of core training.”^[19]

Blumberg and his coauthors continued, “[G]iven the time limitations of police academy training and the mandated content that recruits must learn, some may contend that there is not enough time to focus on building recruits’ psychological skills. We argue that some innovation is warranted, as the psychological skills are as important as any other facet of police work. One solution is for police agencies to develop criteria for basic certification in certain police knowledge and skills (e.g., firearms proficiency, radio codes, law, penal code, and emergency driving), which applicants would have to achieve on their own prior to being hired. This parallels what many fire departments have established; applicants will only be considered for employment as a firefighter after they have acquired paramedic certification on their own. In this way, with a basic law enforcement certificate achieved on their own prior to employment, recruits have proven their commitment to the profession. Then, police academy training can focus on application of those skills, development of higher-order police techniques, and strengthening of the psychological skills.”^[18]

Blumberg and his coauthors wrote, “There should be greater continuity between recruits’ academy training and their field training. To accomplish this, academy staff and the FTO program staff need to do a better job collaborating with each other. This alliance shows recruits that there is not some arbitrary distinction between what is expected from them in the academy and the behavioral standards once they graduate and begin working on the streets. For that matter, along with other skills initially taught during the academy (e.g., firearms, defensive tactics, and emergency vehicle operation), police executives should view psychological skills as perishable and begin to require ongoing training and requalification of these skills throughout officers’ careers.”^[18]

Professors Ian Adams and Sharon Mastracci said, “BWCs increase burnout, but perceived organizational support mediates this effect, indicating strategies for concerned administrators to combat the effects of burnout: increased suicidality, family strain, illness, and turnover among the more serious. Police departments can increase levels of perceived organizational support through emotion-regulation training to help police officers better cope with the vicious cycles on long-term mental health of policing, which has been shown to be effective (Berking, Meier, & Wupperman, 2010). This type of deliberately focused, skill-based training can help officers deal with increasingly difficult work environments and is available to police departments interested in proactively addressing officer well-being. Departmental policy and practice surrounding BWCs could be constructed in a manner to communicate support and care for officers, as opposed to using the technology to surveil them more intensively.”^[20]

The Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform wrote, “We propose that officers should have mandatory mental health counseling on a quarterly basis. Normalizing mental health counseling will reduce the stigma associated with it.”^[21]

In an evidence-assessment of the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Cynthia Lum and her coauthors proposed the following recommendations for promoting officer wellness and safety:

“Supervisors, leaders, and trainers should regularly discuss police fatigue, stress, posttraumatic stress, health, danger, and injury in a neutral way during training, roll calls, and within squad discussions. The agency should provide officers with easily accessible information on well-established treatments for stress and posttraumatic stress disorder, cardiovascular health, and wellness.
Agencies implementing wellness programs should try to collect baseline and ongoing data on officer fatigue, health, and stress in ways that are nonthreatening and respectful of officer privacy. These data can be analyzed to understand the connection between officer stress and health, wellness, and behavioral outcomes (from absenteeism and job satisfaction to officer-citizen interactions and deployment decisions).
Agencies should take care in how they present wellness, health, and stress management programs, as labels and dissemination approaches seem to matter in officer receptivity to these programs. Officers may be more receptive to ‘wellness’ programs than 'stress management' ones.
Agencies considering or using 12 hours should carefully consider the impact of these shifts on officer wellness and fatigue. Especially if job satisfaction is linked to lower levels of stress and fatigue, changing to 12-hour shift schedules can backfire on organizations, increasing fatigue and stress, worsening officer wellness, and reducing job satisfaction. In turn, fatigue might have adverse impacts on outcomes of direct interest to law enforcement agencies, including implicit bias, use of force, reaction times, and police-citizen interactions.
Tangible actions can be immediately taken to increase the safety of officers. These actions include wearing seat belts, using ballistic vests, and having tactical first aid kits available. To ensure the implementation of these safety measures, agencies should have clearly written policies and expectations for these measures that are regularly disseminated and verbalized to all officers, detectives, specialized units, and civilian personnel. Additionally, agencies should ensure compliance with these policies through daily supervision and routine inspections.
Strategic planning for officer safety also includes increasing data collection about accidents, near-misses, and injuries, and analyzing data regularly.”^[13]

Develop national standards for police training

This approach argues that law enforcement basic training should follow a set of national standards. Developing national standards for police training would ensure that all law enforcement officers throughout the country are receiving training on the same skills and tactics needed for effective policing.

According to the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform, “Police officers regardless of whether they live in Kentucky or Arizona need to have similar training. Among the roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, there is wide variation in the amount of training that officers have to complete as well as what type of training they complete. With the amount of travel that Americans engage in domestically, law enforcement has not kept up to speed with ensuring that officers receive the same training. Consequently, police officers may be put in positions to make bad decisions because of a lack of the implementation of federal standards. Funding can be provided to have federally certified trainers who work with localities within states, counties, and cities.”^[21]

The Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Policing promoted a five-point plan for police reform which includes (1) developing national training standards, (2) establishing a federal decertification registry, (3) adopting duty-to-intervene and mandatory reporting policies, (4) promoting trauma-informed policing, (5) increasing data collection and transparency. The Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Policing wrote, “American police training is too short, uses ineffective teaching methods, and spends too little time on de-escalation, communication skills, problem solving, and scenarios officers are most likely to encounter in the community. National standards are needed to ensure that all officers receive a strong foundation in the skills and concepts required to police equitably and compassionately.”^[22]

Associate Professor of Law Kami Chavis Simmons wrote, “Problems related to police misconduct and corruption continue to persist throughout the nation’s law enforcement agencies. The systemic nature of these problems necessitates complex institutional reforms that agencies and local government entities have been hesitant to initiate. The failure to ameliorate systemic problems has prompted the federal government to intervene in several local police departments pursuant to its pattern or practice authority. Although the reforms developed and implemented over the past fifteen years represent promising models of reform, the federal government has neither the resources nor the legitimacy to oversee the implementation of these measures in the majority of police departments across the nation. States and local entities must take an active role in developing appropriate institutional reforms for local law enforcement agencies in their jurisdictions. The receipt of federal funding for law enforcement agencies distributed under the COPS program should be conditioned upon states implementing measures to address institutional reform. This exercise in cooperative federalism strikes the appropriate balance between a state’s freedom to experiment while working within the boundaries of a federally mandated minimum standard.”^[23]

Implement community-oriented policing strategies to establish community trust

This approach states that the implementation of community-oriented policing strategies will build trust between the community and the police. According to proponents, community-oriented policing will build trust by improving police-community relations, reducing fear, and improving the public’s opinion of police agencies.

Professor Laurie O. Robinson proposed four considerations as potential action for police reform at the local, state, and federal levels. The four considerations include: (1) prioritizing community trust and legitimacy, (2) hiring for the future of policing that focuses more so on police interactions with the public instead of use of force trainings, (3) working on buy-in from the front lines with increased morale, and (4) developing more robust interaction between academia and law enforcement. Elaborating on the need to prioritize community trust and legitimacy, Robinson said, “Very few reforms will ‘stick’ unless a foundation of community trust is established. The White House Task Force viewed building trust and legitimacy as the fundamental first step in bridging the divide between citizens and police (President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing 2015). A recent Urban Institute evaluation of efforts in six cities to build such trust found modest gains but underscored the challenges, including wariness about the initiative from both law enforcement and residents (LaVigne et al. 2019). O’Brien, Meares, and Tyler (this volume) properly underscore the importance of communities’ perceiving outreach to them as sincere. They discuss the benefits of transforming the relationship between officials and the community to one of ‘consensual authority,’ which in turn can bring greater legitimacy to the outreach projects. A key part of the relationship, they underscore, entails listening to the community and building a collaborative relationship built on trust. And as Goff (this volume) reminds us, police departments will only learn about much misconduct, and be able to ensure officer accountability, if there is community trust and open communication. So making this a priority in every jurisdiction is crucial. It is unlikely reform will be lasting without it.”^[12]

Law professor Seth Stoughton wrote, “To encourage officers to connect with community members, law enforcement agencies should require would-be officers to initiate non-enforcement contacts with members of their community. Both early in field training and near its conclusion, rookie officers should have to spend a certain set amount of time — perhaps one day a week, perhaps a block of two weeks or longer — approaching civilians just to have meaningful conversations. Building on the ‘Good Strangers’ and ‘Tact, Tactics and Trust’ training that grew out of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Strategic Social Interaction Modules training, a ‘non-enforcement contact’ requirement means officers would have to interact with their constituents while being prohibited from taking enforcement actions: no asking for identification, no running criminal history checks, no issuing tickets, and no making arrests. Further, the law enforcement agency should emphasize that officers are expected to continue making regular non-enforcement contacts even after completing field training.”^[24]

Law professor Monica C. Bell proposed several areas for reform rooted in legal estrangement theory, including a need for “community-centered measures (democratization, reconciliation, and transparency).” Bell continued, “These solutions offer a deeper path forward than the legitimacy perspective does, pushing beyond procedural justice. They do, of course, remain incomplete. The legal estrangement perspective demands taking account of historically rooted group marginalization and the collective consciousness of discrimination and mistreatment. This historical and collective perspective is central to the project of police reform. Accordingly, the perspective sensitizes police reformers to the idea that, while modifications within the institution of policing are critical and should move beyond individual line officers, their work will not be finished until it spurs change in the full array of institutions that perpetuate poverty, race-correlated disadvantage, and symbolic statelessness.”^[25]

Professors Kent R. Kerley and Michael L. Benson proposed that, to be effective, two criteria must be met. “First, stimulation of community processes should be made the manifest goal and outcome measure of community policing programs. This is certainly a departure from the typical method of using crime rates and fear as the main goals and evaluation variables. Instead, reductions in crime rates and fear should be treated as latent or secondary goals and outcome measures. The reasoning for this is straightforward. If stimulation of community processes is the intervening variable between community policing programs and reductions in crime rates and fear, it would follow that it should be the primary goal and outcome measure of community policing programs. Unfortunately, given the current state of crime-centered politics and evaluation, this has not been the case. Second, the Implant Hypothesis may be possible if police seek to more actively involve community residents in community policing programs. When police departments alone identify community problems and ways to address them, they ignore one of the basic tenets of the community policing philosophy, and should not be surprised when residents do not become actively involved in those ‘community-oriented. programs (Kerley, 1999, in press).”^[26]

Cynthia Lum and coauthors proposed the following recommendations regarding community policing and community relations based on Pillar Four from the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing:

“Agencies should carefully examine not only their current commitment to community policing, but also the tangible structures and systems they have instituted to achieve community policing. Agencies may consider judging these systems and structures against objectives of community partnerships, problem-solving, and organizational transformation as discussed above, including management, supervision, and performance metrics designed to achieve these objectives.
Agencies should examine their strategies for engaging with the community, using meaningful community partnerships and problem-solving as learned from research. It is important that different definitions of ‘community’ are accounted for; for example, economic development initiatives can be perceived by some sections of the community as gentrification, with negative connotations.
Agencies should examine how community collaboration and problem-solving are rewarded through the performance evaluation process. More research is needed on the optimal performance measures for community-oriented policing, but we review concrete suggestions above that could be used as a starting point to prioritize agency commitment to community policing.
Agencies should review academy and in-service training protocols and enhance communication and conflict resolution and de-escalation skills training where needed.
Local governments and communities should collaborate to implement evidence-based behavioral support programs in schools to limit the use of arrest and other formal criminal justice sanctions in schools. This effort will require a coordinated response among many agencies, including police departments, school districts, local government agencies, and community members.”^[13]

A report from the Community Policing Consortium said, “Police agencies should not allow political leaders and the public to develop unrealistic expectations for community policing in terms of crime deterrence or speed of implementation. Community policing calls for long-term commitment; it is not a quick fix. Achieving ongoing partnerships with the community and eradicating the underlying causes of crime will take planning, flexibility, time, and patience. Management can measure progress by their success in meeting interim goals and must reinforce the concept inside and outside the organization that success is reached through a series of gradual improvements. Local political leadership may be eager for fast results, but police leadership must make it clear to city and county officials that implementing community policing is an incremental and long-term process. Political and community leaders must be regularly informed of the progress of community policing efforts to keep them interested and involved. The police organization, from the chief executive down, must stress that the success of community policing depends on sustained joint efforts of the police, local government, public and private agencies, and members of the community. This cooperation is indispensable to deterring crime and revitalizing our neighborhoods.”^[27]

According to Professor Edward Maguire and his coauthors, “The results obtained in this study, although limited, have direct implications for current public policies relating to the police. Billions of dollars from the 1994 Crime Act are slated for dissemination to thousands of law enforcement agencies throughout the United States over the next several years. The one string that the federal government attaches to these dollars is that to receive the money, police agencies must implement, or continue practicing, community policing strategies. On the basis of the results of this research, the federal government should consider focusing more resources on smaller police agencies and those outside the Western region of the United States. Predicted probability levels showed that holding other variables constant, Western agencies have a 20 percent higher probability than Eastern agencies of practicing 16 or more community policing activities. Even larger differences were found across different categories of agency size. These variations in community policing activity are large and should be reflected in public policy."^[28]

