‘Inappropriate but not crime’? Policing racial hatred in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Racial bias afflicts police practices across the globe. Police discrimination against and mistreatment of racial and ethnic minorities is indeed difficult to underestimate. While much attention has been thus paid to racially biased policing, fewer studies examine the question from the reverse angle, namely how the police themselves combat racist offences. This article offers empirical insights into the policing of racial hatred in Sweden, a relevant yet relatively understudied case. Drawing on interviews with police officers and crime investigators, I discuss law enforcement perspectives, e.g. perceptions and reasoning in relation to the investigation of racist offences. Findings evince a rather narrow approach as regards the constructions of racist motive that involves a relatively restricted use of bias labelling in identifying hate incidents, especially when the boundaries of racial hostility are perceived as blurred. I argue that while such an approach may reflect a legitimate effort to demonstrate the existence of a motive behind an offence, it may also lead to an underestimation of more mundane forms of racism and their harms inflicted upon racialized individuals and communities. The results have implications for ‘recognition’ and ‘belonging’ as benchmarks of democratic policing, and ‘the promise of inclusion’ associated with combatting hate crimes.     

Racial profiling and searches: Did the politics of racial profiling change police behavior?*

Research Summary Scholarly research has documented repeatedly that minority citizens are disproportionately stopped, searched, and arrested relative to their baseline populations. In recent years, policymakers have brought increased attention to this issue as law‐enforcement agencies across the United States have faced allegations of racial profiling. In the 1990s, the politics generated by accounts of racially biased policing placed heightened pressure on law‐enforcement agencies. However, to date, few studies have explored whether the increased social and political scrutiny placed on police organizations influenced or changed their general pattern of enforcement among black and white citizens. Using data in the search and citation file from the North Carolina Highway Traffic Study, this research specifically examined whether the politics generated by the media coverage of racial profiling and racial profiling legislation in North Carolina influenced the search practices of officers of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol's drug interdiction team. The findings suggest that media accounts and the passage of new legislation were particularly powerful influences, which thereby reduced racial disparity in searches. Declines in the use of consent searches and an increased probability of finding contraband also were influenced by the politics of racial profiling. Policy Implications The results of this study suggest several important policy recommendations. First, law‐enforcement agencies must monitor the policing practices of their officers because such supervision can influence officer compliance with fair and unbiased policing policies. Next, supervisors need to familiarize themselves with enforcement data to identify potential problem officers and organizational practices. By doing so, police organizations will not only increase officer accountability but also will potentially improve communication with their local communities. Such communication can empower community members to file charges against officers who violate their civil rights. Next, the media and political effects documented in this study suggest that external oversight can be particularly influential on police practices. Therefore, police agencies should consider developing a citizen complaint board, which is an external oversight board that would be responsible for investigating allegations against officers who engage in racial profiling or other racially biased enforcement practices. Such a board could assist police administrators in identifying problem officers as well as in making recommendations for corrective action. Finally, external social and political pressure must continually be placed on police forces to improve equity in police behavior. These external forces can assist in creating opportunities for police to increase the overall quality and efficacy of policing.     

The Influence of Police Profanity on Public Perception of Excessive Force

Previous research has examined elements of police performance impacting community policing and police-citizen relationships, but no study has considered the impact of police use of profanity during arrest on public rating of force. Police profanity may negatively bias police-citizen interactions, and this bias could shape later interactions with community members, impact the quality of police-community relations, or even result in public outcry over excessive use of force. The aim of this study was to determine whether officer use of profanity during arrest led to public perception of excessive force and to examine whether gender of the officer or subject affected this relation. Force was evaluated as more excessive when profanity was used, when the subject was a female, and when the officer was a female. Participants who rated force as excessive had significantly more negative attitudes about police and police use of force. These findings have direct implications for police training and suggest that if police avoid the use of profanity, this could result in more positive relationships with the public and fewer allegations of excessive force. Future researchers should further evaluate the nature and impact of gender biases against female police, as they may contribute to reduced opportunities, less frequent promotion, and reduced self-efficacy in female officers.     

The Effects of Community Policing on Complaints Against Officers

Between 1982 and 1989, the Houston Police Department was committed toforming partnerships with the community as part of its strategy to improvepolice service to the city. Using complaint data from the Internal AffairsDivisions of the Houston Police Department, this research examines whetherofficers assigned to areas of the city that implemented community policinghave fewer complaints than other officers. The results showed that officersworking in areas where community policing had been implemented receivedsignificantly fewer complaints than officers working in other areas. Anexception was complaints for criminal behavior, which increased. The resultssuggest that models of community policing that focus on creating communitypartnerships have the potential to reduce tension between the police and thepublic.     

