The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) of the US Department of Justice supports the implementation of recommendations outlined in the Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing in a number of ways, including through funding and technical assistance. Some of the ways in which the COPS Office is advancing the field are described below:
Supporting Innovation
- The COPS Office will fund several field-initiated projects based on key topics and recommendations outlined in the Task Force report. Through the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing Field-Initiated Projects, the COPS Office is inviting applicants to offer innovative ideas to advance a set of the recommendations of their choosing. Projects could include demonstration sites, promising practices assessments, guidebook development, and training and technical assistance.
- Through COPS MicroGrant Initiative for Law Enforcement, the COPS Office will fund up to ten law enforcement agencies to develop demonstration sites or pilot projects that may focus on implementing specific recommendations in the report (e.g., enhancing partnership development, improving problem-solving activities, or supporting organizational changes).
Convening Stakeholders
- The Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) will be partnering with the COPS Office to host three roundtables of member chiefs to discuss the implementation of selected recommendations from the Task Force report. The discussions will explore experiences and lessons from agencies that may have implemented some of the recommendations, including associated challenges, and the role of senior leaders making the changes called for in the Task Force report. Key ideas from the discussion will be captured and shared with the field through a report on the discussions. The first roundtable will take place in Nashville, Tennessee in June 2015.
- The COPS Office will support additional convenings on topics that advance the implementation of the Task Force’s recommendations through its Community Policing Emerging Issues Forums. Each convening will result in a publication that provides background information on best practices and the state of knowledge on that topic, as well as considerations, recommendations, and guidance to the field as we build consensus for a path forward.
Advancing Reform
- The COPS Collaborative Reform Initiative for Technical Assistance (CRI-TA) is designed to improve trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve by providing a means for organizational transformation through an analysis of policies, practices, training, tactics and accountability methods around specific issues, all of which are strongly linked to the foundational pillars of and recommendations within the Task Force Report. CRI-TA will be expanded to require procedural justice and implicit bias training for all selected sites, and in FY 2015 at least ten sites will be selected to participate in the Collaborative Reform process based on selection criteria consistent with the principles within the Task Force report. The experiences that those agencies go through in transforming their policies, procedures, training, accountability mechanisms and community trust building will serve as a model for the rest of the profession, and will be disseminated through a series of reports that will offer a roadmap for change for agencies interested in replicating those organizational change efforts.
Building Capacity
- The COPS Hiring Program provides funding for the hiring and rehiring of entry-level career law enforcement officers in an effort to create and preserve jobs and increase community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts. In FY 2015, the COPS Office will give additional consideration to applicant agencies selecting the category of “Building Trust,” and those agencies are encouraged to refer to the Task Force report for suggested actions to incorporate into their proposed community policing strategies. CHP is the COPS Office’s largest grant program, and provides funding directly to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to hire and rehire career law enforcement officers in an effort to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts.
Partnering with the Field
- With support from the COPS Office, law enforcement focused organizations including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Major Cities Chiefs, the Police Executive Research Forum, the National Sheriffs’ Association, Major County Sheriffs, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Police Foundation, will develop national-level, industry-wide projects for several of the pillars outlined in the Task Force report. Supported activities will include the creation of positive and meaningful engagement opportunities between law enforcement and youth, identification of best practices for engaging the community in the mutual responsibility of public safety, exploration of the circumstances and causality behind documented line-of-duty injuries, and promotion of officer safety and well-being.