Professor Laurie O. Robinson wrote, “There have been multiple efforts over the years to build bridges between scholars and police. These go back to Berkeley (CA) police chief August Vollmer’s relationship with the University of California at Berkeley in the early twentieth century and, more recently, the work of George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, the launching of Research Advisory Committees by both IACP and PERF, and the establishment of ongoing research partnerships with police departments by individual scholars, such as Anthony Braga’s longtime relationship with the Boston Police Department (Braga, Robinson, and Davis 2013). The creation of the American Society of Evidence Based Policing has also been a significant step. But law enforcement and academia largely still operate in different worlds and speak different languages. Few police chiefs attend American Society of Criminology annual meetings, and few criminologists can be found at IACP’s annual conference. The impressive proposals advanced in this volume merit serious consideration, but whether they will ever reach a law enforcement audience is a real question. Few busy police chiefs—or federal, state and local policy-makers—will read this volume. One solution is to translate academic work into less technical and more succinct formats for practitioner audiences and then to ensure that material reaches practitioners in their publications. I applaud Wolfe et al., Jacoby et al., and Pollack and Humphreys (this volume) for offering proposals that are accessible to a practitioner audience. A second solution is to create more settings for ongoing dialogue so that exchange of ideas between the two 'camps' is institutionalized to a greater degree. Criminologists and other academics can play a significant role here if they step outside their comfort zones and start communicating regularly with policy-makers and policing leaders, including the heads of police management associations and police unions and such organizations as the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training (IADLEST) and the state POSTs (Peace Officer Standards and Training boards and commissions), both of which are instrumental in shaping police training in the United States.”^[12]

Law professor Tom R. Tyler wrote:

Recruitment: “One important aspect of policing is the change in the composition of police forces, which are becoming more diverse in terms of race, gender, and sexual orientation. This diversity has two elements: optics and dynamics. In terms of optics, having diverse police officers is important to building public trust in a police department. Enacting diversity is one approach to encouraging public trust.”
Training: “Training officers in procedural fairness is an important way to build legitimacy in the community because it changes the way officers think about how to police. Officers need to think of each encounter with the public as an opportunity to educate people about law and legal authority (i.e., a ‘teachable moment’). Put another way, officers need to recognize the importance of considering how the people in the community experience them and whether they are negatively or positively influencing community trust in the police. If officers carry this idea into their everyday work, legitimacy will improve.”
External Policies and Practices: “The point of training is to reorient officers’ views about how to police in the community toward a concern about how their actions shape public views about the police. This can also be achieved through altered policies and practices. One approach, already noted, is to limit investigatory stops, which are known to be a source of mistrust. Officers should have a high bar of suspicion to justify such stops.”
Internal Policies and Practices: “Early discussions of procedural justice focused upon procedural justice as a mechanism for the police to use in building popular legitimacy. However, studies of street officers found that the officers themselves often felt that their departments lacked basic features of procedural justice. Hence, one clear area of change needs to be a focus on how to create and sustain procedural justice in the internal dynamics of police departments. Studies show that officers who feel fairly treated by their superiors within the department are more likely to view their department, as well as its policies and leaders, as legitimate. Thus, they are more likely to comply with organizational rules and policies, feel organizational commitment and a desire to stay with the department, and work cooperatively with their supervisors. They are also less likely to use force on the street and more likely to view treating the community fairly as important. Thus, promoting internal procedural justice facilitates the employment of external procedural justice in the community.”
Recognition and Reward: “The police chief signals his or her views about what real police work is by the people they recognize and reward. Who does the chief give achievement awards to and who is written up in the newsletter? To sustain a procedural justice model, the command structure needs to provide visible signs of support for those officers who emphasize building legitimacy within the community. If real police work is equated with arrests or SWAT team actions, or if officers are told that taking time to speak with community residents is not a good use of their time, officers will not engage in such activities.”
Metrics: “CompSTAT became highly popular among police departments because it uses metrics to direct policing activity. The concept has become enshrined with the metric of crime rate. But it is important to separate the idea of metrics of performance from crime rate as the metric of concern. If police departments broaden their metrics, they can reward officers for achieving other goals. One goal is popular legitimacy. Officers or supervisors can not only manage their activities around metrics but also promote a broader set of goals through community surveys, post-contact cards, objective measures such as the number of citizen help tips, calls for service, or the absence of complaints.”
System-Wide Change: “Finally, it is important that changes are implemented throughout the system. This includes initial police contacts, pretrial engagement, case disposition processes and trials, and any subsequent penalties or incarceration, including probation and parole. At each stage, authorities need to consider whether their policies and practices, both as conceived and as implemented, build trust and confidence in the legal system. To this end, states’ intrusions into people’s lives need to have clearly explained justifications and should be enacted respectfully. At the community level, policies and practices need to be developed with meaningful community input and transparency and, if needed, should be correctable.”^[29]

Chicago’s Police Accountability Task Force wrote, “The recommendations, if adopted, will fundamentally change the way in which the public engages with the police, create more effective oversight and auditing, and create a transparent system of accountability and responsibility for all stakeholders. We have not solved all problems, but we have created a blueprint for lasting change.” The task force proposed the following:

“Replace CAPS with localized Community Empowerment and Engagement Districts (CEED) for each of the city’s 22 police districts, and support them accordingly. Under CEED, district Commanders and other leadership would work with local stakeholders to develop tailored community policing strategies and partnerships.”
“Renew commitment to beat-based policing and expand community patrols so that officers learn about and get to know the communities they serve, and community members take an active role in partnering with the police.”
“Reinvigorate community policing as a core philosophy and approach that informs actions throughout the department.”
“Host citywide summits jointly sponsored by the Mayor and the President of the Cook County Board to develop and implement comprehensive criminal justice reform.”
“Adoption of a citywide protocol allowing arrestees to make phone calls to an attorney and/or family member(s) within one hour of arrest.”
“Implementation of citywide 'Know Your Rights' training for youth”^[17]

Gary Cordner said, “Getting to the point where officers understand their role within a community policing framework is a subject for other volumes to discuss. Specifically in regard to establishing individual officer accountability for fear of crime, some suggestions can be made:

Training—basic and in-service police training should address fear of crime, emphasizing its damaging effects on individuals and communities, its semi-independence from crime itself, and techniques that can be used to target and reduce fear.
Information—information should be fed to officers to help them diagnose fear problems on their beats, and fear analysis should be available to them when they are trying to take a problem-oriented approach to fear reduction.
Reporting—a simple and streamlined system should be implemented by which officers report their fear-reduction activities and fear-related problem-solving projects. These reports can then be reviewed by supervisors and analysts. They can also be compiled so that the fear-reduction activities of sub-units and the entire police agency can easily be documented.
Supervision—sergeants need to monitor, mentor, and lead the fear-reduction efforts of their subordinates. They should be held accountable for providing this kind of supervision. They should also be held accountable for overall implementation of fear reduction efforts in their areas of responsibility. Of course, they should get training and direction on these duties, which may be new to them.
Performance Evaluation—fear-reduction efforts and outcomes should be added to the regular performance evaluations of officers and sergeants. This keeps everyone’s attention on fear reduction as an important element of policing at the street level.”^[30]

Create programs that address departmental racism and bias

This proposal would have police departments create educational programs in an effort to prevent officers from behaving in a way that activists refer to as racist or biased towards civilians.

Authors George Wood, Daria Roithmayr, and Andrew V. Papachristos proposed, “Several of our findings also point to actionable steps that could be implemented at a command or local level. Our findings on race and departmental complaints, for instance, call for attention to be directed to sources of workplace biases and discrimination. Providing supervisors, line staff, and monitoring agencies with the most relevant training and resources is a crucial first step, as is ensuring that existing policies and practices are followed uniformly. Relatedly, paying attention to the pairings of officers can also possibly mitigate misconduct complaints from civilians. Our findings suggest that pairing officers with greater differences in experience can be beneficial. Coupled with the information on complaint history—and prior research on FTOs (Getty et al. 2014)—this might suggest an even stronger role for experience and capacity for mentorship in the pairing of partners.”^[31]

Authors Wood, Roithmayr, and Papachristos continued, “Attention to the staffing of patrol in high-crime communities - including the racial, gender, and experience composition of pairs of officers - becomes an immediate and actionable measure.”^[31]

In an evidence-assessment of the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Cynthia Lum and her coauthors wrote:

“Agencies should employ policies, practices, and strategies that recognize and try to minimize bias and/or disparate outcomes related to race, gender, age, disabilities, and sexual orientation.
Agencies should consider adopting training modules to address implicit or unconscious biases. Specifically, trainings and exercises focused on positive interactions and counter-stereotyping may be beneficial, although as we discuss in the training section below, research in this area is still lacking. Additionally, officers should be encouraged to use processes which minimize the influence of officer bias in investigations, including strategies like double-blind line-up presentations.
Agencies should adopt clear and comprehensive policies on the use of force and make these policies public. These policies should address both lethal (i.e., deadly) and less-than-lethal force by officers. Policies guiding the use of force should also clearly state details on the release of use-of-force incident data. This will establish a clear and transparent process and can help manage public expectations of agency responsibilities.
Agencies should consider adopting external oversight bodies for the review of critical incidents involving police action. Again, this can help establish a transparent review process and manage public expectations. While research does not point to specific best practices in this area, agencies might consider experiences in Scotland and England where external oversight is common and formalized.
Police agencies should establish clear policies for handling mass demonstrations that cover the use and escalation of force. Police should also use after-action reports to review their responses to mass demonstrations and assess them in light of research knowledge and best practices.
It is imperative that agencies collect adequate data on critical incidents involving police officers. At a minimum, agencies should collect information about suspect and officer demographics as well as the location, time, date, and other relevant contextual factors. These data should be analyzed on a recurring basis to identify any problematic trends.”^[13]

Lum and her coauthors continued, “Police should implement diversity training that addresses implicit or unconscious bias rather than focusing on explicit bias. While research on police training specifically is needed (see below), studies from other fields suggest that interventions can help individuals manage and minimize their implicit biases. As Fridell (2013: 11) argues, this is likely to be more effective than training that reflects ‘outdated understandings about prejudice’ and a singular focus on a message of ‘stop being prejudiced.’”^[13]

The Chicago Police Accountability Task Force made the following recommendations for reform:

“Implement a citywide Reconciliation Process beginning with the Superintendent publicly acknowledging CPD’s history of racial disparity and discrimination, and making a public commitment to cultural change.”
“Encourage the Mayor and President of the Cook County Board to work together to develop and implement programs that address socioeconomic justice and equality, housing segregation, systemic racism, poverty, education, health and safety.”
“Establish for the first time in Chicago a Deputy Chief of Diversity and Inclusion in CPD.”^[17]

Alter training to include andragogical principles and promote a culture of self-directed learning

This proposal states that police training should follow andragogical principles of learning as opposed to pedagogical principles of learning. For proponents, incorporating an andragogical learning philosophy promotes self-directed learning and problem-solving.

Michael L. Birzer wrote, “The training conducted in police academies should highlight self-directed learning on the part of trainees. This can go hand-in-hand with community-policing. For community-policing to be successful police officers will have to be self-starters. When they discover a problem they will be expected to solve it working with members of the community. Thus, this self-directed culture should be initiated within the context of training. The theory of andragogy may in part be one mechanism to assist police trainers in accomplishing this perplexing task.”^[32]

Birzer continued, “Police-training academies may find it advantageous to deviate from the mechanical, militaristic and behavioral aspects of training and evolve into training programs that inform police how to identify, respond to, and solve problems such as crime, drugs, fear of crime, and urban decay within the neighborhoods they serve.”^[32]

Michael L. Birzer and Ronald Tannehill wrote, “This article has addressed the theory of andragogy and how it can be an effective training technique in an environment that now requires new training approaches. Without question, community and problem oriented policing is the engine that is changing the nature of police training. It is exciting to think that many of the problems experienced in the implementation of community policing may at least be partially ameliorated through andragogical training techniques.”^[33]

Birzer and Tannehill continued, “One of the key ingredients in the andragogical approach is self-directed learning. This is extremely important for recruits when they are relating problem solving, cultural diversity, communication, and mediation skills to policing work. Police trainers have an opportunity to tap into both neophyte and veteran officers’ past experiences when teaching many subjects.”^[33]

Daniel M. Blumberg and his coauthors wrote, “Contemporary policing requires contemporary police training, which incorporates andrological teaching principles. When academies shift from an authoritarian, paramilitary style to an adult learning model, recruits can develop and strengthen important psychological skills that are essential for today’s effective police officers. However, this shift requires two significant initiatives if it is to be successful. First, academy instructors, training officers, and mentors need to support and believe in the value of this change. All of the trainers, also, need to be thoroughly trained to be able to properly train recruits with the aforementioned psychological skills. Academies can establish their own methods of standardized assessment for each skill, ensure satisfactory performance of each skill, provide opportunities for remediation, and require that minimum standards of each skill are met in order for recruits to graduate.”^[18]

Reform training tactics to address use of force concerns

The proposal means that current training practices should be reformed to include alternative tactics and strategies police can use to prevent the use of force during civilian encounters.

