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Police-Community Relations

Community Health and Well-Being
essay
How Pittsburgh Is Addressing Social and Economic Disparities
Jul 2, 2019
Pittsburgh has been taking a hard look at race, wealth, and opportunity. In partnership with RAND, the city has run and published its numbers on subjects ranging from police contacts to business ownership to graduation rates as part of a commitment to do better.
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Crime and Violence Prevention
article
Helping Police Find Better Strategies to Fight Crime
Dec 14, 2018
Which police interventions work best in certain situations, and which don't? A new RAND resource helps police choose the best strategies—and put them to work.
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
Body Cameras: Can Police Have Too Much Discretion?
Alex Sutherland
Mar 6, 2017
Policing Insight
Research on body cameras has shown mixed results. Complaints against police officers dropped when cameras were used, but rates of assault against them during arrests were higher. How much discretion the officers used in turning cameras on and off was also a factor.
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
How Police Body Cameras Can Improve Behavior, Ease Tension
Alex Sutherland, Barak Ariel
Nov 2, 2016
San Diego Union-Tribune
Body cameras alone can't solve America's problems with policing. But used properly, they can help address mistrust between communities and police.
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
Police Body-Worn Cameras: More to It Than What You See
Alex Sutherland
Oct 11, 2016
Policing Insight
Billions of dollars are spent worldwide on the rollout of police body cameras. There is an urgent need to understand whether the cameras help police and the public, and under what conditions they work best.
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United States
essay
Election 2016: The Domestic Issues
Oct 3, 2016
RAND offers a unique take on the big domestic issues facing America: research that is independent, reliable, and rigorously nonpartisan.
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Counterterrorism
commentary
A Symbolic Purging of the NYPD Radicalization Report
Brian Michael Jenkins @BrianMJenkins, Richard Daddario
Jan 26, 2016
The Hill
The NYPD's purging of its 2007 report on radicalization may give some satisfaction by symbolically breaking the connection between the current mayoral administration and the NYPD's previous intelligence and investigative efforts. But its significance seems questionable.
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Police-Community Relations
blog
Examining Police, Community Relations
May 8, 2015
The “Strengthening Police-Community Trust” panel held Wednesday at RAND's Pittsburgh offices felt ripped from the headlines, and from the outset the discussion was focused on what the moderator called “the intersection between the community and the police.”
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Performance Measurement
commentary
When It Comes to Police-Community Relations, 'Expect What You Inspect'
Jessica Saunders, Laura Patton
Mar 17, 2015
The RAND Blog
As the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing report suggests, local governments should evaluate police on more than crime statistics, and police departments and officers should be held publicly accountable for meeting the community's expectations. Adding new dimensions of performance metrics would help.
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
To Serve and Collect? Police Department Funding, Effectiveness, and Legitimacy
Brian A. Jackson
Mar 16, 2015
Newsweek
Like so many issues in public policy, one of the factors shaping the complex policing challenges facing America—and a potential lever to help address them—is simple and unsurprising. That factor is money.
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
Want Better Policing? Bring on the Horses
Chris Giacomantonio, Ben Bradford
Mar 10, 2015
Newsweek
Neighbourhood patrols by mounted police in the UK are associated with comparatively higher levels of public trust and confidence than patrols by police on foot. Members of the public engage with mounted police over six times as much as they engage with police on foot.
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
Progress After Ferguson? Good Ideas Need Good Implementation
Nelson Lim, Greg Ridgeway
Mar 9, 2015
The RAND Blog
President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing has done a great service by providing dozens of sound recommendations—good ideas that could help avoid another Ferguson. Now we need good implementation to go along with them.
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Crime and Violence Prevention
commentary
What Research Says About Profiling
Michael D. Rich @michaeldrich
Dec 18, 2014
The RAND Blog
When police take action on the basis of race, creed, or ethnicity it is corrosive, unfair, ineffective, and can stoke the flames of police-community tension. But as we have found from a variety of assessments, law enforcement is best served when it bases its activities on risk, not on personal characteristics.
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
Can Big Data Help Build Trust in the Police?
Nelson Lim
Dec 11, 2014
Newsweek
After two controversial grand jury decisions not to indict police in the deaths of unarmed African Americans, a White House task force has 90 days to provide recommendations for promoting accountability among law enforcement agencies to cultivate trust between police and communities. The timeline may seem impossible, but, sadly, these issues are old and the solutions are well known.
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
In Ferguson's Wake, How a Data-Driven Approach Can Improve Police-Community Relations
Keith Henry
Sep 16, 2014
The RAND Blog
Community leaders and police departments have a responsibility to their citizens to address questions about their policing practices, such as: What are the most significant areas of concern? How severe are the problems? What are the most effective solutions?
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
Data Key to Tackling Racial Profiling in Ferguson
K. Jack Riley @K_Jack_Riley
Aug 21, 2014
Cincinnati Enquire
Authorities in Ferguson would be wise to consider following Cincinnati's example in dealing with mistrust between police and citizens after the police shooting of a young black man. The city embarked on a thorough examination of racial profiling by its police force and took steps to deal with the perception that bias was influencing the way police officers performed their duties.
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Crime and Violence Prevention
commentary
Predictive Policing: An Effective Tool, but Not a Crystal Ball
Walter L. Perry, John S. Hollywood
Nov 15, 2013
Government Technology
Predictive policing is not an end-all solution, but rather a tool that must be used in concert with other policing resources as part of a broader anti-crime effort. Used properly, predictive policing can predict the risk of future events, but not the events themselves.
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Police-Community Relations
commentary
Police Need to Do a Better Job of Explaining Stop-and-Frisk
K. Jack Riley @K_Jack_Riley, Greg Ridgeway
Dec 6, 2007
New York Daily News
Good relations between the police and the public are a cornerstone of civil society. Everyday interactions between cops and citizens are at the heart of what defines those relations, write Jack Riley and Greg Ridgeway.
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