Neither Confirm nor Deny: Secrecy and Disclosure in Undercover Policing

Recent scandals in U.K. undercover policing have prompted a public re-examination of the basis for continued secrecy with respect to cases in which serious historical misconduct is suspected. As part of its approach to balancing the competing demands of secrecy and accountability, the current legal process requires the police to provide case-by-case risk assessments of the harm to policing threatened by disclosure. This article considers the role of risk assessments in this process. It critically examines two arguments put forward by police in support of their claim that such assessments will nearly always support a refusal to disclose and thus a “neither confirm nor deny” response to requests for information about undercover policing. It argues that these arguments apply in fewer cases and/or less conclusively than police routinely suppose, and that their obligation to provide detailed case-by-case risk assessments therefore cannot be thereby evaded.     

To protect and collect: a nationwide study of profit-motivated police crime

This study is part of a larger research project on police crime in the United States. Police crimes are those criminal offenses committed by sworn law enforcement officers who have the general powers of arrest. Profit-motivated police crime involves officers who use their authority of position to engage in crime for personal gain. This study reports the findings on 1,591 cases where a law enforcement officer was arrested for one or more profit-motivated crimes during the seven-year period 2005–2011. The profit-motivated arrest cases involved 1,396 individual officers employed by 782 state, local, special, constable, and tribal law enforcement agencies located in 531 counties and independent cities in 47 states and the District of Columbia. Our data is the first systematic study of profit-motivated police crime. The study describes the nature of this form of police misconduct in terms of several dimensions, including the characteristics of police who perpetrate these crimes, where it occurs, the specific criminal charges, and the contexts within which profit-motivated police crime is punished through police agencies and the criminal courts.     

Regulating Legal Misconduct in the Commonwealth of Virginia

Abstract

This research reviews malfeasance committed by legal actors in Virginia over a four-year time period, and examines the corresponding sanctions imposed on them. The inquiry entails the review of disciplinary cases reviewed by the Virginia State Bar. These cases cover a vast spectrum of misconduct ranging from those seemingly venial to those that are flagrantly criminal. The sanctions imposed are examined as well as the reasons for the sanctions. Further, the study examines if rates of misconduct and severity of sanctions vary by gender. Implications that arise from the study are also discussed.     

Responding to academic dishonesty in universities: a restorative justice approach

The implementation of restorative approaches in schools has been commonly seen in elementary and high schools, yet the development of restorative approaches in post‐secondary institutions has not been fully explored. In respect to university education, a more restorative approach to student discipline can be a proactive educational response mediating the response of student discipline boards to instances of student wrongdoing. Existing practices are explored, and critiqued from a restorative justice perspective. The rationale behind moving to a restorative response is outlined, and the experiences of student discipline boards that currently employ restorative approaches are assessed to determine how effective this paradigm shift could be. How university responses to student misconduct might function if aspects of the academic environment were built on restorative values and principles is explored, in particular, through looking at the benefits accruing to the development of restorative practices in the classroom, in distance education and for students who experience language difficulties.     

涉林渎职犯罪“情节特别严重”标准探究——从经济损失的角度入手

罪刑相适应原则是刑法的基本原则,然而在具体的制度中常常存在量化标准的缺位。在涉林渎职犯罪中,已经明确将以违法发放林木采伐许可证之外的其他方式作为的渎职犯罪,定性为滥用职权罪或玩忽职守罪,但对于该类犯罪"情节特别严重"等升格量刑的标准,仍存在立法和解释上的不足,导致量刑畸轻,同类犯罪易发、多发。量刑标准的确立应综合考虑行为的社会危害性、侵害法益的差异性、立法技术的统一性等多重因素,在此基础上可推之,涉林渎职犯罪"情节特别严重"的认定宜遵循现有司法解释对渎职犯罪升格量刑的一般规律,将其确立在立案标准的5倍以上为宜。     

