By The Honorable Edwin Meese III and John G. Malcol

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

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

By Ben Grunwald, John Rappaport, Kyle Rozema

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

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

By Akshay Jain, Rajiv Sinclair, Andrew V. Papachristos*

Explanations for police misconduct often center on a narrow notion of “problem officers,” the proverbial “bad apples.” Such an individualistic approach not only ignores the larger systemic problems of policing but also takes for granted the group-based nature of police work. Nearly all police work is group-based and officers’ formal and informal networks can impact behavior, including misconduct. In extreme cases, groups of officers (what we refer to as, “crews”) have even been observed to coordinate their abusive and even criminal behaviors. This study adopts a social network and machine learning approach to empirically investigate the presence and impact of officer crews engaging in alleged misconduct in a major U.S. city: Chicago, IL. Using data on Chicago police officers between 1971 and 2018, we identify potential crews and analyze their impact on alleged misconduct and violence. Results detected approximately 160 possible crews, comprised of less than 4% of all Chicago police officers. Officers in these crews were involved in an outsized amount of alleged and actual misconduct, accounting for approximately 25% of all use of force complaints, city payouts for civil and criminal litigations, and police-involved shootings. The detected crews also contributed to racial disparities in arrests and civilian complaints, generating nearly 18% of all complaints filed by Black Chicagoans and 14% of complaints filed by Hispanic Chicagoans.

PLOS One May 2022

By The Police Executive Research Forum

 The U.S. Department of Justice and the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) released a first-of-its-kind set of best practices for police-press interactions at mass demonstrations. The report resulted from a convening of police leaders and journalists, spearheaded by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and PERF, and supported with a grant from the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. The report, “Police-Media Interactions During Mass Demonstrations: Practical, Actionable Recommendations,” proposes that police establish clear policies before, during, and after a protest event. A primary recommendation is that police agencies adopt express “arrest avoidance” procedures that direct officers to let detained journalists go quickly and that journalists be explicitly exempted from dispersal orders and curfew enforcement. The report also recommends that while credentials are an easy way to identify working members of the news media, police should also recognize those “acting as journalists in function and behavior.”  The Reporters Committee's Bruce Brown said that “With a fraught election next month, we have a unique opportunity with these best practices to both protect journalists at protests and help police serve their public safety mission. The challenge now is to get the recommendations in the hands of police departments and newsrooms around the country.”

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. 40p.

By the United States Department of Justice.  Civil Rights Division and United States Attorney’s Office For the Southern District of Mississippi 

Hours after the Department of Justice announced its investigation of the Lexington Police Department (LPD) on November 8, 2023, officers chased a Black man through a field and tased him nine times. The man began foaming at the mouth. One officer pointed to a Taser probe lodged in the man’s hat and said, “Damn, one of my probes hit him in the head.” The man, who has a behavioral health disability, had been accused of disturbing a business. This was not the man’s first encounter with LPD. Earlier that year, LPD officers had jailed him for ten days for trespassing; four days for stealing a cup of coffee; and twelve days for stealing packets of sugar. Each time they arrested him, LPD unlawfully refused to release the man until he paid money towards old fines and fees he owed from misdemeanors and traffic tickets. But each arrest added more fines and fees to the ledger. By November 2023, the man— who has no job, no assets, and no bank account—owed more than $7,500. In encounter after encounter with the man, LPD violated his rights. But like countless people in Lexington, the man had little recourse. Through a combination of poor leadership, retaliation, and a complete lack of internal accountability, LPD has created a system where officers can relentlessly violate the law. FINDINGS The Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that the City of Lexington and the Lexington Police Department engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law. Specifically, we find that LPD unlawfully: • Arrests, jails, and detains people who cannot pay fines or fees, without assessing their ability to pay; • Uses excessive force; • Conducts stops, searches, and arrests without probable cause, including jailing people on illegal “investigative holds” and arresting people solely because they owe outstanding fines; • Imposes money bail without justification or assessment of ability to pay; • Jails people without prompt access to court; • Violates the rights of people engaged in free speech and expression, including by retaliating against people who criticize the police; • Discriminates against Black people; and • Operates under an unconstitutional conflict of interest because LPD’s funding depends on the money it raises through its enforcement.. 

Washington, DC: United States Department of Justice. Civil Rights Division, 2024. 47p.