This study analyzes two decades of data from a municipal police agency and describes the average patrol officer career productivity trajectory. We find that declines in productivity begin immediately after the first year of service and worsen over the course of officers’ careers. After their 20th year, patrol officers generate 88% fewer directed patrols, 50% fewer traffic warnings, 58% fewer traffic citations, 41% fewer warrant arrests, and 57% fewer misdemeanor arrests compared to officers with 1 year of experience. Using a patrol officer productivity metric called Z-score per Productive Time (Z-PRO), we estimate that each additional year of service decreases an officer’s overall productivity by about 2%. Z-PRO also indicates that after 21 years of service, an average officer will be approximately 35% less productive overall than an officer with 1 year of service.
Technology has become a major source of expenditure and innovation in law enforcement and is assumed to hold great potential for enhancing police work. But does technology achieve these expectations? The current state of research on technology in policing is unclear about the links between technologies and outcomes such as work efficiencies, effectiveness in crime control, or improved police–community relationships. In this article, we present findings from a mixed-methods, multiagency study that examines factors that may mediate the connection between technology adoption and outcome effectiveness in policing. We find that police view technology through technological and organizational frames determined by traditional and reactive policing approaches. These frames may limit technology’s potential in the current reform era and cause unintended consequences.
We propose that the causes of the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of police interventions can be better understood with an increased focus on the measurement of treatment implementation and outputs, as opposed to the more common "black box" conceptualizations of police interventions and outcome-only evaluations used in most experimental studies. We present findings from a randomized, experimental evaluation of broken windows policing at hotspots in three California cities. Our analysis suggests that variation in the treatment delivered to target street segments within and between cities limited the ability of the study to detect potential treatment impacts and was due in part to the failure of the police agencies to take ownership of the science of the intervention.
As police departments across the United States equip officers with body worn cameras (BWCs), research has focused on the technology’s impact on police interactions with citizens, officer misconduct, officer use of force, and false allegations against police. Given the large number of police agencies implementing BWCs across the country (numbering in the thousands), there will be a growing number of opportunities for BWC evaluations and expectations that these programs will be evaluated. Studying the implementation of BWCs presents a number of challenges to both researchers and police agencies, particularly when large police organizations are involved. Drawing on our experiences involving a BWC experiment with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, this article discusses the programmatic challenges of implementing a BWC program in a large agency (technical, political, and administrative) while simultaneously evaluating the program using a randomized controlled trial design.
Although improving police responses to mental health crises has received significant policy attention, most encounters between police and persons with mental illnesses do not involve major crimes or violence nor do they rise to the level of emergency apprehension. Here, we report on field observations of police officers handling mental health-related encounters in Chicago. Findings confirm these encounters often occur in the "gray zone," where the problems at hand do not call for formal or legalistic interventions. In examining how police resolved such situations, we observed three core features of police work: (a) accepting temporary solutions to chronic vulnerability, (b) using local knowledge to guide decision making, and (c) negotiating peace with complainants and call subjects. Findings imply the need to advance field-based studies using systematic social observations of gray zone decision making within and across distinct geographic and place-based contexts. Policy implications for supporting police interventions are also discussed.
Decades of research on public support for the police has documented the prominent role of procedural justice in shaping popular views of police legitimacy and the predisposition of citizens to comply and cooperate with them. However, much less attention has been given to the issue of how to get police officers to actually act in accord with its principles when they interact with the public. Reminders of the importance and the difficulty of fostering police legitimacy are not hard to come by, as witnessed in events in the United States during 2014 to 2015. This article addresses the hard, multifaceted issue of fostering procedural justice in the ranks. It theorizes and assesses the relationship between fair supervision and fair policing. The results of our study indicate that perceived internal procedural justice is directly related to support for external procedural justice (modeling thesis), and also indirectly, via trust in citizens.
Police response time to calls for service is a crucial factor in evaluation of police performance. While domestic violence is now considered serious interpersonal violence, factors associated with response time to domestic violence incidents are underexplored. Using hierarchical linear modeling, over 10,000 cases of calls for service for domestic violence across 438 census tracts in Houston, Texas, were examined. The result of multilevel analysis revealed that complainant’s race, weapon involvement, and day and time of incidents were associated with response time at the situational level. At the neighborhood level, concentrated disadvantage, immigration concentration, and residential stability were significantly associated with response time.
It remains unclear how pervasive police-community corrections partnerships are, and to what extent they are integrated into routine practice, as well as whether or not police chiefs and chief probation or parole officers within the same jurisdictions perceive them to be effective. The current study enhances our understanding of such partnerships between police and probation or parole. Data were collected through a statewide survey of a random sample of municipal police chiefs and county chief probation or parole officers in Pennsylvania. The primary research questions focus on identifying the following: (a) empirically derived and meaningful patterns of police-community corrections partnerships, (b) a comparison of police chief and chief probation or parole officer perceptions of benefits and problems regarding their partnerships, and (c) the predictors of these perceptions. Results reveal that such partnerships are prevalent, but they are predominantly informal, with formalization largely contingent on the progressiveness of the police chief (i.e., newer police chiefs were more likely to engage in formalized partnerships). Further, the crime prevention and recidivism reduction potential of these partnerships remain unclear from the perspectives of both law enforcement and community supervision leaders. In general, Pennsylvania police chiefs are less favorable to the partnerships than are the chiefs of probation or parole offices, and certain partnership types relate to the negative perceptions of some agency leaders. The implications of the findings reported here for policies, training, and future research are discussed.
