Law Enforcement Action Partnership

The Law Enforcement Action Partnership, commonly known as LEAP, is a United States nonprofit advocacy organization made up of current and former professionals from policing, the courts, prosecution, corrections, probation, parole, and related criminal-justice fields. Its members use professional experience and public speaking to argue that selected criminal justice and drug policies can be changed in ways that reduce crime, violence, unnecessary incarceration, and the harms associated with illicit drug markets. LEAP was founded in 2002 by five police officers under the name Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. In its initial phase, the organization concentrated on criticism of the war on drugs and advocated for legalizing and regulating drugs through a public-health framework. The group argued that prohibition could intensify violence, create illicit markets, and divert law-enforcement resources away from other public-safety priorities. Its speakers presented these positions to legislators, journalists, professional audiences, and the general public, drawing on their backgrounds in law enforcement and criminal justice. In January 2017, the organization adopted the name Law Enforcement Action Partnership. The rebranding reflected an expansion beyond drug prohibition into a broader set of criminal justice and policing issues. Its work now includes police-community relations, incarceration policy, harm reduction, drug policy, and international criminal justice approaches. Across these subjects, the organization frames reform as a public-safety issue rather than solely as a civil-liberties or political question. On police-community relations, LEAP promotes greater trust between police and the communities they serve. Positions associated with its advocacy include improved officer training and compensation, treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, attention to racial disparities, opposition to stop-and-frisk practices, restrictions on police militarization, ending civil asset forfeiture, and eliminating arrest quotas or other volume-based performance measures. The organization presents these proposals as ways to improve police legitimacy and effectiveness. On incarceration, LEAP supports reducing reliance on arrest and imprisonment where alternatives can protect public safety. Its stated reform interests include reducing mandatory minimum sentences, expanding pre-booking diversion, using restorative justice conferences, reforming cash bail, and changing parole and probation systems. It also seeks to reduce the collateral effects of criminal records, racial disparities in punishment, and restrictions on civic participation associated with felony convictions. LEAP supports harm-reduction measures intended to reduce deaths, disease, and other consequences of drug use. Areas of advocacy include supervised injection facilities, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, heroin-assisted treatment, medication-assisted treatment, syringe services, wider naloxone access, and treatment on demand. Until 2020, the organization served as fiscal sponsor for the Influence Foundation, which operates the harm-reduction publication Filter. The organization maintains a speakers bureau whose representatives include current and former police officers, military police, judges, prosecutors, prison officials, parole and probation personnel, and former FBI or DEA personnel. These speakers have conducted interviews and participated in public discussions with national and international news outlets. LEAP also draws on comparative examples, including drug-policy approaches associated with Switzerland and Portugal, in its discussion of public-health-oriented criminal justice policy. Publicly described funding information has included support from tobacco companies. Reference material states that more than one-third of LEAP's funding in 2017 came from Reynolds American. The organization remains an advocacy group rather than a commercial product brand, and its principal public-facing activities are education, media engagement, policy advocacy, and professional testimony.

