Police Manuals

The goal of this project is to create a directory of police policies and procedures, as well as related documents. When I started this project in 2015, police departments in 13 of the top 25 largest cities in the U.S. did not post their policies online. Since then several major departments have made them available to the general public. I am in the process of filing records requests for unavailable manuals and uploading them to Document Cloud.

City State Posted By Department Available Year
Albuquerque AK Yes Standard Operating Procedures current
Anchorage AK Yes Manual 2014
Atlanta GA Yes Standard Operating Procedures Current
Austin TX Yes Policy Manual (uploaded to Document Cloud) 2015
Baltimore MD Yes Policies
Boston MA Yes Rules and Procedures Current
Columbus OH Yes Directives, Use-of-Force Policy 2015
Charlotte NC Yes Directives (uploaded to Document Cloud) Current
Chicago IL Yes Directives Current
Cleveland OH Yes General Police Orders
2013 use-of-force policy and practices study by Police Executive Research Forum.
Current
Cincinnati OH Yes Procedure Manual, use-of-force policy. Current
Dallas TX No General Orders, Use-of-force policy, list of SOPs
Denver CO Yes Operations Manual, Use-of-force policy, crowd-control policy Current
Detroit MI No Operating procedures exempt from disclosure
Durham NC Yes General Orders Manual Current
El Paso TX No
Evanston IL No Policy Manual 2018
Fort Worth TX No General Orders Manual
Honolulu HI Yes Policies Current
Houston TX No General Orders 2015
Indianapolis IN No Use-of-Force Policy
Las Vegas NV Yes Manual, use-of-force policy
Los Angeles CA Yes Manual Current
Memphis TN No Use-of-deadly-force policy released July 2015.
Miami-Dade FL Use-of-Force Policy Current
Minneapolis MN Yes Policy and Procedure Manual Current
New Orleans LA Yes Policy Manual 2014
New York City NY No Patrol Guide, list of printed forms 2015
Oklahoma City OK Yes Police Operations Manual (2014), Use-Of-Force Policy 2014
Philadelphia PA Yes Directives Current
Phoenix AZ Yes Operations Orders Current
Portland OR Yes Directives Current
San Antonio TX Yes General Manual
SAPD Open Data Initiative
San Diego CA No Latest version requested
San Francisco CA Yes General Orders Current
San Jose CA Yes Duty Manual
Seattle WA Yes Manual Current
Washington, D.C. DC Yes General Orders Current