Evaluation of the ISAS system after two years of practical experience in forensic police work

ISAS is an intelligent system for the administration of footwear impressions and reference-shoesoles, which has been in practical use with the Forensic Science Division of the Zurich Cantonal Police for the last two years. It is a powerful, efficient and user-friendly system, developed in co-operation with an external picture processing specialist, that can comfortably handle a database of 10 000 and plus images. Even inexperienced users are able to find a reference-sole in a short time. The system has proved to be an efficient tool in investigation assistance and crime scene linking.     

Officer force versus suspect resistance: A gendered analysis of patrol officers in an urban police department

This study examined patrol officer use of force and exposure to resistance on a gendered basis in an urban police department. Using data from use of force reports for the year 2000, a weighted force factor value was calculated for each officer. These values were then compared by officer gender. The mean value for both females and males was positive, indicating a tendency to employ lower force levels in response to higher levels of resistance. The male officer weighted force factor value, however, was significantly larger than that for the females. Placed within the context of the use of force continuum, this result suggested that male officer use of force vis-à-vis subject resistance spanned a wider range. Alternatively, female officers could be viewed as operating within a narrower range of the force continuum. One interpretation of this finding was that female and male officers responded differentially to subject resistance levels.     

Black and white complainants and the police: A comparison of individual and contextual characteristics

Citizens have always had an important role in the crime control process; they are most often responsible for the detection of crime. It is imperative, therefore, that citizens perceive police officers to be competent and just in the execution of their duties; in the absence of such confidence, the process suffers. Ironically, the groups which are most often the victims of crime hold the most negative attitudes toward the police. Minorities in urban communities, particularly blacks, fit this pattern. These attitudes appear to be linked to the perception of negative, differential experiences with the police, experiences which often lead to the filing of a formal complaint. Using a data set from the complaint files of a large American city, this article explores the relationship between the attitudes of blacks toward the police, experiences with the police, and complaints lodged against the police.     

A partially randomized field experiment on the effect of an acoustic gunshot detection system on police incident reports

Journal of Experimental Criminology - To examine whether the introduction of an acoustic gunshot detection system (AGDS) allied to CCTV cameras increased the frequency of confirmed incidents of...     

An impact of community policing: Reported stressors, social support, and strain among police officers in a changing police department

Community-based policing requires a radically different philosophical and organizational approach from the more traditional approach to policing. Stress may be experienced during organizational change as areas of responsibility and roles are altered. This study had three primary objectives: to identify (1) the areas officers and their immediate supervisors actually consider stressful, (2) the officers' and supervisors' responses to stress, and (3) the influence of their social support systems on these responses. Data were collected from community coordinators, radio response officers, and sergeants of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina. The officers and sergeants report specific physiological responses, lack of job involvement, and propensity to leave law enforcement; all responses that are considered by the literature to be related to stress. Stressors that are both common in law enforcement in general and stressors unique to a department implementing community policing are found to be significant. Work social support does appear to affect the level of job involvement of the officers. The finding that sergeants do not appear to feel that they have work social support may be working to the detriment of their ability to cope with stress and their willingness to be involved with their job.     

Reporting of crime to the police in the Federal Republic of Germany: A comparison of the old and the new lands

A victimization survey of 7,026 households in the former east and west German Länder (states) carried out one year after the unification of Germany presented a unique opportunity to examine factors associated with the reporting of crime to the police. Logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with variation in the dependent variable, reporting of crime to the police, controlling for victimizations which occurred prior to and subsequent to unification, as well as whether the victim resided in the former east or west German Länder. The amount of loss in German Marks or seriousness of physical injury were the principle determinants of whether a crime was reported to the police.     

Reducing the legal consequences of a felony conviction: A national survey of state statutes ten years later

This study surveys all state and federal statutes in an effort to determine the current legal procedures available for restoring a convicted felon's civil rights, and then compares the findings with those of Burton et al. (1988). The findings report virtually no changes in legal codes over the past ten years by states to increase pardons, expungement, or automatic restoration of rights opportunities for former offenders. Southern states continue to be most restrictive of civil and legal rights, given the few existing legal mechanisms to remove the effects of a felony conviction. Explanations for this apparent legislative inactivity of legal remedies are discussed.     

A review of domestic violence arrest statistics in a police department using a pro-arrest policy: Are pro-arrest policies enough?

This study examined domestic violence arrest statistics in a sheriff's department that does not utilize a community approach and provides little police training on domestic violence. In reviewing all domestic violence reports (n=1870) over a 12-month period, less than one-third (28.8%) of the domestic violence cases ended in arrest. Even the most serious charges (aggravated batteries) were more likely to end without an arrest (62.6%) than with an arrest (37.4%). Although results showed that more men were identified (88.4%) and arrested (91.6%) as batterers than women (11.6% and 8.4%, respectively), closer analyses revealed that arrested women were more often charged with more serious charges (60%) than arrested men (26.0%). Finally, gender and race data indicated that while four-fifths (84.6%) of black females were arrested on felony charges, less than one-fifth (19.5%) of white males were arrested on the same charge. These findings demonstrate a need for further research on factors that may affect pro-arrest policy effectiveness.Forensic psychological resident in private practice in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.     

