Traffic Stop Encounters: Officer and Citizen Race and Perceptions of Police Propriety

The continued legacy of racism and discrimination contribute to racial and ethnic differences in attitudes about the police. This research investigates citizen reports of proper police behavior during traffic stops to understand how officer/citizen race and ethnic pairs influence reports of impropriety. Analysis of 6,301 citizen reports of traffic stop encounters with the police from a unique national survey reveals that net of other important explanatory variables, African-Americans are less likely than whites to report proper police behavior when they encounter officers of any race. In addition, citizen reports indicate that the white/black and black/white officer/citizen encounters are significantly less likely to result in a report of proper police behavior than the white/white officer/citizen pairing. The results show limited support for the importance of citizen race and officer/citizen pairs in determining perception of police behavior.     

Women Police Officers and the Use of Coercion

Abstract

Despite numerous advances in the last thirty years, women police officers continue to face acceptance issues in a male-dominated occupation. Qualitative accounts of policewomen have noted that many of the integration barriers stem from traditional assumptions about police work, much of which revolves around the cultural mandate to display one's coercive authority over citizens. Female officers are often perceived as unwilling (or lacking in ability) to use coercion when encountering citizens. Unfortunately, little empirical evidence is available to support this claim, as gender studies that specifically examine the use of coercion have tended to focus on excessive force. Using data collected as part of a systematic social observation study in Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida, this research examines both verbal and physical coercion that policewomen use in day-to-day encounters with citizens. The results of this study challenge one of the most fundamental stereotypes levied against women police officers. Contrary to traditional assumptions, female police officers (compared to their male counterparts) are not reluctant to use coercive force, and examinations of both verbal and physical force reveal few differences in not only the prevalence of each behavior, but also in the commonly associated explanatory factors. The article concludes with the implications of these     

Race and Ethnicity: Responsible Use from Epidemiological and Public Health Perspectives

While the concepts of race and ethnicity have been abused historically, they are potentially invaluable in epidemiology and public health. Epidemiology relies upon variables that help differentiate populations by health status, thereby refining public health and health care policy, and offering insights for medical science. Race and ethnicity are powerful tools for doing this. The prerequisite for their responsible use is a society committed to reducing inequalities and inequities in health status. When this condition is met, it is irresponsible not to utilize these concepts.     

The Use of Race and Ethnicity in Medicine: Lessons from the African-American Heart Failure Trial

Race or ethnic identity, despite its imprecise categorization, is a useful means of identifying population differences in mechanisms of disease and treatment effects. Therefore, race and other arbitrary demographic and physiological variables have appropriately served as a helpful guide to clinical management and to clinical trial participation. The African-American Heart Failure Trial was carried out in African-Americans with heart failure because prior data had demonstrated a uniquely favorable effect in this subpopulation of the drug combination in BiDil. The remarkable effect of the drug in reducing mortality in this study has illuminated an important new mechanism of therapy for heart failure. Application of these findings need not be confined to the population studied, but the observation highlights the need for more precise ways to identify individual responsiveness to therapy.     

Striking Out: Race and Support for Police Use of Force

This research examines whites’ and blacks’ support for police use of force using a survey‐based experiment that varies the race of the offender across four different scenarios. Bivariate results show that the race of the offender influences blacks’ approval for the use of force by police, but does not affect whites’ approval. Multivariate analyses examine whether the factors influencing support for police use of force vary depending on the race of the offender. Results indicate that the predictors for approval of police use of force differ by the race of respondent, the race of offender, and the appropriateness of the use of force. The implications of the results for police–community relations are discussed.     

Global and Neighborhood Attitudes Toward the Police: Differentiation by Race,Ethnicity and Type of Contact

This study focused on a series of hypotheses regarding residents’ attitudes toward the police: (1) residents’ attitudes toward the police are better represented by a two-dimensional model that differentiates global perceptions of the police from assessments of the police in the respondents’ neighborhood; (2) the structure of residents’ attitudes toward the police is different for Whites, African Americans, and Latinos; (3) direct experiences with the police in the respondents’ neighborhood will be more strongly associated with the respondents’ assessment of police in their neighborhood than global perceptions of the police; and (4) the influence of direct experiences with the police will be stronger for African Americans and Latinos than for Whites. Results based on structural equation modeling offer strong support for the need to differentiate between global and neighborhood perceptions of the police. The underlining measurement structure of attitudes toward the police was similar for Whites, African Americans, and Latinos. However, the relationship between global and neighborhood attitudes was stronger for African Americans and Latinos. Negative contact with the police was associated with both negative global and neighborhood assessments of the police. Non-negative contact was associated with positive neighborhood perceptions of the police; however, only when it occurred within the neighborhood. The influence of direct experiences with the police (both inside and outside the neighborhood) was similar for Whites, African Americans, and Latinos.     

