Glenn College Researchers Aid Kentucky Police Department
A National Institute of Justice grant will support the work to implement evidence-based strategies for reform at the Louisville Metro Police Department. (Image used under license from Chad Robertson, stock.adobe.com)
In partnership with the Louisville (Kentucky) Metro Police Department, a team at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs has been awarded a grant from the National Institute of Justice to embed researchers and experts into the department to assist with and study their reform efforts and share their successes and challenges with the field.
Robin Engel, John Glenn College of Public Affairs senior research scientist
“While we want to make sure our police agencies are effective and efficient and equitable, we often don’t give them the tools to do and be exactly that,” Robin Engel, a senior research scientist at the Glenn College who is leading the research effort, said at a press conference announcing the project.
“What we have now is that an agency facing federal reform efforts, mandated consent decree work, is having a research team embedded in their agency to provide feedback in real time to the department and to city executives,” Engel said, “so they can continue innovative decision-making about which policies, procedures, training, accountability mechanisms to keep officers safe and citizens safe.”
Strengthening Police Legitimacy and Public Safety
Glenn College and the Columbus (Ohio) Division of Police are developing an evidence-based approach to safeguard constitutional rights and build trust between officers and the community.
Now facing federally mandated reforms to change policies, training, accountability and supervision, the department sees an opportunity to transform into a “learning lab” to generate and use empirical evidence. The $400,000 National Institute of Justice grant lasts two years.
“We want to be able to have evidence that shows that we are going in the right direction or that we need to change paths,” Louisville Metro Police Chief Paul Humphrey said at the press conference. “This type of research, that type of unit, is critically important to the things we do, so we are grateful to The Ohio State University for participating with us, and we look forward to what will come out of this research.”
How Policy Changes Can Improve Community Policing
With research and experience in justice and policing professions, Glenn College faculty and researchers share their collaborative expertise on ways to increase public trust and public safety.
“It’s action research — transforming the department into a literal learning lab for ‘rapid research response’ to ensure immediate impact and data-driven decision-making. We will provide guidance on implementation and develop a feedback loop for police command staff. Over the next two years, we will be flooding the field with information about what actually works and preparing tools and resources to maximize implementation and sustainability for use by any police agency interested in evidence-based policing.”