Council on Criminal Justice. Task Force on Policing: Policy Assessments

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"In partnership with the Crime Lab at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, the Task Force is conducting more than two dozen assessments of proposed policing reforms. Each policy assessment provides an overview of the state and extent of the evidence on each topic and the expected impact of each reform on public safety, misuse of force, police-community relations, racial disparities, and officer safety.

Task Force members are examining measures focused on preventing excessive use of force, reducing racial biases, increasing accountability, and improving the relationship between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve."

Defunding the Police: Does Europe Offer Lessons for the U.S.?

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"Calls to 'defund the police' have grown in the United States since the May 25 death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in police custody.

President Donald Trump has dismissed the movements as radical. But advocates say scaling back the remit of the police and bolstering other services is viable."

The "Chicago Model" of Policing Hasn't Saved Chicago. Why is Everyone Else Copying It?
"Just a few months ago, the Chicago police department was regarded as America’s laboratory of police science.

As the country’s most violent big city struggled to contain an epidemic of deadly shootings, the police force opened itself up to top criminologists, law professors and sociologists. Theories drawn up at Harvard and other bastions of elite thought were being taught to, and in some instances practiced by, the nation’s second biggest police agency. Superintendent Garry McCarthy, Chicago’s top cop at the time, preached a gospel of reducing crime by fostering healthy relationships between police and the communities they serve—especially black communities. The police would be transformed, as the reformers put it, from 'warriors' to 'guardians.'

At a time of heated debate over the conduct of America’s cops, this line of thinking proved especially appealing. Policymakers nationwide were intrigued by Chicago’s alliance of academics and law enforcement, and the 'Chicago model' of policing strategies influenced departments from Oakland, Calif., to New York City. The Justice Department is spending millions of dollars promoting ideas hatched in the Chicago workshop. A policing task force formed by President Obama after the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., recommended that cities adopt some of Chicago’s strategies. Think tanks at Yale, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and UCLA are touting its innovations.

But days after Thanksgiving, Chicago’s reform engine stalled. Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired McCarthy, calling him a “distraction,” after protests erupted over the delayed release of a police video that showed a white officer firing 16 bullets into a black teenager, Laquan McDonald. An array of academic theories and programs nurtured by McCarthy are now in limbo."

Ferguson and the Feds have an Agreement on Policing Reform. Here's Why it Might not Work
"A year and a half after massive protests in Ferguson, Missouri, reacting to the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown, Ferguson on Tuesday approved an agreement with the federal government to reform the city's police department and court system.

The agreement comes after Brown's death led to massive protests in Ferguson, helping give rise to the Black Lives Matter movement and its protests against racial disparities in the criminal justice system and police use of force. 

Justice Department and Ferguson negotiators tentatively agreed to policing reforms in January.  But the agreement stalled lathe Ferguson City Council raised concerns about costs.  But the Justice Department threatened a lawsuit, and told Ferguson officials that their cost concerns were inflated, pushing city officials to finally accept the agreement."