Bad cops

Research Summary Police scholars and public policymakers throughout generations have sought to identify reliable correlates of police misconduct. Despite these efforts, general statements as to the etiology and epidemiology of police misconduct remain inconclusive, in part because of the inconsistent definitions of misconduct and the difficulty of obtaining the data required to make such statements. This research attempts to fill these gaps through a comparison of the personal and career histories of all 1,543 officers who were involuntarily separated from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for cause during 1975–1996 with a randomly selected sample of their police academy classmates who served honorably. The study uses confidential NYPD files as its major data sources, which include extensive biographical and career information. The study finds that career‐ending misconduct rarely occurs in the NYPD and that the types of misconduct do not match well with existing definitions. Several factors emerge as significant predictors of misconduct, including officer race, minimal education, records of prior criminality and prior poor employment, failure to advance in the NYPD, and histories of citizen complaints. Policy Implications This study shows that existing definitions of police misconduct are difficult to apply to actual cases of police malpractice, which leads the authors to create a new eight‐category classification scheme. The rarity of misconduct, especially on‐duty abuse, confirms prior research indicating that most police officers do their jobs without engaging in serious malpractice. These findings suggest that the NYPD has become better behaved as it has become more diverse along race and gender dimensions and that the link between black officers and misconduct might be explained by persistent “tokenism.” The findings related to race have important implications for continued efforts to build racially representative police departments. Personal history findings highlight the importance of conducting background investigations that disqualify candidates with arrest records and employment disciplinary histories, whereas the inverse relationship between college education and misconduct provides strong support for continued emphasis on pre‐ and post‐employment educational requirements.     

Neighborhood climates of legal cynicism and complaints about abuse of police power†

Research findings show that legal cynicism—a cultural frame in which skepticism about laws, the legal system, and police is expressed—is important in understanding neighborhood variation in engagement with the police, particularly in racially isolated African American communities. We argue that legal cynicism is also useful for understanding neighborhood variation in complaints about police misconduct. Using data on complaints filed in Chicago between 2012 and 2014, we show that grievances disproportionately came from racially segregated neighborhoods and that a measure of legal cynicism from the mid-1990s predicts complaints about abuse of police power two decades later. The association between legal cynicism and complaints is net of prior complaints, reported crime, imprisonment, and other structural factors that contribute to the frequency and nature of interactions involving police and residents. Legal cynicism also mediates the influence of racially isolated neighborhoods on complaints. The mid-1990s is the approximate midpoint of a half-century of police scandals in Chicago. Our research findings suggest that contemporary complaints about police misconduct in highly segregated Chicago neighborhoods are grounded in collectively shared historical memories of police malfeasance. They also suggest that persistent complaints about police misconduct may represent officially memorialized expressions of enduring racial protest against police abuse of power.     

Treatment of Gang Members Can Reduce Recidivism and Institutional Misconduct

Gang violence creates serious safety and security concerns in the community and prisons. Treated gang and nongang members recidivated significantly less in a 24-month follow-up than their untreated matched controls. Treatment consisted of high intensity cognitive-behavioral programs that follow the risk, need, and responsivity principles (Andrews & Bonta, 2003). The treated gang members who recidivated violently after treatment received significantly shorter sentences (i.e. they committed less serious offences) than their untreated matched controls. Untreated gang members had significantly higher rates of major (but not minor) institutional offences than the other three groups. Correctional treatment that follows the risk, need and responsivity principles appears able to reduce recidivism and major institutional misconduct. Effective correctional treatment should be considered as one of the approaches in the management and rehabilitation of incarcerated gang members.     

警察越轨行使侦查权原因探析——“威慑理论”的构建与应用

“威慑理论”认为,警察在行使侦查权的过程中,必须拥有对侦查相对人足够的威慑,否则不能达到侦查目的。越轨行使侦查权行为的出现,原因在于警察对侦查相对人的正当威慑不足。越轨地获取威慑往往导致警察的威慑力大于无罪犯罪嫌疑人与不知情人能够抵御的程度,可能造成无辜的犯罪嫌疑人受到刑事追诉。只有在为警察获取正当的威慑提供必要保障的情况下,犯罪嫌疑人等的权利才可能得以实现。