Published scholarship & commentary

Ideas for more thoughtful, lawful, and effective policing.

A curated collection on constitutional policing, professional judgment, policy, leadership, use of force, and harm reduction.

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Featured article · July 2026

Asking the Right Question

Why Issue Recognition Is the Foundation of Lawful Policing

A patrol officer sees a gun and reacts to the weapon. A supervisor sees a fleeing driver and lets the pursuit continue. A chief sees rising crime and orders more visible enforcement. In each case, the fact was real and the response was made in good faith, but the officer or leader never stopped to ask the question the law actually requires. “Facts describe what is present. The issue defines what must be decided. They are not the same thing.” That distinction, Alikhan argues, is where most avoidable policing liability begins, not in bad intent, but in acting before the governing legal question is identified. The article lays out a four-step discipline any officer, supervisor, or chief can apply under pressure, and makes the case that agencies get the quality of legal judgment they actually train, supervise, and review for.

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About the collection

Most policing failures trace back to the same root cause: a decision made under pressure without returning to first principles. These articles argue that lawful, effective policing isn’t a matter of better tactics alone, it’s a matter of better judgment, built through training, policy, and leadership that hold up when it matters most.

The collection includes practitioner commentary published in outlets like Police Chief Magazine and Police1, alongside peer-reviewed research in Police Quarterly and Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, written or co-authored by Arif Alikhan of Alikhan Insights LLC.

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