What can change the willingness of people to report crimes? A 6-month study in Denver investigated whether Body Worn Cameras (BWCs) can change crime-reporting behavior, with treatment-officers wearing BWCs patrolling targeted street segments, while control officers patrolled the no-treatment areas without BWCs. Stratified street segments crime densities were used as the units of analysis, in order to measure the effect on the number of emergency calls in target versus control street segments. Repeated measures ANOVAs and subgroup analyses suggest that BWCs lead to greater willingness to report crimes to the police in low crime density level residential street segments, but no discernable differences emerge in hotspot street segments. Variations in reporting are interpreted in terms of accountability, legitimacy, or perceived utility caused by the use of BWCs. Situational characteristics of the street segments explain why low-level street segments are affected by BWCs, while in hotspots no effect was detected.
This study used observations of crime strategy meetings and interviews with police commanders to "get inside the black box of hot spots policing." The findings focus on what the studied police commanders believed they were doing and why they believed those tactics would be effective during hot spots policing implemented under non-experimental conditions. An example causal model for the effectiveness of hot spots policing that emerged from the data is presented. While the commanders’ views aligned with commonly used policing tactics and crime control theories, their underlying theoretical rationale is complex. The presented model provides one causal model that could be tested in future hot spots policing evaluations, and a discussion is presented of how the study’s methodology can be applied in other jurisdictions to define localized causal models and improve hot spot policing evaluations.
The police have come under fire recently as videos showing their use of force are heavily publicized in public and social media. The President's Task Force on 21st-century policing, though useful in reviewing current issues, fails to effectively address the use of force problem by not considering the power of informal police culture and the way in which street police perceive dangers. Exaggerating the dangers of the job, perception and responses to dangers by street police, and a lack of legal and managerial oversight of use of force and shooting and arrest situations are pointed to as major factors in why deadly use of force incidents occur. Recommendations on how to minimize such incidents even further are delineated.
Over the past few years, several events have highlighted the strained relationship between the police and residents in many communities. Police officer body-worn cameras (BWCs) have been advocated as a tool by which police–community relations can be strengthened, while simultaneously increasing transparency and accountability of police departments. Support for BWCs from the public and federal government is strong, and some studies have examined police perceptions of BWCs. However, comparisons of officer perceptions of BWCs in different departments are lacking, as are assessments of officer attitudes pre- and post-BWC deployment. This study compares officer perceptions of BWCs in three police departments in the western United States between 2013 and 2015, both before and after BWC program implementation. The similarities and differences among officer perceptions across departments are examined, and the authors consider the implications of findings for police departments moving forward with BWC technology.
The perceived benefits that generally accompany body-worn cameras (BWCs) include the ability to increase transparency and police legitimacy, improve behavior among both police officers and citizens, and reduce citizen complaints and police use of force. Less established in the literature, however, is the value of BWCs to aid in the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of intimate partner violence (IPV) offenders. We attempt to fill that void by examining the effect of pre- and post-camera deployment on a number of outcomes related to arrest, prosecution, and conviction. The findings provide initial evidence for the utility of BWCs in IPV cases. When compared with posttest non-camera cases, posttest camera cases were more likely to result in an arrest, have charges filed, have cases furthered, result in a guilty plea, and result in a guilty verdict at trial. These results have several implications for policing, prosecuting, and convicting IPV cases.
We conducted two studies, wherein participants from across the United States watched, heard, or read the transcript of an actual police shooting event. The data for Study 1 were collected prior to media coverage of a widely publicized police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Results indicated that participants who could hear or see the event were significantly more likely to perceive the shooting was justified than they were when they read a transcript of the encounter. Shortly after the events in Ferguson, Missouri, we replicated the first study, finding quite different results. Although dissatisfaction with the shooting was seen in all forms of presentation, video evidence produced the highest citizen perceptions of an unjustified shooting and audio evidence produced the least. Citizens were nonetheless overwhelmingly favorable to requiring police to use body cameras. Body-mounted cameras with high-quality audio capabilities are recommended for police departments to consider.
Previous research employing an institutional theoretical framework posits environmental factors play an integral role in the adoption of police practices. The present study applies this framework to examine the adoption of intelligence-led policing (ILP). Data from a purposive sample of national intelligence personnel from 254 agencies are used to employ both a measurement and structural model to explain ILP adoption. Weighted least squares estimation is employed through an asymptotic distribution free function to estimate the measurement and structural equation models. Models exhibit good fit indices, while institutional pressures, among others, had a significant and positive effect on ILP adoption. Findings support the role of institutional pressures in the diffusion of police practice. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.
