Media Coverage

In early April, the Carrboro Town Council in North Carolina met to discuss their Safe Streets For All/Vision Zero action plan. One such update during the meeting was on the Carrboro Police Department’s quarterly traffic stop policy review and its mental health diversion program, which CPE has consulted on. According to The Daily Tar Heel: “Atack said the Carrboro Police Department is consulting with community stakeholders like El Centro Hispano, Chapel-Hill Carrboro NAACP and the Center for Policing Equity to analyze how officers can continue to eliminate racial biases in traffic violations.” Read the full article at The Daily Tar Heel’s website.

Since the murder of George Floyd five years ago, police departments, especially those in larger jurisdictions across the country have been grappling with staffing shortages for a number of reasons, including a criticism of policing practices. Such scrutiny has led to a rise in the implementation of co-responder or alternative response programs within law enforcement departments for calls involving mental health emergencies, for example.  Departments have also turned to these programs to increase recruitment and retention rates, though some raise concerns about the safety of those answering calls that would have normally been answered by police officers. CPE’s Charlotte Resing, Government Affairs Manager at CPE, explains why such concerns do not outweigh the benefits of alternative response programs: Still, just having uniformed cops show up can add stress to a situation. Although questions remain about which calls are safe for alternative responders to address without police backup, that’s not a

In a joint release, the Vera Institute of Justice, ACLU, the Center for Policing Equity, and the Policing Project, announced the launch of a new coalition, Traffic Safety For All, that “will coordinate and educate stakeholders on the importance of limiting low-level traffic stops and allowing law enforcement to focus on addressing offenses that are central to causing crashes and traffic fatalities.” CPE’s Charlotte Resing, Government Affairs Manager, discusses the need for such a coalition and the popular, nationwide reform it advocates for: “The country is grappling with two critical issues: traffic crashes and racial disparities in traffic enforcement,” said Charlotte Resing, Government Affairs Manager at the Center for Policing Equity. “Non-traffic-related stops are consistently discriminatory, with Black drivers 95 percent more likely to be stopped than their white counterparts. Communities should not have to compromise between road safety and equitable stop policies. It is entirely possible to achieve a

The Nebraska Legislature’s Judiciary Committee heard testimony from ACLU of Nebraska and Vision Zero Network on March 20, 2025 regarding LB 222, a bill aiming to reduce non-safety traffic stops in the state by reclassifying certain violations, such as expired registration tags, as secondary violations in which a driver would only be pulled over if they had a previous and more serious offense on record, such as speeding or a DUI. CPE also submitted written testimony in support of the bill: “LB 222 represents an educated step towards focusing police time and resources where they are most effective,” said Chris Burbank, former Police Chief of Salt Lake City and consultant with CPE. “Of the more than 100,000 traffic stops reported in Nebraska in 2023, just 1.1% led to an arrest: clear evidence that pretext stops are not an essential crime-fighting tool. The economic and social cost of traffic enforcement for

In a statement about the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) crowd management policies, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell noted the successful passage of new crowd management legislation that incorporates best practices recommended by partners like the Center for Policing Equity:  “The adopted ordinance regulates the use of less lethal tools and reflects national best practices for crowd management as recommended by the Office of the Inspector General for Public Safety, the Office of Police Accountability, the Center for Policing Equity, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. It affirms our One Seattle values to protect free speech and peaceful assembly while also giving officers the tools they need to respond to serious incidents and keep everyone safe.” Read the full statement on the Seattle Government’s website.

At 20, Marion Bowman was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Kandee Martin, a crime for which he maintains his innocence. Now at 44, he is the “fifth Black prisoner South Carolina would put to death for a crime committed under the age of 21 – compared to just one white prisoner,” reports the Death Penalty Information Center. The disproportionate rate at which young Black men are sentenced to death becomes more troubling as recent neuropsychological research finds that young adults aged 18 to 20 have the same deficits in critical thinking and impulse control as juveniles. In Roper v. Simmons (2005), the United States Supreme Court prohibited the death penalty for those under the age of 18. In Mr. Bowman’s case, the adultification of Black youth may also have influenced his sentencing, with the Death Penalty Information Center citing CPE’s blog post on the phenomenon:  The ​“adul­ti­fi­ca­tion” of Black

KUTV, a television station and CBS affiliate in Salt Lake City, reports on data from the Department of Public Safety that shows a decline “in aggravated assaults, kidnappings, rapes and murders” in the city in 2024 compared to the previous year. The numbers are promising, but Chris Burbank, Law Enforcement Strategy Consultant at CPE and former Salt Lake City Police Chief, urges caution when looking at short-term versus long-term outcomes:  “What we really want to see is a long trend line that is showing a downward decline,” Burbank said. “You’re going to get little bumps, but by and large, crime over the last 30 years has been declining.” Burbank highlighted the importance of addressing systemic issues rather than relying solely on policing. “Our goal is not a low number; our goal is zero when it comes to crime and disorder in our communities,” he said. According to Burbank, crime reduction

Utah law enforcement officials are assessing how the incoming Trump administration’s deportation agenda will impact the safety of their communities, reports Deseret News. The new agenda calls for local law enforcement to help identify migrants who could be in the country illegally, “starting with those who committed crimes after entering the United States.” As CPE consultant Chris Burbank points out, such an agenda would lead to racial profiling and even require racially motivated policing actions. An excerpt from the article: “Not only are you going to impact people who might be undocumented, you’re going to absolutely impact people who look, dress, sound, speak, worship, in the same way that you would profile an individual,” said Burbank, who works as an adviser to the Center for Policing Equity, which he helped found. During his nine years as police chief, Burbank gained a national profile for speaking out against a state bill that

In 2023, the St. Louis County Police Department saw a surge in police use of force, which commonly includes use of guns, physical restraint, pepper spray, Tasers, and canine bites. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 2024 numbers are expected to surpass last years, a trend observed since the start of the pandemic. Officers and supervisors cite an increase in the reporting of uses of force, aided by bodycam footage, departmental force policy shifts, and understaffed departments as reasons for this surge in police use of force. Assessing an increase in use of force is complicated by the fact that the FBI does not have established standards for what would be considered use of force. Police departments define uses of force differently, and experts, like CPE’s own Matt Graham, Senior Data Analyst, acknowledge that this complicates comparisons:  “It’s basically impossible to get a comprehensive national accounting of police use of force,” said

For decades, former Kansas City, Kansas detective Roger Golubski committed heinous crimes against members of the community he was sworn to protect, using his status as a police officer “to violate the civil rights of two women by rape, kidnapping and sexual assault.” KCUR 89.3, a NPR-affiliate, interviewed experts, including CPE co-founder Dr. Tracie Keesee, who say federal and departmental inaction in this case is emblematic of a larger problem: a lack of accountability for police officers who harm the most vulnerable in our society. An excerpt from Dr. Keesee’s interview with KCUR: The accusations at the heart of Golubski’s case date back decades, and reflect a culture of system-wide inaction among everyone who knew of his abuses and chose not to do anything until now, said Dr. Tracie Keesee, a former New York Police Department deputy commissioner and co-founder of the Center for Police Equity. “And we wonder why the