Reducing Brutality Through Improved Police-Community Relations

This paper responds to negative public perceptions of United States law enforcement agencies. The research in this paper addresses six areas of policing reforms that have the potential to positively impact police-community relations: (1) building trust and legitimacy, (2) policy and oversight, (3) technology and social media, (4) community policing and crime reduction, (5) officer training and education, and (6) police-media relations. This paper reviews the existing literature in each topic area. The purpose of each literature review is to more accurately understand possible solutions to the widespread distrust of police and the issue of police brutality. This paper makes its own recommendations for how United States law enforcement agencies can successfully improve police-community relations and reduce occurrences of brutality. The recommendations made at the end of this research are applicable to all federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies across the country. Ultimately, it is the thesis of this research that improvements to police-community relations will lessen the necessity of police force and effectively reduce brutality

Endogenous cholinergic inputs and local circuit mechanisms govern the phasic mesolimbic dopamine response to nicotine

Nicotine exerts its reinforcing action by stimulating nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) and boosting dopamine (DA) output from the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Recent data have led to a debate about the principal pathway of nicotine action: direct stimulation of the DAergic cells through nAChR activation, or disinhibition mediated through desensitization of nAChRs on GABAergic interneurons. We use a computational model of the VTA circuitry and nAChR function to shed light on this issue. Our model illustrates that the α4β2-containing nAChRs either on DA or GABA cells can mediate the acute effects of nicotine. We account for in vitro as well as in vivo data, and predict the conditions necessary for either direct stimulation or disinhibition to be at the origin of DA activity increases. We propose key experiments to disentangle the contribution of both mechanisms. We show that the rate of endogenous acetylcholine input crucially determines the evoked DA response for both mechanisms. Together our results delineate the mechanisms by which the VTA mediates the acute rewarding properties of nicotine and suggest an acetylcholine dependence hypothesis for nicotine reinforcement.Peer reviewe