Last month, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a landmark policy putting in place long-overdue requirements on how federal agencies can – and cannot – use artificial intelligence.
Here are our main takeaways on what it means for law enforcement.
The Policing Project at NYU School of Law, the global law firm Jones Day, the law firm Lawrence & Bundy, and Canfield Law LLC have filed an appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the dismissal of a civil rights lawsuit against Clayton County police. A range of groups and individuals, including law enforcement officials; Tyler Perry, Jamie Foxx, and other prominent Black actors; empirical scholars; Cato Institute; NAACP Legal Defense Fund; Institute for Justice; ACLU of Georgia, have filed amicus briefs in support of the appeal.
This week, we’re highlighting testimony we provided to the New York City Council on how the NYPD has skirted democratic accountability in deploying intrusive policing technologies.
During this year’s legislative session, we provided input and drafting support on 36 pieces of legislation or regulations across 12 states. Notably, 22 of these engagements came at the express invitation of state or local partners, including both advocates and lawmakers. The most popular topics were use of force, officer decertification, and data collection and transparency, but legislators also sought to address a wide range of others, from warrant reform to police use of robots, and more.
The Policing Project at the NYU School of Law is pleased to explore the opportunity of working with the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department to conduct a civil rights and civil liberties audit of the city’s real-time crime center.
Read an op-ed authored by Policing Project counsel Anita Yandle on February 3, 2026 in the Seattle Times. Thanks to a bill before the state Senate, Washington now has the opportunity to join a growing number of states and adopt clear standards that not only protect privacy but also ensure that these powerful tools are used responsibly.
Read an op-ed co-authored by Policing Project founder and faculty director Barry Friedman published in the The Atlantic on January 26, 2026. The op-ed argues that that good policing under such robust Second Amendment protections requires having well-trained officers, and transparent and accountable policing -- the opposite of what ICE is modeling right now.
Read an op-ed co-authored by Policing Project founder and faculty director Barry Friedman published in the New York Times on January 26, 2026. The op-ed argues that local and state prosecution may be the “last line of defense for holding the federal government accountable, just as they’ve been since the founding.”
Protesters that successfully halted the construction of a $10-billion natural gas pipeline and terminal are asking an appeals court to reinstate their lawsuit challenging the state’s unauthorized use of its TITAN Fusion Center to investigate Oregon residents, including to surveil First Amendment-protected activity.
The Policing Project condemns the Trump administration’s deployment of the United States military – including the National Guard and U.S. Marines – in the streets of Los Angeles. The use of the military to replace local law enforcement in responding to protests is both anti-democratic and dangerous for public safety.
The Policing Project at NYU School of Law welcomes today’s unanimous Supreme Court decision rejecting the “moment-of-the-threat doctrine” in evaluating claims of excessive force by law enforcement. The Policing Project filed a brief in the case on behalf of nearly two dozen law enforcement leaders, urging the Supreme Court to reach the decision it did.
Last week, Policing Project founder and faculty director Barry Friedman delivered oral argument in our case André v. Clayton County to a panel of judges at the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia.
The new Traffic Safety For All (TS4A) coalition will coordinate and educate stakeholders on the importance of limiting low-level traffic stops and allowing law enforcement to focus on addressing offenses that are central to causing crashes and traffic fatalities.
Advancing the work of the Minneapolis Safe and Thriving Communities Report and Plan, City leaders in Minneapolis have published the Community Safety Ecosystem Asset and Gap Analysis: Findings and Action Plan. Commissioned by the City, the actionable framework identifies the City's current strengths, existing barriers, and strategic opportunities for moving the City's community safety goals forward.
The City partnered with the New York University School of Law’s Policing Project to produce the report. The Policing Project drew on several sources of data, as well as conversations with City and non-governmental contract agencies to provide deeper insights into successes as well as barriers within the system. The report looks at the differing types of calls for service over a 3-year period before providing an action plan of recommendations for the City, many of which are already underway, or even completed. The report is broken down by looking at desired state, current state, and gaps for each of the three types of community safety ecosystem services – response, prevention, and restoration.
“The analysis found that Minneapolis has a well-established network and strong foundation for unarmed real-time response services,” said Office of Community Safety Director of Design and Implementation Amanda Harrington. “Currently, about 9 percent of 9-1-1 calls are diverted to expanded non-police services, which includes the Behavioral Crisis Response (BCR) team, traffic control unit, animal control and 311 and online response. The analysis provides action steps to scale these services for greater impact.”
