On January 10, 2024, the anniversary of Tyre Nichols’s tragic death at the hands of officers assigned to a Memphis (Tennessee) Police Department specialized enforcement unit, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a publication titled Considerations for Specialized Units: A Guide for State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies to Ensure Appropriateness, Effectiveness, and Accountability.

Published by DOJ’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) to assist law enforcement leaders, mayors, and communities in assessing the appropriateness of specialized units and ensuring their effectiveness and accountability, Considerations for Specialized Units is based on a series of meetings held with law enforcement leaders and community stakeholders across the nation.

Input from participants with a wide range of experience and expertise

Specialized teams and units have long been used as an alternative to patrol in agencies, especially where resources and staffing are more constrained and responses to problems vary widely across officers and shifts. Another reason for these units is that not everyone on patrol can have the specialized training or expertise that some functions—and problems—require. However, specialized units often work with a greater degree of autonomy than patrol, which may heighten the need for closer supervision.

To provide guidance on their formation and use, the National Policing Institute (NPI) joined with the COPS Office to gather input from across law enforcement, community, academic, and advocacy organizations. The focus was on how to balance the need for specialized units’ expertise with the need for oversight and adherence to department-wide standards and practices while working with the community to build and maintain community trust.

These meetings, roundtable discussions, and interviews, which took place in early 2023 and held in partnership with NIJ, were attended by law enforcement representatives, including supervisors of specialized units, from many types and sizes of state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies. Also attending were individuals from civil rights and community advocacy groups, many of whom work in and have a deep understanding of the perspectives of communities impacted by specialized units.

Based on findings and input from all participants, the publication provides practical, actionable considerations for agencies and communities, which can help them determine whether to form a specialized unit in the first place—and if so, how to ensure appropriate management, oversight, and accountability for it.

Critical considerations and recommended practices

Each section of the guide offers key considerations for agencies as they create or review their own specialized units. Among them is the question of whether a specialized unit is required to address a problem more effectively than a standard patrol unit.

The guide explores all stages of a specialized unit’s development, including formation, personnel selection and supervision, unit management, accountability, and community engagement, with special attention given to defining the specialized unit’s mission and culture, hiring the most suitable personnel and supervisors, developing unit and personnel performance metrics, and establishing policies and practices to mitigate risk.

Among the many practices recommended by the participants were the following:

• Get a broad range of perspectives (including patrol officers, government and nonprofit and commercial organizations, and impacted community members) when defining the need for the unit or deciding if it is even necessary.
• Carefully consider who will supervise these units, making sure they have the maturity to manage ambitious officers and the skills to create a healthy unit culture, and also review the work and complaint history of all members of the team.
• Develop performance metrics driven by the missions of the agency and the specialized unit, explain them thoroughly to all members of the unit, and monitor these metrics for abnormalities.
• Speak with community members before either forming or disbanding a specialized unit, and continue to obtain feedback as the unit is deployed in the community.

Said then–Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, “We hope that police chiefs, mayors, and community stakeholders will use the guide when considering whether a specialized unit should be formed to focus on a particular problem, and, if formed, how to ensure proper transparency, oversight, accountability, and evaluation of such units.”

Added COPS Office Director Hugh T. Clements, Jr., “I feel confident this guide will help both law enforcement and the communities they serve to demonstrate and uphold the principles of effective, constitutional policing.”

Considerations for Specialized Units: A Guide for State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies to Ensure Appropriateness, Effectiveness, and Accountability is available at the COPS Office Resource Center.

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