The Police Officer Perception Project (POPP): An experimental evaluation of factors that impact perceptions of the police

Objectives

To experimentally evaluate the effects of attire and patrol strategy esthetics on participants’ perceptions of police officers.

Methods

Using a rigorously controlled experimental methodology, I present participants (N = 307) with images of police officers in different attire (i.e., uniform and civilian) and patrol strategies (i.e., on a bicycle, on foot, and in a vehicle) and measure their perceptions of these officers as aggressive, approachable, friendly, respectful, and accountable.

Results

Participants express relatively positive perceptions of the police; however, their perceptions vary as a function of sociodemographics, attire, and patrol strategy. Police officers are generally perceived more favorably when presented in police uniform than when presented in civilian clothing. Police officers are also generally perceived more favorably when presented on a bicycle and/or on foot than when presented in a vehicle.

Conclusions

Merely observing police officers in different attire and patrol capacities produces substantial variation in perceptions of those officers. Given that most ‘police interaction’ occurs in relatively unceremonious settings without any exchange of formal dialogue between the public and the police (e.g., observing a police officer in passing), these findings are particularly fruitful for informing both research and practice. This is the first known study to use an experimental methodology to examine how esthetic factors of different patrol strategies can impact perceptions of the police.

     

Police service aides: Paraprofessionals for police

Increased professionalization of U.S. police patrol forces has yielded not only higher salaries but, through heightened citizen expectations, greater pressures to provide both more crime-fighting and more call-for-service answering activities. Service calls in particular, requiring diversified skills, have added to patrol workloads. Coming at a time of severe budget constraints, alternatives must be identified and evaluated that focus police skills on police matters and provide for non-law-enforcement services in other ways. Recent experience on one promising alternative resource-police service aides-is summarized here. These paraprofessionals are unarmed but uniformed civilians in marked vehicles who perform non-crime-related activities traditionally assigned to sworn officers. Included is an analysis of their effectiveness in freeing time for sworn officers to pursue crime-fighting activities; their capacity to perform different duties; and their impact on and acceptance by the sworn officers and the community. As in other professions, the introduction of police paraprofessionals will have a major impact on urban services in general and on policing in particular.     

Force,Stress, and Decision-Making Within the Belgian Police: the Impact of Stressful Situations on Police Decision-Making

Stress and fear are inevitable aspects of the police job and may have a large impact on police officers’ decision-making process. Many studies have explored how stress and fear may influence assessments of police officers, especially with regard to the use of force. This article aims to contribute to this research domain by reporting the findings from two empirical studies among Belgian police officers: a quantitative study of police officers’ attitudes towards and experiences with the use of force and a qualitative study on the influence of stress and emotions on officers’ decision-making and assessment abilities and accuracy of shooting. Both studies confirmed that stress and fear are often present in Belgian police practice. One of the main findings is that Belgian police officers are anxious about the consequences of their actions because they know they will be held accountable for them. The pressure that results from this accountability can make it even more difficult for police officers to react to stressful situations. Therefore, we need to look for the right balance in this difficult position, by providing tools that support police officers in making daily decisions, and help them do their job as effectively as possible.     

Police patrol and the deterrence of crime

A nonrecursive model of the deterrent effect of police presence was formulated and tested for 26 cities. Victimization data were employed as measures of crime, unpublished FBI data on the number of police patrol units as the measure of levels of police presence, and data for 11 exogenous variables were derived from FBI and census reports. It was found that per capita, police are a positive function of rates of violent crime and that clearance rates are a positive function of police presence. However, some offenses that have traditionally been thought to be deterrable are not inversely related to clearance rates. The equations were re-estimated using official measures of crime and found to be more consistent with the deterrent hypothesis. It is suggested that official data may generate a spurious correlation. Finally, caution is suggested in consideration of alternative forms of police presence.     

STREET-LEVEL DISCRETION IN POLICING

This article examines the consequences of a clash between police officers' expectations of street-level discretion and supervisors' constraints on such discretion. Two hypothesized consequences are examined: police officer alienation from the citizenry and police officer disaffection with the department. Both attitudinal data (from a survey of police officers) and behavioral data (from direct observation of police officers on patrol) are used. The data show some support for the hypothesis that disaffection with the department is a consequence of the discretion-constraint clash, but no support of alienation from the citizenry as a consequence. Rather, the data suggest that officers back away from discretion in situations where the public is perceived to be hostile and where supervisors reinforce that perception by active monitoring of police-citizen encounters.     

