Youth, Police Legitimacy and Informal Contact

This paper explores the under-researched topic of young people’s attitudes towards police in two studies using structural equation modelling. The first study examines the influence of police legitimacy on the willingness of young people to assist police. The second study examines the impact of informal contact with police during a community policing project on young people’s willingness to assist police. Findings show that young people who view police as legitimate are more willing to assist police. Participation in the community policing project had a significant and positive influence on young people’s willingness to assist police independent of young people’s attitudes about police legitimacy.

Community Variation in Crime Clearance: A Multilevel Analysis with Comments on Assessing Police Performance

We use data from the Province of Quebec to examine how the characteristics of a crime and the community context in which it occurs affect the likelihood that it will be cleared by the police. Based on a sample of 362,295 crime incidents clustered in 93 communities, multilevel analyses reveal that the police are more likely to clear crimes in small communities than in large urban areas and in communities with greater levels of poverty. Workload is not very important, having only a slight effect on the clearance of misdemeanors. The fact that offenders are much more likely to evade the law in some communities than others may have important implications for deterrence. Two methods to improve the evaluation of police departments at crime clearance are also proposed.

Researching the use of force: the background to the international project

This article provides the background to an international project on use of force by the police that was carried out in seven countries. Force is often considered to be the defining characteristic of policing and much research has been conducted on the determinants, prevalence and control of the use of force, particularly in the United States. However, little work has looked at police officers’ own views on the use of force, in particular the way in which they justify it. Using a hypothetical encounter developed for this project, researchers in each country conducted focus groups with police officers in which they were encouraged to talk about the use of force. The results show interesting similarities and differences across countries and demonstrate the value of using this kind of research focus and methodology.

---

The ‘Butner Study’ Redux: A Report of the Incidence of Hands-on Child Victimization by Child Pornography Offenders

This study compared two groups of child pornography offenders participating in a voluntary treatment program: men whose known sexual offense history at the time of judicial sentencing involved the possession, receipt, or distribution of child abuse images, but did not include any “hands-on” sexual abuse; and men convicted of similar offenses who had documented histories of hands-on sexual offending against at least one child victim. The goal was to determine whether the former group of offenders were “merely” collectors of child pornography at little risk for engaging in hands-on sexual offenses, or if they were contact sex offenders whose criminal sexual behavior involving children, with the exception of Internet crimes, went undetected. Our findings show that the Internet offenders in our sample were significantly more likely than not to have sexually abused a child via a hands-on act. They also indicate that the offenders who abused children were likely to have offended against multiple victims, and that the incidence of “crossover” by gender and age is high.

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.

---

Behind the Blue Line: Investigating Police Officers’ Attitudes Toward Rape

The current study contributes to what is known about police officers’ attitudes toward rape. A survey was administered to 891 sworn police officers in two states in the southeastern United States. The surveys were designed to assess police officers’ acceptance of rape myths. It was hypothesized that police officers would be accepting of rape myths, which are inherently misogynistic. Attitudes toward rape were expected to vary according to educational attainment and experience with rape investigations, such that higher levels of education and more experience with rape investigations would lead to the rejection of rape myths. There was a significant difference in the acceptance of rape myths with varying levels of educational attainment and experience with rape investigations.

Violent Stalkers. Detecting Risk Factors by the Police

In the experience of stalking victims a common element is the fear of physical violence. Until now risk factors that predict physical violence within stalking contexts have been carried out in relatively small, clinical-forensic samples. Consequently, the validity and practical utility of these risk factors in the law enforcement context remains unknown. Furthermore some risk factors have been identified in this research on the basis of information that is not available for or difficult to detect by the police in an early stage of the law enforcement process. The identification of risk factors of physical violence in stalking incidents in an early stage by the police was the subject of the presented study. Risk factors are identified based on literature, content analysis of police records and by testing interaction terms. Therefore 204 judicial files were analyzed, resulting in a five factor model predicting physical violence. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Singing the same tune? International continuities and discontinuities in how police talk about using force

