POLICE CONDUCT

From its inception, the foundation has worked to ensure that the nature of force used by police is the minimum amount necessary to properly discharge their responsibilities under the law. In 1977, the foundation conducted a seven-city study of shooting incidents by police. The report of that study noted:

The lack of systematic, centralized data collection in many departments inhibits the rational development of new policies, training programs, and enforcement procedures. A reliable, national-level source of information about police-civilian shooting incidents is necessary so that states, cities, and police departments can review and objectively evaluate their laws, policies, and procedures affecting police use of deadly force.

In the late 1970s, the foundation published a pioneering volume examining police use of deadly force and followed up this effort with further research and a project with the NAACP.

Foundation research on police use of force was cited at length in a landmark 1985 U.S. Supreme court decision, Tennessee v. Garner. The court ruled that the police may use deadly force only against persons whose actions constitute a threat to life.

In 1986, the foundation launched the Police Liability Program to reduce the exposure of local governments to the costs of defending inadequate and wrongful conduct suits stemming from police actions at the operational and administrative levels. The program conducted seminars and workshops for police administrators, legal officers, mayors and city managers, state and county executives, and other government officials.

Law enforcement professionals across the country have benefited from the foundation's research and technical assistance in such areas as domestic violence, the use of deadly force, and relations between police officers and the communities they serve.

Franklin A. Thomas
Former President
The Ford Foundation

Real or perceived use of excessive force by police has contributed to most of the country’s urban riots. While it is clear that the police alone cannot create the social change needed to defuse the potential for civil disorders, there are constructive, effective approaches that the police can employ to prevent them, prepare for them, and contain them if they do occur. Consistent with its history of helping law enforcement acquire the knowledge and tools to improve operational and administrative practices, the foundation established the National Center for the Study of Police and Civil Disorder in 1992.

In 1993, the foundation published the first nationwide survey of law enforcement agencies regarding: (1) the extent to which police use force; (2) the policies and procedures governing the use of force; (3) the rates and dispositions of citizen complaints; (4) the characteristics of officers and citizens involved in those complaints; and (5) civil suits and criminal charges stemming from alleged excessive force. The study, published as a 360-page report, Police Use of Force: Official Reports, Citizen Complaints, and Legal Consequences, provides a baseline for future analyses of these important issues.

In 1997, with funding from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services of the US Department of Justice, the foundation conducted a representative national survey that would reveal the attitudes of police about sensitive questions of police abuse of authority. The survey sought as well to determine whether community policing impacts on police officer attitudes toward abuse of authority and the rule of law. Officers were questioned about their views on the use of force, the "code of silence", the role of extra-legal factors, methods of controlling abuse of authority, the impact of community policing, and the importance of race, rank, and gender. The foundation has published The Abuse of Police Authority: A National Study of Police Officers' Attitudes, the 197-page report of this study.

Recently, amid growing national concern over police practices that disproportionately target minority citizens, the Police Foundation has recommitted its efforts to ensure that tough, effective law enforcement is possible without sacrificing democratic principles and constitutional safeguards.

The foundation has developed two state-of-the art technologies to enable police agencies to systematically collect and analyze a wide range of performance-related data. The RAMS™II (The Risk Analysis Management System™) is an early-warning device that helps agencies manage and minimize risk through intervention before a crisis occurs in order to preserve lives, careers, and community confidence.

To assist agencies in preventing racial profiling, The Quality of Service Indicator™-QSI™-collects and analyzes officer-citizen contacts, including traffic stop data. The QSI™ allows each department to enter its own jurisdictional demographics and to compare performance with agency established standards.

Both The RAMS™II and the QSI™ produce detailed reports to assist police managers in making critical personnel and operational decisions. Racial Profiling: The State of the Law is a summary of legal developments in cities and states around the WORLD


Community Policing

For most of the century, America's urban police departments attempted to maintain social control without sufficiently involving the community...nothing has contributed more to the current trend of community-oriented policing than foundation research.

Patrick V. Murphy
Former Commissioner, NYPD
Police Foundation President, 1973-1985

Community policing is an idea that grew out of foundation research. It was in Kansas City that the foundation learned, in a practical test, that random preventive patrol did not affect the crime rate or citizens’ fear of crime. It was the foundation that was among the first to learn that shortening police response time may have little effect on the chances of a burglar or robber being caught. It was the foundation, working jointly with the police in Houston and Newark, that began to see the advantages of foot patrol and door-to-door surveys as a way of dealing with the public’s fear of crime and disorder. The "broken windows" theory, first advanced in 1982 by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, derived from the Police Foundation’s Newark Foot Patrol study.

Many current and recent foundation research projects are directed at examining community- and problem-oriented policing in several contexts. For information about these projects, go to Research. Please go to Foundation Projects for a historical review of foundation community policing projects.

In order to be effective, the police must develop and sustain community trust and cooperation. Despite advances in community- and problem-oriented policing late in the twentieth century, too many communities remain fearful of the police, a fear exacerbated by highly publicized incidents of police misconduct. The RAMS™II/QSI™ software enhances cooperation between the principal parties responsible for crime control and public safety--the police and the public--by helping to prevent and control problems that erode community confidence in the police.

As a partner in the Community Policing Consortium, along with four other leading national law enforcement organizations, the foundation played a principal role in the development of community policing research, training, and technical assistance.

Increasingly, police agencies are relying upon computer crime mapping to identify and distribute information required by the community, police executives, and patrol officers to achieve a successful community policing partnership. Recognizing the importance of these new technologies, the Police Foundation in 1997 established a state-of-the-art Crime Mapping & Problem Analysis Laboratory.