Judith P. Andersen and Harri Gustafsberg said, “We posit that many police organizations are looking for solutions to growing concerns about use of force decision making but are facing shrinking training budgets. Given these realities, organizations may benefit from investing in resilience programming, such as iPREP, which is integrated directly into the existing use of force training. Integrated training is not only cost-effective but it also enhances the ecological validity of the method and potential generalizability to real-world settings.”^[34]

Paul L. Taylor, Paul Sipe, and Lon Bartel proposed that perception-response times for switching between force modalities should be taken into consideration for police training and tactics. Taylor, Sipe, and Bartel wrote, “If perception-response times have not been taken into consideration, officers could find themselves in positions in which they have no time to re-holster their firearms and/or transition to lesser levels of force. Human factors such as perception-response times should be taken into consideration as officers and departments develop and employ tactics that are more resilient to inevitable human fallibility (e.g., Taylor, 2020).” ^[35]

Law professor Seth Stoughton wrote, “The second suggestion is to emphasize tactical restraint through both training and after-action review of use-of-force incidents. Tactical restraint has received significant attention and criticism recently, and so requires slightly more explanation. Simply put, tactical restraint instructs officers to avoid avoidable risks when doing so is consistent with the police mission. Tactical restraint doesn’t teach officers to run away from violent confrontations; it teaches them to approach every situation in a way that minimizes the threat of having it turn violent in the first place. To be clear, not all violence is avoidable. The use of force, including deadly force, will sometimes be necessary. But when violence is avoidable and when avoiding it doesn’t sacrifice the police mission, officers should be required to use tactical restraint even when that means holding their position or temporarily withdrawing.” ^[24]

Christi L. Gullion, Erin A. Orrick, and Stephen A. Bishopp wrote, “First, findings regarding the likelihood and timing of an officer’s initial use of force to repeated use of force reveal the opportunity to provide augmented field supervision, guidance, and mentoring early in an officer’s career. This includes enhancing their communication skills and de-escalation techniques taught by the training academy, ensuring mental health and wellness, and adhering to the tenets of procedural justice and fair and impartial policing to improve the outcomes of police-citizen encounters. Also, it is essential to provide on-scene supervision during use of force incidents when possible, especially within the first year. With this finding in mind, police agencies should consider a BWC policy and program designed to review BWC footage to identify positive (e.g., good de-escalation techniques) and problematic behaviors displayed in actual police-citizen encounters. That video, in turn, could be used in training new recruits during the academy or as supplemental re-training for officers who have had use of force complaints.”^[36]

Law professor Rachel A. Harmon said, “Regulation of the police should provide a normative framework for balancing individual and societal interests. As Part I argued, constitutional law does not ensure that police actions are necessary or justified. Police officers may impose constitutionally permissible harms on individuals and communities that are nonetheless ineffectual in reducing crime, fear, or disorder. Regulation of the police should promote harm-efficient policing-that is, policing that imposes harms only when, all things considered, the benefits for law, order, fear reduction, and officer safety outweigh the costs of those harms.”^[37]

In an evidence-assessment of the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Cynthia Lum and her coauthors proposed the following recommendations regarding community policing and community relations:

“Agencies should carefully examine not only their current commitment to community policing, but also the tangible structures and systems they have instituted to achieve community policing. Agencies may consider judging these systems and structures against objectives of community partnerships, problem-solving, and organizational transformation as discussed above, including management, supervision, and performance metrics designed to achieve these objectives.
Agencies should examine their strategies for engaging with the community, using meaningful community partnerships and problem-solving as learned from research. It is important that different definitions of ‘community’ are accounted for; for example, economic development initiatives can be perceived by some sections of the community as gentrification, with negative connotations.
Agencies should examine how community collaboration and problem-solving are rewarded through the performance evaluation process. More research is needed on the optimal performance measures for community-oriented policing, but we review concrete suggestions above that could be used as a starting point to prioritize agency commitment to community policing.
Agencies should review academy and in-service training protocols and enhance communication and conflict resolution and de-escalation skills training where needed.
Local governments and communities should collaborate to implement evidence-based behavioral support programs in schools to limit the use of arrest and other formal criminal justice sanctions in schools. This effort will require a coordinated response among many agencies, including police departments, school districts, local government agencies, and community members.”^[13]

Develop policies to offer guidance for the use of conductive energy devices

This approach calls for the development of clear policies to offer guidance to police officers on how and when conductive energy devices (CEDs), commonly referred to as tasers, should be used. Proponents say the development of policies for CED use would help to establish CEDs as an effective alternative to lethal force.

Professors Geoffrey P. Alpert and Roger G. Dunham said, “Our policy recommendation is that both OC spray and CEDs [conductive energy devices] should be authorized as possible response alternatives to active threats of resistance. Our data show that 20% of the agencies would have to modify their placement of CEDs in their force policies, and 60% would have to institute policy and training concerning what officers can do when a suspect tenses and pulls away. This may be a difficult task for policy makers, but it would create an appropriate balance between the level of government intrusion by the use of a CED and the protection of a suspect’s 4th Amendment interests (see Bryan v. McPherson No. 08-55622 9th Cir. December 28, 2009).”^[38]

Alpert and Dunham continued, “The possible overuse of CEDs has several dimensions. First, CEDs can be used too often, that is, at inappropriately low levels of suspect resistance. In other words, a CED can be deployed at citizens who merely disobey or even misunderstand officer’s orders, which would be an inappropriate use of such a high level of force. This problem can be managed with policies, training, monitoring and accountability systems that provide clear guidance (and consequences) to officers regarding when and under what conditions CEDs can be used and when they cannot be used. In addition to setting the resistance threshold appropriately (our recommendation is to set it at active resistance), comprehensive CED policies and training should require that officers evaluate the totality of the circumstances before using a CED, which would include the environment, age, size, gender, apparent physical capabilities, and health concerns (e.g., obviously pregnant women) of suspects.”^[38]

Alpert and Dunham continued, “Based on data collected from our national survey and medical studies, it is our recommendation that CED policies should require officers to assess continued resistance after each standard cycle and should limit the CED to no more than 3 standard cycles (15 s) of total activation time against the same person. In addition, it is common sense that if the shock of a CED has not worked after an application, and has failed to produce compliance, then it is not going to work after multiple deployments. While our knowledge of harm caused by multiple exposures to a CED or extended exposure is limited, it has been suggested that extended exposure to a CED is more likely to result in death than a single exposure or an exposure of 15 s (Amnesty International, 2006). Following the deployment of a CED, the suspect should be carefully observed by officers for signs of distress and should be medically evaluated at the earliest opportunity.”^[38]

Incorporate de-escalation techniques into police training

This proposal argues that law enforcement basic training should include training officers on de-escalation techniques to use in place of force in certain situations.

In a report titled Principles of Procedurally Just Policing, Megan Quattlebaum et al. wrote, “Police should use de-escalation techniques in all encounters, except where policies specify otherwise.”^[39]

Quattlebaum and her coauthors continued, “Officers must be trained–and routinely re-trained–in tactics of de-escalation.”^[39]

Implement trauma-informed policing practices

This approach would train officers to identify and understand trauma when addressing crime. Proponents of trauma-informed policing argue that such practices encourage officers to approach crime and violence through a different lens to improve the effectiveness of policing.

The Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Policing promoted a five-point plan for police reform which included (1) developing national training standards, (2) establishing a federal decertification registry, (3) adopting duty-to-intervene and mandatory reporting policies, (4) promoting trauma-informed policing, (5) increasing data collection and transparency. About the fourth point, the Task Force wrote:

“Officers who are trained to identify and address trauma in the community, and who have a heightened awareness of their own exposure to stress and trauma and seek help as needed, are better equipped to police in an equitable and respectful manner.”^[22]

Authors Sandra Bucerius, Temitope Oriola, and Daniel Jones wrote, “[W]e believe that policing has to move ideationally and strategically towards viewing crime as a public health issue. Our suggestion mirrors some newer developments in the United Kingdom, with initiatives like the mayor of London’s approach to tackling violence or the Scottish violence reduction unit (http://www.svru.co.uk/). Both of these approaches take the stance that violence is essentially similar to any other public health issue and should be approached as such. Building on these newer UK models, we suggest that police need to develop an understanding of the long-term impacts trauma, such as sexual and physical victimization, can have on people.”^[40]

Bucerius and her coauthors continued, “Considering these similarities, we propose that policing evolves to view crime with a public health lens ensuring that any and all interventions employed by police address the impacts of the social determinants of health and crime. For this to be effective police must be provided with education to enhance their understanding of the social determinants of crime (and health) and the impact this has on their day-to-day work.”^[40]

The Chicago Police Accountability Task Force wrote, “Evaluate and improve the training officers receive with respect to youth so that they are prepared to engage in ways that are age-appropriate, trauma-informed and based in a restorative justice model.”^[17]

Encourage guardian mindset police training

This approach to policing would train police officers to adopt a guardian mentality as opposed to a warrior mentality. A guardian mindset for policing means that police officers are focused on establishing community trust, safety, communication, and ethical policing. This differs from the typical warrior mentality of police training that emphasizes control and the use of paramilitary tactics.

Authors Sandra Bucerius, Temitope Oriola, and Daniel Jones wrote, “[A]s we look to move policing to view crime through a public health lens, there must also be a link to policing and the concept of procedural justice. Procedural justice is policing with a guardian mindset to ensure community safety and well-being and ensuring that all people are aware of their rights under the law (Lum et al., 2016). The tenets of trauma informed training - trust, safety, respect, collaboration, hope and shared power (Levenson, 2020) - are quite similar to the tenets of procedural justice - respect, impartiality, voice, and trustworthiness (Maxwell and Maxwell, 2020).”^[40]

In Washington State, new training standards were implemented to move law enforcement and organizational culture from a warrior mentality to a guardian mentality. Authors Sue Rahr and Stephen K. Rice wrote, “Behavioral and social science programs have been integrated into the 720-hour curriculum. Although intertwined, each of these programs has a distinct purpose that supports the others and contributes to better officer safety and improved public trust — two areas that, in the past, have been incorrectly viewed as mutually exclusive” (p. 9). The programs implemented include Blue Courage, Justice Based Policing, Crisis Intervention Training, Tactical Social Interaction, and The Respect Effect.^[41]

Professors John J. Sloan III and Eugene A. Paoline III wrote, “However, when one assesses the proportion of time allocated to these traditional policing functions - compared to training hours in areas such as communication, cultural diversity, ethics and professionalism, and stress management - the scales clearly tip in the direction of the former… such glaring imbalance is not addressed simply by adding more hours to an already crowded curriculum. Instead, what is needed is adjusting the allocation of existing hours of training that prioritizes topics relating to guardian-style policing.”^[42]

Implement procedural justice practices and policies to improve police-community relations

This proposal argues that implementing procedural justice into police training and policies will improve police-community relations. Proponents of procedural justice argue that it emphasizes the need for fair and just policing practices, which improves the legitimacy of the police and the willingness of the public to cooperate with the police.

George Wood, Tom R. Tyler, and Andrew V. Papachristos wrote, “The force-based command and control model which is the dominant policing model in American policing is concerned with obtaining compliance through the threat or use of dominance and, if needed, coercion. This model has long been associated with public perceptions of mistreatment ranging from demeaning treatment to the excessive use of force. Recent discussions about policing emphasize the virtues of a new model of policing based upon procedural justice. Research points to desirable benefits from this type of policing, including heightened popular legitimacy, increased acceptance of police authority, and greater public cooperation with the police. [...] Training reduced complaints against police, reduced demonstrated violations of legal or procedural rules, and reduced the frequency with which officers resorted to the use of force during interactions with civilians.”^[43]

Tom R. Tyler and coauthors advocated for a procedural fairness model that emphasizes features like respect, dignity, and neutrality. This model offers a host of well-tested insights about managing police-citizen encounters, increasing citizen cooperation with the police, and promoting citizen compliance with law. This model offers the possibility of making improvements that are affordable and manageable by police.^[44]

Tyler and coauthors wrote, “We recognize that many in the law enforcement community may judge our emphasis on procedural features like respect, dignity, and neutrality to be naive and inadequate for managing the real-world crimes and conflicts they encounter. But we ask them to recognize, as have many in the professional policing community (C. Fischer, 2014), that the literature on procedural fairness offers a host of well-tested insights about managing police-citizen encounters, increasing citizen cooperation with the police, and promoting citizen compliance with law. A focus on building legitimacy via procedural justice is surely not the whole of effective policing, but it is an important component and one that offers the possibility of making improvements that are both affordable and manageable by the police.”^[44]

Emily Owens and her coauthors concluded that non disciplinary, cognitive and procedurally justice based supervisory meetings are a good strategy for improving police–community relations and policing in general.^[45]

Owens and her coauthors wrote, “Our ﬁndings demonstrate that, at times, the police may be unnecessarily using their enforcement powers in a way that alienates citizens (Rosenbaum, Schuck, Costello, and Hawkins, 2005). Interestingly, our estimated behavioral changes are mostly in line with the one experimental evaluation of the impact of body-worn cameras on police ofﬁcer behavior, which was conducted in a small department of approximately 50 ofﬁcers (Ariel et al., 2015). Overall, we conclude that non disciplinary, cognitive, and procedurally justice based supervisory meetings are a promising strategy for improving police–community relations speciﬁcally and policing in general.”^[45]

The training program proposed is different from traditional police training programs in three ways: (1) During these meetings, ofﬁcers and their supervisors discussed a relatively benign event that would typically not be subject to discussion under standard practice. (2) Rather than focusing on outcomes, ofﬁcers were prompted to reﬂect on their thought processes and actions during these encounters. (3) Supervisors were trained to model some of the central components of procedural justice during these meetings.^[45]

Owens and her coauthors continued, “Our training program differs from standard police supervision and training programs in three ways. First, during these meetings, ofﬁcers and their supervisors discussed a relatively benign event that would typically not be subject to discussion under standard practice. Second, rather than focusing on outcomes, ofﬁcers were prompted to reﬂect on their thought processes and actions during these encounters. Finally, supervisors were trained to model some of the central components of procedural justice during these meetings. The latter approach was based on the assumption that for ofﬁcers to employ procedurally just interactions, procedural justice should also be modeled at the agency level with regard to their supervisors’ treatment of them. During a 6-month period, ofﬁcers were randomly enrolled in the program, which the ofﬁcers and their supervisors generally reported as noninvasive.”^[45]

Stephen J. Schulhofer, Tom R. Tyler, and Aziz Z. Huq proposed moving away from zero-tolerance and order-maintenance policies and moving towards procedural justice by focusing on police training and accountability. The authors said, “Tactics that emphasize procedural justice can be equally effective with fewer negative side effects. In the procedural justice model, officers are not oriented toward addressing situations primarily with the threat of force. Instead, officers are trained to view every citizen contact as an opportunity to build legitimacy through the tone and quality of the interaction, with force a last resort.”^[46]

