Policing Posts
NYU Policing Project Finds Nashville Traffic Stops Ineffective for Reducing Crime
The Policing Project, in partnership with the Stanford Computational Policy Lab, traveled to Nashville to release our assessment of the use of traffic stops by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) as a crime fighting strategy in the city. Our thorough assessment of using traffic stops to address crime—the first study of its kind in the nation—was presented before the city council and the public.
Project Spotlight: Principles of the Law, Policing
This project is providing guidance to legislative bodies, courts, and policing issues where there is the most need, including where research, technology, and experience are rendering current approaches to policing obsolete.
Californians Will Finally Get Access to Records About Police Misconduct
For decades, California has kept police misconduct records exempt from public records requests, denying citizens (and even prosecutors and defense attorneys in court cases) easy access to information about law enforcement behavior.
What the #MeToo Campaign Teaches About Stop and Frisk
“What the #Metoo Campaign Teaches About Stop and Frisk” applies feminist tools to investigate current policing methods. Feminist tools exposed sexual harassment by listening to the stories of those affected, by a nuanced understanding of power dynamics, and by recognizing that consent is impossible within certain unequal relationships.
The Worrisome Future of Policing Technology
A New York Times op-ed piece discusses the recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Carpenter v. United States, which ruled that the government must now have probable cause and a warrant to access cellphone location records.
The Reliable Application of Fingerprint Evidence
In November 2017, a state appellate court did something almost unprecedented: It held that a trial judge made an error by admitting testimony on latent fingerprinting.
Interrogation Parity
Over the past several years there has been increased focus on the way police are treated by the criminal justice system and their own internal disciplinary mechanisms. Scholars and the media have taken note of special interrogation protections afforded to the police when they become the target of internal or criminal investigation.
California Supreme Court upholds collection of DNA from suspected felons not yet convicted of a crime
The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that authorities are legally entitled to collect DNA from suspected felons when they are booked into local lockups, overturning a lower court ruling that questioned the constitutionality of the practice.
Pushback Against the CLOUD Act
USA Today addresses the privacy concerns raised after Congress passed the CLOUD Act, a bill that would allow police in other countries to have access to emails and other electronic communications more easily from their own citizens as well as Americans.
Cross-Enforcement of the Fourth Amendment
In “Cross-Enforcement of the Fourth Amendment,” forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, Orin S. Kerr of the Southern California Gould School of Law tackles the complexity of identifying who can enforce what law under the Fourth Amendment.