The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/tag/policing/)
The cost of police misconduct is increasingly sending cities around the country into debt, generating a burden for taxpayers but profits for investors–and effectively leading to a “financialization of police violence,” according to one advocacy group.
Training cops to avoid excessive use-of-force is only part of the challenge. The hardest part is learning a different mindset about policing—in the face of society expectations and peer pressure, experts and senior officers tell TCR.
A new, automated DNA testing tool, which speeds up the time it takes to analyze crime scene samples, is welcomed by law enforcement and supported by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The ACLU says it’s equivalent to a “nuclear bomb” aimed at privacy rights—and is unnecessary.
An estimated 10,000 pet dogs are shot by police officers in the line of duty each year. While officers usually explain the shooting of a pet as ‘self-defense,’ a California law professor argues that there is no requirement of public accountability to test their claims.
A chief of police is one of the nation’s toughest jobs today. Choosing the right one may be even tougher. As Los Angeles scouts a replacement for Charlie Beck, other cities might pick up some pointers.
The reflex reaction to cops caught lying on the witness stand is punishment. But if we really want to curb “testilying,” we need to look deeper at the systemic factors that make the practice all too common, says a Boston attorney.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is now recognized as a serious and sometimes deadly risk for police officers. But experts say law enforcement managers still have a long way to go in addressing the problem.
The office of sheriff is “anachronistic,” unaccountable to the public, and should be replaced with a more professional county police department, says a new study published in the Virginia Law Review.
Two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters uncovered the trail of a serial rapist and two very different police investigations. TCR talks with one of the journalists who followed the story.
Some police chiefs have worried about a decline in crime reporting. In some at-risk neighborhoods and in some situations, it’s not hard to understand why cops aren’t called when an emergency happens, argues a TCR columnist.