Schulhofer, Tyler, and Huq continued, “Creating positive motivations for compliance is essential not only to ensure respect for citizens’ rights but also to achieve adherence to a broad range of internal operational standards and norms. A working environment conducive to those motivations involves several elements. The management literature develops them in detail, and we do not propose to discuss them in depth here. But the key ingredient is worth emphasizing, though it is obvious from what we have already said, because the criminal procedure and organizational-reform literature almost always assumes that ingredient to be missing and unattainable. The ingredient, of course, is the legitimacy of the rules in question. And by legitimacy here, we do not mean a legal or constitutional legitimacy grounded in a duly enacted text. Rather, as we have stressed throughout, the key concept is social and psychological legitimacy, from the perspective of the target audience whose compliance is sought. Officers must come to understand that observing the tenets of procedural justice will serve their own interest, apart from the constitutional pedigree of these norms, even when (as with many of the fair-treatment dimensions of procedural justice) the norms are by no means constitutionally mandated.”^[46]

In an evidence-assessment of the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Cynthia Lum and her coauthors made the following recommendations for implementing procedural justice, legitimacy, and transparency:^[13]

“Law enforcement leaders should engage in dynamic discussions and strategic planning with their personnel to balance an arrest-focused ‘warrior’ mind-set with a prevention-oriented, ‘guardian’ approach in which the community is a partner. Balancing these mind-sets includes changing not only how police address crime, but also how officers interact with the public in efforts to build trust and legitimacy. Increasing the use of procedural justice in various reactive and proactive interactions may help, although further research (see below) is needed on the best ways to do this.
Promote procedural justice in daily interactions with community members. Research on the link between procedural justice and perceptions of legitimacy suggests a strong link between perceptions of police procedural justice and perceptions of police legitimacy in a variety of contexts. These studies demonstrate that perceptions of treatment matter a great deal in how community members view interactions with authority figures.
Agencies can also promote and show examples of procedural justice and legitimacy by practicing these principles internally. This can be achieved, in part, by giving officers of all ranks a greater voice in departmental decisions and by ensuring the fairness of disciplinary procedures.
Departments should implement scientifically sound annual community surveys to obtain community feedback about the quality of their interactions with the police, their concerns about their safety, and their satisfaction with police services. Departments should also consider targeting their surveys to communities most impacted by crime or police services, as these groups are often underrepresented in community surveys.”

In the report, Principles of Procedurally Just Policing, Megan Quattlebaum and her coauthors proposed the following recommendations for incorporating procedural justice into departmental policies:

“Departments should use data on officers’ use of force and administrative review findings as the basis for proactive, nonpunitive interventions, including sentinel event reviews, early warning systems to identify at-risk officers, and regular analyses of department-wide trends”
“Departments should promote and practice an ethic of respect toward all employees. Further, departments should expect and require that all employees shall treat fellow employees with respect, fairness, trust, and a listening, responsive attitude”
“Provide due process when handling officer complaints and disciplinary proceedings and give officers voice when changing department rules”
“Accommodate employees’ needs and preferences in ways that grant them respect and dignity.”
“Support employees to ameliorate stress, injury, trauma, and other adverse consequences of their service.”
“Formally recognize employees’ essential contributions to the workplace.”
“Set officers up for success as guardians in the community.”
“Track and prioritize community trust in police.”
“Assess and reward police activity that increases trust and confidence in the community.”
“Develop a performance assessment system that encourages a ‘growth mindset’ and goal attainment for all employees, including department leadership.”
“Procedurally just policing should be modeled and assessed at all levels of a law enforcement agency.”
“Police departments should supplement the training and guidance provided to 911 dispatchers on gathering information from callers and determining the appropriate service response.”
“Police departments should expand alternatives to immediate patrol response and implement non-emergency call systems.”
“The use of investigatory stops should be limited to circumstances in which they promote public safety and do not unnecessarily harm police–community relations.”
“The use of traffic stops should be limited to enforcing traffic laws for the purpose of ensuring public safety.”
“Officers should endeavor to communicate effectively with the community and with suspects in a way that promotes the tenets of procedural justice.”
“Officers should ‘treat all persons with the courtesy and dignity which is inherently due every person as a human being. Department members will act, speak, and conduct themselves in a professional manner, recognizing their obligation to safeguard life and property, and maintain a courteous, professional attitude in all contacts with the public.’”
“Officers should ensure the safety of all individuals, and particularly LGBTQI individuals, in arrest processing, searches, and placement in custody.”
“Departments should conduct outreach to LGBTQI organizations in their communities, and consider assigning a liaison(s) to this community.”
“Federal immigration enforcement should be decoupled from routine local policing for civil enforcement and non-serious crime.”
“Police departments should contribute to a community environment in which immigrants are welcomed and included.”
“Potential for Racial Biases to Affect Decisionmaking.”
“Promote Positive Interactions Between Racial Minorities and Police Officers.”
“Engage Young People in the Co-Production of Public Safety
"Communities and law enforcement should engage young people in a process of co-producing public safety.”
“Employ Procedural Justice in Interactions with Young People.”^[39]

Encourage transparency of policing policies to improve police-community relations

This proposal calls for police policies to be publicly available and to allow the public to review departmental policies in an effort to establish a sense of transparency to improve police-community relations.

In the report, Principles of Procedurally Just Policing, Megan Quattlebaum et al. proposed the following recommendations for incorporating procedural justice into departmental policies:

“All general and special orders should be publicly available unless there is a specific law enforcement reason not to release a certain policy.”
“When writing new special orders or updating general orders, the department should identify for more intensive public review: issues that are likely to substantially impact community members; and/ or issues regarding which the policy would be better accepted by the community if the department sought community input while developing the policy.”
“When writing policies, departments should seek community input through one or more structured processes that provide community members with meaningful opportunities to be heard. When decisions regarding new special orders or updated general orders are made, community input should be given genuine, thoughtful consideration and decisions should advance procedural justice.”
“Final policy decisions and the reasons for those decisions should be communicated to the community, including acknowledgment of where and why community recommendations were or were not adopted.”
“General orders or policy manuals should include specific and comprehensive guidelines regarding the reporting, documentation, and review of use of force incidents.”
“Departments should make their internal review policies publicly available and release both timely information and annual data on use of force incidents.”
“Policing agencies must involve members of the public in the formulation and ongoing evaluation of policies regarding BWCs and vehicle-mounted cameras.”
“Police departments should develop clear guidelines on when BWCs must be turned on and off.”
“Police departments should develop clear guidelines on when vehicle-mounted cameras must be turned on and off.”
“Police departments must develop and adhere to guidelines on how long film from body-worn cameras and vehicle-mounted cameras must be kept.”
“In general, film recorded by BWCs and vehicle-mounted cameras should be treated as ‘public records,’ which the public has a presumptive right to access. Such film should be made available for public inspection and copying in accordance with the jurisdiction’s existing statutes governing access to such records.”
“Police values, performance measurement, and progress should be transparent to all stakeholders.”
“Vehicle pursuits represent unique dangers for police officers and members of the public. Policies related to their use must be publicly debated, and officers should be given clear lines about what is appropriate and under what circumstances.”^[39]

In an evidence assessment of the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Cynthia Lum et al. proposed the following recommendations:

“Agencies should adopt clear and comprehensive policies on the use of force and make these policies public. These policies should address both lethal (i.e., deadly) and less-than-lethal force by officers. Policies guiding the use of force should also clearly state details on the release of use-of-force incident data. This will establish a clear and transparent process and can help manage public expectations of agency responsibilities.”
“Police agencies should establish clear policies for handling mass demonstrations that cover the use and escalation of force. Police should also use after-action reports to review their responses to mass demonstrations and assess them in light of research knowledge and best practices.”^[13]

Paul McFarlane and Amaria Amin proposed an alternative method to investigating fatal police incidents, known as the Human Factors Analysis and Classification Framework (HFACS). McFarlane and Amin wrote, “The tragic death of George Floyd has increased levels of public concern about the police use of lethal force. In this context, we, therefore, consider it appropriate to use this study to challenge policing practitioners, policymakers and independent investigative bodies to consider how lethal-force investigations and relations with citizens can be improved by using empirical frameworks such as HFACS.”^[47]

Encourage more responsive policing to address underenforcement

This approach highlights underenforcement as a problem in policing and proposes that law enforcement agencies implement more responsive policing to address it.

Associate Professor for Loyola Law School Alexandra Natapoff wrote, “Underenforcement casts a long shadow over the viability and legitimacy of our criminal system. Like overenforcement, rampant underenforcement makes the rule of law into a democratic luxury; it renders full, fair, and balanced law enforcement an experience limited to those who can bend the government to their will. To address this democratic deficit, underenforcement should be better recognized as a potentially destructive phenomenon in its own right. In recognition of the linkages between over and underenforcement, underenforcement needs to be approached qualitatively, as a call not for harsher but for more responsive policing. Structural and doctrinal criticisms of our criminal system should better account for the role of underenforcement in eroding the system's efficacy, fairness, and democratic accountability. Perhaps most importantly, it demands that we attend more carefully to the experiences of the system's many clients, including the vulnerable and the disadvantaged, who, while sometimes criminals themselves, remain entitled to the protections of the law.”^[48]

Allow officers to participate in creating and implementing new departmental policies

This proposal advocates allowing police officers to be involved in creating and implementing new departmental policies versus allowing only outside stakeholders to be the parties creating new policy.

J.D. Candidate Katherine J. Bies wrote, “Professor Sklansky’s various models of participatory democracy provide helpful insight. One model implements management-controlled initiatives, which are top-down reform proposals that encourage police department management to work routinely and collaboratively with line-level employees to implement these reforms. By bringing together both high-level management and rank-and-file officers, this model encourages reform efforts that seek to improve practices through collective learning and line-level expertise. It also provides some control over the policy decisions of rank-and-file officers. Traditionally, police chiefs and other high-level officers are more likely than police unions to respond to public concerns about officer misconduct. Thus, in the context of officer disciplinary record reforms, top-down proposals may better promote democratic values of transparency and accountability than grassroots proposals. A second model encourages the development of identity-based organizations external to police forces that members of police unions can also join. For example, Officers for Justice is a San Francisco law enforcement organization that promotes diversity in police departments. Identity-based organizations limit insularity by creating connections to outside groups. These outside groups may be more likely than police unions to appreciate the benefits of reform efforts that encourage transparency and accountability.”^[49]

Lindsay Miller and Jessica Toliver collaborated with the Police Executive Research Forum and wrote, “When developing body-worn camera policies, PERF recommends that police agencies consult with frontline officers, local unions, the department’s legal advisors, prosecutors, community groups, other local stakeholders, and the general public. Incorporating input from these groups will increase the perceived legitimacy of a department’s body-worn camera policies and will make the implementation process go more smoothly for agencies that deploy these cameras. PERF recommends that each agency develop its own comprehensive written policy to govern body-worn camera usage. Policies should cover the following topics:

Basic camera usage, including who will be assigned to wear the cameras and where on the body the cameras are authorized to be placed
The designated staff member(s) responsible for ensuring cameras are charged and in proper working order, for reporting and documenting problems with cameras, and for reissuing working cameras to avert malfunction claims if critical footage is not captured
Recording protocols, including when to activate the camera, when to turn it off, and the types of circumstances in which recording is required, allowed, or prohibited
The process for downloading recorded data from the camera, including who is responsible for downloading, when data must be downloaded, where data will be stored, and how to safeguard against data tampering or deletion
The method for documenting chain of custody
The length of time recorded data will be retained by the agency in various circumstances
The process and policies for accessing and reviewing recorded data, including the persons authorized to access data and the circumstances in which recorded data can be reviewed
Policies for releasing recorded data to the public, including protocols regarding redactions and responding to public disclosure requests
Policies requiring that any contracts with a third-party vendor for cloud storage explicitly state that the videos are owned by the police agency and that its use and access are governed by agency policy.”^[50]

Implement education of laws and rights in the training curriculum

This proposal advocates amending current police training curriculum to include legal education about laws, court precedents, and constitutional rights. Many reformers suggest that current police training fails to provide officers the knowledge necessary to understand the laws they are enforcing and respect civilians’ constitutional rights.

In regards to addressing the frequency of unconstitutional searches by police officers, authors Gould and Mastrofski wrote: “[T]hese results suggest that policies designed to increase the visibility of such searches (e.g., requiring officers to document pat downs and other searches, even when no arrest is made) and educating the public more thoroughly about what constitutes a legitimate search might reduce the frequency of improper searches.”^[51]

Law professor Yuri R. Linetsky wrote, “The touchstone measure of police behavior is objective reasonableness. To determine if an officer’s conduct was constitutionally sound, a court compares the officer’s actions to what a reasonable officer in the same circumstances would have done. The objectively reasonable police officer must have a significant, rather than superficial, understanding of the laws the officer enforces and the constitutional principles that limit enforcement. To achieve this ideal, police academies must increase the amount of legal training they provide to prospective officers and improve the methods of delivering that training. In-depth legal training—covering both constitutional and statutory law— delivered to capable police recruits will lead to better, smarter decisions by police officers when interacting with citizens. These legally well-trained officers will be in a better position to avoid or prevent unlawful or questionable conduct—improving today’s strained police-citizen relations.”^[52]

Reimagine police culture and institutional roles

This proposal suggests reenvisioning police culture and institutional roles to improve performance.

