NACOLE.org
The National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) is a non-profit organization that works to create a community of support for independent, civilian oversight entities that seek to make their local law enforcement agencies, jails, and prisons more transparent, accountable, and responsive to the communities they serve. NACOLE is dedicated to promoting greater accountability through the establishment or improvement of citizen oversight agencies.
PoliceScorecard.org
“This is the first nationwide evaluation of policing in the United States. It was built using data from state and federal databases, public records requests to local police departments, and media reports. While police data is never perfect, and there are additional indicators that still need to be tracked, the Police Scorecard is designed to provide insight into many important issues in policing.”
TheCurve.org
The Curve is a non profit to improve policing practices started by Simon Sinek after George Floyd’s murders. “The Curve exists to give forward-thinking leaders in policing the most current and creative ideas about leadership and the resources to implement them so they can more easily modernize their cultures from the inside-out. We call our philosophy One-by-One Policing. We imagine a world in which all people feel justice is administered with dignity, equity and fairness.”
PoliceForum.org
“Founded in 1976 as a nonprofit organization, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) is a police research and policy organization and a provider of management services, technical assistance, and executive-level education to support law enforcement agencies. PERF helps to improve the delivery of police services through the exercise of strong national leadership; public debate of police and criminal justice issues; and research and policy development.”
SafetyBound.org
“Safety Bound is a project to show the American public that a safe society is possible that doesn’t depend on the sheriff… We seek to build public understanding of the role and impact of sheriffs in driving racist, punitive and ineffective approaches to public safety. We do this by advancing the policy and narrative frameworks needed to move towards a future where safety does not depend on sheriffs and by building a movement of organizations who share this vision.”
The Power of the Badge: Sheriffs and Inequality in the United States
by Emily M. Farris and Mirya R. Holman
(Sept 2024) “A sobering exploration of the near unchecked power of sheriffs in the United States. Across the United States, more than 3,000 sheriffs occupy a unique position in the US political and legal systems. Elected by voters—usually in low-visibility, noncompetitive elections—sheriffs oversee more than a third of law enforcement employees and control almost all local jails. They have the power to both set and administer policies, and they can imprison, harm, and even kill members of their communities. Yet, they enjoy a degree of autonomy not seen by other political officeholders. The Power of the Badge offers an unprecedented, data-rich look into the politics of the office and its effects on local communities. Emily M. Farris and Mirya R. Holman draw on two surveys of sheriffs taken nearly a decade apart, as well as election data, case studies, and administrative data to show how a volatile combination of authority and autonomy has created an environment where sheriffs rarely change; elections seldom create meaningful accountability; employees, budgets, and jails can be used for political gains; marginalized populations can be punished; and reforms fail. Farris and Holman also track the increasingly close linkages between sheriffs and right-wing radical groups in an era of high partisanship and intra-federal conflict.
The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy
by Jessica Pishko
(September 2024) “A leading authority on sheriffs investigates the impunity with which they police their communities, alongside the troubling role they play in American life, law enforcement, and, increasingly, national politics… Locally elected, largely unaccountable, and difficult to remove, the country’s over three thousand sheriffs, mostly white men, wield immense power—making arrests, running county jails, enforcing evictions and immigration laws—with a quarter of all U.S. law enforcement officers reporting to them. In recent years there’s been a revival of “constitutional sheriffs,” who assert that their authority supersedes that of legislatures, courts, and even the president. Jessica Pishko takes us to the roots of why sheriffs have become a flashpoint in the current politics of toxic masculinity, guns, white supremacy, and rural resentment, and uncovers how sheriffs have effectively evaded accountability since the nation’s founding.”