Police union contracts and reform

This article predicts that reformers will soon start targeting police union contracts, noting that “Over multiple rounds of negotiations, the number of job protections has slowly ratcheted up in many contracts as unions representing police pushed for rules that protect their members.” Houston and Chicago are currently in negotiations, with Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Memphis, Phoenix, and San Francisco coming up this summer. Topics recommended for reconsideration include grievance procedures, arbitration, misconduct reporting, internal investigation protocols, and record keeping.

Non-police and co-response models

Interest in non-police and co-response models to calls involving behavioral health and behavioral crisis continues to be strong. Here’s a nice new video highlighting some of the options currently being used in several jurisdictions.

Crime trends around the U.S.

This PERF post reports crime rates for 30 U.S. jurisdictions for the 28-day period ending April 12, compared to the same period in 2019. Both personal and property crime were generally down during the early stages of the pandemic, but some jurisdictions have seen increases in specific crime types. Nashville saw the biggest increase in homicide, Denver the biggest across all violent crime, and Seattle had an uptick in burglaries. Nearly all agencies reported decreases in calls for service and arrests.

Threatening to commit mass shootings

This article reports over 40 people arrested around the country over the last month for threatening to commit mass shootings or bombings, most after tips from the public. Common themes included right-wing ideology and threats against schools, Walmarts, and Planned Parenthood. The nature of the cases ranged from “vague social media threats from juveniles that set parents on edge to well-developed plots from people who had access to weapons and appeared to authorities to have been planning a mass murder.”

Traffic stops, crashes, and crime

A recent analysis of traffic stop data in Nashville found an especially high level of traffic enforcement — as of 2017, the per-capita stop rate was nearly 4 times higher than for similar-sized cities, even after a substantial drop since 2012. Also, about half of all stops were for non-moving violations, which contributed to disproportionate impact. Analysis showed no effect on crime of the 40% decrease in stops from 2012 to 2017, but traffic crashes increased about 60%. The findings call into question whether intensive traffic enforcement is an effective approach to crime reduction, but also serve as a reminder that road safety is another outcome to be considered in regard to “what works” in policing.

Improving recruiting

This new report presents results from projects in 21 different jurisdictions aimed at identifying police recruiting messages and processes that produce more applicants and more people following through in the hiring process. The Behavioral Insights Team helped evaluate various alternatives to determine which ones worked better than others. One finding was that “Even small changes in how jobs are advertised can make a real difference to both the total number of applicants and the diversity of those applicants.”

50 extremism-related murders in 2018

There were at least 50 U.S. murders linked to extremism in 2018, making it the 4th deadliest year for domestic terrorism since 1970, and all the perpetrators “had ties to at least one right-wing extremist movement,” according to this article. Firearms caused 42 of the deaths, and just 5 shooting sprees accounted for 38 of the murders. The Anti-Defamation League reports that, over the last 10 years, “73.3 percent of all extremist-related fatalities can be linked to domestic right-wing extremists, while 23.4 percent can be attributed to Islamic extremists.”

Reducing car-bicycle crashes

This article reports early results from a NHTSA traffic safety initiative in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The city has adopted a 5-foot rule for cars passing bicycles, has 83% compliance according to radar devices attached to bikes, and has had a 30% decrease in collisions. The main emphasis is on educating drivers — police have made 146 stops but issued only 3 citations. Knoxville, Tennessee is currently doing a similar study using a 3-foot rule.

Firearm homicides & suicides in metro areas

This CDC report looks at firearm homicides and suicides in 2015-2016 in the 50 largest metropolitan areas. New Orleans had the highest homicide rate by firearm, Providence the lowest. Oklahoma City had the highest firearm suicide rate, New York the lowest. Combining the two (homicides and suicides), Boston had the lowest rate of firearm deaths while New Orleans had the highest, followed by Birmingham and Memphis. An unusual case was Salt Lake City, which had the 6th lowest homicide rate, but the 2nd highest suicide rate.

Not a police matter

Police have been called recently to deal with a black guy wearing socks at a private pool (in Memphis), an 11-year-old black kid on his first day delivering newspapers (in Cincinnati), a 12-year-old black kid mowing a lawn who accidentally crossed into a neighbor’s yard (outside Cleveland), and a 9-year-old black girl selling water outside her apartment building (in San Francisco). This article discusses what police should do, including having call takers ask more specific questions and routing such calls through supervisors before assigning them to patrol officers.