Resources

Police unions do more than bargain for wages and benefits. They perpetuate harm, protect violent police officers, and create barriers to officer accountability and policy change. This site exposes their playbook. From contributions to politicians, to contracts and copaganda, police unions use predictable and toxic tactics to skirt accountability for officers and block efforts towards reform. Together we can call them out on these tactics and take action to diminish the power of police unions.

NoMoreCopMoney is a national database that documents campaign funds current state and local politicians accepted from law enforcement-affiliated PACs since 2015. We provide contact information to make it easy to ask your representatives to donate these campaign funds and to pledge to refuse them in the future. Our goal is to decrease the influence of law enforcement in our government.

This toolkit is an introduction to AJC’s vision and strategy for social change. From grassroots organizing to legislative policy work, here is a snapshot of how we take on the big problems.

A collection of information and answers to frequently asked questions related to the Fraternal Order of Police in the US and in Norman, Oklahoma.

Beginning in 2021, the City of Portland will start its next round of negotiations with the Portland P olice Association over the labor contract covering sworn police officers. Amid a historic uprising against police brutality in the streets of Portland and across the country, we, the undersigned, call upon the City to keep the needs of grassroots Portlanders at the center of the bargaining process. As outlined in the demands, the current City contract and side agreements with the PPA contain barriers to effective oversight of policing, and make it virtually impossible to fire officers for using excessive force or engaging in biased policing. While strengthening the City’s contract with the PPA won’t fix every issue in policing in Portland, it is an important part of the broader fight to hold police accountable for the harms they cause our communities.

This memo provides brief background information on the history of police unions in the United States and their role in relation to the policing profession. It also highlights the obstacles that police unions and their contracts create for accountability, reform efforts, and campaigns that challenge police union power in order to overcome those obstacles. The relatively successful case study of Austin, TX is detailed as an example for challenging police union power at the local level. Finally, this memo provides specific recommendations for research, organizing, and policy developments when challenging police union power.

Across the country, police unions have written contracts and laws that make it almost impossible to hold police accountable. We reviewed police union contracts in nearly 600 cities and “Police Bill of Rights” laws in 20 states. Learn how police unions and police Bills of Rights create obstacles and how they look in your state.

Since 2006, the nation’s largest police departments have fired at least 1,881 officers for misconduct that betrayed the public’s trust, from cheating on overtime to unjustified shootings. But The Washington Post has found that departments have been forced to reinstate more than 450 officers after appeals required by union contracts.

Police contracts can create barriers to just and safe policing or provide guidance and structures that hold law enforcement accountable to communities. The contract negotiations process itself can provide a rare opening for community demands to be heard. Join PolicyLink and experts from around the country to learn about how campaigns in San Francisco, Chicago, and Austin, TX, leveraged police contract negotiations into calls for more accountability, made secretive contract negotiations more transparent, and worked to address the excessive power of police unions.