American Policing
I have spent a great deal of my career--at least since 2005--working to improve American policing. My early efforts were largely tactical and incremental. Over time, I have advocated for more foundational changes. The following articles outline some of my best thinking--done in collaboration with others who have helped me think at larger scales with broader impacts. In all cases, policing is contextual and cannot be "fixed" in a vacuum. It is part of a much larger whole...
This 2012 article, co-authored with Sara McClellan, was based on an earlier piece titled “Raising the Bar for Law Enforcement: The Promises and Pitfalls of Professionalization” presented at the American Society for Public Administration conference in San Jose, California, April 9-13, 2010.
| Communicating Law Enforcement Professionalization: Social Construction of Standards |
This 2013 article, co-authored with Aaron Conley, builds on the social construction concepts Sara and I advanced and directly speaks to the shortfalls of policing. It is supportive of standards and norms, but calls for locally-situated accountability for police.
| Ethics, Enforcement, and the Prospect of Professionalism |
This 2019 article, co-authored with Sara McClellan, is one of our latest efforts to highlight the importance of police connectedness with the community. It is a practical piece supported by original research that outlines actionable opportunities for police to engage with community members to establish work plans and goals.
| Police Community Planning |
This 2022 article, co-authored with Sara McClellan and her graduate student, Nicole Cuellar, speaks to issues of equity and race in policing. We briefly identify many of the barriers to trust, equity, and racial justice, and then point to evidence-based strategies to address those barriers.
| Pro-Equity Policing in the 21st Century |
Police Vehicle Operations Reform
The 2015 article below addresses a specific, long term challenge for police--officer-involved traffic fatalities. It outlines historical aspects of the issue and then frames the challenge through different lenses to reveal a variety of ways of conceptualizing and addressing the problem. It then offers solutions, anticipated challenges, and means to mitigate those challenges. It is a useful model for thinking about other policing challenges.
| Then & Now: Trends in Fatal Law Enforcement Traffic Collisions |