Police Integrity and the Czech Police Officers

The Velvet Revolution of 1989 ended the socialist period in former Czechoslovakia. Sixteen years after the transition toward democratic policing, we explore the integrity contours of the Czech police. In the summer of 2005, we surveyed more than 600 police officers from East Bohemia regarding their perceptions about the seriousness of police corruption, the appropriate punishment such misconduct deserves and would receive, and their willingness to report misconduct. The results indicate that the majority of the respondents correctly labeled behaviors described in our questionnaire as rule‐violating. Furthermore, with the exception of the least serious forms of corruption, they supported and expected the two most serious forms of discipline: a cut in salary and dismissal. Finally, the majority of the respondents said that they would not be willing to tolerate the most serious forms of corruption in silence.     

Police participation in structured plea negotiations

This article examines the participation of police officers in structured felony plea negotiations. The data were collected during the testing of pretrial settlement conferences conducted in Dade County, Florida. The police officers were relatively active in the plea discussions, and their presence affected both the structure of the discussion and the relative influence of the various parties. The data also indicate that police participation and influence were affected by the presence of either the victim or the defendant.While the presence of the police did not affect the processing (settlement/trial rate) or the disposition (sentence severity, use of incarceration or restitution), the officers who attended the conference were more satisfied with both the court process and the disposition. This finding is significant in the light of the demoralizing effects of traditional plea negotiations on police attitudes and the spill over of these negative attitudes into the criminal justice system.     

POLICE RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: SITUATIONS INVOLVING VETERANS EXHIBITING SIGNS OF MENTAL ILLNESS*

Drawing on attribution theory, research on police discretion, and public attitudes toward mental illness, we examine attributional processes in police decision making in response to domestic violence situations involving veterans and nonveterans with signs of mental illness. Using data from experimental vignettes varying veteran status, victim injury, and suspect compliance administered to a sample of 309 police officers, the results indicate that 1) veterans are perceived as less responsible for troublesome behavior but more dangerous than nonveterans, 2) suspects’ veteran status has a significant effect on officers’ preference for mental health treatment versus arrest, and 3) part of the effect of veteran status on officer response is mediated by internal and external attributions for problematic behavior and by perceptions of dangerousness. The study empirically demonstrates countervailing processes in police decision making—recognition of the causes for troublesome behavior and the need for mental health treatment on the one hand and concern for community safety and enforcing the law on the other.     

Police Support for Community Problem-Solving and Broken Windows Policing

This paper explores overall police officer acceptance of tactics and tenets of broken windows and community problem-solving policing. It assesses differential support for each by police officer characteristics (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender, rank, education level, years of service, and assignment). This study presents the findings of a survey of 227 sworn police personnel from two urban police departments. Univariate analyses reveal the levels of support that police have for certain police tactics and tenets of broken windows and community problem-solving policing. Regression analyses examine the relationship between key officer characteristics and support for these tactics and tenets as measured by respondents’ agreement with various items and indices. Findings include support for community problem-solving (and also a reliance on traditional policing methods); a lag in investigators’ acceptance of community problem-solving; and differences by officer race/ethnicity, education, rank, and assignment in indices related to broken windows and rapid response policing. The differential acceptance of broken windows and rapid response tactics by race/ethnicity suggests interesting implications for future studies of race/ethnicity and broken windows policing. The greater acceptance of certain tactics by patrol officers supports current moves toward innovating in police investigations’ bureaus.     

Race,Ethnicity, and Perceived Minority Police Presence: Examining Perceptions of Criminal Injustice Among Los Angeles Residents

Although the conventional wisdom holds that increasing the number of minority officers will enhance residents' perceptions of police and the criminal justice system, further systematic investigation of this hypothesis may be needed. Building on the group‐position thesis, the representative bureaucracy theory, and prior research, this study investigates whether perceived minority police presence within residents' neighborhoods affects residents' perceptions of criminal injustice, whether this effect is more pronounced for minority residents and in minority neighborhoods, and whether perceived minority police presence has a stronger effect on perceptions of criminal injustice for minority residents in more integrated and white neighborhoods than minority residents in minority neighborhoods. Analyses of data collected from Los Angeles, CA, show that residents perceive a lower level of criminal injustice when they report that officers in their neighborhoods are not white‐dominated, and this finding is not dependent on the respondent's race/ethnicity or the racial/ethnic composition of the neighborhood. In addition, perceived minority police presence seems to have a weak to no effect on residents' perceptions of criminal injustice for Hispanic communities. We discuss these findings and their implications for theory, research, and policy.     