The addition of TASERs as a less lethal use-of-force option for police officers has facilitated much discussion in recent scholarship. Many police agencies have responded with force policy changes specific to appropriate applications for these weapons. While the goal of these changes is often to minimize concern about injury to citizens, debate rests on whether injury rates for officers are influenced by such transitions in policy. The present study used officer injury panel data from the City of Dallas (Texas) Human Resources Department to assess the impact of a 2005 modification to the Dallas Police Department’s TASER policy. The goal of the study was to assess change in the rate of officer injury after the implementation of a more restrictive policy. We observed a modest increase in the monthly rate of police officer injuries following the policy restricting use. These results were found net of other effects, with some noteworthy between-patrol-division variation. Implications for TASER use policy and future research are discussed within.
Organizations are expected to assess and respond to environmental conditions. For police agencies in the post-9/11 and post hurricane Katrina era, the environment includes assessing the threat posed by terrorism and disasters. We use organizational contingency and institutional theories to predict the permeability of local police chiefs’ assessments of various environmental threats and what factors affect the sensing process. We use survey data from 350 police agencies to explore the dimensionality of agency assessments on disasters, accidents, and terrorism. Our findings indicate that local police chiefs view environmental threats as having three dimensions. Additionally, institutional sovereigns have a greater influence on agency assessments of threat than do contingency factors.
Automated ballistic imaging technology is a potentially effective tool for improving the investigation and prosecution of violent crime involving guns. This technology enables crime laboratories and law enforcement agencies to link crimes committed with the same gun. Yet, in many localities, structural and procedural constraints hamper the potential effectiveness of ballistic imaging as an investigative tool. This study examines the impact of new personnel, processes, and technology on ballistic evidence processing productivity in the Stockton Police Department’s Firearms Unit. Using interrupted time series analysis, we examine the impact of several organizational changes on ballistic evidence processing productivity. Our findings demonstrate that the Stockton Police Department achieved rapid improvements in its ballistic evidence processing capacity. The study shows how introducing key organizational changes in a police department or a crime laboratory can generate disproportionate impacts on ballistic evidence processing productivity.
Several recent high-profile homicides of police officers have brought increased attention to issues of far-right extremist violence in the United States. We still, however, know very little about why (and how) certain encounters between far-right extremists and police result in violence. To fill this research gap, we conduct a mixed-method analysis of far-right antipolice homicides based on quantitative and qualitative data from the U.S. Extremist Crime Database. We begin by categorizing cases based on key aspects of homicide storylines. We then comparatively analyze attributes of event precursor, transaction, and aftermath stages across four storyline categories. Finally, a case study is purposively selected to follow-up on each storyline category to better capture the nuances of fluid homicide processes. Our findings have important implications for identifying triggering events, escalation factors, and other situated sets of conditions and circumstances that contribute to deadly outcomes for police officers.
This study is one of the few to investigate correlates of force in the Canadian context. It also investigates the existence of protective factors that decrease the level of force used by the police. A total of 1,174 self-reported uses of force are analyzed. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to identify factors related to three possibilities: The force used by the police was lower than, equal to, or higher than the level of subject resistance. The analysis reveals that the impact of individual characteristics on the correspondence between officer force and subject resistance is negligible. Also, three general patterns of relationships are found. First, the presence of a weapon helps distinguish lower-than-expected force situations. Second, the presence of a single officer, resistance toward officer(s), conflict between the subject and another citizen, and subject intoxication have linear effects, that is, the effect increases or decreases consistently. Third, for every less severe level of force that was used, cases are more likely to be in the expected than the lower-than- and in the higher-than-expected group. The findings obtained in this study are consistent with the literature, suggesting that it is reasonable to apply most conclusions from previous studies on police use of force to the Canadian context. The analysis also suggests that police use of force could be better understood as a trichotomy where the force used by the police is depicted as lower than, equal to, or higher than the level of subject resistance.
Building on prior research involving citizen complaints, the current inquiry seeks to add to the literature by examining citizen complaint data from eight U.S. cities. We assess the distribution of complaints and dispositions, along with the relationship between officer- and citizen-based characteristics. Further, we examine the extent to which varying types of investigatory models (e.g., internal affairs, command level, and external civilian oversight) influence whether complaints are found to have merit (i.e., sustained complaints). In line with prior research, we found that a small percentage of officers accounted for a disproportionate percentage of total complaints, excessive force and discourtesy were often the most common allegations lodged, and younger officers and those with less experience generally received a greater number of complaints. Adding to the literature, we found substantial variation across agencies with respect to the raw number of complaints generated, the extent to which use of force and discourtesy complaints accounted for the total number of complaints overall, and the extent to which various agencies sustained complaints. We also found that male and non-White complainants were more likely to lodge use of force allegations, with Black complainants less likely to have their complaints sustained. Moreover, cities where the police internal affairs unit served as the investigatory entity, but had their outcome decisions (i.e., dispositions) reviewed by an external civilian oversight agency, were significantly more likely to sustain complaints.