The Role of Immigration: Race/Ethnicity and San Diego Homicides Since 1970

Objectives

The temporal variation in homicide is examined by studying trends in race/ethnic specific killings (e.g. Blacks, Latinos and Whites). Two substantively important issues are also addressed—a closer examination of the role community heterogeneity plays in homicide levels and the treatment of immigration as an endogenous social process.

Methods

Data are reported homicides in the city of San Diego, California over the period 1960–2010. The address of each killing is geocoded into 341 census tracts.

Results

We find that neighborhoods experiencing increases in the foreign-born population tend to be less violent. White and Latino homicide victimization was reduced significantly as a product of increases in the neighborhood concentration of foreign-born individuals. Supplementary analyses did not find empirical evidence that the influx of foreign-born individuals could (or should) be considered a disruptive social process. Over the past five decennial census periods, the exponential increase in immigration in this border city is not associated with an increase in homicide victimization.

Conclusions

When examined through a wider temporal lens than is typically employed, and accounting for the endogeneity of immigrant residential settlement, we find no support for the claims that immigration is a crime generating social process.

     

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.     

Race,Ethnicity, and Perceived Minority Police Presence: Examining Perceptions of Criminal Injustice Among Los Angeles Residents

Although the conventional wisdom holds that increasing the number of minority officers will enhance residents' perceptions of police and the criminal justice system, further systematic investigation of this hypothesis may be needed. Building on the group‐position thesis, the representative bureaucracy theory, and prior research, this study investigates whether perceived minority police presence within residents' neighborhoods affects residents' perceptions of criminal injustice, whether this effect is more pronounced for minority residents and in minority neighborhoods, and whether perceived minority police presence has a stronger effect on perceptions of criminal injustice for minority residents in more integrated and white neighborhoods than minority residents in minority neighborhoods. Analyses of data collected from Los Angeles, CA, show that residents perceive a lower level of criminal injustice when they report that officers in their neighborhoods are not white‐dominated, and this finding is not dependent on the respondent's race/ethnicity or the racial/ethnic composition of the neighborhood. In addition, perceived minority police presence seems to have a weak to no effect on residents' perceptions of criminal injustice for Hispanic communities. We discuss these findings and their implications for theory, research, and policy.     

The Joint Effects of Gender and Race/Ethnicity on Sentencing Outcomes in Federal Courts

Using data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the present study examines the interaction effects of gender and race/ethnicity on sentencing outcomes of male and female offenders in federal courts. Findings indicate that female offenders in all racial/ethnic categories receive less severe sentence outcomes than male offenders in the same categories, even after legal, extralegal, and contextual factors are controlled. In addition, racial/ethnic differences are found within gender groups, such that Hispanic males are more likely to be incarcerated and Black males receive longer sentence terms compared to White male offenders. However, contrary to expectations, the analysis indicates that White females are more likely to be incarcerated than Black and Hispanic females and receive longer sentence terms than Hispanic females. Gender and racial/ethnic interactions are also explored across offense type (drug vs. non-drug) and type of sentencing departure (no departure, downward, or substantial assistance). Implications for future research are also discussed.     

Race and Ethnicity in Medical Research: Requirements Meet Reality

Race and ethnicity are commonly reported variables in biomedical research, but how they were determined is often not described and the rationale for analyzing them is often not provided. JAMA improved the reporting of these factors by implementing a policy and procedure. However, still lacking are careful consideration of what is actually being measured when race/ethnicity is described, consistent terminology, hypothesis-driven justification for analyzing race/ethnicity, and a consistent and generalizable measurement of socioeconomic status. Furthermore, some studies continue to use race/ethnicity as a proxy for genetics. Research into appropriate measures of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic factors, as well as education of researchers regarding issues of race/ethnicity, is necessary to clarify the meaning of race/ethnicity in the biomedical literature.     

Analyzing the Use of Race and Ethnicity in Biomedical Research from a Local Community Perspective

Lost in the debate over the use of racial and ethnic categories in biomedical research is community-level analysis of how these categories function and influence health. Such analysis offers a powerful critique of national and transnational categories usually used in biomedical research such as "African-American" and "Native American." Ethnographic research on local African-American and Native American communities in Oklahoma shows the importance of community-level analysis. Local ("intra-community") health practices tend to be shared by members of an everyday interactional community without regard to racial or ethnic identity. Externally created ("extra-community") practices tend to be based on the existence of externally-imposed racial or ethnic identities, but African-American and Native American community members show similar patterns in their use of extra-community practices. Thus, membership in an interactional community seems more important than externally-imposed racial or ethnic identity in determining local health practices, while class may be as or more important in accounting for extra-community practices.     

