Study: Respectful cops result in less crime

A four-year study of policing in three major cities shows that if the police treat people fairly and respectfully that the rate of crime drops and officers arrest fewer people.

“The study demonstrated that intensive police training in procedural justice can improve police behavior in crime hot spots where proactive policing interventions are implemented, and has the potential to reduce arrests, decrease crime, and enhance the public opinion of police,” the city of Cambridge, which participated in the study, said in a release.

Procedural justice, according to the study, teaches police officers to listen to civilians and hear their side of the story. Police are taught to be transparent about the decisions being made and demonstrate care and concern for the other person’s safety. Lastly, police officers are taught to treat civilians with dignity and respect.

“This study shows that the police can both advance police reform and crime control simultaneously. This study provides important guidance for police throughout the United States,” said study author David Weisburd, a professor at George Mason University and Executive Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.

Conducted between 2017 and 2020, the large multi-site randomized field trial study worked with officers in Houston, Texas; Tucson, Arizona, and Cambridge. Officers were assigned to two groups — those trained to practice procedural justice and those not. The results? “Across the three cities, there was a 60% decline in arrests by the procedural justice-trained officers,” according to the study. “There was about a 14 percent relative decline in crime incidents during the intervention in the procedural justice condition hot spots across the three-city study.”

Cambridge specifically saw a 21% reduction in crime incidents in areas patrolled by procedural justice-trained officers, according to the study.

“Procedural justice has long been an important guiding tenant within the culture of the Cambridge Police Department,” said Commissioner Christine Elow.

CAMBRIDGE POLICE DEPARTMENT FILE PHOTO KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS: A new four-year study conducted in Texas, Arizona, and Massachusetts found that training officers in procedural justice could lead to reduced arrests, decreased crime and enhanced public opinion of police.