LEADS Scholar Spotlight - American Society of Evidence-Based Policing

So this is my third year as a LEADS scholar. During the first year, as we were, kind of, understanding what the LEADS program was. It's really developed into a cohort of individuals who have the same mindset of integrating the best practices. Since then, we've been able to form a group that has helped each other integrate research within their own organizations, people who needed support in terms of how to implement, how to understand a randomized control trial, how to get buy-in within their organization.  They could lean on other individuals within LEADS and make sure that it's successfully rolled out and gets bought in at the high levels and also the frontline officers. 

So, one of my researches is with body cameras. We did a randomized control trial for 12 months using patrol shifts as our unit of analysis. And during that, we did it with the University of Cambridge. We saw really great effects in terms of reductions of citizen complaints and use of force and, kind of, paradoxical outcomes with prosecution outcomes with body camera technology. 

NIJ LEADS Program has offered a platform and a network of individuals who are engaged in research from the practitioner level. 

And then also there is a collaboration between universities and those interested in the criminology aspect to provide statistical support and in-depth quantitative analysis. 

So, the LEADS organization and the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing really have the same objective and mission and that is to ensure that best practices are being integrated into the American policing in terms of positive outcomes for the community and also positive outcomes for the police officers who patrol the streets.