National Law Enforcement Applied Research and Data Platform

The National Law Enforcement Applied Research and Data Platform’s (Platform) provides law enforcement executives with timely, actionable survey data to inform policy, procedure, and strategy.

Project Overview

The National Law Enforcement Applied Research and Data Platform’s (Platform) primary goal is to provide law enforcement executives with actionable survey data to inform policy, procedure, and strategy. Internal officer, professional staff, and community/police-community interaction surveys allow agency decision-makers to assess their department from multiple perspectives. Data is provided near real-time, with agency data uploaded to the Policing Dashboards Site within five days after the survey closes. Agencies are also provided a written report within ten business days. The Platform offers agencies an opportunity to benchmark their results against departments of similar size and geographic location.

Methodology

The Platform currently uses two core internal surveys to provide agencies with actionable data. Survey topics for sworn and non-sworn personnel include safety and wellness, and perceptions of the department and the community. The Platform also offers external community surveys in a variety of formats. These surveys measure the community’s perceptions of the department and police-community interactions. The Platform team also develops surveys in collaboration with or based on requests by participating agencies that focus on emerging policing issues, such as the Crisis Intervention Training survey and a family wellness survey.

The Platform team works with agency leadership to determine the most effective method(s) to distribute internal and community surveys. Results are made available to Platform participants through our online visualization tools and a written report sent to the agency’s Point of Contact. Benchmarking survey results are made easy through the National Policing Institute’s Policing Dashboards Site (https://policingdashboards.org).

Results

The Platform is providing a source of valuable information to major, mid-size and small departments. The growing community of Platform agencies are using survey data to inform their internal operations and their community outreach and engagement strategies.