A Pilot Study to Develop the Police Transformational Leadership Scale (PTLS) and Examine Its Associations with Psychosocial Well-Being of Officers

In these times of increased tensions between police officers and their communities, the need for effective police leadership is more important than ever. Past research suggests that a transformational style of leadership is preferred by most officers, with supervisors who are good communicators, trustworthy, effective at training officers for changing times, and able to create a shared cooperative vision. The present study developed a new Transformational Police Leadership Scale (TPLS) that police departments might eventually use to assess supervisor leadership characteristics. Participants included 152 US police officers who completed anonymous surveys to report demographics, to rate leadership behaviors of immediate supervisors, and to report their psychosocial well-being (self-esteem, perceived police social support, romantic partner conflict). Exploratory factor analysis produced a 20-item TPLS with three dimensions showing acceptable internal reliability and test-retest reliability: Clear Communication, Training and Cooperation, and Fairness and Honesty. The three TPLS dimensions were not associated with demographics (age, gender, marital status, college education, patrol officer rank, years of service), suggesting their relevance to a variety of officers. The TPLS dimensions significantly explained variance in psychosocial well-being of police officers including better self-esteem (R ² = .11), more perceived police social support (R ² = .30), and less romantic partner conflict (R ² = .12). Future research could expand evaluation of TPLS psychometric characteristics such as confirmatory factor analysis with larger and more diverse sample, inter-rater reliability, and convergent validity with other non-police measures of transformative leadership.     

Police officers' perceptions of older eyewitnesses

Purpose. This study examined United Kingdom police officers' perceptions about older witnesses (>60 years) and their thoughts about employing the cognitive interview (CI) with this group. Method. A questionnaire was used to assess officers' opinions about current interviewing protocols for older witnesses, including the CI, and to explore the challenges involved with interviewing older witnesses. Results. Over half of the officers surveyed perceived older witnesses to be less reliable and less thorough than younger witnesses. Many officers lacked confidence in dealing with the emotional distress and memory loss often displayed by older witnesses and victims. Several officers stated they were inadequately trained and had insufficient time to devote to interviewing in general. Moreover, the number of officers who considered the CI to be helpful with older witnesses was roughly equivalent to the number of officers who believed it was not. Conclusions. These results suggest that police officers, like mock jurors, consider older adult witnesses and victims to be less reliable and thorough than younger adult witnesses. Furthermore, the results indicate that many officers are not always satisfied with their interviews of older witnesses and victims. Implications for officer training are discussed.     

Informing Police Response to Intimate Partner Violence: Predictors of Perceived Usefulness of Risk Assessment Screening

Substantial research has demonstrated the value of using risk assessment tools for the prediction and management of violence risk, including for intimate partner violence (IPV) (Mills, Kroner, and Morgan 2011). Such tools have been advocated for use by police officers (Hilton, Grant, and Rice 2010), but little is known about police officers’ perceptions of using these tools to inform their decision-making. Using a sample of 159 Canadian police officers (73% male, M age =?41.8 years, SD?=?8.9), the current study examined police officer’s experiences with IPV risk tools, their attitudes about using such tools, and identified predictors of these attitudes using an online survey. Most of this sample had previously used an IPV risk tool, which was most commonly the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (64.1%). Most police officers rated use of risk tools as at least somewhat to extremely helpful (73.5%), and 67.4% indicated that they would use a risk tool with sufficient training on it. Regression analyses indicated that police officers’ perceived IPV risk tool usefulness was significantly predicted by older respondent age and greater perceived need for guidance in responding to IPV calls. In conclusion, most police officers view IPV risk screening as valuable for informing their responses to such calls for service and are likely to embrace such decision-aids with sufficient training on their potential impact for enhancing safety.     

