Law enforcement executives from several local agencies gathered to learn about tactics, model policies, and best practices for roadway safety.    

The National Police Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR), recently held the first training session as part of the newly launched National Law Enforcement Roadway Safety Program (NLERSP), one of three programs launched under BJA’s National Officer Safety Initiatives (NOSI).

The NLERSP provides a suite of no-cost training, technical assistance, and resources to local, state, and tribal law enforcement agencies with the goal of reducing the number of officers seriously injured and killed on the nation’s roadways.

The NLERSP offers in-person, interactive courses for executives, patrol officers, and trainers that teach attendees about the risk factors for officer-involved collisions and struck-by incidents and identify a variety of interventions and technological innovations that can reduce the likelihood of their occurrence. The evidence-based courses—developed by a national working group of subject matter experts from law enforcement, government, and academia—draw heavily from the success of the Las Vegas Police Department’s comprehensive crash prevention program, as well as widely-recognized traffic incident management (TIM) principles, to provide attendees with actionable steps, skills, and resources to improve officer safety on the roadways.

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Persistent lack of community-based mental health resources available to people in crisis has resulted in frequent need for police intervention. Law enforcement agencies across the country are turning to Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) and other specialized police response models that focus on cross-sector collaboration between law enforcement, mental health agencies, and advocates. While these efforts have proliferated and show promise in meeting goals, they are largely typical of medium and large departments. However, the vast majority of police agencies are small and may not have the resources to fund CIT training, may not have mental health resources close at hand, nor receive the numbers of calls involving persons with mental illness or substance abuse issues to justify expensive programs.

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Dr. Cynthia Lum, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University and National Police Foundation Board Member, provides an overview of current research findings on police body-worn cameras.

The National Police Foundation (NPF) recently hosted a one-day conference: “Police Body Cameras: What Have We Learned Over 10 Years of Deployment?” The purpose of the conference was to share police body-worn camera research findings with practitioners, as well as to hear directly from practitioners whose agencies have deployed the technology and what challenges and opportunities body cameras bring to their agencies and communities.

The conference featured several presentations from researchers, including a presentation by Dr. Cynthia Lum, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University, on an overview of current police body camera literature and findings. In addition, Sean Goodison, Police Executive Research Forum, Daniel Lawrence, Urban Institute, and Kalani Johnson, National Police Foundation, presented on findings from three recent Arnold Ventures studies that have examined how body cameras affect citizen satisfaction with police encounters and implications for law enforcement. David Makin, Washington State University, also presented on whether BWCs capture a true picture of events, providing an overview of research synthesized by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics lab, which has shown that different people view body camera recordings in idiosyncratic ways and that reliance on video recordings may not provide a full or accurate presentation of an event.

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As 2019 comes to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on the impact we’ve had throughout the year and contemplating what more we can accomplish in the new year. This year, we were honored to see several of the National Police Foundation’s historic policing experiments highlighted in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know.

In the book, Gladwell describes our efforts to engage with strangers in various contexts in society. As he puts it, “In all of these cases, the parties involved relied on a set of strategies to translate one another’s word and intentions. And, in each case something went very wrong.” Gladwell uses case studies to examine the strategies that motivated or guided each interaction and questions their origins and effectiveness.

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The new national headquarters for the Foundation sits between the newly announced Amazon headquarters and the also recently announced innovation campus of Virginia Tech, in Crystal City, Virginia.

The Foundation’s new state-of-the-art training and conference center (located onsite) showcases quotes from policing leaders and historic figures such as Lee Brown, Sir Robert Peel, Larry Sherman, and William J. Bratton. The quotes are designed to promote community engagement and a renewed focus on evidence-based policing.

“Of all the ideas in policing, one stands out as the most powerful force for change: police practices should be based on scientific evidence about what works best.” — Professor Lawrence W. Sherman

“The police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain public respect.” — The Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel

“The reality is that there is a divide between the police and some people in communities that need us most, but that divide can be bridged—the reality is that the people and the police can be partners.” — Commissioner William J. Bratton

The Foundation looks forward to hosting its partners and colleagues in 2020 at its new headquarters.

Crime Gun Intelligence Centers (CGIC) are an interagency collaboration focused on the immediate collection, management, and analysis of crime gun evidence, such as cartridge casings, in real time, to identify shooters, disrupt criminal activity, and to prevent future violence. CGICs rely on an ongoing collaboration between the ATF, local police department, crime laboratory, probation and parole, prosecuting attorneys, U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO), crime analysts, community groups, and academic organizations.

In Los Angeles, CA the post-CGIC period demonstrated a decrease of 18.9% in homicides, a 7.7% decrease in firearm-related homicides, and the firearm related robbery rate decreased by 3.1%. Uchida, C., Quigley, A., Anderson, K. Evaluating the Los Angeles Crime Gun Intelligence Center (2019) (Photo by: National Police Foundation)

Through its National Resource and Technical Assistance Center (NRTAC) for Improving Law Enforcement Investigations, the National Police Foundation (NPF) is providing training and technical assistance to jurisdictions participating in the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Local Crime Gun Intelligence Center Initiative. These sites promote interagency collaboration focused on the immediate collection, management, and analysis of crime gun evidence across local, state, and federal partners. The primary outcome of CGIC sites is the identification of armed violent offenders for investigation and prosecution. Other outcomes include: identifying crime gun source, efficiently allocating resources, providing decision-makers with the most accurate crime data available, increasing case closure rates, advancing public safety, and preventing gun crime.

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The National Police Foundation, with funding from the Motorola Solutions Foundation, is developing a professional leadership development specialized training program for public safety leaders. The curriculum will be grounded in the lessons learned and best practices identified through rigorous after-action studies of mass violence incidents and responses to them. Focus areas will include tactical and command lessons learned at major incidents, threat assessment, mental health and resilience of responders, and best and next practices in preparation for, response to, and recovery from mass casualty attacks. The training will be piloted in the Summer of 2020.