Beyond the strong base for diverted alternative response calls, the analysis also focused on improvements to safety services, their efficiency and how to integrate resources into a comprehensive ecosystem. Action steps outlined refinements to governance structures that promote coordination, accountability, and transparency.
“Work has already begun on the recommendations in the report,” said Director Harrington. “For example, we are currently working with Minneapolis Police Department and Hennepin County for juvenile diversion process, our data collection processes, online data dashboards for greater transparency, refining our policies, and building a stronger governance model to sustain the work.”
Director Harrington added that the City is not starting from scratch as the City has been working on implementation of the Safe and Thriving Communities plan for a year. Minneapolis has a strong foundation of programs and personnel, but there are opportunities for improvement as policing and community safety are reimagined in Minneapolis. The City will work with the NYU Policing Project for another year as it continues to work on the report’s findings and action plan.
"The Policing Project at NYU Law is proud to have worked alongside the City in identifying opportunities to advance their community safety goals and will continue to support this ambitious and achievable undertaking," said Alexander Heaton, NYU Policing Project Director of Reimagining Public Safety.
The report is now available at this link: Community Safety Ecosystem Asset and Gap Analysis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 10, 2025
Media Contact: Joshua Manson, Policing Project at NYU School of Law, joshua.manson@nyu.edu, (914) 357-0000
New York, NY – The Policing Project at NYU School of Law; The Carpenter Law Firm, P.C; Allie Menegakis of the Clekis Law Firm, P.A.; and attorney P. Alesia Rico Flores filed a motion for summary judgement asking a South Carolina state court to halt a statewide vehicle surveillance program that uses automated license plate readers (ALPRs) to track and record the movements of all drivers on the state’s roads and highways.
The lawsuit, filed in April 2023 on behalf of the South Carolina Public Interest Foundation and Greenville resident John Sloan, alleges that the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division’s (SLED) vehicle surveillance program uses ALPRs across the state to indiscriminately capture more than 100 million time- and location-stamped photos of South Carolina vehicles each year. SLED stores this information in a searchable, centralized database to which it has given dozens of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies access. As the lawsuit explains, SLED’s decision to create and disseminate travel information on law-abiding drivers in South Carolina was made without any permission or authority from the legislature – and it operates without legislative guardrails to protect against misuse and abuse.
Since the lawsuit was filed, plaintiffs have confirmed a number of their allegations in discovery, including that SLED’s database contains over 431 million vehicle location observations; that it stores the movements of South Carolinians' vehicles regardless of any suspected connection to criminal activity; and that 99.8% of the location observations in the database—more than 430 million location observations in all—have no known connection to criminal activity when they are stored. SLED also stores all of this information for three years—a retention period that is significantly longer than that authorized by law in other states.
Read the motion here. For more information on the case, please visit https://www.policingproject.org/south-carolina-license-plate-reader-lawsuit.
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The Policing Project at NYU School of Law promotes public safety through transparency, equity, and democratic engagement. Learn about the Policing Project at www.policingproject.org.
James Carpenter has represented clients in litigation in state and federal trial courts, and at the appellate level, for more than thirty years. His public interest cases have involved procurement by government agencies, violations of various state statutes and the South Carolina Constitution as well as the Freedom of Information Act. Learn more about his practice at http://www.carpenterlawfirm.net/jim-carpenter.php.
Allie Menegakis is an experienced trial attorney, criminal justice reform advocate, and legal commentator. She practices both criminal defense and personal injury law at Clekis Law Firm, P.A. in Charleston, South Carolina. In January of 2020, Allie extended her advocacy from the courtroom to broader policy reform via the creation of the non-profit organization, South Carolina for Criminal Justice Reform (SC4CJR), “a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating mass incarceration and achieving fair, equal, and humane treatment of the criminally accused.” As SC4CJR’s founder and executive director, Allie continues to educate the public and legislators on smart criminal justice reform.
P. Alesia Rico Flores has prior legal experience as a prosecutor, criminal defense attorney, and municipal court judge. Currently, her legal career is focused on advancing criminal justice reform initiatives through legal representation, education, and advocacy.
The Policing Project applauds this important policy change, which comes months after we called on DOJ and the DEA to end Operation Jetway, citing the long-documented history of racial profiling associated with it.
