The Center for Policing Equity’s (CPE’s) North Star is protecting, empowering, and supporting vulnerable communities—particularly Black and Brown communities—to redesign their public safety systems. CPE provides decision-makers with data, stories, and relationships to facilitate change that’s bold, innovative, and lasting. We do science to promote justice.
WHAT WE STAND FOR
Our work is powered by science. We gather and analyze data on behaviors within public safety systems and use those data to help communities achieve safer policing outcomes. Our goal is to make policing less racist, less deadly, and less omnipresent. We believe we can drive meaningful change by ensuring communities and law enforcement have the evidence-based resources they need to redesign public safety, build community trust, and achieve racial equity.
Unlocking Democracy is a community empowerment program and the central hub for CPE’s community-centered resources, initiatives, and interactive working groups. This program is designed to empower stakeholders seeking to build more equitable public safety systems.
This work is conducted through collaborative partnerships with values-aligned organizations and government officials that share CPE’s goal to uplift the efforts of Black and other historically marginalized communities in confronting racial disparities in policing.
Unlocking Democracy is a suite of community-centered resources rooted in the understanding that government should be of, by, and for the people as it rests on a foundation of shared responsibility, mutual trust, and bedrock safety. The program includes various learning communities, adaptive community resource hubs, and more.
LEARNING COMMUNITIES
Communities are already exploring ways to redesign public safety, however, much of the dialogue, policy, and practice around these models is fairly new. In response, CPE and The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center are hosting a joint series of Learning Communities for Policing Alternatives.
These virtual learning communities assist interdisciplinary teams seeking to implement, sustain, and evaluate policing alternatives, including College Campus Community Response, Community Response & Crisis Systems, Community Violence Intervention, and Youth Behavioral Diversion.
We also work closely with policymakers to propel federal and state legislation:
- Supported and provided language for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act sponsored by Karen Bass. The Act increases accountability for law enforcement and establishes the National Police Misconduct Registry to compile data on police misconduct
- Endorsed Anti-racism in Public Health legislation introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA-D), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (MA-D), and Rep. Barbara Lee (CA-D)
- Supported the End Racial and Religious Profiling (ERPA) legislation introduced by Senator Benjamin Cardin (MD-D)
- Supported New York state legislation introduced to curb racial profiling through state collection and analysis of stop data
- Provided technical assistance and input for Missouri state legislation introduced to highlight best practices in key states for collection and analysis of stop data at the state level
- Supported Berkeley City Councilmember Ben Bartlett’s “Safety for All: George Floyd Community Safety Act,” a measure requiring the collection and analysis of use of force and stop data
- Advised Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf about a bill he ratified in July 2020 that:
- Requires LEAs to conduct background checks for job applicants and requires that agencies disclose officer’s employment history, including disciplinary action, complaints, and reason for separation;
- Mandates that LEAs provide reason and rationale before hiring an individual whose separation record includes excessive force, harassment, theft, discrimination, sexual abuse or misconduct, domestic violence, coercion of a false confession, filing a false report, or a judicial finding of dishonesty; and
- Establishes that Municipal Police Officers’ Training and Education Training Commission (MPOTEC) maintains an electronic database containing separation records of law enforcement
