Research

We’re inside of what we make, and it’s inside of us. We’re living in a world of connections – and it matters which ones get made and unmade. ~Donna Haraway

Areas of Interest: Police Violence and Militarism/ization | Queer Safety | Queer Informal Legal Cultures | Abolition and Utopia

Police Violence and Militarism

Queer Safety and Utopia

Publications

Articles in Progress

Grasso, Jordan, and Kariar Al-Naiem. “’Increase Police Training!’: An Analysis of Hours Spent on Police Training and Outcomes of Violence.”

Since the “professional era of policing,” police reform has focused extensively on the opportunity to reduce the use of force and violent outcomes caused by police during contact with the community. Following nearly every incident of police violence, the public, policymakers, and police alike suggest increasing budgets to better equip officers with opportunities to learn de-escalation techniques. After George Floyd’s murder in 2020, reformists across the country pushed back against wide-ranging calls to defund the police and instead suggested increasing spending to provide more training to police officers. Police training research has varied results. Some find positive outcomes like greater productivity and conflict resolution (see Klinger 2009; Lee and Vaughn 2010; Scott 2005), while others find no significant effect of police training (see Lee et al. 2010; Terrill and Mastrofski 2002). In this study, we draw on National Officer Involved Homicide Data to explore the relationship between the hours required in police academy training and outcomes of police violence. Preliminary results are discussed, including the surprising finding that departments that require more training within the academy experience more use of force.