It has been widely noted that policing is a stressful occupation, leading to a host of adverse outcomes. Many have posited that, in part, this can be explained by the emotional demands imposed on officers as a consequence of their unique role, organization, and culture. Consistent with this premise, a number of studies have found support for the notion that emotive dissonance is particularly likely to contribute to burnout. However, no studies have previously assessed how the complex emotional demands and strategies exercised within policing produce benefits and consequences for officers. Specifically, how do requirements to express coercion or apologize influence officer burnout? How do requirements to express or suppress positive or negative emotion influence burnout? And, do these effects vary depending upon whether greater surface or deep acting is required? The present study suggests that while some aspects of emotive dissonance may be negatively consequential, other emotional demands and strategies used by officers may have advantages. Specifically, while coercion in particular seems to increase depersonalization, both surface acting and attempts to deeply experience required positive emotions actually serve to decrease burnout among officers. The implications of these findings for theory, research, and the prevention of burnout among police are discussed.
This study evaluated a police-led community initiative that combined various enforcement and prevention efforts to reduce gun violence and other violence in a selected area of St. Louis, Missouri. A quasi-experimental multiple time-series design was used to compare trends in total violence and gun violence in the program neighborhood with the average of these trends in seven matched comparison neighborhoods. Total violence and gun violence declined in the program area relative to trends in the comparison areas during the 9-month program period, and these reductions seemed to be most strongly associated with the program’s heightened enforcement efforts. However, the results were not sufficient to conclude that the program had statistically significant effects beyond its early weeks when enforcement efforts were most intensive and total violence declined significantly. This study adds to the limited evidence based on comprehensive, criminal justice-led initiatives to prevent violent crime, including gun offenses. We suggest that programs like those in St. Louis might be refined through further emphasis on formalized problem solving, high-risk groups, hot spot locations, community participation, and project maintenance.
Police integrity, or the lack thereof, is a frequent topic throughout media, academia, and all law enforcement organizations. The issue has been addressed on an individual and organizational level but continues to raise as many questions as it answers. One argument is that police training causes declination in recruits’ values, which eventually leads to officers acting in unethical ways. The present study examined the extent to which police academy training impacts recruits’ self-reported integrity, which was measured at the beginning and end of academy training. Three different training formats (n1 = 143, n2 = 87, n3 = 27) were observed, social desirability was assessed to control for response bias, and self-reported emotional intelligence was measured as a potential moderator variable. Results indicated that participants started with significantly higher than average levels of integrity (with Cohen’s d values ranging from .56 to .83) and training had no significant impact on their integrity scores, even when corrected for social desirability. The results were not impacted by the length of training, pre-academy level of emotional intelligence, or a variety of demographic variables. The study encourages law enforcement organizations to focus on ways to help their employees maintain high levels of ethical decision making.
This study made use of delinquent subculture theories developed in the United States to examine juvenile attitudes toward the police in China. The data were collected from face-to-face interviews conducted with 358 adjudicated youth offenders incarcerated in a province-run juvenile prison in an ethnic minority autonomous region of China. The analysis includes variables derived from delinquent subcultures theories as well as traditional models commonly employed in the U.S. literature. The findings suggest that juvenile offenders in the sample tend to rate the police positively and delinquent subculture theories have their utility in explaining juvenile offenders’ sentiments toward the police. Explanations were provided for findings that are distinctive for this Chinese sample. Study limitations and relevant policy implications were discussed.
Citizens’ beliefs that officers are employing unnecessary or excessive levels of force can quickly erode police legitimacy and can lead to severe consequences including loss of life, civil disorder, criminal prosecution, and large civil judgments. Although scholars have devoted more than four decades of research to identifying the correlates of police–citizen violence, relatively little study has focused on the relationship between departmental measures of police professionalism and violent outcomes between citizens and officers. The current study uses data from the 2003 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey to examine the impact of five measures of departmental professionalism—(a) agency commitment to education (associate’s degree requirement); (b) the number of hiring or screening standards; (c) the total number of training hours (academy, field training, and in-service); (d) female representation; and (e) agency commitment to community policing—on two indicators of police–citizen violence—(a) citizen complaints alleging excessive use of force and (b) reported assaults on officers—across 526 large municipal law enforcement agencies. Results from ordinary least squares regression analyses show that only departmental commitment to education was related to the police–citizen violence indicators, as agencies that require an associate’s degree experienced fewer citizen complaints of use of force and fewer assaults on their officers. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for police policy and practice, as well as for our understanding of the organizational-level correlates of police–citizen violence.
The job of the police has become increasingly complex as the role of the police has expanded to incorporate new responsibilities ranging from the creation of police-community partnerships to dealing with mentally ill persons in more humane and effective ways. It is no longer enough to measure response time, arrests, and clearance rates. Police managers need to know whether their agencies have the confidence of the community, whether members of the public believe that they are being treated fairly when they request services or when they are stopped by an officer, whether leadership is creating a positive work environment and culture of integrity, and whether services are being provided in a cost-efficient manner. In this article, we give a short history of performance measures for policing. We then describe a project that is attempting to develop a standardized suite of performance measures that are well tested, reliable, inexpensive, and easy to use. Field-tests found that the producing this richer set of performance measures is feasible for a diverse set of police agencies.
