Resources

This interactive map shows where facial recognition surveillance is happening, where it’s spreading to next, and where there are local and state efforts to rein it in.

This is a collection of information and resources created by the ACLU around their Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) effort, including a map of participating cities. The effort’s principal objective is to pass CCOPS laws that ensure residents, through local city councils are empowered to decide if and how surveillance technologies are used, through a process that maximizes the public’s influence over those decisions.

Campaign Zero evaluated the policing practices of San Diego Police Department (SDPD) and San Diego Sheriff’s Department (SDSD). Results show both departments to be engaged in a pattern of discriminatory policing.

The California Police Scorecard utilizes data on a range of policing-related issues to evaluate how each police department interacts with, and the extent to which officers are held accountable to, the communities they serve. The indicators included in this scorecard were selected based on a review of the research literature, input from activists and experts in the field, and a review of existing publicly available datasets on policing in California. The scorecard is designed to help communities, researchers, police leaders and policy-makers take informed action to reduce police use of force and improve accountability and public safety in their jurisdictions.

This is a first-of-its-kind portal that augments the work of the Policing Reform Campaign and provides publicly available data on federal grants awarded to over 150 local law enforcement agencies across the nation. The database provides demographic data for those jurisdictions and, where available, information on police misconduct complaints filed by individuals, consent decrees, and settlement amounts. Communities can use this information to support demands for accountability for law enforcement agencies believed to be engaged in discriminatory or otherwise unlawful conduct.

A collection of media, legislative materials, and other resources relating to work on the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act currently active in New York City. These resources are intended to provide policymakers, journalists, and the public with more information.

In March 2017, the New York City Council introduced a bill to increase transparency and oversight over the NYPD’s use of sophisticated new surveillance technologies and information sharing networks. Dubbed the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act, the legislation requires the NYPD to disclose basic information about the surveillance tools it uses and the safeguards in place to protect the privacy and civil liberties of New Yorkers. This collection of resources is intended to provide journalists, policy-makers, and the public information about the POST Act.

A collection of written and audio resources around various topics related to policing, prisons, and criminal justice reform and abolition. Author’s note: In general, I’ve tried to list shorter pieces, articles, and listening/viewing material. Though the sources are organized thematically, there is no issue in the carceral state that doesn’t intersect with another; therefore, most of the categories are necessarily false divides used for purposes of organization. In places where I’ve listed books, I include a link to the book or to an interview with the author.

Over the course of 2019, Local Progress engaged local elected officials and community leaders in a range of communities to evaluate their localities’ policing practices using the Reform/Transform toolkit. Those evaluations have produced the first results of the Reform/Transform toolkit in 12 cities: Chicago, Dallas, Durham, Louisville, Madison, Minneapolis, New York City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.