The Law Enforcement Action Partnership began in 2002 when five police officers established an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Its founding premise was that people with direct experience in policing and criminal justice should participate in public debate over drug policy. The organization challenged the war on drugs and argued that prohibition could contribute to violence, sustain illicit markets, and consume enforcement resources without adequately addressing addiction and public health. From its early years, the group operated primarily as an advocacy and public-education organization. Rather than selling products or providing conventional commercial services, it developed a network of current and former criminal justice professionals who spoke to legislatures, news organizations, conferences, and community audiences. The speakers bureau became a central mechanism for presenting reform arguments through the testimony of police officers, judges, prosecutors, corrections officials, probation and parole personnel, and other practitioners. The organization's agenda subsequently expanded beyond drug legalization. Its broader reform program addressed the relationship between police and communities, the use of incarceration, harm reduction, and international approaches to criminal justice. LEAP connected these issues through an overarching public-safety argument: policies should be assessed by whether they reduce crime and violence, improve institutional legitimacy, and limit avoidable harms. In January 2017, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition changed its name to the Law Enforcement Action Partnership. The new name marked a shift from a primarily drug-policy identity toward a wider criminal justice platform. The organization continued to oppose the war on drugs while adding discussion of procedural justice, police training and wellness, racial disparities, stop-and-frisk, police militarization, civil asset forfeiture, arrest quotas, mandatory minimums, diversion, restorative justice, bail, probation, parole, and the collateral consequences of criminal convictions. LEAP's police-community-relations work emphasizes trust as a foundation of effective policing. Its stated proposals include better training and pay for officers, mental-health support for personnel exposed to traumatic work, and limits on practices it views as damaging to legitimacy. In incarceration policy, it advocates alternatives to arrest and imprisonment where they can protect public safety, including pre-booking diversion and restorative justice. It also supports changes intended to reduce racial disparities and the long-term consequences of criminal records. Harm reduction became another important part of the organization's policy agenda. LEAP has supported supervised injection facilities, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, medication-assisted treatment, heroin-assisted treatment, syringe exchange, expanded naloxone access, and treatment on demand. The group has also used international examples, including drug-policy experiments associated with Switzerland and Portugal, to illustrate approaches centered more heavily on health and safety than punishment. Until 2020, it fiscally sponsored the Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, a publication focused on harm reduction. The organization has maintained a substantial media and public-speaking presence, with speakers participating in interviews and discussions with outlets including the Associated Press, BBC, CNN, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and other publications. Its funding history has also attracted attention: reference material reports that tobacco companies provided funding and that Reynolds American accounted for more than one-third of funding in 2017. This information is part of the public context surrounding the organization, although it does not by itself establish misconduct. LEAP is therefore best understood as a nonprofit advocacy network rather than a conventional brand with consumer products. Its institutional identity rests on the credibility of criminal justice professionals who advocate policy changes they believe will produce safer communities, more legitimate policing, and less reliance on punitive drug and incarceration systems.

• 2020

  Fiscal sponsorship of the Influence Foundation ends

  [1]Law Enforcement Action Partnershipen.wikipedia.org

  Reference material identifies 2020 as the end of LEAP's period as fiscal sponsor for the Influence Foundation, which operates Filter.

• 2017

  Rebranded as the Law Enforcement Action Partnership

  [1]Law Enforcement Action Partnershipen.wikipedia.org

  The organization adopted its current name in January 2017, reflecting a broader agenda covering policing, incarceration, harm reduction, and criminal justice policy.

• 2002

  Organization founded as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

  [1]Law Enforcement Action Partnershipen.wikipedia.org

  Five police officers founded the organization to give law-enforcement professionals a public platform for opposing the war on drugs and advocating drug-policy reform.

A law-enforcement-led reform voice that presents drug-policy, policing, incarceration, and harm-reduction changes as practical measures for improving public safety.

• End the war on drugs

  United States

  LEAP advocates ending drug prohibition and establishing legal, regulated systems focused on public health, with the stated goals of reducing drug-related death, disease, addiction, and violence associated with illicit markets.

  Source
• Police-community relations reform

  United States

  The organization promotes reforms intended to increase police legitimacy and community trust, including improved training, officer wellness support, limits on militarization, opposition to stop-and-frisk, and ending arrest quotas and civil asset forfeiture.

  Source
• Alternatives to incarceration

  United States

  LEAP supports diversion, restorative justice, bail reform, changes to mandatory minimums, and parole and probation reform to reduce unnecessary incarceration and the collateral consequences of criminal convictions.

  Source
• Harm reduction advocacy

  United States · International policy discussion

  The organization supports supervised injection facilities, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, medication-assisted treatment, syringe services, naloxone access, and treatment on demand.

  Source

• 2017

  Broadened organizational identity through renamingStrategy

  Background

  The former name emphasized the organization's opposition to drug prohibition, while its policy work had expanded to policing, incarceration, harm reduction, and wider criminal justice issues.

  Action taken

  In January 2017, the organization changed its name from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition to the Law Enforcement Action Partnership.

  Aftermath

  The current name presents the group as a broad criminal justice and public-safety advocacy organization rather than a single-issue drug-policy group.

  Source

1. 1Law Enforcement Action Partnershipen.wikipedia.org
2. 2Law Enforcement Action Partnership official websiteleap.cc