Integrating evidence-based research into police practice is now an expectation for police agencies. This article discusses how the future direction of evidence-based policing can be enhanced through strong project management. It will illustrate how research evaluations can be supported in a way that protects the integrity of the research, thereby producing valuable results that increase the justification for policy change and recommendations for best practices. This article is part of a digest of entries written by participants of the National Institute of Justice’s Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) Scholars program. Each of the LEADS scholars represented in this digest have identified an issue relevant to their departments — from theft and traffic crashes to police recruitment and management practices — and examined the issue from an evidence-based perspective. In addition to surveying the scientific literature, some of the authors have proposed and implemented their own experimental trials to test hypotheses, gather data, and move closer to solutions.