The Challenges of Moving into Middle Management: Responses from Police Officers

The role of the middle manager is crucial to a police organization. Despite this, little research exists concerning the characteristics of effective police managers, or the role that the promotional process and/or training plays in identifying and developing effective managers. To examine these issues, 328 Canadian police officers were surveyed and interviews were conducted with an additional 50 police professionals. The results highlight: (1) the importance of management in achieving organizational goals, (2) key characteristics of effective managers and common mistakes managers make, and (3) concerns surrounding the promotional process and the lack of managerial training. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Corporate Opportunities: The Appropriation by Company Officers of Business Opportunities Belonging to the Company

Netherlands International Law Review -     

The Relationship Between Crime Reporting and Police: Implications for the Use of Uniform Crime Reports

Empirical studies that use reported crime data to evaluate policies for reducing crime will understate the true effectiveness of these policies if crime reporting/recording behavior is also affected by the policies. For instance, when the size of the police force increases, changes in the perceived likelihood that a crime will be solved may lead a higher fraction of victimizations to be reported to the police. In this paper, three data sets are employed to measure the magnitude of this reporting bias. While each of these analyses is subject to individual criticisms, all of the approaches yield similar estimates. Reporting bias appears to be present but relatively small in magnitude: each additional officer is associated with an increase of roughly five Index crimes that previously would have gone unreported. Taking reporting bias into account makes the hiring of additional police substantially more attractive from a cost–benefit perspective but cannot explain the frequent inability of past studies to uncover a systematic negative relationship between the size of the police force and crime rates.     

Sentencing Female Misdemeanants: An Examination of the Direct and Indirect Effects of Race/Ethnicity

Little is known about the predictors of sentencing for the typical female offender—one who commits a misdemeanor or lesser offense. Moreover, although ample discussions of racial/ethnic disparity in sentencing may be found in the extant literature, most researchers have focused on what happens to males who commit felonies. Thus, to help fill a void I examine the likelihood of receiving a jail sentence among a sample of cases for female misdemeanants. All were convicted in New York City's Criminal Court. I account for direct and indirect effects by estimating a causal model that predicts the sentencing outcome. Race/ethnicity did not directly affect sentencing. Indirect effects, however, were found. Black and Hispanic females were more likely to receive jail sentences than their White counterparts due to differences in socio‐economic status, community ties, prior record, earlier case processing, and charge severity.     

Race and Ethnicity Effects in Federal Sentencing: A Propensity Score Analysis

Research has examined the role of race and ethnicity in the punishment of offenders. Narrative and meta-analytic reviews have indicated that race/ethnicity influences key sentencing outcomes, at least under certain conditions. This research relies almost exclusively on regression-based analyses for determining race and ethnicity effects. While this technique is useful, recent statistical advances may provide more accurate race/ethnicity estimates. The current study employs propensity score analysis to compare punishment outcomes across White, Black, and Hispanic offenders sentenced in US federal courts during the years 2006 through 2008. Results suggest that (a) during the in/out decision the effect of minority status is frequently smaller than that estimated by regression modeling and (b) during the sentence length decision the effect of minority status is frequently larger than that estimated by regression modeling. Consequently, the modeling strategy may produce different conclusions regarding the presence of race- and ethnic-based disparity in sentencing outcomes.     

Do Work-Family Conflict and Resiliency Mediate Police Stress and Burnout: a Study of State Police Officers

Occupational stress and burnout have long been recognized as common hazards among police officers. The present study examines whether demographic characteristics and assignment affect police officers’ work-family conflict (WFC), resiliency, stress and burnout, and whether WFC and resiliency mediate the stress and burnout of police officers. The data were collected from a Mid-Atlantic state police agency in the United States of America through a web-based survey. Regression results revealed that minority officers tended to have lower levels of WFC and burnout and better educated officers reported lower degrees of WFC and stress. WFC was positively related to stress and burnout, while resilience was inversely linked to stress and burnout. The effects of race and education disappeared when WFC and resiliency entered the regression, suggesting that their impact was largely mediated by WFC and resiliency. Lastly, stress was found to be positively associated with burnout. Implications for research and policy are discussed.