In a democratic society, the public must have a voice in how it is policed.
The Policing Project is a leading advocate for the idea that policing must be a shared endeavor between the community and policing agencies. This is particularly important in the most heavily-policed communities, especially communities of color, where police-community relations often are the most fraught.
We believe there are three essential components to ensure meaningful front-end voice in policing:
Transparency: Police must be transparent about their policies and practices so that the public can provide meaningful and informed input.
Engagement: There must be robust, direct engagement between police and community members. This requires more than just conversation or social interaction: It means police and community working collaboratively to ensure that policing truly reflects community priorities and values.
Formal structures: We believe formal structures, such as police commissions or inspectors general, help address some of the shortcomings of direct police-community engagement. These entities can conduct comprehensive reviews, identify problem areas, propose changes, help facilitate public input on a more ongoing basis, and collaborate directly with policing agency leadership.
Our work focuses on all three of these areas. Our goal is to see that jurisdictions recognize the importance of the co-production of public safety and that the public is provided with tools to ensure democratic values are reflected in how their communities are policed.
Ring, one of the nation’s largest home security companies, engaged the Policing Project at New York University School of Law in civil rights and civil liberties audit, leading to substantial changes.
The Oregon TITAN Fusion Center is a covert domestic spying program run by the Oregon Department of Justice that targets the people of Oregon with aggressive and illegal surveillance. Our lawsuit, Farrell-Smith v. Oregon, is brought by environmental, indigenous rights, and social justice advocates who peacefully protested a $10 billion fossil fuel pipeline and were targeted by TITAN.
Last week, Chicago City Council Members voted to pass legislation that will create a “Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability.” This is a significant victory for Empowering Communities for Public Safety – a coalition of community organizers in Chicago, who collectively have worked on this issue for decades. The Policing Project was privileged to work with the organizers, lending drafting and strategic assistance.
The Policing Project’s new guidance provides an overview of how to police demonstrations to protect public safety and democratic freedoms. Drawn largely from what policing leaders themselves have identified as best practices as well as evidence-based research, we outline a clear approach that emphasizes transparent communication, de-escalation, and a healthy relationship between police and the communities they serve.
The Policing Project has released suite of resources outlining concrete steps policing agencies, elected officials, and communities can take to improve policing transparency and accountability. These materials provide clear and reasonable guidance on three critical areas: accessibility of agency policy manuals, community oversight, and agency transparency.
Today, the Center for Policing Equity (CPE) and the Policing Project at New York University School of Law released a new guidebook for law enforcement agencies, government officials and communities with best practices for collecting, analyzing and responding to data about traffic and pedestrian stops by law enforcement—a critical but often overlooked aspect of policing.
Since the police killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 and subsequent protests across the country, many elected officials at all levels of government have promised to enact legislation aimed at making systemic changes to policing in the U.S. But what actions have legislators taken since?
In response to COVID-19, almost every state has issued some form of stay-at-home or social distancing order. Though police are responsible for enforcing these orders, the guidance on how to do so is often unclear, and in some cases, the rules themselves even conflict.
Police are tasked with ensuring public safety during extreme events and emergencies. But during unprecedented times–like we’re seeing now with the novel COVID-19 pandemic–many tried and tested methods for community engagement and outreach are breaking down. How should policing agencies adapt to meet the needs of vulnerable populations?
Policing Project Fellow Julian Clark was a featured panelist at the 2020 NACOLE Academic Symposium, hosted by the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in early March.
Last month, the Camden County Police Department (CCPD) and the Policing Project met with civic leaders, clergy and other community stakeholders in the first of several meetings aimed at increasing public awareness of CCPD’s recently revised use of force policy.
The Policing Project recently hosted members of the Chicago Police Department during their visit to New York to learn more about NYPD’s Neighborhood Policing, the neighborhood-focused collaborative policing philosophy on which the Policing Project’s Chicago Neighborhood Policing Initiative is modeled.
The Policing Project submitted an amicus brief in support of certiorari asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn a decision of the Nebraska Supreme Court that permitted a police stop of a vehicle, in the absence of reasonable suspicion, on the grounds that the stop was merely information-seeking.
Policing Project Fellow Julian Clark was a featured panelist for New York Law School’s “Policing the Police: Enforcing Transparency and Accountability” event, co-sponsored by the NYLS Racial Justice Project and the NYLS chapter of the American Constitutional Society.
Police officers in the U.S. pull over at least 50,000 drivers every day, making the traffic stop the most common interaction between the public and police. But despite the frequency, there is a lot we don't know about stops and their effects, in part because stop data collection laws are not mandated in most states, and even when they do exist, the laws are far from perfect.
Today, the Camden County Police Department announced adoption of its innovative, revised use of force policy drafted with the help of the Policing Project. The new policy — vetted and revised with the ACLU of New Jersey — is one of the most progressive use of force policies in the nation.
The Albany Community Police Advisory Committee facilitates community involvement with the police department by hosting public meetings and forums where residents can discuss community issues and express their concerns.
Our Youth-Police Engagement Program ended the year with an informative and action-packed day at the Camden County Regional Emergency Training Center—where the students experienced a day in the life of an officer in training.
The Police Chief’s Advisory Boards have been a longstanding feature of the Phoenix Police Department’s community-police relations. Each board has its own chair and co-chair, and is organized by affinity or identity group.
While many cities are dealing with complications associated with new and emerging technology, state surveillance has a special historic significance in Oakland, California, where privacy advocates have successfully established a formal entity with the teeth to ensure public oversight of the use of surveillance tech.
Community leaders, police officials, inspectors general, and government representatives from across the country gathered at NYU School of Law to discuss the challenges of police-community engagement in a two-day, intensive workshop.
The Policing Project recently took a field trip to the National Constitution Center for a hands-on, interactive approach to participatory democracy—part of our Youth-Police Engagement Program in Camden, New Jersey.
What does it take to cultivate a department-wide culture that puts community engagement and collaborative problem-solving at the center? The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office offers a promising example of the role law enforcement can play in re-imagining public safety.
Born from a diverse coalition of distinct organizations guided by different missions, and having no formal leadership, Salt Lake City’s Community Advocates Group has come together for direct conversation on policing reforms with SLCPD.
The American Law Institute council on policing approved several new chapters of Principles of Law, Policing at its most recent convening in January.
Our national field research project continues with a visit to Stockton, California, a city that responded to its policing challenges by implementing a focus on procedural justice.
Developed for the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution’s officer-involved fatalities toolkit, the Policing Project’s new Use-Of-Force Policy Guidelines outline best practices for communities and PDs looking to minimize uses of force.
Practical recommendations for members of the public on how to approach filming the police and for officers on how to respond to photographers.
The city will implement Community and Problem-Oriented Policing to rethink core organizational practices, including recruitment and staffing, in a way that best promotes community policing.
Too often, we have focused on “police reform” and “police accountability” in moments like these. Yet, the very fact that we are here once again—as we were after rioting in the 1960s, or after Ferguson in 2014—suggests that police reform and police accountability as we have understood and implemented them simply are not working.