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The chapter situates the role of narrative power in shifting media policy amidst calls for police abolition, defunding, and media reparations following the documentation of media harm. Community-based narrative intervention is not only focused on those aspects of reporting and media that deal with harms perpetuated by discourses on public safety, but also about developing what I refer to as “collective narrative self-determination” to reflect the needs and desires of communities. The chapter documents how grassroots media efforts attempt to reconfigure the space of media policy and shift narratives toward the community power needed to reckon with the consequences of vital public resources being systematically defunded for budgets and policies that entail greater police powers. The chapter concludes this is an important moment for community-based initiatives and interventions that can shift media narratives around policing and urban violence and also shift who is served by those narratives, contributing to the long-term process of building narrative power and racial justice across a wide range of community and media organizations.

Policing agencies across the USA have cited difficulty recruiting qualified applicants, thus leaving many employment vacancies unfilled. One reason for this challenge may be that those who would make exceptional police officers are barred from employment because of their body art. Varying appearance policies exist concerning tattoos, yet little is known about these policies. The purpose of this paper is to survey the tattoo policies of policing agencies.

The tattoo policies of all 50 state-level policing agencies were reviewed to explore similarities and state-level correlates.

The majority, but not all, of state police have some type of appearance policy targeting tattoos. State policing agencies that have a “no visibility” policy regarding tattoos more often were in states with a low percentage of millennial residents, high percentage of young veterans, men and non-Hispanic white citizens, and low crime; t-tests indicate “no visibility” policy states significantly differed from other states in the percentage of non-Hispanic whites and crime. Further, state policing agencies with a “no visibility” policy tended to be in northeastern states, with southern states having the fewest state policing agencies with such policies, although the χ² test was non-significant.

Despite the ubiquity of tattoos in the American society, the literature is scant with studies of police appearance policies regarding tattoos. This study provides a partial summary of tattoo policies at the state policing level.

Summarises and discusses findings of roundtable discussions on the opinions of the citizens of two Belgian (Flemish) cities about the policing and security policy in their cities. Citizens question the organisational and cultural readiness of their local police forces for the full‐scale development of community policing. In practice, problem‐oriented policing tends to dominate, whereby it is the police who define the problems to be tackled. Despite decentralisation of policy and participation procedures, the public complains about the lack of citizen democracy in government. Problems of transparency and participation are related to the plethora of projects and initiatives which have been launched by different authorities at different policy levels. Finally, the consensual vision of community policing is discussed since geographically decentralised policing and the encouragement of community involvement will logically confront the police with ever diverging socio‐economic and cultural interests in the neighbourhood.

The purpose of this research is to analyse the vehicular pursuit policy of State Police and State Highway Patrol agencies in the USA.

Written policies were compared against a Standard Policy, developed by the researcher, based on prior academic and legal research in combination with the existing policies of the Connecticut State Police, California Highway Patrol, and the Minnesota State Police. A total of 47 written pursuit policies were received for a 94 percent return rate.

All policies had statements pertaining to safety and the need to pursue with due care and regard for public welfare. Items not included in many policies involved elements pertaining to liability and negligence: concerns that have been demonstrated to be instigators of litigation.

This work centers solely on state agencies. This study is the first step in an ongoing, long‐term project aimed at law enforcement vehicular pursuit policy analysis. The first step in the project centered on state agencies but will grow to include municipal agencies as well.

A very useful treatment of the practical side of law enforcement policy. Existing pursuit policies are examined, as are the legal principles used to guide police policy development.

This paper fills an untapped niche in policy research. It is both a practical analysis of existing pursuit policies and an examination of legal cases and constitutional guidelines.

In the current study, the authors explore changes in multiple police officer-involved deaths (MOIDs) and on changes in the racial makeup of MOID victims in different stages of implementation of a duty-to-intervene (DTI) policy by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

The authors use fatal encounters to analyze data on MOIDs involving NYPD officers from 2000 to 2019, including three time periods: pre-DTI, initial DTI, and revised DTI. The authors use non-equivalent dependent variables design and t-tests to determine the significance of differences in MOID occurrence and civilian race between these periods.

The greatest reduction in MOIDs was observed during the initial DTI period, followed by an uptick in MOIDs during the revised DTI period. We also observed that MOIDs are racialized events that disproportionately impact Black New Yorkers. This remained the case even after the implementation of DTI.

The authors find mixed support for DTI as an administrative control for preventing MOIDs and reducing racial disparities in MOIDs. DTI implementation period, the significant reductions in MOIDs in the initial DTI period, but not the second also lends support for the notion that community pressure (i.e. resurgence of Black Lives Matter) also impacts officer behavior. This suggests that along with strong administrative controls, the behavior of the public may also be an important factor in controlling officer behavior.

This article contributes to the growing literature on duty to intervene and offers an early investigation into DTI as an administrative control for MOIDs using the NYPD as a case study. The authors examine changes in MOIDs and the racial makeup of civilians who were killed in MOIDs in three DTI periods. To the authors’ knowledge, no other study has done this.

This paper considers the influences that have shaped local domestic violence policy and how this has affected police practice in one English police force.

The research in this paper is based upon theoretical concepts of central government and local accountability over policing; policy making and implementation; and pressure group influence. Documents issued to local police forces from Central Government were examined and compared to local policy documents to assess their affect over local police policy. Using a structured format, senior managers were interviewed to gain their impressions of these influences. Views of ground level staff were obtained through postal questionnaires.

