You can lead a horse to water …: A case study of a police department's response to stricter drunk-driving laws

We present a case study illustrating the complexity of the process that determines how vigorously local police agencies enforce recent drunk-driving laws. Police enforcement practices are influenced most strongly by the play of local factors in a system of “games.” The local forces exerting greatest influence are 1) the local demand for drunk-driving enforcement, 2) the police leadership's priority for DUI enforcement, 3) the police leadership's capacity for command and control of the organization, and 4) the disposition of the local police culture regarding drunk driving and related work issues. In “Melville,” the study site, there is little external demand for drunk-driving enforcement, and police management tries to suppress it while making only symbolic gestures of support. Management's capacity to control street-level enforcement practices is limited, however, and a small cadre of officers generates a disproportionate number of arrests for personal financial gain (bounty), giving the department a much higher arrest rate than the department desires. Thus Melville's responsiveness to the state's drunk-driving law is not due to external political pressure or formal policy, but rather to the inability of local authorities to impose their will on street-level practices. Melville's case suggests that the degree to which police implement a new criminal law may be entirely independent of efforts to ensure political accountability and organizational control.     

Job satisfaction: validating Dantzker’s four-factor model using structural equation modeling

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the four-factor structure from a job satisfaction instrument. Dantzker’s job satisfaction instrument was designed to capture information on four factors: general administration, extras, job, and equipment. Using data from police officers that are middle management (n?=?136), we performed confirmatory factor analysis via structural equation modeling to validate that the four factors are actually capturing job satisfaction. The results of the study show that the four-factor solution fit the model satisfactorily. All of the factor loadings were large expect for one. The results suggest that the four-factor solution has proper validity to use with middle manager police officers. Post hoc simulation analyses (n?=?1000 replications) show that no bias in the factor loadings or standard errors was present in this analysis, and the study had sufficient statistical power.     

Police Response to Intimate Partner Violence in Canada: Do Victim Characteristics Matter?

This study examines the role of sociodemographic factors and violence characteristics in influencing women's reporting behaviors and types of police intervention received in response to intimate partner violence (IPV) in Canada. A subset of female respondents to Canada's 1999 General Social Survey who experienced physical or sexual IPV by a male perpetrator and who had contact with the police as a result of the violence was used for this analysis (n = 383). Findings suggest significant racial, economic, and social variations in women's motivation for self-reporting violence to the police as well as in the types of law enforcement interventions administered by police in response to reports of IPV. Implications for policy development are examined.     

Impact of deception detection errors on public's trust in the police

Purpose. The present study explored the public's attitude towards errors in police officers’ detection of deception. Based on findings on trust in the police after responses to terrorist threats, we predicted a positive influence of a correct credibility assessment and of a risk‐averse response bias of police officers on public's trust. Methods. A general population sample (N= 151) read a hypothetical scenario concerning a credibility judgment and indicated their trust in the officers making the judgment. Decision outcome was manipulated by varying the four outcomes of a signal‐detection task, namely, Hit, Miss, False Alarm, and Correct Rejection. Results. In line with findings on trust in the police following responses to terrorist threats, people trusted police officers more if they judged the credibility of a suspect correctly. Moreover, officers who disbelieved the suspect's statement were trusted more than officers who believed, independently of outcome correctness. Furthermore, this effect was moderated by individual differences in error weighting. Conclusions. In sum, these findings indicate that lie‐biased credibility judgments made by police officers are supported by the public and increase their trust in the police. In addition, the present findings suggest that an asymmetrical weighting of judgment errors is a relevant factor in explaining the development of and attitude towards lie bias.     

Is It a Fight or Are They Just Drunk? Attributions about Drunken Behaviour in a Hypothetical Male‐to‐Male Aggression Scenario1

Objective. This paper examines the excuse‐value of alcohol in a hypothetical provoked male‐to‐male violence scenario. There are two main questions. Does intoxication result in decreased blame? Does intoxication lessen the propensity to call the police?

Methods. 1004 random digit dialing (RDD) quantitative telephone surveys were completed with Swedes aged 16–25. The response rate was 73.8%. Besides the aggressor's intoxication, severity of the outcome, the victim's intoxication and the respondent's hypothetical relationship to the aggressor or to the victim were also randomly manipulated. Whether the police should be called and the attribution of blame to the aggressor have been analysed using ANOVA in SAS.

Results. Analyses were stratified by sex. For male respondents, the aggressor's intoxication interacted (four‐way) with all the manipulated variables in predicting the attribution of blame. In the more severe act, intoxication tended to reduce blame; the least amount of blame was assigned when both the aggressor and the victim were intoxicated. For female respondents, the aggressor's intoxication was involved in a three‐way interaction. For them also, intoxication decreases the blame for the severe acts but not for the less severe acts. The aggressor's intoxication had very little effect on whether the police should be called or not.

