Justice Collaboratory Announces Partnership with New Haven Police Department

The Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School announced a new research partnership on March 5, 2020 with the New Haven Police Department. This collaboration aims to advance evidence-based policing in the New Haven community. The New Haven Police Department (NHPD) will work closely with researchers at the Justice Collaboratory (JC) to improve community-based policing strategies by using the central tenants of procedural justice, which the JC is well regarded for in the criminal justice community.

According to New Haven Police Chief Otoniel Reyes: “We are excited about this partnership with the Justice Collaboratory as we seek to meet the goals and mission of the department, and also to make a positive impact on policing more broadly. We hope that this collaboration will not only help us better serve the New Haven community, but create a base of knowledge that other departments throughout the country can benefit from.”

The relationship between the JC and the NHPD began in 2017 as they, along with the Institution for Social and Policy Studies worked together on an experiment titled “The Community Policing and Police Legitimacy Project.” This project tested whether positive, non-enforcement interactions with police causes meaningful improvements to police-community relations. Led by JC Postdoctoral Fellow Kyle Peyton the team conducted a first-of-its-kind randomized field experiment testing whether positive interactions between police and the public can actually change how individuals view the police. This study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The JC brings a wealth of experience on improving police and community relations including its partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Initiative for Building Community Trust & Justice (NI) program. Along with the Center for Policing Equity and the Chicago Police Department’s Education and Training Division, the JC developed a training module for law enforcement that addresses the theory and implementation of procedural justice, as well as the role implicit bias plays in police-community interactions. This officer training was carried out in six pilot sites chosen by the NI.

Additionally, the JC recently completed a study for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice in New York City (MOCJ), focused on three broad themes including the perceptions of fairness, or lack thereof, in residents’ dealings with the New York Police Department. Detailed findings can be found in the study’s final report, executive summary and fact sheet.

The Justice Collaboratory brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and researchers at Yale University and elsewhere to work on issues related to institutional reform and policy innovation and advancement. The Justice Collaboratory infuses theory and empirical research in order to make the components of criminal justice operation simultaneously more effective, just, and democratic.