ST. LOUIS POLICE RECRUITS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Police consultants throughout the twentieth century have advocated improvement in recruitment as a key component of their campaign for police “professionalization.” Not until after World War II, however, did most major urban police forces substantially alter entrance standards. Unfortunately, scholars have not undertaken the research necessary to document the diachronic dimension of police recruitment, particularly in light of these changes in requirements. Quantitative analysis of the social backgrounds of officers in the St. Louis Police Department, which is widely considered to be one of the nation's most professional forces, provides the first accurate answer to the question of who policed the city. This examination reveals marked shifts in the education, ethnic identification (including race), military experience, age, and length of residence of recruits, but that modifications of entrance standards were clearly responsible only for changes regarding the latter two factors. More important is the finding that such developments did not disturb the great continuity in the social background of St. Louis police recruits. Thus officers in 1970, like their predecessors at the turn of the century, were predominantly married men from blue collar backgrounds, with checkered occupational histories and a high proportion of prior unemployment and incidence of previous arrests.     

Effect of racial misclassification in police data on estimates of racial disparities

Research on race and policing increasingly draws upon data collected by police officers to estimate racial disparities in police contact. Many of these data sets, however, rely on officer perception of a stopped person's race, which may be inconsistent with how those individuals self-identify. Furthermore, researchers frequently benchmark contact data where race is perceived by police officers against census and survey data where race is self-identified. We argue that discordance between how individuals self-identify and how they are classified by officers can bias estimates of racial disparities. Using a unique data set, which allows us to compare officers’ racial classification of stopped persons with those same persons’ racial self-identification, we characterize rates of racial misclassification in administrative police records. We find evidence of racial misclassification in police records, especially among Hispanic and Asians/Pacific Islanders. We find that officer classification of Hispanics as (non-Hispanic) White is the most common form of racial misclassification in our sample and that its substantive consequences are significant. Specifically, we find that officer classification of Hispanics as White may lead analysts to incorrectly conclude that Hispanics are no more likely than Whites to be cited by police.     

The commemoration of death,organizational memory,and police culture

Police scholars document that although there is fragmentation of the so‐called “monolithic” police culture, historically consistent features of the occupational culture of police exist. By drawing on ethnographic observations in three U.S. police departments, I describe how one consistent feature of police culture—the preoccupation with danger and potential death—is maintained by the commemoration of officers killed in the line of duty. Through the use of commemorative cultural artifacts, officers and departments construct an organizational memory that locally reflects and reifies the salience of danger and potential death in policing. Furthermore, commemoration of fallen officers is not restricted to a department's own; the dead of other departments are commemorated by distant police organizations and their officers, maintaining broad, occupational assumptions of dangerous and deadly police work that transcend a single department and its localized organizational memory. Implications for the study of police culture, inequalities in policing, and police reform are considered.     

Switching on,switching off: reflections of a practitioner researcher examining the operational behaviour of police officers

ABSTRACT

Evidence-based policing is rapidly becoming adopted by policing agencies among policing jurisdictions. Many academic programmes have been established in higher education to train police managers in applied criminology. However, there is a lack of literature for police officer practitioner researchers (POPR) who might undertake qualitative research, especially research projects that examine police behaviour. This paper reflects on the changing role of the practitioner-researcher and suggests that police officers undertaking qualitative research need to learn to ‘switch off their police role’ and ‘switch on their researcher role’. The author’s insights are drawn from his own experience of qualitative fieldwork working with police officers from New Zealand Police and South Australian Police.     

Dangers of police professionalization: An empirical analysis

This study examines relationships between professionalization (measured by the amount of college education and police training) and police officer attitudes. Using data from a survey of 712 police officers in twenty-nine departments in the St. Louis area, the analysis focuses on propositions derived from scholars who have identified harmful effects they expect to flow from the reform. Although the limited operational definition of the key variables and other factors noted in the study require caution in interpreting the findings, little evidence in support of the expected “dangers” is found. This result, in combination with other studies that have failed to find support for the case made for raising the educational level of police, suggests the need to reassess expectations about the impact of college education in policing.     

