Police reforms: identifying the potential adverse impacts and challenges to law enforcement agencies

Abstract

This thesis examines the issue of police reform and considers whether a causal connection exists between the reforms being implemented by law enforcement agencies and the issue of police disengagement or de-policing. The two most salient reforms, the Final Report of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing and the Police Executive Research Forum's Guiding Principles on the Use of Force, are currently in the process of being adopted and implemented in many law enforcement agencies, which is a process that will take many months if not years to complete. To provide some insight into how these reforms will affect these agencies, three case studies examined police departments currently under federal supervision from either the Department of Justice or the federal court to determine how they impacted officer activity. These studies considered the reform process along with the individual reforms adopted in each agency and examined the levels of officer activity to determine how they were impacted by these reforms. These results were then examined in the context of current research and officer surveys to assist in interpreting the reported declines in officer activity. These findings have possible implications for law enforcement agencies that adopt the reforms in the Final Report and Guiding Principles.