Eleven years ago, a small group of police professionals and researchers came together around a simple but disruptive belief: policing could improve if we had the courage to test what works instead of defending what is familiar.
That question mattered because unrest and mistrust had begun reshaping the national conversation around policing. It was no longer enough to rely on tradition, activity or “the way we have always done things.” Agencies needed to examine practices, measure outcomes and ask whether strategies were actually reducing harm, improving trust, and making communities and officers safer.
That idea was always bigger than asking better questions. It was about challenging tradition with evidence, measuring success by reduced harm instead of increased activity, and using research, data, comparison groups, experience and craft knowledge together to make better decisions.
Evidence-based decision-making is about strengthening the decisions that shape tactics, strategy, policy, training, supervision, accountability, wellness and leadership by grounding them in science, data, research, experience, and craft knowledge.
Ultimately, it is about reducing harm: fewer victims, fewer people harmed, fewer officers injured or killed, fewer unnecessary uses of force and fewer people cycling through systems that were never designed to solve their underlying problems.
More trust. More wellness. Better outcomes.
Where policing was ten years ago
What became the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing started in 2015, with its first conference held in 2016 at Arizona State University.
At the time, evidence-based policing was often viewed as something academic, abstract or disconnected from the realities of the street. Many officers and leaders questioned whether researchers could fully account for the complexity of policing and whether evidence-based policing discounted experience, instinct and local context. Those questions mattered then, and they still matter now.
The movement was never supposed to replace experience. It was supposed to strengthen it. Experience and craft knowledge still matter. They always will. But experience without reflection can become tradition, and tradition without testing can become dogma.
Too often, policing measured what was easiest to count: arrests, citations, stops, calls handled and reports written. Outputs became the default measure of effort, and sometimes effort was mistaken for impact. But activity is not the same thing as safety.
More enforcement does not automatically mean fewer victims. More data does not automatically mean better decisions. The better question became whether fewer people were suffering harm.
What changed and what we learned
Ten years later, many of the early adopters of this movement are now chiefs, commissioners, executives and researchers helping shape the future of policing. Evidence-based policing did not simply become a methodology. For many of us, it became a leadership pathway.
One of the most important lessons from the last decade is that evidence-based decision making does not dismiss the traditions, experience, or craft of policing. Instead it may provide us a solid framework for harm-focused, intelligence-led, and problem-oriented policing that we can continue to learn from and grow.
It is also not about pretending data has all the answers. It is about having the humility to admit that we may not.
At its core, evidence-based decision making means testing what we believe, measuring what we do and being willing to change when the facts tell us we should. It means resisting confirmation bias and using research, contextual data, comparison groups and practical experience together.
Medicine figured this out long ago. When we visit a doctor, we expect treatment informed by science, research, best practices and the specific condition in front of us. Policing should expect no less.
Our prescriptions come in the form of effective strategy, deployment, policy, training, supervision, accountability, wellness and leadership.
We have also learned that evidence without leadership changes very little, while leadership without evidence eventually loses legitimacy.
Outcomes matter more than outputs
An important shifts over the past decade has been moving from activity to impact. If organizations only measure arrests, citations, stops and calls handled, they should not be surprised when activity becomes the goal.
But if agencies measure harm reduction, repeat victimization, repeat offending, legitimacy, trust, employee wellness and long-term community outcomes, culture begins to move.
The lessons from problem-oriented policing, hot spots policing, precision policing and focused deterrence all point in a similar direction: more activity does not automatically create more safety. Better decisions do.
What we count signals what we value. What we reward shapes what people chase. What we hold people accountable for becomes the culture. If we want better outcomes, we have to measure better things.
Evidence must extend beyond crime
Another lesson from the last decade is that evidence-based decision making cannot be limited to crime reduction alone. Crime, violence and victimization matter. But the health of the profession matters too.
When agencies discuss recruitment and retention, they are really asking whether young people still believe this profession is worth dedicating their lives to.
When agencies discuss response to resistance and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, they are discussing confidence, competence, control and reducing injuries to officers and the people they encounter.
When agencies discuss co-responder models, they are asking whether the right people are responding to the right problems at the right time with the right tools and training.
When agencies discuss AI-driven policing, they are also discussing guardrails, ethics, transparency, accountability and trust.
These are not separate conversations. They are connected.
This approach helps agencies focus limited resources where they are most likely to make a difference while forcing organizations to ask whether their strategies are producing the outcomes they claim to value.
Wellness is part of the mission
Mission first. People always. This may be the lesson I did not always fully appreciate ten years ago.
Our people are carrying more than ever: staffing shortages, public scrutiny, fatigue, trauma and the weight of other people’s worst days. One of the greatest risks in this profession is not only physical. The work can slowly corrode the soul.
If organizations expect officers and professional staff to show empathy, judgment, courage and professionalism, those same values must be modeled internally by leadership. Wellness cannot be a slogan or a box to check. It has to show up operationally in policy, incentives, training, supervision, accountability and culture. Taking care of people is not separate from the mission. It is part of the mission. Because healthier people make better decisions, and better decisions create better outcomes.
What remains unresolved
Ten years later, evidence-based policing is no longer a side conversation. It is shaping how agencies think about recruitment, training, deployment, supervision, wellness, accountability and leadership. But the work remains unfinished.
One of the profession’s greatest unresolved challenges is not generating more ideas. It is building stronger implementation, better feedback loops and cultures willing to learn, adapt and sustain what works over time.
The real work is embedding research, science, data, experience, and craft knowledge into the systems and subsystems that shape daily decisions. That is how we likely build a more effective, just, and empathetic profession of cops.
Policing must also be careful with technology. AI, drones as first responders, smart CCTV, DNA databases, analytics and real-time information platforms all have the potential to improve safety and accountability. But tools do not create legitimacy by themselves. The question is not simply whether policing can use these tools, but whether agencies can use them wisely, lawfully, transparently and effectively.
Where the field must go next
Ten years later, the lesson is clear: this work is not about replacing experience or chasing data. It is about strengthening judgment, improving accountability and reducing harm.
This year’s 10th annual conference at American University in Washington, D.C., reflected how far the movement has come and how much work still remains ahead. The conversation will continue next June at the University of Pennsylvania in 2027.
And if we do it right, the next ten years may matter even more than the first.
If you are someone who is a problem solver and believes this great profession can keep improving, we invite you to join the growing movement and become a member of the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing.
