March 2019

Research In Brief: Officer Perceptions Before and After Implementation of Body-Worn Cameras

The use of force by police has come under intense scrutiny in recent years. A few notorious tragedies have awakened people to the realities of the police function and what the police do to maintain or...

Drugs & Alcohol

Marijuana, Law Enforcement, Mental Health: A Dangerous Social Experiment

If one topic exists that law enforcement leaders can all agree on, policing today has evolved significantly during the last two decades. Not only have crime and technology changed, but so have social ...

Education & Training

Cultural Diversity and Cultural Competency for Law Enforcement

It was early 2018 in a Recruit School course at the Police Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) standard addressed was “Biased Polic...

Human & Civil Rights

Using Documentary Film to Examine Implicit Bias, Procedural Justice, and Racial Reconciliation

On November 23, 2012, Michael Dunn, a 47-year-old software developer, shot and killed 17-year-old high school student Jordan Davis at a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida. An argument between Dunn a...

Human & Civil Rights

The Legacies of James Byrd Jr. and Matthew Shepard: Two Decades Later

In 1998, the world was horrified by news reports of two gruesome hate-fueled murders. James Byrd Jr. was chained to the back of a pickup truck and dragged to his death. Matthew Shepard was beaten, tie...

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: Mitigating Suicide Threat Response Risks

How should law enforcement respond to suicide threats where the subject reasonably appears to present a risk only to him- or herself? Should the police respond at all? Should police force entry to com...

Community-Police Engagement

The Play’s the Thing: A Police Chief and a Theatre Professor Join Forces to Confront Bias in Police Departments

Police Chief David Kurz has given a great deal of thought to an incident he was made aware of earlier in his career. A police officer was on a construction detail when a car with four, young African ...

Crime & Violence

Law and Policy Considerations in Response to Hate Crimes

The term “hate crime” has become a familiar component of everyday discourse. The public is routinely confronted with media coverage of incidents involving potential criminal actions that appear t...