The IACP identifies leading practices and provides sound guidance to the law enforcement profession to assist in developing policies for individual departments through the IACP Law Enforcement Policy Center (Policy Center). The Policy Center has adopted a three-pronged approach for developing and disseminating this information to law enforcement professionals.

Multidisciplinary Working Groups

The Policy Center relies on the IACP membership to participate on a volunteer basis by joining working groups to provide input on each topic under review. These multidisciplinary working groups review and refine content to ensure that the final documents outline best practices that reflect a comprehensive approach to the topic. Volunteers for each topic are drawn from IACP committees, sections, and divisions, as well as including other leading professionals in the field of law enforcement. If you are interested in using your subject matter expertise to help develop documents, please contact the Policy Center at policycenter@theiacp.org.

All updated documents are also peer-reviewed by the standing Policy Center Advisory Group. Through the involvement of numerous professionals with expertise in each topic, the Policy Center ensures that the documents it produces reflect the most comprehensive, collaborative approach to each topic.

Accelerated Publication Schedule

Due to the working group process, Policy Center documents are more comprehensive—and publication is more frequent. In the first half of 2019, updated documents were published on 15 topics: Body-Worn Cameras, Bomb Threats and Response, Crowd Management, Domestic Violence, Employee Mental Health Services, Grooming and Appearance, Harassment and Discrimination, Investigations of Allegations of Employee Misconduct, Investigations of Officer-Involved Shootings and Other Serious Incidents, Juvenile Diversion and Custody, Line-of-Duty Deaths, Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Social Media, Standards of Conduct, and Volunteers. IACP members can access these and other policy documents by visiting the Policy Center at theIACP.org/policycenter.

New Deliverable

Historically, the Policy Center produced three key deliverables—Model Policies, Concepts & Issues Papers, and “Need to Know” factsheets.

• Model Policies provide agencies concrete guidance and directives to law enforcement officers by describing, in sequential format, the manner in which actions, tasks, and operations are to be performed.
• Concepts & Issues Papers provide background information on the topic to support the Model Policy and answer the questions of “why” and “how.” The paper explains why protocols were expressed in a particular manner; why the Model Policy requires, prohibits, or recommends certain actions; and how the directives can best be followed in the context of varied enforcement situations or incidents.
• Need to Know… documents are one-page overviews that synthesize the key points relevant to the topic.

However, the Policy Center has recently created a new deliverable—the Considerations Document.

The Considerations Document is intended to present items for agencies to take into account when developing their own policies on a topic. This format recognizes the importance that community expectations and jurisdictional law play in policy creation and aims to present best practices to the law enforcement field without dictating exact approaches.

For example, a Model Policy offers specific language on what steps should be taken and what should be allowed or prohibited, such as: “visible tattoos are prohibited by this agency,” whereas the Considerations Document does not give specific recommendations but rather prompts agencies to consider what should be done in their agency: “agencies should consider developing guidelines regarding tattoos.”

Model Policies will continue to be developed for select topics that have been deemed critical to the field of law enforcement. For these topics, bright-line guidance is preferred to ensure that IACP members have legally sound, evidence-based policies available for their use. All other topics will be converted into the Considerations Document as they are updated. d

Please cite as

Sara Dziejma and Catherine Britten, “IACP Law Enforcement Policy Center—Sound Guidance for the Profession,” IACP@Work:  Police Chief 86, no. 6 (June 2019): 60–61.