Since its founding in 1970, the Police Foundation has conducted seminal research in police behavior, policy, and procedure. The foundation has established and refined the capacity to define, design, conduct, and evaluate controlled experiments testing ways to improve the delivery of police services

More recently, the foundation has developed research projects on some of the most important issues facing the police and the community, and is conducting national and local studies of some of the most innovative programs and cutting edge technologies in policing today

For a complete list of projects, project descriptions, and funding sources, please see Current Projects and Recent Projects. Please click here to learn more about Research Staff.

In addition to ongoing research and numerous projects in development, we believe that the Police Foundation can provide a forum for bringing together practitioners, researchers, and scholars to present ideas and research, both to advance current knowledge and to provide a stimulating environment in which to work and develop.

Some of America’s leading policing scholars have presented lectures and authored papers in our Ideas in American Policing series.

Our efforts to explore and develop ideas for innovative and essential projects are greatly enhanced by a research advisory committee chaired by Professor David Weisburd of Hebrew University Law School and the University of Maryland. The Honorable Laurie O. Robinson, a member of the foundation’s board and former assistant attorney general of the United States, is an advisory committee member, as are Professor Geoffrey P. Alpert, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of South Carolina; Professor Candace Kruttschnitt, Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota; and Dr. Cynthia Lum, Assistant Professor, Administration of Justice Program, George Mason University.

In order to ensure that we protect the safety of the human subjects in all our research, to advance the discussion of the issues, and to set exemplary standards for policing research, the Police Foundation Institutional Review Board was established.

In keeping with the 36-year research tradition of the Police Foundation, its research program is motivated by the goal of efficient, effective, humane policing that operates within the framework of democratic principles and the highest ideals of the nation.