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1. Balancing Loyalty and Oppression: Ambivalence and Marginalization among Lesbian and Gay Law Enforcement Officers in Central Florida

   Nolan Kline, Stephanie Gonzalez (June 2023, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting)

   Public attention to law enforcement officers’ violent interactions with people who are minorized due to their racial, ethnic, and gender identities has grown in recent years, policing has come under increased scrutiny and critique in the United States. Existing scholarship on law enforcement underscores how policing is a key feature of governmentality and upholds power inequalities based on race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, and other social constructions of difference. Scant scholarship, however, examines experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identifying (LGBTQ+) law enforcement officers, who are simultaneously agents of the state and also subjected to governing regimes that perpetuate social exclusions based on their identities. While research on LGBTQ+ officers has examined community perceptions of officers, workplace inclusivity, and masculinized employment settings, it has largely ignored the complexities and ambivalent sentiments of LGBTQ+ officers who are complicit with governing objectives but also disenfranchised due to their identities. In this paper, we report findings from participant observation with an LGBTQ+ law enforcement organization and semi-structured interviews with Lesbian and Gay law enforcement officers (n=7) who were recruited as part of a larger study focused on activism following the 2016 Pulse Shooting in Orlando, Florida. Findings underscore Lesbian and Gay officers’ tensions between embracing professional loyalty and experiences of trauma and exclusion due to their identities. Moreover, interviewees underscore the complex political and economic factors that reinforce their loyalty, including proximity to neoliberal economic ideals such as attractive wages and perceived prestige. Overall, we argue that Lesbian and Gay officers’ loyalty to policing obfuscates larger neoliberal economic failings and reinforces social and political differences. 

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2. Law enforcement training using simulation for locally customized encounters

   https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.960146  

   Kent, Julie A; Hughes, Charles E (September 2022, Frontiers in Virtual Reality)

   Law enforcement professionals require up to date training for interacting with individuals on the autism spectrum in a manner that facilitates positive citizen response. Although these officers interact with the public regularly, they may only have sporadic interactions with citizens who are not neurotypical. The timing of these interactions is not easy to predict; therefore, it is important to provide regular opportunities to practice contacts with special needs communities. However, in much the same way that it can be difficult to provide regular sessions with other protected groups of people, it is not practical to pull individuals on the autism spectrum to participate in law enforcement training. Role play with neurotypical individuals and classroom training presenting facts about autism do little to prepare these officers for their real-world encounters. Virtual interactions with people on the autism spectrum allow officers to practice techniques without compromising the health and safety of the communities they serve. This paper presents results of a study comparing police training through experiences in virtual reality (VR) with video training regarding police interactions with individuals on the autism spectrum. Police officers in a municipal police department who participated in the study were divided into three groups for continuing training purposes. One group received video training, one group received practice in VR, and one group received training through both video and VR. The differences in training method did not result in significant differences in training effectiveness. However, subjective data did support the efficacy of practice in a virtual setting. This project addressed three important challenges with training in VR. First, the team needed to define the specifics of behavior and language that the simulated individuals would exhibit. Second, the VR had to be tailored to be relevant to the officers participating. Third and finally, the schedule for training delivery had to minimize the time that officers were away from their assigned duties. Officer feedback on their training experiences indicated the approach to these challenges was well-received. The primary research question is whether training in VR is any more effective that watching a training video. 

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3. Laundering Militarization: Preparedness, Professionalism, and Police Common Sense

   https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2023.a913522  

   Katzenstein, Jessica (December 2023, American Quarterly)

   US police militarization is commonly understood as military violence abroad flowing to domestic policing, where it does not belong. Despite years of reform efforts, attempts to demilitarize local police have thus far failed to effect substantive change. This essay builds on the history of US policing, as well as sixteen months of ethnographic research with police in Maryland, to suggest that the ideological labor of policing contributes to these failures. Specifically, I examine two elements of what I call police common sense: preparedness as moral practice and violence as professional technique. In so doing, I demonstrate how policing metabolizes militarization as an apolitical technical craft that counterintuitively reduces violence, and that allows officers to fulfill their primary ethical role as stewards of public crises. Demilitarization reforms function in tandem with the political work of preparedness and professionalism to consecrate “good” militarization as commonsensical and legitimate. These reforms thus inadvertently lend power to the notion of police as the “thin blue line” between extreme violence and innocent (white) society. 

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4. Beyond Human Actors: Leveraging AI for Enhanced Public Safety XR Training

   https://doi.org/10.1177/10711813251379830  

   Mohanty, Ronak Ranjitkumar; Rammohan, Akilan; Pater, Karolina; Chen, Wanyi; Mehta, Ranjana K (September 2025, Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting)

   Law enforcement officers often respond to behavioral health crises, where individuals with mental health conditions face an 11.6-fold higher risk of police use of force. While extended reality (XR) offers a promising training solution for de-escalation, current systems lack the necessary realism for developing skills under pressure. This study introduces an XR training prototype powered by an AI-driven Non-Playable Character (NPC) to address these shortcomings. A two-phase evaluation assessed the system's usability and its training efficacy with officers. Results showed high user engagement, a strong sense of virtual presence, and an optimized cognitive load for learning. Most significantly, participating officers demonstrated a 50% reduction in race and gender bias according to IAT scores. This highlights the potential of AI-enhanced XR to improve police decision-making and mitigate bias in high-stakes encounters. 

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5. The Role of Networks in Policing

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-032924-115731  

   Ouellet, Marie; Hashimi, Sadaf (January 2026, Annual Review of Criminology)

   Social ties are a defining feature of policing. They enforce norms, carry prestige, reward loyalty, silence dissent, create cohesion, and protect group boundaries. Network analysis maps these ties—from assigned partners to the colleagues officers text and meet for off-duty drinks—and examines how they shape daily actions and law enforcement culture. This review highlights key studies using network approaches to understand policing. By putting relations at the forefront, these studies build on foundational police scholarship and open new ways for investigating policing's social structure. However, despite recent advances in network approaches, current work tends to focus on misconduct and uses of force, leaving unanswered questions about how social ties can promote positive outcomes, such as officer morale, well-being, and recruitment. To advance the field, we call for comprehensive data across multiple agencies and levels to fully capture the central role of networks in policing. 

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