An overwhelming body of literature points to a relationship between experiencing adversity during childhood and later violence in adulthood. This study addresses a gap in existing research by testing of the impact of four prior childhood adversities on resistant behaviors toward law enforcement officers. A four-level ordinal dependent variable measuring passive resistance, verbal resistance, police action resistance, and physical resistance was created using data from the nationally representative, 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities. A generalized ordinal logistic regression model tested the effects of childhood adversities on resistant behaviors toward law enforcement officers. Physical victimization during childhood and adulthood predicted resistant behaviors toward law enforcement officers above and beyond the effects of prior victimization during only childhood and only adulthood. This study found a strong association between prior physical victimization, foster care involvement, and resistant behaviors after adjusting for demographic, situational, and criminal background variables.
Police perceptions of procedural justice are less well understood than citizen perceptions. Our paper compares the views of police officers and citizens of a routine Australian policing encounter, the Random Breath Test. We examine perceptions of two versions of their encounter: a business as usual and a more explicitly procedurally just interaction. Our results indicate that the procedurally just version affected the views of police officers, but not drivers, regarding the reasons for conducting Random Breath Tests. It also appears that police officers believe that the encounter has a greater impact on drivers’ views than the drivers report themselves. This study has important implications for policing as it demonstrates that incorporating procedural justice within police-citizen interactions affects police officers as well as the citizens. It also highlights the importance of using external (e.g., larger community) measures, in addition to internal measures (e.g., within police organization), when assessing the effectiveness of police organizations to ensure a more complete picture.
The force factor method has garnered much attention and application in police use-of-force research, but the reliability of the method has yet to be intensively studied. Using official reports from the Seattle Police Department during a two-and-a-quarter-year period (n = 1,240), officer–suspect interactions were coded from the content of report narratives. Static force factors compared the maximum force applied by the officer with the maximum level of suspect resistance. Dynamic force factors were also recorded, including up to 10 iterations of dyadic action/reaction coded using the same coding scheme. The coding of force factors was completed independently by two teams working at different institutions in a fully crossed design. Evidence on the interrater reliability and subsequent utility of force factors is presented and discussed. Results indicate acceptable levels of agreement across coding teams and support the use of force factors as a central tool for studying asymmetrical social encounters and the proportionality of force.
The role officer experience plays in shaping behavioral choices has received considerable attention. Officer experience has most often been captured by measuring years of service in policing literature. Thus, the field’s understanding of how officer experience shapes behavior choices is limited because years of service are not experienced monolithically. The current study employed multivariate, multilevel models to test three research hypotheses based on existing theoretical explanations of police behavior and psychology literature to more fully explore the influence of officer experience on discretionary search behavior. The results indicate that years of service provide an incomplete understanding of how experience motivates behavior in the traffic stop search context. A more complete understanding requires accounting for aspects of exposure to certain situational characteristics, activities undertaken, and work performance, suggesting that failing to incorporate multidimensional operationalizations of experience limits our ability to fully understand the influence of officer experience on decision making.
We explore the question of whether some of the often conflicting evidence of racial profiling can be cleared up using red light camera observations to measure racial disparities in traffic violations. Using data from cameras at intersections matched to census data, we find that although citations from the red light cameras are issued to a disproportionate number of minorities based on the racial composition of the surrounding location, the racial composition of the violator is consistent with the racial composition of the block group in which they reside. Our study indicates that red light cameras may have a present and future role in assisting public policy makers on issues of racial profiling thresholds.
To determine the impact of a longer-than-average compressed workweek on police officers’ sleep, cognitive abilities, health, quality of life, and work performance, two precincts of the Phoenix Police Department participated in a 9-month, repeated-measures study. The experimental precinct worked three consecutive 13-hr 20-min (13:20-hr) shifts per week for 6 months, while the control precinct worked four 10-hr shifts per week. Officers were assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Psychomotor Vigilance Test, STROOP Color-Word test, Quality of Life Inventory, and measures of salivary cortisol. The Phoenix Police Department provided data for Professional Standards Bureau complaints, shooting qualifications, vehicular accidents, self-initiated calls, adult bookings, field interrogations, overtime, and time off for the 6 months of the study period and the same 6 months of the previous year. Self-reported caffeine intake and shift preference were also collected. Officers working 13:20-hr shifts experienced significant (p < .05) decreases in hours of sleep, overall quality of sleep, concentration, cognitive processing, and quality of life (overall and in six of eight subareas). Significant (p < .05) increases were observed in fatigue, daytime dysfunction due to sleepiness, reaction time, anticipatory errors, and Professional Standards Bureau complaints. There were no significant differences in most indices of work performance or differences due to working day or night shifts. When officers working 13:20-hr shifts returned to 10-hr shifts, all variables returned to baseline (prestudy) levels. Officers from both precincts overwhelmingly preferred 10-hr shifts. This study indicates that there are no apparent advantages but considerable liabilities associated with 13:20-hr shifts for police officers.
