The National Police Research Platform: Phase 3

As submitted by the proposer: Since its creation in 2008, the National Police Research Platform has developed and implemented surveys to gather and analyze information regarding police department demographics, administration, operations, and police-community interactions. In addition to developing and implementing the surveys, the Platform recruited approximately 100 police departments to participate during Phases 1 & 2 of the Platform. In May 2015, the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing acknowledged the Platform’s police-community interaction survey and offered it as a potential model for developing and implementing standardized national surveys to measure police-community relations. Despite acknowledgement by the President’s Task Force and strong support from participating police departments, the National Police Research Platform is not widely known to, or used by, police agencies, policy makers, or researchers, nor has it been developed to its full capacity. The Police Foundation proposes to operationalize the National Police Research Platform by institutionalizing the Platform within the law enforcement community, and translating and sharing the knowledge gained through the Platform with law enforcement agencies, policy makers, researchers, and the public. During Phase 3, the Police Foundation will utilize and expand the National Police Research Platform’s capacity to: 1- Provide informative survey data to participating law enforcement agency leaders in a timely manner; 2- Analyze and publish relevant aggregate law enforcement agency data for the entire field and the nation as a whole; 3- Benchmark national trends; 4- Expand the number of participating police agencies and engaged policy makers and researchers; 5- Identify and develop new tools, topics, and innovative practices that will demonstrate the impact that the Platform can have on police management, operations, and service delivery. The Police Foundation will work with currently participating law enforcement agencies, the national law enforcement community, and national policy and research partners to institutionalize the Platform. We will draw on the expertise of our Executive Fellows and subject matter experts (SMEs), as well as partner organizations, to identify what is working, what is not working, and how to improve the Platform. The Police Foundation will also explore leveraging related projects to identify complimentary efforts to produce new survey instruments and comprehensive analyses, identify lessons learned, and share the knowledge gained through these projects with the law enforcement, policy, and research communities. nca/ncf