Are you thinking about implementing a citation in lieu of arrest policy? Have you been implementing a policy and want to improve it? The UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab recently released a final report for the Citation Project, which included four recommendations for those interested in this work. This post summarizes the report and those recommendations.
A Collaborative Policing Project
The Citation Project involved development, implementation, and evaluation of a model citation in lieu of arrest policy. It was executed by the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police in partnership with the UNC School of Government Criminal Justice Innovation Lab. The research team included Policy Research Associates and North Carolina State University.
The model policy was developed under the guidance of the project’s police chief members, and it provided that officers had discretion to cite, arrest, or decline to charge. It recommended use of a citation in misdemeanor encounters except when the law required arrest, there was statutory support for imposition of secured bond, or exigent circumstances existed.
Implementation in Diverse Pilot Sites
After an application period, four demographically and geographically diverse pilot sites were chosen: Apex, Elizabeth City, Wilmington, and Winston-Salem police departments. On December 1, 2020, the sites began implementing the model policy.
Evaluation Findings
You can read about the full evaluation findings in the final report here. Some key takeaways include:
- Sites experienced implementation challenges, including limited patrol officer buy-in.
- Citation rates did not increase following implementation. However, we also found that citation rates for the most common misdemeanor encounters – traffic offenses – were high before implementation, creating a ceiling on the policy’s potential impact.
- No racial/ethnic subgroup saw an increase in citation rates, and differences across races did not change.
- On average, officers saved 90+ minutes per encounter when opting to cite versus arrest.
- As context, we also assessed encounters as a whole – both whether they increased over time (“net-widening”) and changes in their racial/ethnic composition. We did not find evidence of net widening, but in three sites found that Black people were overrepresented in encounters that resulted in misdemeanor charges.
Key Limitations
Several important qualifications and limitations apply to the findings, including:
- Challenges with implementation, including lack of completion of documentation, limit our ability to fully evaluate the policy’s impact.
- The COVID-19 pandemic and periods of social unrest occurred during the time of the project, impacting police practices and bandwidth for implementation.
Recommendations
Based on the findings in the report, we offer four core recommendations to police departments that may want to implement or continue using citation in lieu of arrest.
1. Conduct a needs assessment & develop a targeted policy
A needs assessment identifies existing citation rates as well as the volume of encounters to help target case categories or offenses where a policy can have the greatest impact. Using results from the needs assessment, departments may wish to target specific offenses that typically result in arrest but could be addressed by citation. Or they might want to apply a broader policy to a targeted category of offenses where citation rates have “room” to improve, consistent with public safety. Because targeting the policy may avoid case categories or offenses where rates already are very high, it can limit officer frustration and promote buy-in.
2. Conduct an organizational assessment to guide implementation
An organizational assessment assesses staffing, workload, and other policy changes underway or planned. The results will help departments determine their capacity to implement a new policy, whether to implement the policy, and how to implement it. An organizational assessment can work double duty to give departments insight on if and how to proceed with multiple priorities.
3. Apply implementation lessons from the project
Promoting officer buy-in is critical to effective implementation. Four strategies can help:
- Include officers in policy development and implementation. Having officers and police leadership participate in the creation and implementation of any policy may alleviate potential disconnects in perceptions about the policy. This joint approach can promote a greater sense of ownership and commitment to change.
- Create project and training materials internally. Inviting ownership allows departments to tailor efforts to the department and encourages buy-in by highlighting the policy as internally sourced.
- Establish procedures for early implementation feedback. Real time monitoring can help you spot and address potential implementation issues early on.
- Regularly use internal communications to reinforce your policy. Those communications may include regular refresher trainings and reinforcement from Police Chiefs and other leaders that the policy is a priority issue.
4. Continue to assess & address equity issues
Because the data showed racial differences in encounters resulting in misdemeanor charges, departments may find it helpful to further examine this issue.
While those are the highlights, I invite you to take a deeper dive by reading the final report here. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at rex@sog.unc.edu.
The UNC School of Government is non-partisan, non-advocacy and responsive to the needs of public officials. We do not advocate for any political ideology or policy outcome or allow our personal beliefs or those of our audiences to influence our work.