The scholarly literature identifies two types of errors of justice: errors of due process and errors of impunity. Errors of due process involve failing to protect the innocent from becoming ensnared in the criminal justice process or imposing excessive sanctions on offenders. Errors of impunity involve failing to sanction, or imposing insufficient sanctions, on culpable offenders. The great challenge in designing criminal justice systems is balancing these two types of errors. We contend that the National Research Council’s recent recommendation to remove crime laboratories from law enforcement agencies in the United States focuses too heavily on avoiding one type of error while largely ignoring the other. We believe that heeding this recommendation without appropriate caution might produce an imbalance that generates serious unintended consequences. We draw on recent studies of how crime labs and law enforcement agencies process sexual assault kits and ballistic evidence to illustrate the potential unintended consequences of separating crime labs from law enforcement agencies.
Research on police discretion largely focuses on explaining the arrest disposition, while little attention is directed to the range of nonarrest decisions within an encounter. The research objective is to contribute to the discourse on police behavior by exploring the factors affecting different types of discretionary outcomes, a reconceptualization of demeanor, and the role of offence seriousness in different contexts. Using field observational data from a mid-sized Canadian police service, logistic regression models investigate the factors affecting police action identified in prior discretion research on three measures: conversational requests and directives, police assistance, and laying a criminal charge. The results support demarcating demeanor into disrespect and noncompliance, as they have unique independent effects on the use of discretion. Contrary to expectations, offence seriousness is only a significant predictor of noncoercive actions, while situational factors are better predictors of the arrest or charge decision than nondispositional outcomes.
The present study examined the effect of field supervisor behavior modeling on patrol officer use of unassigned patrol time. Specifically, the study explored whether field supervisor engagement in proactive stops and checks resulted in an increased frequency of proactive stops and checks among patrol officers. Hierarchical analyses of computer-aided dispatch data from two municipal police departments were conducted with 320 shifts and 1,385 individual patrol officer tours of duty. After controlling for call for service workload, shift, agency, and officer demographic characteristics, the findings suggested that when field supervisors engage in proactive investigative activities, the volume of proactive activity by patrol officers approximately doubles. The policy implications and limitations of this study are then discussed.
This study examines the extent to which attitudinal dimensions associated with supervisor and officer styles explain subordinate officers’ satisfaction levels. Two frameworks, the average leadership style and person–supervisor fit, were employed and tested. To do so, survey data of 765 patrol officers and 146 patrol sergeants across five departments were used. The results provided little empirical support for the average leadership framework. After controlling for demographics and officer perceptions of work and organizational environments, sergeant style dimensions failed to exert a top-down effect on subordinate officer satisfaction. Support, however, was found for the person–supervisor fit framework. Specifically, when sergeant and officer views were congruent in the areas of support relations and expectations of aggressive enforcement, officers were more satisfied with their jobs. On the other hand, when sergeants viewed aggressive enforcement as important, but officers did not, officers were less satisfied. Finally, the patterning of results from a subsample analysis suggested that supervisory influences were more pronounced in the early stages of the officer–sergeant relationship. Practical implications associated with the person–supervisor fit framework are discussed.
The issue of suicide among law enforcement personnel has garnered increasing attention. Unfortunately, little is known about the etiology of suicide for this group, and whether its rates warrant unique consideration as an at-risk population. This project used the psychological autopsy technique to examine the etiology of eight law enforcement suicides. Findings indicated that all employees in the sample demonstrated risk factors for suicide congruent with those of the general population. Prehire risk factors were elemental to most employee completions, including those related to family-of-origin context and substance abuse. Exposure to traumatic on-duty critical incidents was not a primary theme. The findings challenge the dominant theoretical perspective that law enforcement training, vocational culture, and exposure to traumatic on-duty events generate cognitive restriction and then patterns of substance abuse for those who complete suicide within this vocation. Suggestions for prehire screening are made, with a focus on the assessment for preexisting polarized cognitive styles.
Public attitudes toward the police (PATP) have become a key area of policing research. Even a cursory review of the literature shows that few studies pay attention to the development of theoretical constructs concerning outcome variable(s)—PATP. The purpose of this study is to advance our knowledge of the psychometric properties of PATP. More specifically, drawing upon Easton’s theory of public support, we examine the discriminant validity of diffuse PATP and specific PATP and explore whether there is a neighborhood-conditioning effect in the response to items tapping into the concept of PATP. We use the two waves of telephone surveys collected in Houston, Texas in 2010 and 2012, which include responses from more than 2,500 residents. Confirmatory factor analysis is utilized to conduct the psychometric analysis, as it is an appropriate approach to testing theory-driven factor structures for the attitude-based constructs. The initial results were validated and then replicated. The results lend support for a two-factor model of PATP, where neighborhood is identified as a key moderator. Three important observations concerning measures of PATP are highlighted.
Patrol officer productivity is an understudied topic in police research. Prior studies on productivity have primarily relied on rudimentary statistics, such as calls for service and arrests. A more advanced method for evaluating productivity should (a) account for the diverse activities of patrol officers, (b) weight different productivity outputs, (c) evaluate officers in terms of available minutes for self-initiated activities (productive time), and (d) offer agencies the flexibility to select, prioritize, and weight patrol activities most relevant to their jurisdictions. Borrowing from a baseball sabermetric called Value Over Replacement Player, we create and test an innovative statistic called Value Over Replacement Cop. This metric analyzes 12 patrol activities and generates a single number by which to quantify and evaluate a patrol officer’s productivity. Using data from a midsize U.S. Police Department (325 sworn officers), we find strong support for the validity of this new metric.
