News Archive

It is frequently noted that middle ground is increasingly hard to find these days. This is particularly true in the emo­tionally charged debates about how to keep schools safe. On one side are those who argue that school police-or School Resource Offi­cers (SROs)-are necessary to keep students and staff safe,

Training standards could protect officers by setting clear expectations for performance, while increasing consistency of law enforcement interactions with youth.

The winners of the first annual “Youth Voices Contest,” sponsored by Strategies for Youth, offer poignant—and hopeful—takes on the often-charged relationship between young people and police.

The real risk of undertrained school resource officers. Children and their parents have long felt anxious about school. This year, however, many leave home each morning suffering from an acute fear unknown before 1999: that their school will be the site of another mass shooting. Since last year's deadly school

Adult to child: “You should know better.” It’s time courts said something similar to law enforcement agencies. The unusually large number of judicial appointments for openings on the federal bench this year presents a unique opportunity to respond to calls for improved policies and better training for law enforcement in

Can the conviction of Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke finally force policing into the 21st century? Chicago continues to reel from the shocking circumstances surrounding the shooting death of 17-year old Laquan McDonald four years ago by police veteran Jason Van Dyke. The case sparked massive protests, the ouster of

In August, an 11-year-old African-American girl was tased by a Cincinnati police officer when he tried to apprehend her for shoplifting. The news was greeted, predictably, with dismay by officials there. After all, most of the public does not like the idea of a small child being subjected to police

A new presidential appointee has quietly changed decades-old federal policies meant to improve racial disparities in youth incarceration.

Policing should be treated like a public health issue, forcing the entire system of recruitment and training to change.

Last week, a Dallas County jury sentenced former police officer Roy Oliver to 15 years in prison for murdering 15-year-old Jordan Edwards. Oliver shot Edwards in the head while he was in a car with several other teenagers. Edwards might not have lost his life if Oliver had been better