The Police Foundation is a private, non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting innovation and improvement in policing through its research, technical assistance, training, and communications programs. Established in 1970 through a grant from the Ford Foundation, the Police Foundation has conducted seminal research in police behavior, policy, and procedure and works to transfer to local agencies the best new information about practices for dealing effectively with a range of important police operational and administrative concerns.
One of the guiding principles of the Police Foundation is that thorough, unbiased, empirical research is necessary to objectively advance and improve the field of policing. Furthermore, the connection to the law enforcement and academic/ scientific communities will provide the impetus for new ideas that will help stimulate the field and provide solutions to the complex problems facing policing entities.
Unconstrained by partisan imperatives, the Police Foundation speaks with a unique and objective voice. Its focus and perspective represent the whole of American policing, rather than any single facet. Motivating all of the foundation’s efforts is the goal of efficient, effective, humane policing that operates within the framework of democratic principles and standards, such as openness, impartiality, freedom, responsibility, and accountability.
The Police Foundation has established and refined the capacity to define, design, conduct, and evaluate controlled experiments that examine ways to improve the delivery of police services. Sometimes, foundation research findings have challenged police traditions and beliefs. Although police agencies employed routine preventive patrol as a principal anticrime strategy, a foundation experiment in Kansas City showed that routine patrol in marked patrol cars did not significantly affect crime rates. And although police officials expressed reservations about using women on patrol, foundation research in Washington, D.C., showed that gender was not a barrier to performing patrol work. Foundation research on the use of deadly force was cited at length in a landmark 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Tennessee v. Garner. The Court ruled that the police may use deadly force only against persons whose actions constitute a threat to life.
The Police Foundation has done much of the research that led to a questioning of the traditional model of professional law enforcement and toward a new view of policing—one emphasizing a community orientation—that is widely embraced today. For example, research on foot patrol and on fear of crime demonstrated the importance to crime control efforts of frequent police-citizen contacts made in a positive, nonthreatening way.
As a partner in the Community Policing Consortium, the Police Foundation, along with four other leading national law enforcement organizations, plays a principal role in the development of community policing research, training, and technical assistance.
The Police Foundation’s Crime Mapping and Problem Analysis Laboratory works to advance the application and understanding of geographic information systems (GISs) in conjunction with crime mapping and analysis techniques and principles; to support problem analysis in policing; to promote innovative projects and practical examples through a national newsletter; and to conduct pivotal research that involves examining the geographic dimensions of crime.
Since its inception in 1997, the laboratory has provided introductory and advanced training in crime mapping and analysis and problem analysis to a host of analysts from across the country and relevant resources including publications and documents created to assist analysts in their daily work. The following are some of the publications that have been developed:
Introductory Guide to Crime Analysis and Mapping Guidelines to Implement and Evaluate
Crime Analysis and Mapping Manual of Crime Analysis Map
Production Users’ Guide to Mapping Software for
Police Agencies Problem Analysis in Policing.
In addition, the Laboratory’s Crime Mapping News, a quarterly newsletter, allows analysts to showcase and inform other analysts, academics, and criminal justice practitioners throughout the United States and abroad about innovative applications of crime mapping and analysis used to address crime and disorder problems. Topics in the newsletter have ranged from serial crime detection and privacy issues in the presentation of geocoded data to mapping prisoner reentry and gang mapping.
The Police Foundation has completed significant work in the areas of accountability and ethics, performance, abuse of authority, use of force, domestic violence, community-oriented policing, organizational culture, racial profiling, civil disorders, problem analysis, and risk management. Seminal research includes the following (chronologically):
• Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment (Kelling et al. 1975)
• Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment (Sherman and Berk 1984)
• Newark and Houston fear reduction studies (1985)
• Shoplifting experiment (Williams, Forst, and Hamilton 1987)
• Women in policing status report (Martin 1990)
• Big Six Report, on Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia (Pate and Hamilton 1991)
• Los Angeles civil disorder report (Webster and Williams 1992)
• Metro-Dade Spouse Abuse Replication Project (Pate, Hamilton, and Annan 1992)
• National study of Police Use of Force (Pate, Fridell, and Hamilton 1993)
• National Community Policing Strategies survey (Wycoff 1994)
• Oregon State Police ethics assessment project (Amendola 1996)
• National survey on gun ownership (Cook and Ludwig 1997)
• National Survey of Abuse of Authority (Weisburd et al. 2001)
• Ideas in American Policing series (Bayley 1998; Sherman 1998; Mas-trofski 1999; Skolnick 1999; Foster 2001; Maguire 2004; and Klinger 2005)
• Problem Analysis in Policing project (Boba 2003)
• Growth of COMPSTAT in American Policing (Weisburd et al. 2004)
• Richmond’s SecondResponders: Partnering with Police Against Domestic Violence (2005)
The foundation has also developed two state-of-the-art technologies to enable police agencies to systematically collect and analyze performance-related data. The RAMS II (Risk Analysis Management software) is an early warning device that helps manage and minimize risk. The QSI (Quality Service Indicator) collects and analyzes officer-citizen contacts, including traffic stop data. Together, these two technologies allow police departments to enhance accountability, maintain quality service, ensure public confidence, and safeguard the careers of their officers. The Police Foundation is headed by a board of directors made up of highly distinguished leaders and scholars from public service, education, and private industry and is directed by its appointed president.