Discussion. Intoxication provides some excuse from blame but only for certain acts and under certain circumstances. It also changes the way people perceive acts of violence.     

PRICING SYSTEM AND THE ALLOCATION OF CONTRACTUAL METROPOLITAN POLICE SERVICES

The paper's main objective is to show that a market pricing system will, up to a certain output level, permit an economically efficient solution to the problem of allocating contractor's police services among the metropolitan political areas. But once additional police inputs succeed in establishing relatively low levels of criminal activity, the market mechanism will have a tendency to break down. A market dysfunction takes place because further increases of police services will not be able to elicit the expected decreases in crime. Failure of the market pricing system gives rise to an ancillary conclusion that other inputs besides police are needed to wage a successful battle against the rising levels of criminality.     

POLICE REPORTS AND VICTIMIZATION SURVEY RESULTS An Empirical Study

To test the assumption that police reports cannot be used as a representative sample of all criminal events, a research study was undertaken comparing the characteristics of robberies and robbery victims derived from police offense reports in San Jose, California, to those derived from a victimization survey in the same area The result of the comparison of these two data sources disclosed that: (1) for commercial robberies there were no differences between police offense reports and victimization survey data for the characteristics which were compared; (2) for personal robberies, there were no differences for the characteristics of victim's sex and age, number of victims, victim/offender relationship, and number of offenders. The differences observed for victim's race and time of occurrence can be attributed to classification problems and methodological differences It is highly probable that the police robbery offense reports and the Victimization survey data are representative of the same population of robberies Results suggest that further evaluation of the assumption that police offense reports do not reflect the “true” nature of all (i.e., reported and unreported) crime is warranted.     

Perceptions About Changing the MirandaWarnings Among Police Chiefs

Abstract

A number of studies have considered whether the race of a police officer influences police decision-making processes. The current study assesses whether a police chief's race influences perceptions about the Mirandawarnings. Police chiefs from the Commonwealth of Virginia completed questionnaires assessing various aspects about the Mirandawarnings when the fate of the warnings was to be determined by the Supreme Court. Results suggest that race only moderately influenced chiefs' perceptions. Implications are provided.     

The “STICKINESS” of stigma: Guilt by association after a friend's arrest

Prior research has examined the consequences of one's police contact, but the consequences of vicarious police contact are not as well known. This study expands on labeling theory and the concept of “stickiness” by assessing whether a friend's arrest increases the likelihood of one's police contact. Using a sample of rural youth (N = 13,170), I find that a friend's arrest is associated with an increase in the likelihood of one's first arrest the next year after accounting for other predictors of police contact. Based on my theoretical framework, I interpret this finding as “guilt by association.” In addition, ending relationships with friends who have been arrested does not significantly impact this relationship. This study concludes that police contact may be harmful for a youth's social network and builds on the concept of stickiness by suggesting that stigma not only sticks from one individual to another but may also stay despite efforts to end one's association with the arrested individual. The study expands on preexisting research on the consequences of adolescent police contact by introducing a friend's police contact as a way in which an individual may be more likely to become involved in the justice system.     

POLICE CYNICISM RECONSIDERED An Application of Smallest Space Analysis

Niederhoffer, following Durkheim, proposed a linear causal model to explain police anomia. Using data from an availability sample of New York City police, he breaks into the chain of variables at frustration and terminates the analysis with cynicism measured by a twenty-item scale. This study replicates Niederhoffer's research with a population of urban police, examines the nature and incidence of cynicism, and tests the relationships between various indices of frustration, cynicism, and anomia. Contrary to Niederhoffer's expectations, cynicism is not prevalent among police outside New York City; cynicism my be described adequately only with reference to three dimensions; most indices of frustration do not significantly correlate with two subscales of cynicism; and cynicism does not intervene in the relationships between a number of independent variables and anornh. An alternate model based on Merton's conceptualization of anomin as the result of a discrepancy in cultural values and institutionalized means for attaining such goals was tested. It was found that perceived means-goals discrepancy vis-à-vis legal norms and goals intervened in the relationships between rank and anomia and years on force and anomia.     

Driving While Black

Abstract

The phenomenon of “driving while black” has ignited a heated debate: Do the police use race to target drivers? Most research on the topic compares the number of police stops and searches for a racial group to that group's distribution in the population. This approach ignores sociological theories of law, the driver's social status, the combined influence of race and sex, and whether the driver carries drugs in the car. In addition, the police are aware of being observed. To address these limitations, we surveyed undergraduates (N = 1,192) at one of the most diverse universities in the nation about their experiences with the police and their personal criminal behavior. Drawing on Black's (1976) theory of law, we examine whether a driver's race, sex, and social status influence police behavior (stop, exit, frisk, search, ticket/arrest). We also examine which drivers are most likely to have drugs in the car. The results suggest that a driver's race, sex, and social status all shape police behavior: African American men and Hispanic men experience more social control than white men; all men experience more social control than women; and low status drivers experience more social control than high status drivers. But despite the police focus on minority males, white males were the most likely to report carrying drugs in the car.     