Police stress, state-trait anxiety, and stressors among U.S. Marshals

Unlike previous studies on stress in local police officers, this study was unique in that it used Deputy U.S. Marshals as the population pool. This study replicated the study conducted by Storch and Panzarella (1996) who determined stress levels and stressors of police officers. A standardized inventory of stress was combined with a questionnaire about job stressors, individual job and career variables, and personal variables. One hundred Deputy U.S. Marshals from offices across the country responded to an anonymous survey. Generally, deputies scored low on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1983). The main stressors identified by the respondents were related to organizational variables, i.e., problems with management, bad bosses, and work environment. More stress was experienced by deputies who were inclined to think about job-related illnesses or being injured while on duty, those who were facing retirement, and those who disliked their current assignments.     

Note on a Training Program for Brief Decision Making for Frontline Police Officers

Purpose

The present paper describes the theoretical basis for a brief decision-making training program for frontline police officers as well as an outline of the training program, officers’ evaluation of perceived relevance and perceived learning effects.

Design

A between group design was used in order to test for differences in evaluation between officers at different training levels.

Results

High scores were obtained on all four items related to the evaluation (>84% scored in the highest category). When separating the subjects into groups based on their previous training (regular police response personnel vs. SWAT-type personnel), regular police response personnel obtained higher scores on perceived learning. However, both groups showed high scores on perceived learning. Both groups scored high on their evaluation of perceived relevance of the training program and no difference was found between the two groups.

Practical implications

The brief decision making training program that expands ordinary tactical training was highly appreciated by police officers and was seen as complementary to ordinary training.

     

Police leniency in traffic enforcement encounters: Exploratory findings from observations and interviews

Despite the volume of time officers spend on traffic enforcement encounters, there was limited research exploring how they used their discretion in such interactions. Issues relating to police decision making patterns in the enforcement of motor vehicle laws were particularly salient in light of the on-going debate over racial profiling. This study examined how officers made decisions (in particular, to stop and to sanction) in the course of traffic enforcement. Using field observations and interviews with officers in a small midwestern agency, the authors described the factors and forces that officers used in making discretionary choices. The findings indicated that leniency in sanctioning was very common and that officers expected citizens to be contrite and acknowledge responsibility for their infractions. Implications for larger and more systematic observational studies are discussed.     

Is Police Integrity an Important Predictor of Citizen Satisfaction in Police in Post-colonial Emerging Democracies? The Case of India

The focus of this study is to examine citizen satisfaction with the police. Specifically, the authors aim to understand the factors that determine citizen satisfaction with police services in India, a former English colony and a relatively new republic that has achieved a significant economic development in recent decades. Findings from analysis of a convenience sample (N = 845) obtained from four Northern states in India suggest that perceived procedural fairness, fear of crime, and age of the respondents predict satisfaction with police services. Moreover, perceived professionalism of police officers is found to increase their perceived procedural fairness.     

Correlates Of Cynicism: The Case For Black Police Officers

In this paper we test the relationship between perceived satisfaction with promotion policy and cynical attitudes for fifty-seven black male officers in a southern metropolitan police department. Correlation analyses revealed that selected variables taken from the Niederhoffer (1967) model relate to feelings of mistrust in hypothesized directions. Satisfaction with promotion policy was observed to be the most important predictor of cynicism after controlling for the effects of rank, years of service, and education. Equity motivation theory is then presented as an approach to modify traditional opportunity structures grounded in politics and seniority.     

The Impact of Police Strength and Arrest Productivity on Fear of Crime and Subjective Assessments of the Police

We explore the effect of police strength and arrest productivity on citizens’ fear of crime and perceived risk of victimization, as well as their subjective perceptions of the police including their confidence in the police and ratings of police response time. Police strength is measured as the rate of officers per 1,000 and productivity is calculated as the average number of arrests per officer; we also controlled for the crime rate using crimes reported to the police. We use nationally representative survey data (n?=?1,005) and conduct a supplemental analysis of data drawn from a representative sample of urban counties (n?=?1,500). Police force size and productivity have limited and inconsistent effects on fear of crime, perceived risk, and ratings of response time and no apparent effects on confidence in the police. We also find a modest yet statistically significant negative effect of police confidence on fear of crime. Our findings indicate that it is questionable whether adding more police will reduce fear or perceived risk of victimization to any measurable degree. Consequently, we suggest that rather than hiring binges and increased arrests, the focus should be instead on making positive contacts with citizens.