Throughout 2023, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and the National Policing Institute (NPI) convened a series of meetings to discuss specialized units in state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies and create guidance for those agencies’ leadership to consider when forming, managing and disbanding such units. This report includes sections on identifying the need for a specialized unit; selecting the unit’s membership and leadership; managing the unit; establishing its policies, procedures, and end date; holding the unit and its members accountable; and working with community members when they have feedback on the specialized unit’s operations.
Download a full copy of the report . (PDF)