Officers in law enforcement agencies (LEAs) experience long-term health morbidity and mortality at rates exceeding other occupations and the general population. The purpose of this study was to pilot a survey of officer safety and wellness to demonstrate feasibility, assess the need for further research, and lay the groundwork for policies and additional support for officer wellbeing. A random sample of 184 officers from 11 participating LEAs responded to a survey regarding physical activity patterns, job characteristics, substance use, critical incidents, job-related stress, personal health, and health-care usage. Officers reported physical health outcomes at rates similar to the general population but screened positive for elevated rates of posttraumatic stress disorder, common mental disorders, and alcohol misuse. These data support the need for research at the regional and national levels to inform LEA policies and programs.
Section 14141 of the Violent Crime Act of 1994 fundamentally restructures the regulation of police behavior in the United States. Since the law’s passage, dozens of police departments have undergone lengthy and complex reforms designed to eliminate a pattern or practice of misconduct. Despite the program’s wide application, neither scholars nor practitioners know much about the efficacy or sustainability of these reforms. This article draws on longitudinal data across several outcome metrics, including citizen complaints, use of force incidence, and civil litigation, and a series of interviews with key stakeholders to examine pattern or practice initiatives in Pittsburgh, PA; Washington, DC; and Cincinnati, OH. Findings suggest that the reform process has the ability to minimize unwanted police misconduct and generate desirable policy outcomes, particularly during the period of Department of Justice oversight. Sustaining these reforms after the settlement agreement is dissolved, however, has proved a challenge.
Two principal questions were addressed in the study: (a) What factors contribute to police employees’ job satisfaction and affective commitment, and (b) does job satisfaction mediate the effect of occupational stressors on affective commitment. The data for the current study were from a large research study on police job satisfaction in Taiwan. The results reported that three stressors consistently contributed to explaining police officers’ job satisfaction and occupational commitment: officers’ relationships with their peers and with their supervisors, and their perceptions about the department’s promotion system. The results also demonstrated that job satisfaction partially mediated these three significant job stressors on occupational commitment among police officers. Based on the findings reported here, both clear implications for practice and useful suggestions for future research are set forth.
Despite growing numbers of school police personnel, little research has examined how school environments influence officers assigned to school resource officer (SRO) programs. This study explored officers’ perceptions of their roles and job satisfaction. Fifty-two SROs from a statewide Midwestern region were matched to 320 patrol officers at a Midwestern agency. Propensity score matching analyses revealed, compared with patrol officers, SROs performed fewer law enforcement and order maintenance tasks, reported lower levels of role ambiguity and conflict, and were more satisfied along one dimension of job satisfaction. Findings indicated officers in a specialized position were protected from sources of role ambiguity and conflict resulting in greater job satisfaction, which poses implications for improving job performance and officer wellbeing.
This study examines police response to rapid population growth resulting from the oil boom in western North Dakota. This study uses methodological triangulation to examine how rapid population growth has affected the way that police personnel conduct their work and interact with citizens in their communities. Data sources include face-to-face interviews with 101 sworn police personnel working in eight agencies, across four counties in western North Dakota, and examination of official data (including concealed weapons permits, calls for police service, and police personnel). Research findings reveal that the oil boom has caused significant changes to policing in western North Dakota.
Law enforcement agencies across the United States, partly in response to public outcries over fatalities associated with police use of lethal force, have adopted numerous less lethal technologies, including conducted energy devices (CEDs). Although the device was intended to reduce citizen deaths resulting from police use of force, various human rights groups have linked its usage to increased fatalities. The present study adds to the literature on CEDs by examining (a) the relationship between the restrictiveness of CED-related policies and CED deployments and (b) the relationship between these policies and fatal police shootings. Using data from a nationally representative sample of American law enforcement agencies, this study estimates a series of count regression models to examine the influence of departmental policies on CED usage and fatal shootings by police. Findings illustrate that less restrictive CED policies are associated with increased CED usage and fewer fatal shootings by police. Although design limitations preclude causal arguments, these results suggest that police departments should at least consider adopting more liberal policies regarding the application of this less lethal technology. Future studies on this issue using more rigorous designs are warranted.
Police officer receptivity to empirical research and evidence-based policing is important to consider because officers are responsible for implementing approaches validated by research on the street. Officer survey data from Sacramento, California; Richmond, Virginia; and Roanoke County, Virginia suggest prospects and challenges for advancing evidence-based policing. Generally, officers use few tools to learn about research, but their views are in line with the evidence for some strategies. Officers typically value experience more than research to guide practice, but they also tend to recognize the importance of working with researchers to address crime. Officers show some willingness to conduct evaluations but are most interested in using less rigorous methodologies. The findings across agencies are fairly similar, although some differences do emerge.