Social capital in Scottish and Danish neighbourhoods: paradoxes of a police–community nexus at the front line

Community-oriented social capital strategies and punitive-oriented policing approaches conflict. Establishing local networking initiatives with community-oriented policing at the centre lends itself to an assets-based policing approach, based on honouring, mobilizing and extending the assets of community members. Scholars argue about the need for comparative research on convergences and divergencies across subcultures on the streets and communities. Based on qualitative data gathered from working class communities in Scotland and Denmark in 2014, the article draws inspiration from community-generated theory of social capital to explore the micro-sociology of experiences and understandings about community–police integration policy initiatives. We use this perspective to argue that the building of positive inter-generational and police–community relationships is the result of social exchanges and officers’ use of what we call ‘constructive investment strategies’. Ironically, our insights from Scotland to Denmark also suggest what appear as positive achievements of community policing may instead intensify residents’ negative perceptions of police officers and organizations. In this way, the article illuminates the tangled and conflicted nature of these embedded symbolic interactions, social capital formations and the latter’s form as a potential positional and ‘tribal’ commodity.     

Repairing the Divide

Abstract

In this paper, we use responses from a 1998 Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) survey to investigate how the concept of community policing and the individual strategies associated with this public safety policy shape African American, Latino, and white perceptions of police officers. Community policing exerted differential effects on Latino, African American, and white perceptions of the police. Despite intentions to improve police-minority relations, community policing most strongly and positively affects whites' perceptions of neighborhood police. Both the public pronouncement and actual tactics of community policing had a greater impact on white perceptions of the police than they did for Latino and African American views toward the police, even though community policing also fulfills its promise to reduce tensions between the police and racial and ethnic minorities. Understanding the differences among African Americans, Latinos, and whites is critical to the evolution of community policing policies. Recognizing the importance of these differences, instead of adopting a “one size fits all” approach, puts the police and community members in a position to better realize the potential benefits of community policing.     

Lessons from empirical research on policing in Israel: policing terrorism and police–community relationships

This article reviews recent empirical research on policing terrorism and police–community relationships in Israel, for the purpose of drawing lessons for policing in Israel and other democratic societies. The studies in the first section reveal the implications of policing terrorism for crime control and police–community relationships. In the second section, studies show a long-term drop in public support for the police. They also address the implementation of community policing, the relationship between the Israel National Police and the Arab sector, and the importance of procedural justice to Israeli citizens. In our discussion, we take a broad perspective and suggest overall conclusions and implications.     

Female Police Officers and Their Experiences: The Metropolitan Police of Buenos Aires Context

This research explores the experience of female police officers in the Metropolitan Police of Buenos Aires, which began providing public safety in 2010. The purpose of this research is to better understand the barriers and opportunities female officers are encountering in this new context of community policing in Latin America. With better understanding, law enforcement officials will be better equipped to ensure that female officers achieve at the highest levels in organizations. Responding female officers identified civic duty as a primary reason for joining the force. Female officers did not report significant levels of institutional discrimination but did report informal disparaging treatment, including sexual harassment. The results of this research suggest that as this young police force matures, officials should pay close attention to the emerging culture of the organization, as many common and negative aspects of it have already started to form.     

Permanent beat assignments in association with community policing: Assessing the impact on police officers' field activity

Although the permanent assignment of police officers to their beats has long been an important goal in community policing, its utility has not been assessed empirically. Using a multiple time-series quasi-experimental design, the present study reports on an impact assessment of permanent beat assignment in conjunction with a community policing program implemented in the Philadelphia Housing Authority Police Department. Permanent beat assignment in the treatment sites led to increases in officer-initiated investigative activity (indicating greater responsibility for beats), while no such changes were observed in the comparison sites. Implications for public policy and for conducting police research in public housing are discussed; future research directions are suggested.     

Voluntary turnover of field operations officers: A test of confluency theory

This article explores classic and contemporary explanations for voluntary police turnover in one of the largest police departments in the Southeast—the Birmingham (Alabama) Police Department (BPD). It specifically tests confluency theory and eight variables associated with job satisfaction as predictors of turnover among field operations officers. Confluency theory, an untested theory, attributes police turnover to an absence of preemployment job awareness and to incongruencies between job expectations and job realities. Results from a survey of 232 current officers and 60 former officers disagreed with conventional wisdom and the majority of turnover research findings. Former BPD officers were generally more satisfied with their jobs in BPD than current officers. Logistic regression further indicated that confluency theory and the job satisfaction variables investigated are poor predictors of field operations officers who leave the BPD.     