In a report written by the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform, the authors wrote, “It must be a change to police culture regarding how police officers view themselves and view others. Part of changing culture deals with transforming how productivity and awards are allocated. Police officers overwhelmingly need to make forfeitures in the form of arrests, citations, and tickets to demonstrate leadership and productivity. Police officers rarely get credit for the everyday, mundane things they do to make their communities safe and protect and serve. We believe there must be a fundamental reconceptualization of both the mission of police and the culture in which that mission is carried out. Policing can be about respecting individuals and not using force. It is an ethical approach to policing that requires incentives positive outcomes rather than deficits that rewards citations and force.”^[21]

Monica C. Bell recommended reforms grounded in legal estrangement theory. Bell highlighted the need for “more technocratic reforms (restructuring police wages and consolidating districts).” Bell also noted the need for “a fundamental revisitation of institutional roles (shrinking and refining the police footprint while linking it to a shoring up of critical social welfare institutions).”^[25]

Bell continued, “These solutions offer a deeper path forward than the legitimacy perspective does, pushing beyond procedural justice. They do, of course, remain incomplete. The legal estrangement perspective demands taking account of historically rooted group marginalization and the collective consciousness of discrimination and mistreatment. This historical and collective perspective is central to the project of police reform. Accordingly, the perspective sensitizes police reformers to the idea that, while modifications within the institution of policing are critical and should move beyond individual line officers, their work will not be finished until it spurs change in the full array of institutions that perpetuate poverty, race-correlated disadvantage, and symbolic statelessness.”^[25]

Promote equal focus on crime prevention and citizens’ perceptions of police

This proposal recommends police departments promote equal focus on crime prevention and citizens’ perceptions of police when overseeing a community.

Authors Cynthia Lum and Daniel Nagin proposed a seven-point plan for promoting an equal focus on crime prevention and citizens’ responses to law enforcement in an effort to reimagine policing:

“Prioritize Crime Prevention over Arrest: Police should focus their efforts, reforms, and resources on sentinel-like activities that prevent crime and thereby avert the need for arrests and their ensuing costs.
Create and Install Systems to Monitor Citizen Reactions to the Police and Routinely Report Results: Police should routinely, systematically, and rigorously survey citizens on their reactions to policing in general and to specific tactics and regularly report results and actions that will be taken to foster favorable citizen responses and remediate negative responses.
Reform Training and Redefine the 'Craft' of Policing: Officers should be trained and socialized to believe that the fundamental goals of policing include not only arrests of perpetrators of serious crime but also prevention and maintenance of good community relations.
Recalibrate Organizational Incentives: Organizational incentives, including rewards, promotions, and informal incentives, must be altered to incorporate measures of effective crime prevention and maintenance of citizen confidence and support.
Strengthen Accountability with More Transparency: Police accountability must be made more transparent by increasing the availability of data and policies related to police-citizen interactions, particularly when they involve the use of force; communicating more effectively to the public about the outcomes of investigations into allegations of police misconduct; reassessing systems of discipline and review that impede the ability of agencies to learn from mistakes; and using improved data analysis for better supervision and management.
Incorporate Analyses of Crime and Citizen Reaction into Managerial Practice: All law enforcement officials from patrol officers to chief executives need greater access to reliable analyses of crime locations and trends and the effectiveness of police tactics; this requires substantial increases in resources and in the standing of crime analysis units within police departments as well as expanded collection and monitoring of data on citizen reactions to the police.
Strengthening National-Level Research and Evaluation: A robust infrastructure of research and its dissemination is essential if major advances are to be made.”^[53]

Discipline

This section contains reform proposals related to the way police departments discipline police officers.

Reform proposals related to qualified immunity

Qualified immunity protects a law enforcement officer from lawsuits alleging that they violated a person's rights, only allowing prosecution where officials violated a “clearly established” statutory or constitutional right.^[54] The proposals that follow would change how qualified immunity works.

Eliminate qualified immunity

This proposal would end qualified immunity, the legal precedent that prevents law enforcement officers from being held individually accountable for violating civilian constitutional rights. Proponents argue that this change would allow police to be held responsible for misconduct that violates the law.

Policy analyst Jay R. Schweikert wrote, “The most straightforward and sensible solution to this problem is complete abolition of qualified immunity. This could be appropriately accomplished either through the Supreme Court reversing its own precedent or through congressional legislation clarifying that our civil rights laws do not include any such defense to liability.”^[55]

Law professor Katherine Mims Crocker wrote, “My work therefore proposes that legislators should contemplate both eliminating qualified immunity and establishing entity liability under a respondeat superior standard now for Fourth Amendment excessive-force claims, which occupy the core of the public’s recent concerns, and later (after learning from the initial experience) for other kinds of constitutional violations.”^[56]

The Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform wrote, “Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that courts invented to make it more difficult to sue police and other government officials who have been plausibly alleged to have violated somebody’s rights. We believe this doctrine needs to be removed. States also have a role to play here. The Law Enforcement Bill of Rights further doubles down on a lack of accountable for bad apples.”^[21]

Law professor Joanna C. Schwartz said, “In my view, the Supreme Court or Congress should do away with qualified immunity. But if they choose, instead, to reform the doctrine, they should adjust their definition of ‘clearly established law’ to comport with evidence about what officers actually know about the law.”^[57]

Modify qualified immunity doctrine

This proposal states that qualified immunity, the legal precedent that prevents law enforcement officers from being held accountable for violating civilian constitutional rights, should be modified. That way, police could be held responsible for misconduct that violates the law in certain situations. Proponents of this proposal argue that modifying qualified immunity would increase police accountability while maintaining some of the legal protections provided by the doctrine.

Policy analyst Jay R. Schweikert said, “While complete elimination of qualified immunity is probably the optimal solution, there are alternatives to outright abolition that eliminate immunity in the mine-run of cases but nevertheless preserve a modified version of the defense for relatively more sympathetic defendants - most notably, where a defendant’s conduct is specifically authorized by a statute that has yet to be found constitutional, or where the defendant was acting in accord with judicial precedent applicable at the time of the conduct.”^[55]

Law professor Joanna C. Schwartz said, “I suggest that qualified immunity doctrine should be adjusted to comport with available evidence about the role the doctrine plays in constitutional litigation.”^[58]

Schwartz continued, “If the Court is unwilling to eliminate or dramatically restrict qualified immunity, it could make more modest alterations that would align the doctrine with evidence of its role in constitutional litigation. For example, the Court could undo adjustments to qualified immunity doctrine that were expressly motivated by an interest in shielding government officials from discovery and trial in filed cases.”^[58]

Schwartz continued, “The Court could also reconsider other adjustments to qualified immunity made with the express goal of shielding defendants from burdens of discovery and trial.”^[58]

Schwartz continued, “Finally, and still more modestly, the Court could reconsider the restrictive manner in which it defines ‘clearly established law.’”^[58]

Restructure civilian payouts for police misconduct and require officers to carry liability insurance

This proposal argues that police officers should be required to carry liability insurance and civilian payouts for misconduct cases should be restructured to make police departments responsible for those costs. Proponents of this proposal argue that it would improve police accountability by making law enforcement officers directly responsible for misconduct.

According to the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform, “We assert that civilian payouts for police misconduct must be restructured. Indemnification will be eliminated, making the officer responsible, and requiring them to purchase professional liability insurance the exact same way that other occupations such as doctors and lawyers do. This would give insurance companies a strong incentive to identify the problem officers early, to raise their rates just the way that insurance companies raise the rates on a bad driver or a doctor who engages in malpractice. In this regard, the cost of the insurance policy would increase the more misconduct an officer engaged in. Eventually, the worst officers would become uninsurable, and therefore unemployable. This would help to increase accountability. Instead of police chiefs having difficulties removing bad officers through pushback from the Fraternal Order of Police Union, bad officers would simply be unemployable by virtue of the fact that they cannot secure professional liability insurance.”^[21]

Jay Schweikert, a policy analyst for the Cato Institute, wrote, “The optimal way to structure possible indemnification is itself a complicated policy judgment, the full consideration of which is beyond the scope of this paper. But one promising idea would be a requirement that law enforcement officers - like basically all other professionals whose jobs entail a risk to the public - carry liability insurance.”^[55]

Other proposals related to police officer discipline

Restructure regulations for police union contracts

This proposal states that police union contracts often protect law enforcement officers from being held accountable for misconduct. As a result, this proposal would restructure police union contracts to remove those protections and allow for police accountability.

According to the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform, “Police union contracts need to be evaluated to ensure they do not obstruct the ability for officers who engage in misconduct to be held accountable. Making changes to the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights at the state helps with this, but the Congress should provide more regulations to help local municipalities with this process.”^[21]

Law professor Stephen Rushin proposed, “Going forward, more research is needed on the relationship between state labor law and internal police disciplinary procedures. Future studies could compare the content of internal disciplinary procedures created through the collective bargaining process with those created through alternative processes. Alternatively, future studies could compare the content of police union contracts with collective bargaining agreements in other fields. These methodologies could shed light on whether the unique structure of collective bargaining plays any role in the creation of weak disciplinary procedures in American police departments. But even in the absence of this sort of definitive evidence, there is still reason to believe that the public should have more say in the development of police accountability mechanisms. For too long, the law has excluded the public from the development of these procedures. It is time to remove this process from the shadows and make the police more accountable to the communities they serve.”^[59]

The Chicago Police Accountability Task Force proposed reforms and recommendations that included:

“Implement policies to dismantle the institutionalization of the police ‘code of silence,’ including substantial changes to the collective bargaining agreements between the police and the City, ending command channel review, reforming the role of CPD supervisors and pattern and practice analysis.”
“Fundamentally change provisions in the collective bargaining agreements that are impediments to accountability, such as allowing for anonymous complaints, eliminating the ability to change statements after reviewing video and removing the requirement to destroy complaint records.”^[17]

Make disciplinary records and officer data publicly available through a federal database

This proposal argues that a federal database should be created for documenting police officer disciplinary records and officer data in an effort to make misconduct information publicly available and increase police accountability.

Law professor Kate Levine wrote, “Put simply, evidence of police misconduct should be available to prosecutors, defense attorneys, and civil litigants in police brutality cases. Furthermore, PDRs should be available to all law enforcement agencies through a federal database. This would address the all too regular practice of officers who are terminated from one police agency gaining employment with another agency that is unaware of the reasons for his or her prior termination.”^[60]

The Council on Criminal Justice wrote, “Accessible, reliable data on the performance and impacts of law enforcement is critical to reform efforts – and sorely lacking. Federal leadership and incentives are needed to improve the collection and sharing of data on use of force and other police activities.”^[22]

Law professor Stephen Rushin proposed wrote, “For years, the United States has kept few statistics on local police behavior. The passage of the DCRA and the announcements of new databases on police killings by the FBI and BJS do not solve this glaring problem. But these events represent important steps in improving oversight of police conduct. By making all of this new data readily available to the public, federal policymakers may be able to encourage police departments to prioritize reductions in police violence. Transparency alone, though, will likely be insufficient to bring about widespread reductions in police violence. In order to maximize their impact, the DOJ should use these new databases to improve its use of federal civil rights litigation against local police departments. In doing so, the DOJ can incrementally improve the enforcement of § 14141 and promote proactive reform. In order to truly realize the potential of § 14141, however, Congress must begin collecting more substantial statistics on police behavior. Documenting civilian deaths caused by law enforcement is a step in the right direction. But this should be just the beginning of a broader effort to document police behavior and empower the DOJ’s enforcement of § 14141.”^[61]

A report published by Chicago’s Police Accountability Task Force made the following proposals:

“Fully implement the first-in-the-nation written video release policy for officer-involved shootings.”
“Require that all disciplinary information be provided online so that citizens can track complaints and discipline histories”^[17]

Professors of Law Robert Bloom and Nina Labovich wrote, “First, the federal government should partner with state law enforcement to create a national registry to record all officers who have been decertified to ensure that officers decertified in one state cannot be re-hired and recertified in another state.”^[62]

Utilize more technology in order to hold police officers accountable

This proposal means that more technology should be used by police officers (i.e. body-worn cameras, dashboard cameras, social media, etc.) during their time on duty in order to be held more accountable when encountering civilians.

Christopher S. Koper and his coauthors wrote, “In brief, they include: allowing for a broad base of participation in the technology planning and implementation process by various personnel who will be affected by the technology; providing ample opportunities for pilot testing and refining early versions of a technology; ensuring proper levels of training for new technology; and preparing a systematic and continuous approach to follow-up, inservice training, reinforcement, ongoing technical support, and adaptation to new lessons.”^[63]

Professor of Law I. Bennett Capers wrote, “So this is the hard truth. For many Americans, being subjected to ‘heightened scrutiny’ when they go through airport surveillance might be new, humiliating, and unsettling. But for those of us of the darker hue, there is a different story entirely. My final argument then is this: although the technology I have been advancing could mean that Americans who currently enjoy privacy might have to cede some in terms of more widespread soft surveillance, this more widespread surveillance will have the benefit of distributing privacy more equally. For this too is the hard truth: the goal of true equality will be an exercise in futility if we are only talking about the poor, about the downtrodden, and about those of us who are black and brown. We must also talk about those who are privileged and what privileges must be shared by all. In short, to the same extent that technology can deracialize and de-bias policing, it can also redistribute privacy among citizens in a way that is more egalitarian and consistent with our democratic ideals. Indeed, it could even have the potential to better distribute privacy between citizens and the police, since there too lies a troubling imbalance.”^[64]

In an evidence-assessment of the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Cynthia Lum and coauthors made the following recommendations relating to body-worn cameras, technology, and non-lethal weapons:

