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
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
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...
Confidential Fund
Law enforcement agency should maintain stringent control over all confidential funds used by the agency and ensure that the funds are only used for authorized purposes.
These...
Confidential Informants
In some instances, a successful investigation cannot be conducted without the use of confidential informants (CIs). While the use of CIs can be an effective...
Consular Notification and Access
Law enforcement agencies should adhere to the guidance provided by the U.S. Department of State concerning consular notification and access based on treaty obligations. Adherence to...
Corruption Prevention
Law enforcement agency should establish proactive procedures to prevent corruption, to investigate complaints or allegations of corruption, and to administer appropriate administrative punishment or criminal prosecution...
Court Appearance
The success of a criminal prosecution is determined not solely by the quality and quantity of evidence but by the manner in which it is...
Court Protection Orders
Research reveals that nearly one-third of all female homicide victims in the United States are killed by a husband or boyfriend. Another third of all...
COVID-19
As the number of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to climb globally, law enforcement agencies continue to respond to communities on the front lines, despite the operational...
Crime Analysis
Law enforcement crime analysis functions should include collecting, organizing, analyzing and interpreting crime and incident data to evaluate past performance and identify criminal activity patterns and...
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...
Criminal Intelligence
Information gathering is a fundamental and essential element in the all-encompassing duties of any law enforcement agency. When acquired, information is used to prevent crime...
Criminal Investigations
Law enforcement agencies should manage the function of criminal investigation in an effective and efficient manner by coordinating the efforts of patrol and other investigative organizational...
Critical Incident Stress Management
This topic has been combined with the Employee Mental Health and Wellness policy.
Please contact the Policy Center with any questions.
Crowd Management
Civil disturbances and demonstrations have changed over the years, as have the tactics and techniques of law enforcement agencies called upon to manage and control...
Deaf and Hearing Impaired
Most officers will have encounters with persons who are deaf or affected by significant hearing loss — whether that be as victims, witnesses, or suspects...
Death Notification
Law enforcement agencies should require that all officers become familiar with the concepts and procedures regarding death notification so as to provide surviving family members with sufficient useful...
Digital Cameras
Digital cameras can be useful for investigative and documentary purposes where reasonable and appropriate. The selection of digital or conventional film imaging equipment should be...
Diplomatic Immunity
Law enforcement agencies should adhere to the guidance provided by the U.S. Department of State concerning immunities for foreign nationals based on international treaty obligations...
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...
Domestic Violence*
An effective law enforcement response to domestic violence must include the adoption of a comprehensive policy that is a priority for the agency, is consistently...
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.