This article focuses on a research project conducted in six jurisdictions: England, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Venezuela, and Brazil. These societies are very different ethnically, socially, politically, economically, historically and have wildly different levels of crime. Their policing arrangements also differ significantly: how they are organised; how their officers are equipped and trained; what routine operating procedures they employ; whether they are armed; and much else besides. Most relevant for this research, they represent policing systems with wildly different levels of police shootings, Police in the two Latin American countries represented here have a justified reputation for the frequency with which they shoot people, whereas at the other extreme the police in England do not routinely carry firearms and rarely shoot anyone. To probe whether these differences are reflected in the way that officers talk about the use of force, police officers in these different jurisdictions were invited to discuss in focus groups a scenario in which police are thwarted in their attempt to arrest two youths (one of whom is a known local criminal) by the youths driving off with the police in pursuit, and concludes with the youths crashing their car and escaping in apparent possession of a gun, It might be expected that focus groups would prove starkly different, and indeed they were, but not in the way that might be expected. There was little difference in affirmation of normative and legal standards regarding the use of force. It was in how officers in different jurisdictions envisaged the circumstances in which the scenario took place that led Latin American officers to anticipate that they would shoot the suspects, whereas officers in the other jurisdictions had little expectation that they would open fire in the conditions as they imagined them to be.

---

Police Stress: A Structural Model

A number of existing studies have identified various factors that contribute to stress among police officers. This analysis is unique among these insofar as it employs structural equation modeling to specify, in path model format, the influence of participation in workplace decision-making and other variables on employee stress levels. The findings of this analysis provide new as well as confirmatory statistical evidence regarding the mitigating and direct effects of certain variables on physical stress. This study poses important implications by lending itself to meaningful future comparative research across occupations such as corrections and probation / parole.

Profiles of Child Maltreatment Perpetrators and Risk for Fatal Assault: A Latent Class Analysis

This study examined characteristics and profiles of 196 child maltreatment perpetrators in Florida, including 126 who committed fatal assaults during 1999–2002. Results of logistic regression suggest that being a biologically unrelated caregiver is the strongest predictor of fatal child maltreatment. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was used to classify perpetrators, and three classes were identified: Biological Mothers with Health Problems, Male Perpetrators with Domestic Violence History, and Multiple-Problem Perpetrators. Results of LCA showed that compared to Biological Mothers with Health Problems, Multiple-Problem Perpetrators were seven times more likely and Male Perpetrators with Domestic Violence History were 12 times more likely to commit a fatal assault. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Criminal victimization in contemporary China: a review of the evidence and challenges for future research

The rapid economic growth in China over recent decades has been accompanied by higher levels of crime, but there have been few studies of the Chinese experience of criminal victimization. A recent victimization survey of a representative sample of households in Tianjin represents a major effort to fill this gap in the literature. The present paper reviews the research based on the Tianjin survey along with other studies of crime and criminal victimization in China that have been published since 1990. We summarize the major findings, discuss the theoretical perspectives and methodological strategies that have been applied, identify the limitations of the research to date, and offer suggestions for future research.

---

Examining the Overlap and Prediction of Multiple Forms of Child Maltreatment,Stressors, and Socioeconomic Status: A Longitudinal Analysis of Youth Outcomes

Analyses were conducted to examine the extent of overlap and predictive strength of multiple forms of child maltreatment and stressors internal and external to the family. Findings suggest a strong association between child maltreatment (physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and exposure to domestic violence) and stressors (family conflict, personal problems of parents, and external constraints on the family). After controlling for stressors, family socioeconomic status, and child gender, a general construct of child maltreatment was predictive of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in adolescents. Specific effects of child physical and sexual abuse were revealed in these longitudinal structural equation model tests.

