IACP Law Enforcement Policy Center
For more than 30 years, the IACP Law Enforcement Policy Center has been identifying leading practices and providing sound guidance to the law enforcement profession to assist in developing policies for individual departments.
Policy Center Resources
The Policy Center offers four types of resources:
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Model Policy: Provides officers with concrete guidance and directives by describing, the manner in which actions, tasks, and operations are to be performed.
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Considerations: Intended to present items for agencies to take into account when developing their own policies on a topic. This format recognizes that expectations and capabilities vary by agency, and it aims to present recommendations to the law enforcement field without dictating exact approaches.
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Concepts and Issues: Designed to provide background information on the topic to support the Model Policy or Considerations document.
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Need to Know...: Synthesizes the key points of the topic into a brief, one-page overview.
Click here to visit the full list of Policy Center topics.
Featured Policy Center Resources
Welfare Checks
Welfare checks are requests for the police to check on an individual due to concern for their safety or well-being. Reasons for such requests vary...
Electronic Control Weapons
Law enforcement officers should use only the force that is objectively reasonable to effectively bring an incident under control, while protecting the safety of the...
Search Warrants
The search warrant is one of the more powerful and valuable tools in the law enforcement arsenal. While the process of applying for and obtaining...
Crime Scene Response
Protection of the crime scene, appropriate documentation, and preservation of evidence are crucial steps in criminal investigations and often provide the basis for effective identification...
Firearm Recovery and Processing
With violence involving firearms dominating the news headlines, it is crucial that all law enforcement agencies have timely and sustainable protocols for the recovery and forensic...
Alternatives to Arrest
Programs offering alternatives to arrest have the potential to positively alter the outcomes for individuals who come into contact with the criminal justice system. By...
Facial Recognition
Facial recognition technology can be helpful in identifying possible suspects or persons of interest by performing a comparative analysis of facial attributes observed in digital...
Discretionary Response to Calls for Service
Responding to calls for service efficiently is one of a police officer's primary duties, but public safety remains a priority. Inappropriate responses to calls for...
Standards of Conduct
Law enforcement officers must accept and abide by a high ethical and moral standard that is consistent with the rule of law they are sworn...
Employee Mental Health and Wellness
Personnel are the most valuable assets in a law enforcement agency. The documents provided are intended to assist agency personnel in developing policies, procedures, and guidelines...
Recruiting & Hiring
Hiring decisions are among the most impactful decisions a police agency can make. Agencies that want to build positive relationships with their communities, improve their public...
All Policy Center Resources
Active Shooter*
In active shooter situations where ongoing deadly force is reasonably likely to be employed by a suspect and delay in taking law enforcement action could...
Aerosol Restraint Spray
Law enforcement agencies issue aerosol restraint spray to provide officers with additional use-of-force options for gaining compliance of resistant or aggressive individuals in arrest and...
Alternatives to Arrest
Programs offering alternatives to arrest have the potential to positively alter the outcomes for individuals who come into contact with the criminal justice system. By...
Alzheimer's Disease*
The mind-set of a person with AD/D is much different than that of other missing persons. Therefore, questioning, report-taking, investigation and search considerations should be...
Arrests and Investigatory Stops
Law enforcement officers must understand their powers, duties, and responsibilities when interacting with members of the public. The range and goals of possible interactions can...
Bank Alarm Response
It is essential that all law enforcement officers understand their role and responsibilities when responding to robberies of banks and related financial institutions and the inherent...
Barricaded Individuals
A barricaded individual is a person who has taken a position in a physical location, most often a structure or vehicle, that does not allow immediate police...
Bias-Free Policing
Persons having contact with members of a law enforcement agency should be treated in a fair, impartial, equitable, and objective manner, in accordance with law, and without...
Bicycle Patrol
Bicycle patrol officers are an important component of an agency's strategy for accomplishing its enforcement objectives due to their mobility and stealth as well as their...
Body Armor
Law enforcement agencies should maximize officer safety through the use of body armor in combination with prescribed safety procedures. However, while body armor provides a significant...
Body-Worn Cameras
Body-worn cameras provide officers with a reliable and compact tool to systematically and automatically record their field observations and encounters. They can be used for...
Bomb Threats and Response
The use of explosives against targets poses a significant threat to the security of the public and is a major consideration for law enforcement agencies...
Canine Encounters
Canines
Patrol canines can be utilized as a valuable supplement to police resources, due to their superior senses of smell and hearing and their physical capabilities...
Career Development
The ability of a law enforcement agency to meet current and long-range goals and objectives in an efficient and effective manner is largely dependent upon...
Child Abuse
Child abuse and neglect have been traditionally regarded as the principal responsibility of child protective services and social welfare agencies. However, research has demonstrated that a...
Civil Litigation
Civilian Personnel
The efficiency and effectiveness of law enforcement agencies is enhanced when sworn and non-sworn personnel are appropriately used to perform those functions that are best...
Communicable Disease Prevention
It is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies to ensure that their employees are able to perform their duties in a safe and effective manner. The safe...
Conducting Stakeouts
Stakeouts are an important police tactic to use in anticipation of enforcement actions against criminal suspects who may be armed and have a propensity for...
Every effort has been made by the IACP Law Enforcement Policy Center staff and advisory board to ensure that these documents incorporate the most current information and contemporary judgment on these issues. However, law enforcement administrators should be cautioned that no model policy can meet all the needs of any given law enforcement agency. In addition, the formulation of specific agency policies must take into account local political and community perspectives and customs, prerogatives, and demands; often divergent law enforcement strategies and philosophies; and the impact of varied agency resource capabilities, among other factors. Readers outside of the United States should note that, while these documents promote procedures reflective of a democratic society, their legal basis follows United States Supreme Court rulings and other federal laws and statutes. Law enforcement administrators should be cautioned that each law enforcement agency operates in a unique environment of court rulings, state laws, local ordinances, regulations, judicial and administrative decisions, and collective bargaining agreements that must be considered and should, therefore, consult their agency's legal advisor before implementing any policy.
The IACP Law Enforcement Policy Center documents are periodically updated, and the most current versions are published to this website. To minimize confusion and to help ensure reference to the most recent documents available, the IACP Policy Center does not distribute prior versions of any documents that have since been updated.
