Ford and Atlantic Funds Back Policing Center’s Move to N.Y.

A prominent research institute focused on police-community relations will move from the University of California at Los Angeles to New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice with $2.5 million in support from the Ford Foundation and Atlantic Philanthropies, writes The New York Times. Established a decade ago at UCLA, the Center for Policing Equity has started collaborating with police departments around the country to track and compare statistics on stops, use of force, and other controversial law-enforcement behavior.

Ford and Atlantic are providing $1.5 million and $1 million, respectively, for an endowment to bring the center and its founder, Phillip Atiba Goff, to John Jay, where it will open this summer. “We’re having a moment in police and criminal justice reform in the United States, and the beating heart of police reform begins in New York,” Mr. Goff said of the move.

Mr. Goff will serve as Franklin A. Thomas professor of policing equity, the college’s first endowed professorship, named for a former Ford Foundation president. As part of its focus on inequality, the foundation has made “improving relations between communities of color and law enforcement” a priority, said Darren Walker, its leader.

Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy Facebook chat with Darren Walker on the Ford Foundation’s inequality agenda.