Prior research assessing police misconduct has generally focused on prevalence and demographic correlates while neglecting traditional criminological theories. Some recent research has begun to fill the void in this area, but the link between self-control and police misconduct has yet to be explored. The current study utilizes a behavioral measure of self-control to evaluate the extent to which low self-control predicts police misconduct. Data from a sample of 1,935 police officers from the Philadelphia Police Department are analyzed, and the results generally indicate that low self-control is related to police misconduct. Specific findings, policy implications, and directions for future research are discussed.
Though research has explored impacts of mobile computing and information technology on police operations, the literature lacks exploration of large-bandwidth data-sharing technologies that enhance the utility of mobile computing terminals. As part of a federally funded project, the present study employs a longitudinal pre- and postdesign utilizing 7 years of computer-aided dispatch data from a medium-sized municipal police department in the New England region. Pooled time series analyses are employed to examine the effect of wireless broadband implementation on clearance time of calls for service. Findings offer tentative support that clearance times for service calls decreased with the implementation of a wireless broadband network. Implementation did not appear to generate differential effects in areas that had experienced past challenges with cellular communication signals. Implications are provided, with an emphasis on the development of additional knowledge on technological evaluations.
Although there is a large body of research on media coverage of crime and criminal justice issues, there is significantly less information about policing issues generally, and there has not been a study that specifically examines how the consolidation of law enforcement agencies has been presented in the news. This study fills this gap. We explore two general themes. First, we detail what issues about consolidation have been emphasized in the news. Second, we examine the types of sources that news reporters have relied on and how they have used them in stories about consolidation.
This study analyzes the association between police organizational and environmental factors and police misconduct using data derived from the new National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project (2009–2010). Our use of this data set affords us the opportunity to measure police misconduct with much greater breadth than in previous studies. A negative binomial regression analysis of 497 city police departments shows the following organizational characteristics—organizational size, the presence of a full-time internal affairs unit, and in-service training—salient in predicting police misconduct. The violent crime rate is the only environmental variable that influences police misconduct. These results not only highlight the importance of organizational structure in influencing police officer misconduct but they also suggest that a police department has at its disposal the ability to institute organizational changes that can help attenuate the occurrence of police misconduct.
Police departments (PDs) are increasingly using social networking sites (SNS) as a method of public communication. Over 75% of the largest U.S. departments currently have a presence on at least one of the three major SNS (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace). However, little is known about how departments are actually using these sites. To explore this issue, we conducted a content analysis of messages posted by the 23 largest U.S. PDs using Facebook over a 3-month period. Our results indicate that the content pattern was, to some extent, dependent upon the frequency that departments posted messages. Departments posting more frequently typically used Facebook for crime-related messages, whereas those posting less often were more likely to convey public relations messages. We also identified several message characteristics associated with greater responsiveness on the part of individuals following departments on Facebook. Policy implications of these trends are discussed.
In response to domestic and international concern about individuals being exploited for labor or commercial sex, the U.S. Government passed legislation in 2000, creating a new crime of human trafficking and devoting resources to the identification of victims and prosecution of perpetrators. Since that time, all 50 states have passed legislation criminalizing trafficking of persons, yet law enforcement responses to these new legal mandates have been uneven. Recent research suggests police agencies are generally unprepared to identify and respond to human trafficking incidents in local communities and, as a result, relatively few cases have been identified. Using data from medium-to-large municipal police agencies in the United States, this research examines competing explanations for the adoption of responses in the wake of new human trafficking laws. The findings suggest the importance of institutional explanations including organizational experience with change.
Qualitative data from 21 in-depth interviews with women in two metropolitan departments reveals how rank and tenure affected responses to negative coworker actions and attitudes. Most women abandoned putting up with harassment and bias after their earliest years in policing, but consistently felt compelled to respond to officers’ tests of their abilities. High-rank women used coping strategies that provided some protections from assaults on their identities and negative treatment from coworkers. Certain coping strategies may enable some women to move up in rank. The power that comes with rank enabled women to take on unique approaches to addressing workplace discrimination and harassment.
Decertification is the process by which a state authority determines that an individual should not be allowed to continue exercising the duties and privileges of a law enforcement officer. This is a potentially powerful mechanism for ensuring integrity in law enforcement, yet little is known about the nature and scope of decertification actions. This article presents the findings of a national study of decertification practices among the states. Over 1,350 officers were decertified during 2011 (including corrections officers, police officers, and others), and the base rate of decertification among police officers is estimated to be 1.2 per 1,000 officers, varying from zero to 7.6 per 1,000 at the state level. Sources of variability and policy implications are discussed.
This article discusses the importance of trust in furthering crime control partnerships among government agencies. Drawing upon fieldwork undertaken on American and Australian waterfronts, evidence is presented showing that trust played an integral role in shaping interagency partnerships at both sites. In abundance, trust was shown to help build social capital and promote harmonious relationships, whereas when lacking, collaborative activity was stunted. This article examines the successes and failures of partnerships in each case study, and concludes by identifying a range of factors that have been shown to promote trust, build social capital, and enable interagency partnerships to flourish.