NCJ Number
250588
Date Published
January 2016
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This is an overview of a case study of how the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Justice Program's (OJP's) Diagnostic Center provided training and technical assistance (TTA) to the East Haven Police Department (Connecticut) to assist in its efforts to perform constitutional policing, increase community trust, and improve officers' treatment of citizens.
Abstract
The OJP Diagnostic Center worked with the East Haven Police Department (EHPD) to identify promising practices for the implementation of body-worn cameras, to assess EHPD's problem-oriented policing (POP) strategies, and to use data in its decisionmaking. The Diagnostic Center conducted interviews within the community; analyzed local data; drafted a literature review to address EHPD's need for effective implementation of body-worn cameras; and provided the EHPD with promising practices and data-based recommendations. As part of its reform efforts, the EHPD began implementing new measures, such as holding community meetings, using dashboard and body-worn cameras, and using a variety of other methods to improve community-police relations. In these reform efforts, the EHPD addressed the following identified challenges: complex municipal environment, weak organizational culture and past practices, lack of foundational elements to support POP, reactive policing operations and strategies, minimal focus on management systems, and limited data systems and information sharing.