‘Disband,Disempower, and Disarm’: Amplifying the Theory and Practice of Police Abolition

Critical criminologists have challenged the utility of efforts to reform the criminal justice system for decades, including strong calls to abolish the prison system. More recently, the rebellions in Ferguson, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Charlotte have made racialized police violence and police reform issues of national concern. In this article, we examine abolitionist claims aimed at law enforcement institutions in the aftermath of Ferguson and other subsequent rebellions. We consider the implications for abolitionist organizing when the institution of law enforcement, rather than prisons, becomes the explicit target of our movement(s). How are groups theorizing and practicing police abolition and how does this align with, challenge, or expand past conceptualizations of abolition? To answer this question, first we sketch the broad parameters of abolitionist thought, particularly as it is taken up in the disciplines of political theory and criminology. Second, we analyze an emergent praxis of police abolition that revolves around the call to disband, disempower, and disarm law enforcement institutions. We argue that by attacking the police as an institution, by challenging its very right to exist, the contemporary abolitionist movement contains the potential to radically transform society. In this spirit, we amplify abolitionist praxis that (1) aims directly at the police as an institution, (2) seeks to dismantle the racial capitalist order, (3) adopts uncompromising positions that resist liberal attempts at co-optation, incorporation, and/or reconciliation, and (4) creates alterative democratic spaces that directly challenge the legitimacy of the police.     

Settling institutional uncertainty: Policing Chicago and New York, 1877–1923

We show how both the Chicago Police Department and the New York Police Department sought to settle uncertainty about their propriety and purpose during a period when abrupt transformations destabilized urban order and called the police mandate into question. By comparing annual reports that the Chicago Police Department and the New York Police Department published from 1877 to 1923, we observe two techniques in how the police enacted that settlement: identification of the problems that the police believed themselves uniquely well equipped to manage and authorization of the powers necessary to do so. Comparison of identification and authorization yields insights into the role that these police departments played in convergent and divergent constructions of disorder and, in turn, into Progressivism's varying effects in early urban policing.     

Assessing the impediments to organizational change: A view of community policing

This article identifies and assesses the impediments to implementing one aspect of community-oriented policing (COP): designated patrol assignments. The research was based on 126 interviews with three different levels of police practitioners (top, middle, and street-level) in three different southwest police departments. While this exploratory study examined several factors that could potentially impede or facilitate change, it was found that individual attitudes towards COP and pressure had the most significant effect on the process of change.     

THE IMPACT OF POLICE INTERVENTION UPON JUVENILE DELINQUENTS

Police intervention is thought to have an impact upon the juvenile's perception of himself and his role expectations. The data indicate the degree to which the frequency and severity of official delinquency, as well as the severity of disposition, office the juvenile's see-satisfaction. delinquent identification, commitment to delinquent others, commitment to future delinquency, and attitudes toward police. the results of partial correlation coefficients and stepwise regression suggest that police intervention has little impact upon the juvenile when socioeconomic status and, especially, involvement in delinquent behavior are controlled. It is concluded that the juvenile's perceptions of himself and his attitudes toward others, as they relate to delinquency, are more likely to be grounded in the experience of his delinquency involvement than in the experience of coming to the attention of social control agents.     

INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE IN U.S. METROPOLITAN AREAS: THE CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES OF POLICE AND SOCIAL SERVICES*

Although community responses to the problem of intimate partner violence typically focus on increasing and improving policing and social services, few studies have examined the relationship among police force size, social service providers, and women's safety at home. To address this issue, we use data from the National Crime Victimization Survey to examine patterns of intimate partner violence for 40 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) over a 16‐year period (1989–2004). We analyze the data using three‐level multilevel models, with individual respondents (N = 487,166) nested within years, nested within MSAs. Net of other important individual and contextual factors, the results show that women's likelihood of victimization is significantly lower in MSAs that employ more sworn officers per capita, whereas the states’ mandatory arrest laws are not found to have significant independent effects. Above and beyond the effects of police force size, we also find a significant negative relationship between the size of the social service workforce and intimate partner violence. Future research should develop collaborative data collection efforts to examine the specific activities of police and social service workers in dealing with intimate partner violence so that the mechanisms underlying these significant relationships can be understood more clearly.     