A comparison of Chinese and the U.S. police cadets’ occupational attitudes

While police attitudes and behaviors have been the subject of a large number of studies conducted since the 1960s, very few studies had assessed Chinese police officers’ work-related attitudes and compared them with those of the U.S. police cadets. Using survey data collected from 263 Chinese and American police cadets, the research empirically tested whether Chinese and American police cadet attitudes differed across four attitudinal dimensions: aggressive patrol, order maintenance, legal restrictions, and distrust of citizens. Bivariate and multivariate results showed that Chinese cadets displayed occupational outlooks that distinguished them from their American counterparts. Chinese cadets supported aggressive patrol and were more distrustful of citizens than their American counterparts. American cadets were more favorable of order maintenance activities and more accepting of legal restrictions compared with Chinese cadets. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.     

Analyzing the nature of police involvements: A research note concerning the effects of forms of police mobilization

Studies of the police have reported that much of the work patrol persons do is service-oriented. However, many of those researches relied upon citizen-initiated involvements as units of analysis. Here the distinction has been made between reactive and proactive forms of police mobilization. When activity data are analyzed in this fashion, it is found that the police initiate a larger proportion of law enforcement activities than was supposed. The implications for research are discussed.     

Torn between two targets: German police officers talk about the use of force

Considering earlier research into police use of force as well as the judicial and practical frame of police work in Germany, the article presents the results of an empirical study on the individual and collective legitimization of the use of force by German police officers. There are numerous justifications for the use of force expressed by focus group participants in eight German Federal States who were responding to a hypothesized scenario. In the discussions observed within the groups, reference is first made to the state’s duty to prosecute alleged offences and the measures or formal actions to do this—hence, the legal authority to use force. In the course of the discussions, however, it became obvious that illegal violence may occur, although it was not perceived as such by the officers. Overall, and after an intensive analysis of the focus group discussions, it can be stated that use of force (whether legal or not) depends on the police officer’s perception of the resistance of the person being engaged with. In this regard, different social–cultural or physical–material factors can be identified. They have different influences on the individual legitimization of police actions, intertwined with the perception of the situation as constructed by the officer. Three ways of perceiving the situation can be deduced, resulting in different patterns of justification for the use of force.

---

Correlates of the endorsement of two competing policing styles among police cadets in China

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate police cadets’ endorsement of the law enforcement style and the community policing style of policing at a time when both styles of police practices have received significant attention in China. The data used in the analysis were collected from a national police university in China featuring a large sample of 900+ cadets. The first research objective concerns the dimensionality of sentiments toward the two styles of policing among police cadets. The second is the identification of key factors associated with these styles. The principal findings are that police cadets do see the law enforcement style and the community policing style as two distinctive conceptual dimensions. Moreover, different factors are associated with endorsement of each of the two styles of policing. Policy implications of these findings are discussed in some detail.     

Report: increases in police use of force in the presence of body-worn cameras are driven by officer discretion: a protocol-based subgroup analysis of ten randomized experiments

Objectives

Our multisite randomized controlled trial reported that police body-worn cameras (BWCs) had, on average, no effect on recorded incidents of police use of force. In some sites, rates of use of force decreased and in others increased. We wanted to understand these counter-intuitive findings and report pre-specified subgroup analyses related to officers’ discretion on activating the BWCs.

Methods

Using pre-established criteria for experimental protocol breakdown in terms of treatment integrity, ten experimental sites were subgrouped into “high-compliance” (no officer discretion applied to when and where BWCs should be used; n?=?3), “no-compliance” (treatment integrity failure in both treatment and control conditions; n?=?4), and tests where officers applied discretion during treatment group but followed protocol in control conditions only (n?=?4).

Results

When officers complied with the experimental protocol and did not use discretion, use of force rates were 37 % lower [SMD?=?(?.346); SE?= .137; 95?% CI (?.614) – (?.077)]; when officers did not comply with treatment protocol (i.e., officers chose when to turn cameras on/off), use of force rates were 71 % higher [SMD?= .392; SE?= .130; 95?% CI (.136) – (.647)], compared to control conditions. When full discretion (i.e., overall breakdown of protocol) was applied to both treatment and control conditions, null effects were registered [SMD?= .009; SE=.070; 95?% CI (?.127) – (.146)], compared to control conditions.

Conclusions

BWCs can reduce police use of force when then officers’ discretion to turn cameras on or off is minimized—in terms of both case types as well as individual incidents. BWCs ought to be switched on and the recording announced to suspects at early stages of police–public interactions. Future BWCs tests should pay close attention to adherence to experimental protocols.

     

Linking confidence in the police with the performance of the police: Community policing can make a difference

The existing literature of community policing was silent on the linkage between police performance and confidence in the police. This study argued that broader measures of police performance were an inevitable result of the shift from the traditional model of police to community policing. Consequently, confidence in the police could be used profitably by police management as one alternative measure of officers’ effectiveness. Data from a northwest city were used to find out the sources of confidence in the police. The results indicated that volunteers involved in community crime prevention programs showed higher confidence in the police and informal collective security bred confidence in the police. Furthermore, victimization and traffic tickets reduced confidence in the police. These results and their implications for police management are discussed within the limitation of data.