Beyond Confrontation: Community-Centered Policing Tools

Posted by PolicyLink on October 27, 2014

PolicyLink and Advancement Project are collaborating on a series of briefs focusing on improving the relationships between police and communities of color across the country by lifting up effective innovations already underway in different police departments and communities.

The series, Beyond Confrontation: Community-Centered Policing Tools, builds on Community-Centered Policing: A Force for Change published by PolicyLink and Advancement Project in 2001.

http://www.policylink.org/equity-tools/beyond-confrontation-community-centered-policing-tools

The first brief in the new series, Limiting Police Use of Force: Promising Community-Centered Strategies, explores steps for reducing the use of excessive or unnecessary force. A foreword to the series outlines seven principles that can be used as guidelines in efforts to create safe, trusting, and healthy communities.

The tragic killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the excessive police response to subsequent community protests are a glaring reminder that there is still much work to be done to change how police engage with the communities they are sworn to protect. We hope organizers, community leaders, and advocates will use these principles and in-depth information in the briefs — which reveal positive practices that are already underway around the country — to push mayors and police departments to change their policies and practices to advance community-centered policing.

With partner organizations — such as SEIU, Gamaliel, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and PICO National Network — across the nation, we will continue to advocate for community-centered policing. We hope you will join this collaborative effort and share these briefs and the principles widely. Collectively, we can push for and advance greater trust and respect between communities and their police force — a critical step towards ensuring that not one more person of color is tragically killed by police.