The British Police Experience

[Editor's note] The following is the text Sir Eric St. Johnston delivered before the members of the Wichita Crime Commission at their 24th Annual dinner meeting on October 19, 1977. Sir Eric St. Johnston is formerly of the Chief of Scotland Yard and Chief Inspector of Constabulary for England and Wales. Among others, he is a Knight of the Order of the Thistle, holder of the Commander Order of the British Empire, the Queen's Police Medal and the French Legion of Honour and Croix de Guerre. In his text, Sir Eric mentions various similarities and and dissimilarities regarding the police practices of two countries. He is of the opinion that there are a great deal of advantages in a centralized police system as contrasted to the American counterpart. This statement is similar to the Editor's assertion made some ten years ago. [Re: “Police Reorganization As A Deterrent to Crime,” Police, Vol. 12, No. 14, March-April, 1978, pp. 73–79. See also Crime and Delinquency Abstracts, Vol. 16, National Clearinghouse for Mental Health Information of the U.S. Department of HEW, Public Service, 1969, p. 589] Readers will find Sir Eric's text not only timely, stimulating and provocative, but also insightful through his comparison of his long career in English police with that of the United States' police. Certainly his remarks provide police planners and policy makers with what should be most pressing needs for combating the ever-increasing crime in England, the United States, and the world as a whole. The permission to reprint was obtained from Sir Eric by the Editor personally. The Editor wishes to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Maurice W. Corcoran, Managing Director, and his colleagues Mr. Will G. Price, Jr., President; Mr. Jay W. Swanson, Chairman of the Board; Mr. J. A. Mull, Jr., Past President; and Mr. William L. Connelly, Chairman, Annual Dinner Committee; all of the Wichita Crime Commission for their efforts and cooperation.     

Tasks facing Korea's private security business,and its prospects for the 2000's

This thesis forecasts changes in both the domestic and overseas public security circumstances, and analyzes the status of Korea's private security, discussing Korea's private security tasks and prospects for the 2000's, based on the results of problem analysis. Korea's private security business began in the early 60's, and has independently developed since the Security Services Act was established in 1977. Since the early 80's, the private security business has marked rapid growth, thanks to the introduction of Japanese private security capital and technology; and, since the successful holding of the ‘86 Asian Games and the ‘88 Seoul Olympics, the private security business has enjoyed remarkable growth year after year. However, behind such growth lie many problem areas. The internal problems afflicting private security service companies include; first, the private security service providers concentrate too much on labor‐based security; second, equipment‐based security business is limited; third, private security services are not evenly distributed nationwide; fourth, there is only a small scale of private security service providers; and, fifth, there is non‐designation of security vehicles as emergency vehicles. Problems with respect to mutual cooperation with police include (1) insufficient police support in providing training for security personnel, (2) minimal police organization in charge of private security, (3) lack of understanding and cooperation because of low exchange of information between the police and private security organizations, and (4) non‐establishment of standards applicable to the respective roles of the police and private security organization together with lack of emergency mutual contact and information systems. In order to solve these problems and achieve a desirable level of private security performance in the 2000's, a security personnel specialization policy along with security specialist schools must be established and operated. As a developmental policy, it is desirable that the function of examining private security policies be granted to Korea's Police Committee, corresponding to the U.S.A. Regulatory Board, or Japan's Public Security Committee. As a cooperation‐building exercise between the police and private security organizations, systemic meetings, officer‐in‐charge systems, ride‐along programs and crime prevention consulting service centers must be started up and operated.     

Police prejudice as a function of training and outgroup contact

A longitudinal study investigated prejudice among 412 New South Wales (Australia) police recruits. Recruits were tested on Beswick and Hills' (1972) Australian E scale and Ray's (1972) Balanced F scale at recruitment, after 6 months' full-time academy training, and after 12 months' police experimence. It was found that over the period of academy training recruits became less authoritarian but did not vary on ethnocentrism. Over the field experience stage recruits became both more ethnocentric and authoritarian. Further, recruits sent to districts with large Aboriginal populations became significantly more ethnocentric but no more authoritarian than other recruits. At a theoretical level, results suggest that police attributes may develop as a function of particular policing experiences. At an applied level, results suggest that training alone is unlikely to overcome the problem of police prejudice.     

MANAGERIAL RESPONSES TO PERCEIVED LABOR SHORTAGES The Case of Police

This paper challenges the popular claim that police labor shortages existed in large American cities during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Empirical tests of a police salary determination model reveal that police managers and public officials possess only limited direct control over police wges. Hence, manipulation of police manpower utilization practices (and, more basically, labor supply to police departments) is the principal way of overcoming “labor shortages.” In recent years, this has included substitution of clerical for sworn personnel, elimination of non-job-related entry requirements, and expansion of auxilhry police forces.