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The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) announces a new partnership with Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated, to strategically implement programming to improve community education and cultural awareness of social justice-related developments and areas in need of policy reforms. The programming will be disseminated through this newly established Sigma Justice Alliance. The organizations curate and deliver these strategic materials to adolescent, collegiate, graduate, and international communities.  Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated is a historically Black organization founded on the Howard University campus on January 9, 1914. In its 110 years of existence, the fraternity members have made significant contributions to social and civil rights movements. This includes but is not limited to members such as James Weldon Johnson, Huey P. Newton, Harry Belafonte, and former U.S. Representative John Lewis.  “The formation of the Sigma Justice Alliance is a big and important step in addressing some of the systemic issues surrounding social […]

Following President Biden’s third State of the Union address to Congress, Center for Policing Equity released this statement: “Tonight, President Biden outlined the need to protect issues of core importance to millions of Americans, and particularly Black Americans. Reproductive rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and the foundational principles of equity are all on the line.  The President rightly acknowledged the historic funding invested in alternatives to traditional policing – through key community-led tools like trained crisis responders and community violence intervention. And that more must be done. In addition, we applaud the Administration for taking additional steps towards racial justice and equity, including ending the controversial Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS) program that has perpetuated discriminatory low-level and pretextual traffic stops. We strongly urge President Biden and Congress to do more to support legislation that reduces the footprint of law enforcement in support of policies that build

The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) announces the appointment of three new Board of Directors: Faye Wattleton, Monica Bell, PhD, JD, and Pastor Michael McBride. The board welcomes the new members this week as the organization gathers for its first Board Meeting of 2024.  “All three of our new Board Members bring necessary clarity to a field that has been mired in a sense of hopelessness since the retreat of promises made in the shadow of George Floyd’s lynching,” said Dr. Phillip Atiba Solomon, Co-founder and CEO of the Center for Policing Equity. “As CPE enters its sixteenth year, CPE’s focus on unlocking what we know is both possible and necessary requires that we are guided by the wisdom of those who can dream a different world alive. In their careers, Ms. Wattleton, Dr. Bell, and Pastor Mike all have made entire worlds of Black freedom possible that were impossible

The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) extends its sincerest gratitude to the Norfolk Police Department (NPD), the municipal leaders and engaged residents of Norfolk, whose enthusiastic involvement has been integral to this endeavor as our multi-year partnership through the COMPSTAT for Justice (C4J) program ends. Our joint efforts mark the close of a significant chapter, one in which we have witnessed collective dedication to enhancing community welfare.  We recognize and commend the contributions of Chief Talbot, who gracefully assumed a critical role during a period of transition, and we appreciate the department’s openness to continuous dialogue that has been insightful since the inception of our partnership in 2021. Public safety systems are shaped to be strongest when the community is involved. We have complete confidence that the greater Norfolk community will continue this work and CPE will remain an available resource for any future collaborative efforts.  The Center for Policing

The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) announces the publication of a new community toolkit titled Improving Use of Force Policy, a new resource for communities interested in conducting a critical analysis of police use of force policies and metrics. Research has shown that Black and Brown people are notably more likely to experience disproportionate levels of use of force at the hands of law enforcement agencies when compared to the frequency of use of force experienced by White people. The new resource provides guidance and helpful considerations for communities interested in forming working groups or advisory boards to collaborate with local law enforcement agencies to advance policies built on an equitable foundation.  “To ensure comprehensive community safety, we must actively and regularly examine the protocols, policies, and procedures being practiced by local police departments,” said Brittenay Causieestko-Lee, CPE Director of Community Engagement. “Our hope is that this resource will create

St. Louis, MO – The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) announces the publication of Redesigning Public Safety in the City of St. Louis: A Progress Report. The update includes details of accomplishments achieved through our partnership with the City of St. Louis to date and outlines the next steps in redesign work planned for St. Louis, MO. The publication shared today is a comprehensive follow-up to the April 2022 assessment Reimagining Public Safety in the City of St. Louis: A Vision for Change.  Since 2017, CPE has partnered with the City of St. Louis to examine the city’s existing public safety systems and, with the leadership of community stakeholders, develop and begin to implement a redesign of those systems. This work started with a CPE study that found significant and ongoing racial disparities in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s (SLMPD) policing data. It expanded to include further partnerships with

The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) announces the publication of The Journey: How to Scale for Impact with Social Justice Innovations, a dedicated resource that details specific approaches for adequate and progressive innovation, development, and organizational scaling for social justice work.  The Journey: How to Scale for Impact with Social Justice Innovations resource includes a broad landscape analysis of existing literature, an end-to-end roadmap with milestones and objectives that map the journey to successfully scaling, and key discussion points to lead a thoughtful self-imposed analysis of the model’s value-add. The resource is accompanied by a Scaling Innovation Companion Brief. “Innovation is central to the work being done at CPE and other social justice organizations more broadly. In order to address racial inequity, we must create new solutions to old problems. However, evolving conditions on the ground make this work difficult, even for the most promising innovations,” said CPE’s Vice President

NEW HAVEN—Dr. Phillip Atiba Solomon (f.k.a. Goff) has received the American Psychological Association’s 2023 APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy Award.  APA and the Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest (BAPPI) present the annual Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy to a psychologist whose contributions stem from one extraordinary achievement or from a lifetime of work.  “I’m humbled to receive this award, but the honor belongs to the communities whose truth remains at the margins of our science,” said Dr. Solomon. “The work my collaborators and I pursue is novel mostly because the populations most affected by racism in policing have not received the scholarly attention they deserve. I know our partners and the team at the Center for Policing Equity are heartened by this recognition that amplifies collective action

Elijah McClain should be alive today, the sound of his violin filling his house with the music he loved to play. Instead, his murder at the hands of police deprived the world of his joy and his friends and family his love. Another trial is coming for the paramedics who injected ketamine into Elijah’s body.  His sadly predictable and easily preventable murder adds his name to the already too-long list of Black lives taken by a system that continues to operate from a place of entrenched White supremacy. The partial guilty verdict of the two officers accused of his murder is yet another miscarriage of justice in a long string of miscarriages of justice. While there is some closure in the conviction of Aurora police officer Randy Roedema, Elijah’s mother, Sheneen McClain, said it best, “[…] Roedema wasn’t alone in what he did to my son. He had accomplices. He