Using State Child Labor Laws to Identify the Causal Effect of Youth Employment on Deviant Behavior and Academic Achievement

On the basis of prior research findings that employed youth, and especially intensively employed youth, have higher rates of delinquent behavior and lower academic achievement, scholars have called for limits on the maximum number of hours per week that teenagers are allowed to work. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to assess the claim that employment and work hours are causally related to adolescent problem behavior. We utilize a change model with age-graded child labor laws governing the number of hours per week allowed during the school year as instrumental variables. We find that these work laws lead to additional number of hours worked by youth, which then lead to increased high school dropout but decreased delinquency. Although counterintuitive, this result is consistent with existing evidence about the effect of employment on crime for adults and the impact of dropout on youth crime.

Animal Abuse, Family Violence, and Child Wellbeing: A Review

Animal abuse and family violence appear to be “linked” and tend to co-occur in the same households. Companion animals are often regarded as family members, if not by the abuser, then by others within the family. Consequently, in families where any given form of violence exists, animal abuse is also more likely to exist. This paper examines animal abuse in the context of abusive home environments, and the relationship between an abusive home in childhood and the range of behavioral problems that may extend into adulthood. Existing investigations are reviewed with reference to prevalence, epidemiology, and child development theory. It appears that holistic interventions to counter abusive home environments may represent the most effective way to break the association between animal cruelty and interpersonal violence, by addressing the shared situational characteristics common to a range of violent behaviors.

Complex Harmony: The Military and Professional Models of Policing

This article discusses the importance of the military model throughout police reform, and how it has coexisted with, rather than been supplanted by, the professional model. Early reformers chose the military upon which to structure their concept of the urban police. That concept was refashioned into the professional model as the background of the reformers changed. This new model then replaced the military model in criminal justice literature, public vernacular, and police self-image, although the military model continued to exist under the radar. Today the “militarization of the police” is a major criminal justice topic, but its recent visibility is actually an ongoing part of the original reform ideal.

---

Becoming ‘European’ through police reform: a successful strategy in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Police reform plays a key role in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s internationally-supervised statebuilding process. It is one of the four key conditions to move the country closer to its European future. Against this background the article analyses the role that the European Union Police Mission (EUPM) plays in preparing Bosnian police agencies for this challenge. Using as guiding tools some of the key elements of the Mission’s leitmotif—local ownership, European police standards—the article comes to the conclusion that EUPM has introduced much needed reforms but these have been overshadowed, among other things, by the police restructuring process and its unnecessary politicisation of “European police standards/practices” to fit a model of statehood not shared by all local stakeholders.

---

Terrorism and relative justice

Terrorist violence and violent justice responses have much in common. While contextually dependant, both forms of violence lay claim to contestred legitimacies. The relationships between terrorism and justice responses require both theoretical and empirical examination if the prospects for controlling the violence they perpetrate is to be sharpened.

---

Taming the Beast: The UK Approach to the Management of Behavioral Investigative Advice

The goal of this paper is to reflect on the pertinent issues surrounding the effective management of behavioral investigative advice, by making explicit the experiences, developments, learning and achievements of such endeavors from a UK perspective. Specifically, the issues of national regulation of professional and ethical standards, working conditions for behavioral investigative advisers, audit and evaluation, strategic development, and learning and development of profiling skills are explored. Some broad observations regarding evaluation of the UK approach are discussed and consideration is given to the future challenges facing the field of behavioral investigative advice provision to major crime investigations.

Police cooperation in the Southern African region: politics and practicalities

This paper describes some of the issues around which cooperation among police agencies in the South African region have been coalescing. Cooperative engagements have resulted in a degree of harmonisation of policy and standardisation of police training. Within the region too a rhetorical commitment to common values and standards associated with democratic policing is forthcoming. Overall the processes underway are shaped by regional dynamics of a broader socio-political and specific police organisational nature. Structural underdevelopment, the weakness of institutions such as the police and contrarian politics more widely provide the context within which cooperation has evolved. By drawing on documentary analysis and interviews with practitioners in the field, the substantive areas around which cooperation is taking place are outlined. In this account particular reference is made to the role of a regional structure (the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Coordination Committee) and the national police agency (the South African Police Service) of South Africa, in the evolving business of cooperation in the Southern African region. Research for this paper was made possible through funding received from the Open Society Foundation (SA).

---