“Police agencies that are not using body cameras should consider the potential benefits, costs, technical requirements, and legal issues surrounding the adoption of this technology (the Task Force recommended in particular that police agencies consult the Body Worn Camera Toolkit produced by the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance; other expert guides are also available). Agency managers should also solicit agency and community feedback on the adoption of body cameras and consider pilot testing of body cameras.
Police agencies that are already using body cameras should require officers to use the cameras during their interactions with citizens and train them to notify citizens that their encounters are being recorded. Police managers should emphasize (in training) the purposes of the cameras, how and under what circumstances the recordings will be used for supervision and discipline, and the potential benefits of body cameras for both officers and civilians. Agencies should also track uses and outcomes associated with body cameras (for example, complaints and use-of-force incidents for the agency overall and for officers with and without body cameras).
Police should stay abreast of research on body cameras, as many studies in progress will yield further insights and lessons on costs, benefits, unintended consequences, and best practices related to this technology.
In addition to providing information about crime and incidents, police should also use the Internet and social media to convey positive stories (for example, police contributing to the well-being of the community in ways other than crime fighting), crime maps, practical information like road and weather conditions, and other forms of information that contribute to organizational transparency and accountability. This includes using the websites to publicly display use-of-force policies as described in Pillar 2.
Police should consider ways to use the Internet and social media to encourage community input on police priorities and performance (for example, through surveys and message boards) and to promote more collaborative and interactive communication with citizens.
Police agencies should formulate policies defining acceptable uses of social media by their staff in both official and unofficial capacities.
Police agencies should equip their officers with less-lethal weapons (agencies without less-lethal weapons should consider acquiring them, and agencies with such weapons should provide them to all officers if they have not already done so).
Police agencies should provide annual retraining for officers on the use of CEDs and other less-lethal weapons and incorporate the use of less-lethal weapons into their policies restricting use of force.
Police agencies should track use-of-force incidents and regularly evaluate trends in the use of different types of force among their officers.
Police should develop mechanisms for community consultation in the adoption, implementation, and evaluation of technologies, particularly those designed for surveillance and the collection of data about citizens.”^[13]

According to Lum and her coauthors, “To maximize the positive impacts of BWCs, police and researchers will need to give more attention to the ways and contexts (organizational and community) in which BWCs are most beneficial or harmful. They will also need to address how BWCs can be used in police training, management, and internal investigations to achieve more fundamental organizational changes with the long-term potential to improve police performance, accountability, and legitimacy in the community.”^[13]

Author David A. Harris wrote, “[U]se of BWV can improve policing, but it also can help to ensure better compliance with Fourth Amendment rules. Video and audio recording equipment ‘mounted to the side of a police officer's head with the ability to record video and sound’ could, if used as part of a suitable framework of rules, go a long way toward ensuring that police follow search and seizure standards.”^[65]

Utilize less technology in order to hold police officers accountable

This proposal states that less technology should be used by police officers (i.e. body-worn cameras, dashboard cameras, social media, etc.) during their time on duty in order to be held more accountable when encountering civilians.

Professors James Byrne and Gary Marx proposed, “The special issue of this journal is devoted to ‘technology led policing’. But do we really want technology to lead society? Where will it lead? Who will be in control? Will we have time to know that before it is too late? A well-known expression suggests that, ‘where there is a will there is a way.’ Certainly human are distinct from most organisms because of their reason. However in an age unduly fevered by technology the phrase may be reversed to, ‘where there is a way there is a will’ reversing the traditional relationship between means and ends. But even granted that, it is important to maintain, if not a doubtful attitude, at least a skeptical attitude toward claims for the new, – at least until there is some evidence for the claims and voices beyond those who will profit from the introduction of a technology are heard. Our age has two rather distinct fears of technology. One, ala George Orwell, is that it will work too well creating a manipulated, totalitarian society naively taking pride in how free it is. The other fear, reflective of Franz Kafka, is that it won’t work well enough. This suggests a crazily complex, out-of-control, rubric, interdependent, opaque, nonfail safe society steeped in technological errors and catch-22 absurdities. The myth of Frankenstein alerts us to be ever vigilant to be sure that we control the technology rather than the reverse. Jacques Ellul’s (1964) warning about the danger of self-amplifying technical means silently coming to determine the ends or even becoming ends in themselves, separated from a vision of, and the continual search for, the good society needs to be continually repeated.”^[66]

Use litigation and judicial processes as a strategy for police reform

This proposal states that litigation and judicial processes can improve policing in the United States. It references U.S.C. § 14141, which is a federal law that makes it "unlawful for any governmental authority, or any agent thereof, or any person acting on behalf of a governmental authority, to engage in a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers or by officials or employees of any governmental agency with responsibility for the administration of juvenile justice or the incarceration of juveniles that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States."^[67]

Law professor Rachel A. Harmon said, “[T]his Article argues that the Justice Department can best use § 14141 to reduce police misconduct by implementing a regulatory and litigation strategy that maximizes the rate at which police departments proactively adopt cost effective reforms. Even if the Justice Department has resources sufficient to sue only a few departments each year, it can use those resources to create a § 14141 policy that provides sufficient incentives for many more departments to reform. In order to induce police departments to reform prior to being sued under § 14141, the Justice Department must make the net expected cost of reform less than the net expected cost of misconduct for those departments. The Justice Department can change the calculus of police departments in three ways: (1) it can raise the expected cost of a § 14141 suit for a department by raising the probability that the department will be sued; (2) it can increase the benefits of proactive reform for a department; and (3) it can lower the costs of adopting proactive reform. To achieve these ends for departments that most need reform, the Justice Department should adopt a three-pronged § 14141 enforcement policy.”^[68]

Law professor Monica C. Bell proposed a set of reforms based on the theory of legal estrangement, including a need for “judicial measures (rethinking Fourth Amendment levels of interpretation).”^[25]

Law professor Barbara E. Armacost wrote, “A focus on police culture leads to two conclusions, and the two may seem to be at odds. The first has to do with injunctive relief. The Supreme Court made a serious mistake in Lyons, and Congress chose wisely in passing § 14141, which may, if we are lucky, undo part of the damage created by the Court's decision. The second conclusion has to do with internal police review. True reform will take place only when police officers apply their own expertise, from the ground up, to the problem of police brutality. The tension is obvious. On the one hand, courts can take important steps toward reforming bad police departments. On the other hand, those same departments need to reform themselves. Yet both conclusions are true.”^[69]

Professors Samuel Walker and Morgan Macdonald wrote, “This Article will propose a model state statute, similar to the federal Section 14141, which would authorize state Attorneys General to bring civil suits to effect police reform designed to curb civil rights abuses and enhance police accountability. The language and intent of such state laws would be essentially identical to Section 14141. Their practical effect would be to vastly increase the number of officials authorized to pursue police reform through litigation. Barbara Armacost, while lauding Section 14141's potential to effect needed organizational change in policing, noted that ‘the Justice Department lacks the resources to monitor all police departments nationwide.’ It is conceded that not all state legislatures would enact a model pattern or practice law. It is also conceded that where such laws would exist, not all state attorneys general would use the statute. Nonetheless, even if some states adopted such a statute and some attorneys general used it, there would be a significant increase in police reform efforts directed at patterns or practices of police abuse of rights.”^[70]

Law professor Katherine J. Bies said, “Progressive reform could also be achieved by challenging misconduct confidentiality laws through impact litigation. The courts would provide a more successful avenue for reforms lacking in majority support. Several scholars have recommended challenging confidentiality laws under Brady. Brady requires the prosecution to turn over to the defense any exculpatory or impeachment material including material about key witnesses in the case, like the arresting officers.”^[49]

Law professor David A. Harris wrote, “In reality, even with the exclusionary rule in place, ensuring police compliance with Fourth Amendment law requires a strengthening of these litigation remedies, not reliance on them as they now exist. And, if this is true with the exclusionary rule in place, it would only become a more urgent matter if the rule disappeared. At the very least, three significant changes must occur. First, we must come to grips with the way the qualified immunity doctrine distorts the effectiveness of litigation against police officers. Second, Congress must undo two of the Court's decisions interpreting the statute providing for attorney's fees in civil rights cases. Third, any damage awards resulting from police misconduct lawsuits must be payable only out of the budget of the police department itself.”^[65]

Alisa Tiwari proposed the use of disparate-impact liability to push for police reform through the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (Safe Streets Act or SSA). The SSA’s nondiscrimination policy could be useful in demonstrating that police departments discriminate against certain minority groups, which could impact their funding. Therefore, they would have incentives to adjust their training and adapt their behavior to be unbiased. Tiwari said, “This Note builds upon and expands traditional understandings of disparate impact liability by presenting a new domain of application: policing. We should not simply accept that the principles underlying Griggs are confined to arenas like employment and housing. Policing is an arena generally considered untouched by effects-based discrimination theories. But as this Note has shown, we can and should use disparate-impact liability to push for change in policing. The Note aspires to contribute to a larger project of limiting the reach of Washington v. Davis. Its hope is that those committed to civil rights will continue looking for additional pathways for doing the same. Vigorously seeking out these pathways may help us find unrealized tools, like the SSA, that can circumvent the difficulties posed by more conventional avenues for reform and help promote racial equality.”^[71]

One proposal suggests that to address systemic racism in policing, additional oversight of police is necessary through meaningful licensing and delicensing statutes. Proponents argue that by implementing a neutral review process that grants considerable power to oversight bodies, police will be better held accountable and communities will then have increased trust in law enforcement.^[62]

One proponent wrote, “Systemic racism, which permeates every aspect of U.S. society, is engrained in law enforcement. This systemic racism has fostered distrust of law enforcement in Black communities. Although additional oversight of police officers through strong, meaningful licensing and delicensing statutes will not alone solve systemic racism in police departments, it is a step towards rebuilding trust in law enforcement. Implementing neutral review processes that grant considerable power to oversight bodies will help to increase communities’ trust in law enforcement by holding officers accountable for misconduct and ensuring unbiased review of bad acts. As mentioned, there are more than 18,000 police forces in the United States. As a result, it will take a commitment by local, state, and federal government to take on the police unions to provide meaningful oversight of police forces without which reforms will be impossible.”^[62]

The same author added that “the federal government can act as a second line of defense; if police departments fail to comply with the licensing body’s requirements (or sanctions for misconduct), the licensing body should refer the case to the DOJ. Under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the federal government has the power to investigate and take legal action against police departments that repeatedly use practices that violate individuals’ constitutional rights.” ^[62]

Communicate policy changes and decision-making processes with officers to promote accountability and reduce misconduct

This proposal would require clear communication of law enforcement policy changes and decision-making processes with officers. Proponents say that such communication might improve the perception of such reforms and increase participation, which can improve accountability and reduce misconduct.

Samuel Walker recommended a model policy to increase the sustainability of accountability-related reforms within police departments. Walker wrote, “This Article concludes with a recommended model policy to enhance the sustainability of accountability-related reforms. The policy involves developing training procedures designed to explain the nature, goals, and benefits of such reforms to all officers in a department. Traditional practice in reform efforts has neglected this dimension of training and its potential impact on the culture of a department. The result is that major reforms— including Justice Department consent decrees and memoranda of agreement— appear to rank and file officers as offensive bolts from the blue, without much warning and even less explanation. The model policy involves training officers to explain major reforms that occur. This approach is based on the example of the institutionalization of problem oriented policing in Charlotte, North Carolina’s Police Department. Research from the National Police Research Platform suggests that training can increase the receptivity of police officers to innovations. The final element of the model involves continuous external monitoring to ensure that accountability reforms are being maintained in a department. The experience of several police auditors, and an alternative form of citizen oversight of the police, provides a practical example of how continuous monitoring can be achieved.”^[72]

Scott E. Wolfe and Alex R. Piquero wrote, “The results of this study provide five broad actions that police administrators can take to reduce individual officer misconduct: (a) Fairly allocate promotions and special assignments and ensure that officers understand why such decisions are made; (b) fairly distribute disciplinary actions and clearly explain the reasons for such actions; (c) engage in investigations of officers that are procedurally fair and ensure that officers perceive the procedures as such; (d) ensure that agency policies, rules, and regulations allow the goals of justice to be accomplished while simultaneously being fair and sensible to individual officers; and (e) honestly show subordinate officers that the agency cares for their well-being and that their opinions are taken seriously.”^[73]

Monitor the effectiveness of evidence-based approaches in mitigating police use of force

This proposal argues that police departments should implement evidence-based approaches to reduce officer-involved shootings and other use of force incidents. In addition to implementing these approaches, departments should monitor their effectiveness to contribute to the growing body of research on best practices for reducing police use of force.

Robin S. Engel, Hannah D. McManus, and Gabrielle T. Isaza wrote, “To facilitate the implementation of evidence-based approaches in reducing officer-involved shootings and other police reforms, law enforcement agencies must (1) consider findings from available research; and (2) where evidence is lacking, engage in opportunities to fill that void. Our review demonstrates that much of the evidence base surrounding the most popular reform initiatives to reduce officer shootings is limited in scope or nonexistent. Therefore, to advance EBP principles for reform, agencies must monitor the application and impact of training, policies, and procedures designed to reduce police use of force. That is, law enforcement must take responsibility in collecting data to generate evidence on the delivery and effects of their practices (Sherman 2013), moving beyond being consumers of research and instead engaging in the production of knowledge.”^[74]

Involve multiple stakeholders in evaluating how discipline is handled

This proposal argues that multiple parties should be involved in a police officer’s discipline. These parties could include the City government, civilian oversight committees, local criminology scholars, etc. The purpose of this is to prevent officers from being given a pass for bad behavior, which is argued would reinforce a toxic police organizational culture of mismanagement and leniency towards officers.

Author Darrel W. Stephens wrote, “One approach to improving discipline might be the use of a problem-solving process to engage as many of the stakeholders as possible in examining how discipline is handled. It might also be of value to identify specific characteristics of a discipline process that would respond to the agreed deficiencies of current approaches and therefore be regarded as priorities for any changes made.”^[75]

Cynthia Lum and her coauthors wrote, “Agencies should consider adopting external oversight bodies for the review of critical incidents involving police action. Again, this can help establish a transparent review process and manage public expectations. While research does not point to specific best practices in this area, agencies might consider experiences in Scotland and England where external oversight is common and formalized.”^[13]

Samuel Walker wrote, “The final element of the model involves continuous external monitoring to ensure that accountability reforms are being maintained in a department. The experience of several police auditors, and an alternative form of citizen oversight of the police, provides a practical example of how continuous monitoring can be achieved.”^[72]

Establish a federal decertification process

This proposal argues that a federal decertification process is needed to address police misconduct. Proponents of this proposal argue that establishing this process would promote transparency and improve accountability for officers who have been involved in misconduct cases.

The Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Policing promoted a five-point plan for police reform which included (1) developing national training standards, (2) establishing a federal decertification registry, (3) adopting duty-to-intervene and mandatory reporting policies, (4) promoting trauma-informed policing, (5) increasing data collection and transparency. In regard to the second point, the Task Force wrote:

“A federal decertification database can enhance police accountability and ensure that officers who engage in misconduct do not perpetuate harm in other agencies and communities. The database should be coupled with state requirements that agencies comply with officer severance reporting rules and consult the database when making hiring decisions.”^[22]

To amend the issue of police misconduct, Owen Doherty proposed the idea of federal minimum standards which would cover the requirements for both certification and decertification of police officers. They say these standards should be extensive, yet flexible, so that states can enact more stringent standards if desired. The goal of these standards is to prevent a department from hiring an officer who may be more likely to partake in misconduct. Some of these standards should include, at a minimum, felonies or certain misdemeanors, such as domestic abuse or other violent misdemeanors, burglary, perjury, property theft, or unlawful possession of a weapon. It should also include firings with good cause or resignations in the face of imminent discipline or investigation, but only when resulting from misconduct as it relates to the public, not for violating the “Blue Wall of Silence”.^[76]

Doherty wrote, “In the ideal system, the federal minimum standards would cover the requirements for both certification and decertification of police officers. The main focus of this Note, however, is attempting to prevent police departments from hiring problematic applicants who have already served as police officers. As such, the minimum standards this Note discusses will only cover the standards for decertifying an officer. In a program such as this, the federal minimum standards would have to be extensive, yet flexible, so that states can enact more stringent standards. The main focus of Department of Justice should be on creating the minimum standards by which police departments will know when they should not hire a police officer. To start, the Department of Justice should require the inclusion of police officers in the minimum standards and database. Police officers should include traditional state and local police, but also campus police officers, elected law enforcement officials such as sheriffs, and transit police. States should be free to include any other forms of law enforcement officers they desire, including correctional officers, investigators for state bureaus of investigations, court appointed bailiffs, or state border protections officers. The standard for when a law enforcement officer should be decertified should, at a minimum, include when the officer commits felonies or certain misdemeanors, such as domestic abuse or other violent misdemeanors, burglary, perjury, property theft, or unlawful possession of a weapon. It should also include firings with good cause or resignations in the face of imminent discipline or investigation, but only when resulting from misconduct as it relates to the public. Thus, an officer who is fired with good cause because of simple chemistry issues or who is pretextually fired for violating the 'Blue Wall of Silence' should not be included in either the decertification regime or database. Rather, the firing or resignation must come after instances of police brutality, perjury or corruption, or other unconstitutional activities as determined by adjudications or investigations carried out internally or by independent review boards.”^[76]

Establish a state-level decertification process

This proposal argues that a state-level decertification process is needed to address police misconduct. Proponents of this proposal argue that establishing this process would promote transparency and improve accountability for officers who have been involved in misconduct cases.

Roger Goldman and Steven Puro wrote, “In order for revocation to be adopted in those states that do not currently have it and strengthened in those states that do, the lead must be taken by local and state law enforcement professionals who can best make the point that revocation is necessary in order to enhance the professionalism of law enforcement. Legislators, regardless of party affiliation, who are concerned about ethical conduct by public officials, including the police, will be supportive of these efforts. Journalists who report on issues of police misconduct are the best resource for communicating the nature of the problem, particularly if they focus on officers who repeatedly abuse citizens. Citizen groups that regularly monitor police misconduct are the best sources for identifying the problem officers in communities and states.”^[77]

Adopt duty to intervene policies

This reform means that police departments should promote policies that encourage officers to intervene while on duty when witnessing a fellow officer using excessive force.

The Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Policing promoted a five-point plan for police reform which included (1) developing national training standards, (2) establishing a federal decertification registry, (3) adopting duty-to-intervene and mandatory reporting policies, (4) promoting trauma-informed policing, (5) increasing data collection and transparency. In regard to the third point, the Task Force wrote:

“Duty-to-intervene and mandatory reporting policies are important accountability mechanisms that can prevent harm to community members, identify officers whose behavior may warrant intervention by superiors, and change ‘them against us’ policing culture.”^[22]

Allow public interest in accountability to govern a police officer’s conduct, instead of LEOBORs

This proposal advocates for the public interest to govern police officer accountability, instead of the police solely following the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights (LEOBORs).

Kevin M. Keenan and Samuel Walker wrote, “Our conclusion is a mixed one. The majority of LEOBOR provisions are reasonable, even laudable, in a society committed to the protection of individual rights. Police departments’ power to discipline police officers is like other forms of power. It can be used for good or evil. It can be abused through overutilization or underutilization. Police officers are like other employees that depend on their supervisors’ approval for their continued employment and advancement. Although police officers do not have the bargaining disadvantages that at-will officers once had, they still face a powerful foe when their employer becomes an adversary. Police officers are required to follow rules such as wearing their hats at all times, trimming their hair, or residing within city limits. Many people would not abide by these rules, even without the more serious stresses and dangers associated with the job. Especially when charged with violations of rules of a purely organizational or internal character, our society should protect police officers from arbitrary or excessive discipline. However, when interacting with the public, police officers actualize the special powers and discretion that our democratic society entrusts to them. They must let transparency, the rule of law, and the public interest in accountability govern their actions. They are not unprotected when accused of breaking that trust, but the public’s need for truth, liberty, and order weigh against additional, special protections for officers.”^[78]

Defund or divest from current policing practices

This proposal advocates that city, state, and/or federal agencies provide less funding and resources to police departments. Instead, activists urge for funding to be distributed amongst mental health professionals and social services.

Jalila Jefferson-Bullock and Jelani Jefferson Exum said, “Defunding the police answers the antiracist call to radically reorient the public consciousness and faith in the entire criminal justice system, which has been undermined by the routine use of force against Black Americans. Legal standards for challenging the excessiveness of police force based on reasonableness reap unreasonable outcomes that reflect biased views of Black criminality. Reconceptualizing these aspects of policing as punishment situates the defund movement within the widely accepted sentencing reform movement and reorients policing as punishment outside of the protections of the criminal process. This reorientation recognizes that police-initiated punishment fails to fulfill the legitimate purposes of criminal punishment and is, therefore, in need of an entire overhaul.”^[79]

Law professor Kate Levine wrote, “This Article concludes that police prosecutions do not align with either a prison abolitionist ethic or, less radically, a desire to see the criminal legal system treat people of color fairly. While there may be certain short-term gains from showing that the criminal legal system will punish its own actors for racially biased violence, in the long-term, racial justice depends on the dramatic reduction of the criminal legal system. Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that, even in the short term, the system is playing out its racial pathologies in police prosecutions. The article explores the trials of Peter Liang, Nouman Raja, and Mohammed Noor. In these trials, officers of color were convicted in high profile cases, all three in jurisdictions where, up to that point, on-duty killings by white officers had not led to charges or convictions.”^[60]

Law professor Amna A. Akbar wrote, “Abolitionist campaigns expand our notions of law reform, which are typically focused on federal constitutional rights. Abolitionist demands like ‘defund the police’ remind us that if we are interested in building a more just world, we cannot wage our battles simply on the terrain of rights, litigation, rule of law, or administrative innovation. We must consider the historical, material, and ideological dimensions of our demands and our strategies. We must examine where we invest money and what kind of infrastructure we build for collective life. We must investigate the ideas that motivate and justify things as they are. We must appraise who has what resources, for what end, and why. We have to understand how such profound inequity came to be, why it persists, and what needs to be redressed to create the equitable society we aspire to but have not yet realized. We have to ask: If police and prisons are the stuff of structural violence, what are the elements of structural flourishing, and what are the strategies to build them?”^[80]

Implement oversight systems for addressing police misconduct

This proposal advocates for greater oversight systems to be implemented to monitor police misconduct and disciplinary proceedings. This oversight could be done by different stakeholders, include civilian committees, city officials, and/or legal scholars.

Peter Finn wrote, “Several considerations and actions can help address police concerns about the oversight process, including:

Recognizing the typically advisory role oversight bodies play but also documenting the judicious role most oversight systems have adopted.
Training board members thoroughly and publicizing how carefully they have been prepared.
Accepting that the mission of oversight is to provide for citizen, not professional, review.
Highlighting that oversight bodies agree with the police or sheriff’s department’s findings in the vast majority of cases.
Publicizing particularly high-profile cases in which the oversight body has sided with the subject officer(s).
Working to reduce delays in holding hearings and reviews.
Explaining how oversight findings can benefit officers.
Sitting down and resolving misconceptions and conflicts face to face.”^[81]

Finn also wrote, "Three preliminary steps can help significantly to reduce conflict among all the parties involved in citizen oversight:

Either initiate the oversight system without the impetus of a controversial police shooting or avoid consideration of the incident in the planning process.
Involve representatives of all concerned parties in the planning of the oversight procedure.
Establish clear, measurable objectives for the oversight system.”^[81]

Author Tim Prenzler wrote, “Civilian review suffers significantly from the fragmentation of policing. In the US, with approximately 19,000 police departments (ACLU, 1992, p. 3), civilian review agencies have been largely confined to big cities (Walker, 2001). Hence, there is a strong case for a state-based agency that would draw on a larger revenue base and have the added advantage of independence from local political loyalties (Walker, 2001, p. 69; for Canadian examples see http://cacole.ca/). It would be important for such agencies to have regional offices, and to engage in considerable promotion and consultation at the local level, to avoid accusations of big city bias (KPMG, 2000; Liberty, 1999). A state-based public-sectorwide integrity commission would also allow for the development of specialist skills in corruption control, and for career paths within such organisations (with a potential role for ex-police outside the police complaints area). In general the net cost of such a model should be limited because it largely involves transferring in-house responsibilities and resources to an external agency.”^[82]

Author Prenzler continued, “[F]ormal investigations (involving interviewing of witnesses, collection of documentary sources and preparation of a report or brief of evidence) should be done either by civilians or by mixed civilian/police teams dominated by civilians. If this is not feasible because of resource constraints, it may be possible to offer complainants a choice and prioritise independent investigation for those requesting this option.”^[82]

The Chicago Police Accountability Task Force issued a report on recommendations for reform. The task force said, “The recommendations, if adopted, will fundamentally change the way in which the public engages with the police, create more effective oversight and auditing, and create a transparent system of accountability and responsibility for all stakeholders. We have not solved all problems, but we have created a blueprint for lasting change.”^[17] These recommendations included the following:

“Create a Community Safety Oversight Board, allowing the community to have a powerful platform and role in the police oversight system.”
“Require CPD and the police oversight system to be more transparent and release to the public incident-level information on arrests, traffic and investigatory stops, officer weapon use and disciplinary cases.”
“Create a hotline for CPD members, whether civilian or sworn, to lodge complaints, and develop a third-party system for the processing and follow-up of all comments and complaints reported to the hotline.”
“Create a dedicated Inspector General for Public Safety, which would independently audit and monitor CPD and the police oversight system, including for patterns of racial bias.”
“Replace the Independent Police Review Authority with a new and fully transparent and accountable Civilian Police Investigative Agency, which will enhance structural protections, powers and resources for investigating serious cases of police misconduct, even in the absence of sworn complaints. The new CPIA should ensure an accessible, professional and supportive complaint process.”^[17]

Enact systems review of a department’s culture to reduce misconduct

This proposal advocates that systems be put in place that review a police department’s organizational culture in order to reduce misconduct. This review could help to ensure that officers are being held accountable, either through technological means (body-worn cameras) or a duty-to-intervene policy that empowers officers to report if they know an officer acted with unnecessary use of force. This system could also examine whether department leaders are appropriately punishing officers for known instances of misconduct.

University of Virginia Law Professor Barabara Armacost wrote, “In a surprising way, though, systems review actually holds promise for responding to some of law enforcement’s own most vehement criticisms of civil actions and criminal prosecutions against police officers. The law enforcement community complains that legal actions make the officer who pulled the trigger a 'scapegoat' for merely doing his job. In addition, they assert that such actions are never about one shooting; rather, legal actions blame one officer for what communities deem a long history of police transgressions. It turns out that systems review may actually address these criticisms in important ways. The goal of systems review is precisely to get beyond the single-minded focus on blaming the shooter in order to identify workplace and organizational causes that lie behind the last human causer. By focusing on systemic causes, systems-oriented review has the effect of spreading the blame so that individual officers are not the only ones held responsible for harm-causing incidents and are not left to bear alone the professional and personal consequences of having taken a human life. By reducing the likelihood that sharp end actors will make mistakes—including reasonable mistakes—systems solutions should ultimately reduce the likelihood that officers will be blamed for just 'doing their job.' Moreover, data-driven improvements in police use of firearms will ultimately increase officer safety. In short, if articulated clearly and done right, systems review should prove appealing to the policing community.”^[83]

Implement early intervention systems to address misconduct

This proposal advocates early intervention systems be implemented throughout police departments to address misconduct. Early intervention systems are mechanisms that are designed to prevent misconduct using data. These data systems can track previous officer misconduct to prevent further issues with community-police relations.

