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In the 1990s and 2000s, Camden, NJ, across the river from Philadelphia, was perennially designated one of America’s most dangerous cities. The functionally bankrupt city dissolved the Camden Police Department (CPD) and created the Camden County Police Department (CCPD) in 2013, refocusing its priorities and officer performance standards to engage with the community and build trust. The change was significant, with notable drops in violent crime and murder. However, concerns about the use of force and other aggressive practices continued.

In Chasing Change in Camden, John Shjarback investigates how Camden’s police department re-formed and questions whether it can serve as a model for other cities. He analyzes successful policies—from innovative police training to advancements in technology—and evidence-based policing strategies. 

Shjarback explains how the changes were implemented and then adjusted in response to community backlash. Chasing Change in Camden concludes with a discussion of threats to the reform and accountability efforts in both the CCPD and American policing more broadly. Ultimately, Camden’s case study offers valuable lessons for cities seeking effective police reform.

"This book provides knowledge that will be useful to city governments, civil rights organizations, community leaders, clergy, civilian review board advocates, as well as police chiefs and unions. It sheds considerable light on an important issue...[and] makes clear that there are wide ranging variations among departments in policies, accepted practices, management control of the use of force, and accountability of supervisors and officers who use excessive force." --Patrick V. Murphy, Director, Police Policy Board of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Common Sense about Police Review is the first comparative study to consider both civilian and internal police review processes. Using survey research of police attitudes and citizen complaints compiled over fifteen years from police departments across the nation, Douglas W. Perez analyzes past and current review systems as a way to develop criteria for comparing three archetypal systems of police review: internal, external (civilian), and hybrid forms of the two. High media visibility of several events--the 1988 police riot in New York City's Tompkins Square, the 1991 videotaped beating of Rodney King, and the 1992 beating death of Malice Green by Detroit police detectives--has brought police review back into the public arena; not since civil rights demonstrators clashed with police in the 1960s has officer accountability been so hotly debated. Crucial to any monitoring system are guidelines, which Perez stresses must insist on rigorous investigations of alleged police abuses, outline strict limitations of police action, strive to bridge gaps between police officers and citizens, and exonerate officers who are found to have acted properly and legally. With these standards, the author asserts, a balance between self-sanctioning and enforced regulation can be achieved. Examining fairness, objectivity, and thoroughness in review systems throughout the country, Perez offers a model for the "ideal" police review system. Included are valuable discussions of both the causes of police attitudes and behavior and the misconceptions and expectations that can contribute to a pervasive public image of police malpractice. Perez provides helpful reflections on the role of politicians and administrators in implementing and maintaining police accountability.

A policy-focused approach to understanding the role of interest groups in US municipal governments.

Local politics in the United States once seemed tranquil compared to the divisiveness and dysfunction of the country’s national politics. Those days have passed. As multiple wide-ranging crises have thrust America’s local governments into the spotlight, they have also exposed policy failures and systemic problems that have mounted for years. While issues such as policing and the cost of housing are debated nationally, much of the policymaking surrounding these issues occurs locally. In Local Interests, Sarah F. Anzia explores how local governments—and the interest groups that try to influence them—create the policies that drive the national conversation: policing, economic development, housing, and challenges of taxing and spending. 

Anzia examines local interest groups in terms of the specific policies they pursue, including how these groups get active in politics and what impact they have. By offering new perspectives on these issues, Anzia contributes to our knowledge of how interest groups function and the significant role they play in shaping broader social outcomes.

A revelatory look at how the NYPD has resisted change through strategic and selective community engagement.
 
The past few years have seen Americans express passionate demands for police transformation. But even as discussion of no-knock warrants, chokeholds, and body cameras has exploded, any changes to police procedures have only led to the same outcomes. Despite calls for increased accountability, police departments have successfully stonewalled change.  
 
In The Policing Machine, Tony Cheng reveals the stages of that resistance, offering a close look at the deep engagement strategies that NYPD precincts have developed with only subsets of the community in order to counter any truly meaningful, democratic oversight. Cheng spent nearly two years in an unprecedented effort to understand the who and how of police-community relationship building in New York City, documenting the many ways the police strategically distributed power and privilege within the community to increase their own public legitimacy without sacrificing their organizational independence. By setting up community councils that are conveniently run by police allies, handing out favors to local churches that will promote the police to their parishioners, and offering additional support to institutions friendly to the police, the NYPD, like police departments all over the country, cultivates political capital through a strategic politics that involves distributing public resources, offering regulatory leniency, and deploying coercive force. The fundamental challenge with police-community relationships, Cheng shows, is not to build them. It is that they already exist and are motivated by a machinery designed to stymie reform.