Officer perceptions of the shift away from no-knock drug search warrants in a large United States police department: A de-implementation case study
Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: “No-knock” exceptions to the requirement for police to announce their presence and authority prior to executing a search warrant were first allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963. Emblematic of the nation’s “War on Drugs,” and despite several tragic and traumatic outcomes, they remain a common militarized feature of police drug investigations. In reaction to nationally-publicized incidents of civilians and police killed in the execution of no-knock warrants in US cities, police departments are increasingly reconsidering this technique. This qualitative case study is the first to empirically examine officer perceptions about such a shift. Based on semi-structured interviews with officers (n=6) assigned to narcotics-related task forces in a large metropolitan police department that abruptly de-implemented the execution of no-knock warrants, it assesses police offer perceptions about this enforcement policy change. There was consensus that it was in response to the publicized killing of civilians, and while “knock-and-announce” alternatives are more likely to result in the destruction of drug evidence, the losses need not be critical for a successful prosecution if the preceding investigation had established probable cause, and the tactics employed were safer for both citizens and the police officers involved. This shift away from militarized search warrants in one urban jurisdiction was found to be largely feasible and acceptable to the officers involved, signaling the potential for a reconsideration of this often-used approach to drug enforcement.
Source: CrimRxiv
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4413950845