Author David A. Harris wrote, “A strategy suited to improving Fourth Amendment compliance would use three components in combination. First, we should use early intervention systems: data-driven accountability structures designed to detect, track, and highlight various aspects of police officer conduct. These systems, already in use in a number of police departments, would serve as an ideal method for tracking and managing police conduct related to searches and seizures. We would couple this with two other necessary changes: a technological innovation that creates the ability to generate an audio and video record of virtually all police actions, and substantial adjustments to the law that would restore litigation as a serious tool for redressing violations of the Fourth Amendment.”^[65]

Author Harris continued, “Early intervention systems can work the same way in the context of searches and seizures. Since these systems can track any type of police behavior reducible to a data entry, they can do the same for police behavior related to Fourth Amendment activity. This will require adding the right categories of data to give police supervisors the information they need, and ensuring that the same rules apply to this information as to all other categories. It will also mean guaranteeing that these data matter-that when the data show that an officer has crossed a threshold regarding search and seizure behavior, action will follow, just as with other categories of behavior the system tracks.”^[65]

In a report published by Chicago’s Police Accountability Task Force, it is recommended to, “Implement a data-driven, best-in-class Early Intervention System for CPD to identify officers with problems before they become problems for the community.”^[17]

Footnotes

[burleighcpmar-1] 1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 ^1.5 ^1.6 ^1.7 ^1.8 ‘’Certified Public Manager Applied Research’’, “Reimagining the Recruitment and Hiring of Police Officers During Tumultuous Times,” 2021

[aiellopq-2] ‘’Police Quarterly’’, “Procedural Justice and Demographic Diversity: A Quasi-Experimental Study of Police Recruitment,” 2021

[doylediss-3] 3.0 ^3.1 ^3.2 ^3.3 University of Southern Californa ProQuest Dissertations, “Police Recruitment: Finding a Better Way to Hire Tomorrow’s Finest,” 2021

[RANDnm-4] 4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 ^4.3 RAND Cemter on Quality Policing, “Police Recruitment and Retention for the New Millennium,” 2010

[Bruceetal2006-5] U.S. Department of Justice, “Cop Crunch: Identifying Strategies for Dealing with the Recruiting and Hiring Crisis in Law Enforcement”, 2006

[wilsonX2-6] RAND Corporation, "Police Recruitment and Retention in the Contemporary Urban Environment," 2009

[NCWP2000-7] 7.0 ^7.1 National Center for Women & Policing, “Recruiting & Retaining Women,” 2000

[gaubX2-8] 8.0 ^8.1 Crime & Delinquency, "Keeping the Women Out: A Gendered Organizational Approach to Understanding Early Career-Ending Police Misconduct," 2021

[hensonX2-9] Police Quarterly, "Do Good Recruits Make Good Cops? Problems Predicting and Measuring Academy and Street-Level Success," 2010

[edwardsdissX2-10] State University of New York at Albany, ProQuest Dissertations, "19th Century Exam, 21st Century Policing: An Examination of the New York State Civil Service and Police Officer Recruitment," 2021

[DOJcommunityX2-11] U.S. Department of Justice, "Hiring for the 21st Century Law Enforcement Officer," 2017

[RobinsonX2-12] 12.0 ^12.1 ^12.2 The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, "Five Years after Ferguson: Reflecting on Police Reform and What's Ahead," 2020

[LumetalX2-13] 13.00 ^13.01 ^13.02 ^13.03 ^13.04 ^13.05 ^13.06 ^13.07 ^13.08 ^13.09 ^13.10 ^13.11 ^13.12 Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, George Mason University, ‘’An EvidenceAssessment of the Recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing — Implementation and Research Priorities’’, 2016

[orrickbpgX2-14] 14.0 ^14.1 International Association of Chiefs of Police, "Recruitment, Retention, and Turnover of Law Enforcement Personnel," 2018

[HailsBorum-15] Mental Health Law & Policy Faculty Publications, "Police Training and Specialized Approaches for Responding to People with Mental Illnesses," 2003

[McDaniel-16] 16.0 ^16.1 ^16.2 The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles, "Reconciling mental health, public policing and police accountability," 2019

[PATFX2-17] 17.0 ^17.1 ^17.2 ^17.3 ^17.4 ^17.5 ^17.6 ^17.7 ^17.8 Chicago Police Accountablity Task Force, “Recommendations for Reform: Restoring Trust between the Chicago Police and the Communities they Serve,” 2016 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "PATFX2" defined multiple times with different content

[blumbergerph-18] 18.0 ^18.1 ^18.2 ^18.3 ‘’International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health’’, “New Directions in Police Academy Training: A Call to Action,” 2019

[sloanpq-19] ‘’Police Quarterly’’, “‘They Need More Training!’ A National Level Analysis of Police Academy Basic Training Priorities,” 2021

[adamspq-20] ‘’Police Quarterly’’, “Police Body-Worn Cameras: Effects on Officers’ Burnout and Perceived Organizational Support,” 2019

[brookingsaei2021-21] 21.0 ^21.1 ^21.2 ^21.3 ^21.4 ^21.5 Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform, “A Better Path Forward for Criminal Justice,” 2021

[CCJX2-22] 22.0 ^22.1 ^22.2 ^22.3 ^22.4 The Council on Criminal Justice, "The Path to Progress: Five Priorities for Police Reform," 2021

[simmonsalr-23] ‘’Alabama Law Review’’, “Cooperative Federalism and Police Reform: Using Congressional Spending Power to Promote Police Accountability,” 2011

[stoughtonwarrior-24] 24.0 ^24.1 ‘’Harvard Law Review Forum’’, “Law Enforcement’s ‘Warrior’ Problem,” 2015

[bell-25] 25.0 ^25.1 ^25.2 ^25.3 ‘’The Yale Law Journal’’, “Police Reform and the Dismantling of Legal Estrangement,” 2017

[kerben2000-26] ‘’Police Quarterly’’, “Does Community-Oriented Policing Help Build Stronger Communities?” 2000

[cpc1994-27] Community Policing Consortium, “Understanding Community Policing: A Framework for Action,” 1994

[maguirecnd-28] ‘’Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency’’, “Patterns of Community Policing in Nonurban America,” 1997

[tyler17-29] ‘’Northwestern University Law Review’’, “From Harm Reduction to Community Engagement: Redefining the Goals of American Policing in the Twenty-First Century,” 2017

[cordnercops-30] U.S. Department of Justice, “Reducing Fear of Crime: Strategies for Police,” 2010

[woodsocius-31] 31.0 ^31.1 ‘’Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World’’, “The Network Structure of Police Misconduct,” 2019

[birzerrg03-32] 32.0 ^32.1 ‘’Policing’’, “The theory of andragogy applied to police training,” 2003

[birzhillpq-33] 33.0 ^33.1 ‘’Police Quarterly’’, “A More Effective Training Approach for Contemporary Policing,” 2001

[andersensage16-34] ‘’SAGE Open’’, “A Training Method to Improve Police Use of Force Decision Making: A Randomized Controlled Trial,” 2016

[35] The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles, "Lost in transition: The effects of transitioning between firearms and electronic control devices (ECDs) on perception-response times (PRTs)," 2021

[GOBX2-36] Crime & Delinquency, "Examining the Risk of Recurring Use of Force Incidents Among Newly Hired Police Officers," 2021

[Harmon2012X2-37] Michigan Law Review, "The Problem of Policing," 2012

[alpertdunham-38] 38.0 ^38.1 ^38.2 Police Quarterly, "Policy and Training Recommendations Related to Police Use of CEDs: Overview of Findings From a Comprehensive National Study," 2010

[quattlebaum-39] 39.0 ^39.1 ^39.2 ^39.3 The Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School, “Principles of Procedurally Just Policing,” 2018

[BOJ-40] 40.0 ^40.1 ^40.2 The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles, "Policing with a public health lens - Moving towards an understanding of crime as a public health issue," 2021

[RahrX2-41] National Institute of Justice, "From Warriors to Guardians: Recommitting American Police Culture to Democratic Ideals," 2015

[SloanX2-42] Police Quarterly, "'They Need More Training!' A National Level Analysis of Police Academy Basic Training Priorities," 2021

[WoodTylerPapachristosX2-43] PNAS, "Procedural justice training reduces police use of force and complaints against officers," 2020

[tylerX2-44] 44.0 ^44.1 Psychological Science in the Public Interest, "The Impact of Psychological Science on Policing in the United States: Procedural Justice, Legitimacy, and Effective Law Enforcement," 2015

[Owensetal-45] 45.0 ^45.1 ^45.2 ^45.3 Criminology and Public Policy, "Can You Build a Better Cop?" 2018

[sth-46] 46.0 ^46.1 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, "American Policing at a Crossroads: Unsustainable Policies and the Procedural Justice Alternative," 2011

[McFarlaneAmin-47] Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, "Investigating fatal police shootings using the human factors analysis and classification framework (HFACS)," 2021

[Natapoff-48] ‘’Fordham Law Review’’, “Underenforcement”, 2006

[bies-49] 49.0 ^49.1 ‘’Stanford Law & Policy Review’’, “Let the Sunshine In: Illuminating the Powerful Role Police Unions Play in Shielding Officer Misconduct,” 2017

[50] U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, “Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program: Recommendations and Lessons Learned,” 2014

[51] ‘’Criminology & Public Policy’’, “Suspect Searches: Assessing Police Behavior Under the U.S. Constitution,” 2004

[52] ‘’New Mexico Law Review’’, “What the Police Don’t Know May Hurt Us: An Argument for Enhanced Legal Training of Police Officers,” 2018

[53] ‘’The University of Chicago Press Journals’’, “Reinventing American Policing,” 2017

[54] Cornell Law School, "Qualified immunity" accessed February 1, 2022

[schweikertcato-55] 55.0 ^55.1 ^55.2 Cato Institute, “Qualified Immunity: A Legal, Practical, and Moral Failure,” 2020

[crockerduke-56] ‘’Duke Law Journal Online’’, “The Supreme Court’s Reticent Qualified Immunity Retreat,” 2021

[schwartzqi-57] ‘’University of Chicago Law Review’’, “Qualified Immunity’s Boldest Lie,” 2021

[schwartz2017-58] 58.0 ^58.1 ^58.2 ^58.3 ‘’Yale Law Journal’’, “How Qualified Immunity Fails,” 2017

[Rushin2017X2-59] Duke Law Journal, "Police union contracts," 2017

[Levine2021X2-60] 60.0 ^60.1 Wash. U. L. Rev., "Police Prosecutions and Punitive Instincts," 2021

[Rushin2016X2-61] Boston College Law Review, "Using Data to Reduce Police Violence," 2016

[BloomLabovich-62] 62.0 ^62.1 ^62.2 ^62.3 ‘’Boston College Law School’’, “The Challenge of Deterring Bad Police Behavior: Implementing Reforms that Hold Police Accountable”, 2021

[koperetalX2-63] U.S. Department of Justice, "Realizing the Potential of Technology in Policing," 2015

[capersx2-64] North Carolina Law Review, "Race, Policing, and Technology," 2017

[harris-65] 65.0 ^65.1 ^65.2 ^65.3 ‘’Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law’’, “How Accountability-Based Policing Can Reinforce- or Replace- The Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule,” 2009

[66] ‘’Journal of Police Studies’’, “Technological Innovations in Crime Prevention and Policing. A Review of the Research on Implementation and Impact,” 2011

[67] U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, "Law Enforcement Misconduct Statute 42 U.S.C. § 14141," accessed October 22, 2024

[68] ‘’Stanford Law Review’’, “Promoting Civil Rights Through Proactive Policing Reform,” 2009

[69] ‘’The George Washington Law Review’’, “Organizational Culture and Police Misconduct,” 2004

[70] ‘’Civil Rights Law Journal’’, “An Alternative Remedy for Police Misconduct: A Model State ‘Pattern or Practice’ Statute,” 2009

[71] ‘’The Yale Law Journal’’, “Disparate-Impact Liability for Policing,” 2019

[walker2012-72] 72.0 ^72.1 ‘’Saint Louis University Public Law Review’’, “Institutionalizing Police Accountability Reforms: The Problem of Making Police Reforms Endure,” 2012

[73] ‘’Criminal Justice and Behavior’’, “Organizational Justice and Police Misconduct,” 2011

[74] ‘’The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science’’, “Moving beyond ‘Best Practice’: Experiences in Police Reform and a Call for Evidence to Reduce Officer-Involved Shootings,” 2020

[75] National Institute of Justice, “Police Discipline: A Case for Change,” 2011

[doherty-76] 76.0 ^76.1 ‘’Case Western Reserve Law Review’’, “A Reform to Police Department Hiring: Preventing the Tragedy of Police Misconduct,” 2018

[77] ‘’Saint Louis University Law Journal’’, “Revocation of Police Officer Certification: A Viable Remedy for Police Misconduct?” 2001

[78] ‘’Public Interest Law Journal’’, “An Impediment to Police Accountability? An Analysis of Statutory Law Enforcement Officers’ Bills of Rights,” 2005

[79] ‘’Fordham Urban Law Journal’’, “That is Enough Punishment: Situating Defunding the Police Within Antiracist Sentencing Reform,” 2021

[80] ‘’California Law Review’’, “An Abolitionist Horizon for (Police) Reform,” 2020

[finn-81] 81.0 ^81.1 National Institute of Justice, “Citizen Review of Police: Approaches & Implementation,” 2001

[prenzler-82] 82.0 ^82.1 ‘’The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology’’, “Stakeholder Perspectives on Police Complaints and Discipline: Towards a Civilian Control Model,” 2004

[83] ‘’Ohio State Law Journal’’, “Police Shootings: Is Accountability the Enemy of Prevention?” 2019

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

[37]

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

[42]

[43]

[44]

[45]

[46]

[47]

[48]

[49]

[50]

[51]

[52]

[53]

[54]

[55]

[56]

[57]

[58]

[59]

[60]

[61]

[62]

[63]

[64]

[65]

[66]

[67]

[68]

[69]

[70]

[71]

[72]

[73]

[74]

[75]

[76]

[77]

[78]

[79]

[80]

[81]

[82]

[83]