ABSTRACT
Mapping the Police Funding Terrain: Donors, Sponsors, Foundations, Paid Detail, Forfeiture, and Beyond provides details and examples of private funding of police drawn from our extensive research. For this effort, we analyze freedom of information requests, government charity records, as well as relevant funder and police websites and interviews with funders and police. We first explain key differences and overlaps among gratuities, donations or gifts, sponsorships, and partnerships in police departments across North America. The monetary values of reported donations or gifts to police departments are found to be often modest, though they vary widely and are sometimes substantial. The level of capital stemming from other forms, such as longer-standing foundations, is decidedly more substantial. This chapter identifies and discusses history, prevalence, and size of each major funding type, that is, foundations and paid detail. The chapter also details donation and sponsorship policies of eight police departments of varying sizes and locations in North America before concluding by discussing Crime Stoppers and civil forfeiture as additional funding forms as well as overlap among the various forms and funding networks.
