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
Firearms: Officer Carry, Training, and Safety
The safe handling and proper use of firearms should be among the highest priorities of any law enforcement agency. Because of the inherent danger of...
Foot Pursuits
Foot pursuits are inherently dangerous. Therefore, officer and public safety should be the overriding considerations in determining whether a foot pursuit is initiated or continued...
Grievance Procedures
Every employee has the right to be treated fairly in matters arising from employment and have the opportunity to be heard fully any time his or...
Grooming and Appearance
The professional and uniform appearance of officers furthers the goals of law enforcement agencies by projecting a positive and professional image to the public. Appearance standards...
Harassment and Discrimination
In a time where the costs of liability insurance continue to rise driving many towns to self-insure or join insurance pools, law enforcement executives have...
Hate Crimes
Any acts or threats of violence, property damage, harassment, intimidation, or other crimes motivated by hate and bias and designed to infringe upon the rights...
HIV/AIDS Prevention
These documents provide guidelines for law enforcement officers in preventing the contraction of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
This topic has been archived -...
Holding Facilities
Law enforcement agencies must provide secure temporary holding facilities for detainees held for interrogation, arrest processing, transfer to another facility, or pursuant to another legal...
Hostage Situations
Law enforcement agencies should generally respond to and take necessary steps to free innocent persons who are endangered and being held illegally against their will...
Identity Theft
Identity theft affects millions of people every year, causing serious and sometimes devastating financial, psychological, and reputational injury. By providing timely and effective assistance, law...
Impact Projectiles
The availability of less-lethal weapons can assist officers in de-escalation of potentially violent confrontations and provide additional alternatives to the use of deadly force. Impact...
Incident Command
Many law enforcement agencies utilize the National Incident Management System (NIMS) as the primary method to prepare for, respond to, and manage critical incidents. NIMS is...
Inspections
Inspections of law enforcement agencies should be conducted on a regular basis to help ensure that the department is operating at peak efficiency and in compliance...
Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities*
Law enforcement personnel should be trained to recognize persons with I/DD; treat people with I/DD with dignity and respect; utilize de-escalation protocols when appropriate; and seek alternatives...
Interrogations and Confessions
Custodial interrogations of suspects and the statements and confessions that are elicited are vitally important in the preparation of criminal cases. However, to be admissible...
Interviewing and Interrogating Juveniles
The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the emotional and developmental differences between adults and juveniles and the implications that this has on the conduct of...
Juvenile Curfew Enforcement
If curfew laws are to be effective, they must be enforced in a consistent, fair and uniform manner. In addition, to be properly evaluated, enforcement...
Juvenile Diversion and Custody
A law enforcement agency’s goal should be to coordinate juvenile justice and delinquency prevention that meets the needs of juveniles, while holding juveniles accountable for...
Knife Safety and Usage
Law enforcement agencies should provide guidelines on the selection of departmentally approved police duty knives, knives an officer may carry, and how and when knives may...
License Plate Readers
The availability and use of license plate recognition (LPR) systems have provided many opportunities for the enhancement of productivity, effectiveness, and officer safety.
These documents provide officers...
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.
