There has been a growing call for reform of the police over the last several years, particularly since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Videos of police violence, harassment, and abuse have been documented numerous times, often in the case of interactions with minorities. Criticism of “how the police police” has been particularly strong in critiques of proactive policing strategies in high crime areas.
Thanks to the recent research of Distinguished Professor David Weisburd, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, there is now substantial evidence that proactive policing can have meaningful effects on crime. In the study, “Reforming the police through procedural justice training: A multi-city randomized trial at crime hot spots,” produced in collaboration with researchers at the National Policing Institute, Arizona State University, and the University of Pennsylvania, Weisburd completed a large multi-city study that challenges the “either-or” view of police reform, nodding to the notion of either defunding the police or increasing policing in crime hot spots. With the support of Arnold Ventures, they implemented a three-city randomized field trial to examine whether the police could be trained to treat citizens with more dignity and respect at those places where police traditionally focus a good deal of proactive efforts. In each city, they identified 40 high crime hot spots that were randomly allocated to either a condition that would receive the attention of specially trained police officers, or a condition that would receive the same level of police attention but where police did not receive special training.
The researchers carefully monitored police officer behavior in both conditions during the nine-month study period. Trained observers rode with police officers, but were unaware of the condition to which the officers were assigned. The procedural justice condition officers were found to be significantly more likely to listen to the public’s side of the story, to show neutrality in these interactions, and were more likely to treat people with dignity and respect. Importantly, given prior studies showing that disrespect is particularly impactful on people who have interactions with the police, the procedural justice-trained officers were significantly less likely to show disrespect. This focus on being procedurally just in the field also impacted the law enforcement behavior of police officers. Though the frequency of arrests varied across the cities, there was a large and significant decline in arrests made by the procedural justice condition officers.
And what of citizen responses? The researchers conducted a survey on each street block before and after the intervention in each of the three cities. They found that residents of the procedural justice condition hotspots were significantly less likely to see police on their street as using unnecessary violence or harassing residents.
The findings, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provide strong evidence that police reform efforts can be successful and that such reform will not harm police deterrence. Contrary to much rhetoric about police reform, they suggest we can train police to treat people with greater dignity and respect, and by doing this we will not sacrifice police effectiveness in addressing crime. Indeed, the findings suggest that the goals of reform can reinforce, rather than challenge, crime control gains.
"The release of this research comes at an extremely pertinent time when many across the country are taking a closer look at police training," said Ann Ardis, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. "Professor Weisburd’s work in partnership with the National Policing Institute and Arnold Ventures adds high-value scientific evidence to the national conversation around policing."