Proactive Policing: a Summary of the Report of the National Academies of Sciences,Engineering, and Medicine

This paper provides a summary of our report for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on proactive policing. We find that there is sufficient scientific evidence to support the adoption of many proactive policing practices if the primary goal is to reduce crime, though the evidence base generally does not provide long-term or jurisdictional estimates. In turn, we conclude that crime prevention outcomes can often be obtained without producing negative community reactions. However, the most effective proactive policing strategies do not appear to have strong positive impacts on citizen perceptions of the police. At the same time, some community-based strategies have begun to show evidence of improving the relations between the police and public. We conclude that there are likely to be large racial disparities in the volume and nature of police–citizen encounters when police target high-risk people or high-risk places, as is common in many proactive policing programs. We could not conclude whether such disparities are due to statistical prediction, racial animus, implicit bias, or other causes.

     

Gun violence and police problem solving: A research note examining alternative data sources

This article uses gun seizure data from the gun lab of the St. Louis Police Department to examine a problem-solving approach to seizing illegal firearms. Further, it explores narrative data from the police reports to understand the context surrounding 113 firearms seizure. The most important findings are that most illegal firearms are seized by the police department in the course of routine patrol, and that many seemingly nonviolent technical law violations (e.g., the unlawful carrying, use, or concealment of a firearm) often occur under violent circumstances. Given the paucity of gun research, future studies should use multiple data sources to further explain the gun/crime relationship. These findings are discussed in the context of routine policing.     

POLICING RACE: THE RACIAL STRATIFICATION OF SEARCHES IN POLICE TRAFFIC STOPS*

Research on race effects in police traffic stops is theoretically underdeveloped. In this study, we derive propositions from Donald Black's theory of law to explain the interaction effects of officer and driver race on searches in traffic stops in St. Louis, Missouri. Our citywide results and those for stops in predominantly White communities are generally consistent with the theory: Searches are more likely in stops of Black drivers than in those of White drivers, especially by White officers, controlling for other characteristics of the officer, driver, and stop. In predominantly Black communities, however, stops of White drivers by White officers are most likely to result in a search. We interpret both sets of results as manifestations of racial profiling in segregated communities and suggest that Black's theory of law remains a promising theoretical framework for future research on the continuing significance of race‐based policing in the United States.     

Female officers and the ethic of care: Does officer gender impact police behaviors?

Most of the empirical literature on gender and policing has assessed gender differences in arrest levels and police use of force. While simple gender differences in police behavior are important for understanding skills men and women bring to the policing occupation, research must also determine under what conditions gender differences emerge and what factors impact the relationship between officer gender and behavior for this knowledge to be constructive. Although sexy, arrest and force decisions occur when police discretion is often limited, adding little to the knowledge of how gender affects everyday police-citizen encounters. Using data from systematic social observations of police-citizen encounters in St. Petersburg, Florida and Indianapolis, Indiana, this article replicates past analyses of gender differences in police utilization of controlling and supporting behaviors, but also extends the analyses by assessing the possible impact of intervening situational and organizational characteristics, determining under what conditions female officers utilize different behaviors from their male counterparts. The findings provide mixed support for the general hypothesis of gender-specific responses. Consistent with previous literature, this research suggests that women are much less likely than men to utilize extreme controlling behavior, such as threats, physical restraint, search, and arrest. Surprisingly, the findings do not confirm that women are more likely than men to use supporting behaviors, even when controlling for women's greater likelihood to hold community policing assignments. These findings, while unexpected, are important. Simply assuming female officers manifest stereotypically feminine traits in policing tasks is clearly an overly simplistic conceptualization of the meaning and impact of gender in policing. The implications for female officers, policing, and future research are discussed.     

Exploring officer views of community policing in counterterrorism

Abstract

Recently there has been increased emphasis on actionable intelligence in counterterrorism. Building from the process-based model of regulation, police chiefs and scholars generally agree that community policing has promise in this regard. Yet, it is not clear the extent to which police officers concur. Since officers are in a position to implement community policing practices, it is important to understand variants in officer-level support. Using data collected from 741 officers in three departments, this project explores officer-level views of community policing’s utility to address terrorism and more common crimes. Overall, officers view community policing as appropriate to address both common crimes and terrorism. Results suggest that department-level policy itself is not the key driver of support. Rather, an officer’s own experience with community policing and support for the practice in general determine views on community policing in counterterrorism. Results also highlight the importance of comparative research across departments.