This paper finds public opinion and pressure from academic research upon Central Government has resulted in a very strong central influence over local police policy and practice. Police officers believe that these influences have had a major affect upon the way that they respond to domestic violence issues at a local level, to the point where both managers and front line police officers believe that their discretion in dealing with these issues has been curtailed, and that top down control over police practice has increased. Police attitudes towards policing domestic violence are more enlightened than they once were.

This paper examines the opinions of both senior local police policy makers and front line policy implementers and will be of value to those interested in the policing of domestic violence issues.

The purpose of this paper is to review the police literature, select agency reports, and media publications to examine issues involving police use of Tasers^™

The focus of inquiry is on questions of policy development, deployment, training, use and impact of Tasers from organizational and community perspectives.

Limited research reflects a lack of consensus in the development and application of policies related to Taser training and use. Variations in policy and training and the substitution of Tasers for other technologies across the use‐of‐force continuum result in operational inconsistency. This inconsistency makes it difficult to compare police departments in terms of the impact of Tasers on improved officer and citizen safety and reductions in the use of lethal force. This inconsistency is also reflected in media reports and has the potential to jeopardize community relations. Key policy issues center on length and content of training, training staff qualifications, and substitutions on the use‐of‐force continuum. Further study of Taser policy development, implementation, and evaluation is necessary to build a substantial and reliable body of knowledge to inform safe and effective police policy. Additional research is needed to evaluate the organizational and community implications of Taser implementation.

Evidence‐based Taser policy development is necessary to maintain the integrity of the technology, protect officer and citizen safety, and encourage the use of less‐than‐lethal force.

This paper calls attention to the dearth of research on Taser use in policing, while discussing the challenge of implementing new weapon technologies into the police arsenal and the need for careful consideration of use‐of‐force substitution practices.

Campus crime and related issues have received considerable attention from the various legislative bodies, the media and social science researchers over the last two decades. Much of the attention has been focused on campus police with regard to their ability to protect the campus community. Civil liability lawsuits against campus police departments and their host institutions are not uncommon today. As campus policing has evolved from a watchman/security orientation to more of a full‐service model, it is incumbent that policies used to guide officers in high liability areas be comprehensive. Having comprehensive policies in the high liability areas may also aid in the defense of civil liability lawsuits. One such high liability area is vehicle pursuits. While the general policing literature has focused considerable attention on this topic, campus police guidelines have not been collected or systematically reviewed. The present study examines the content of the vehicle pursuit policies from 67 of the largest 100 campus police departments, serving communities with high student enrollments and often a substantial number of roadways throughout their boundaries. It is certainly foreseeable that from time to time campus police will become engaged in vehicle pursuits. While pursuits by campus police may be relatively infrequent events, policies governing officer decision making are none the less critical. A profile of these policies is developed for review by practitioners and researchers alike. It is believed to be the first such examination of this important policy area within the context of campus policing.

The current study examines the effect of changing a specific use-of-force policy coupled with de-escalation training implementation on patterns of police use of force.

An interrupted time-series analysis was used to examine changes in police use-of-force incident records gathered from a large, southwestern US metropolitan police department from 2013 to 2017 based on a TASER policy change and de-escalation training implementation mid-2015.

Results demonstrate that changes to use-of-force policy regarding one type of force (i.e. use of TASERs) coinciding with de-escalation training influence the prevalence of use-of-force incidents by increasing the reported police use-of-force incidents after the changes were implemented. This finding is somewhat consistent with prior literature but not always in the desired direction.

When police departments make adjustments to use-of-force policies and/or trainings, unintended consequences may occur. Police administrators should measure policy and training outcomes under an evidence-based policing paradigm prior to making those adjustments.

This study is the first to measure the effects of changing use-of-force policy and implementing de-escalation techniques in training on patterns of police use of force and shows that these changes can have a ripple effect across types of force used by police officers.

During the 1990s, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) instituted a policy of arresting and detaining people for minor offenses that occur in public as part of their quality‐of‐life (QOL) policing initiative. The purpose of this paper is to examine the pros and cons of the current policy and compare it with possible alternatives including: arrest and issuing of a desk appearance ticket (DAT); issuing of a non‐criminal citation (violation); street warnings; and toleration of public marijuana smoking.

The paper reviews several studies of QOL policing and examines the pros and cons of the current NYPD policy, compared to possible alternatives.

The number of NYPD arrests for marijuana in public view (MPV) (with most detained for one or two days) increased from 3,000 in 1994 to over 50,000 in 2000, and have been about 30,000 in the mid‐2000s. Most of these arrestees (84 percent) were minority; Blacks were 2.7 more likely and Hispanics 1.8 times more likely to be detained than Whites for an MPV arrest. Minorities received more severe dispositions, even controlling for demographics and prior arrest histories.

The paper recommends that the NYPD change to routinely issuing DATs to reduce detention for marijuana violators. Drug policy reformers might wish to further pursue changing statutes regarding smoking MPV into a violation (non‐criminal) or encourage the wider use of street warnings, as in Britain. Any of these policy changes would help reduce the number detained and the disproportionate burden on minorities associated with the current arrest and detention policy. These policies could help maintain civic norms against smoking marijuana in public.