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
Drug Recognition Experts
The Drug Evaluation and Classification (DEC) Program forms the basis of drug-impaired driving enforcement through training and certifying Drug Recognition Experts (DREs). The DRE responds to...
Duty to Disclose Exculpatory Evidence
The Brady v. Maryland decision and subsequent rulings have made it a duty of all law enforcement agencies to (1) identify and provide to the...
Early Identification System
Law enforcement agencies should consider establishing a system for tracking and reviewing incidents of risk to the agency and the involved employees. To this end, an Early...
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...
Electronic Messaging
The availability and use of the personal computer within the work environment have provided many opportunities for enhancement of productivity and effectiveness. These technologies also...
Electronic Recording of Interrogations and Confessions
Emergency Vehicular Warning Devices
All members of a law enforcement agency should adhere to statutory restrictions on the use of emergency warning devices and ensure that such devices are employed...
Employee Drug Policy
The critical mission of law enforcement establishes a compelling need to maintain a drug-free work environment. Employees who engage in unauthorized use of controlled substances...
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...
Employee Misconduct
Evacuations
In any emergency or threat environment, law enforcement agencies should determine the necessity and the means to evacuate citizens from imminent danger. The safety of persons...
Evidence Control
Law enforcement agencies should develop policies to ensure that evidence in its custody is properly secured and stored, readily retrievable, and that any changes in its...
Excited Delirium
Law enforcement agencies should develop a cooperative response protocol shared by the agency, the emergency call center, emergency medical services (EMS), and hospital emergency department staff. The...
Executing Search Warrants
This topic has been combined with the Search Warrants policy guidance.
Please contact the Policy Center with any questions.
Eyewitness Identification
Law enforcement agencies should develop evidence-based guidelines for effectively conducting eyewitness identifications in order to maximize the reliability of identifications, minimize erroneous identifications, and gather evidence...
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...
Family and Medical Leave
Law enforcement agencies should provide personnel with an understanding of the leave provided under federal law by the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993...
Field Interviews and Pat-Down Searches
Fire Response
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...
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.
