What’s in a Name? Organizational,Environmental, and Cultural Factors on Support for Community Policing in Turkey and the U.S.

Community policing (COP) represents officers’ expectations of police work that revolves around specific order maintenance chores that take place within the community. It is generally assumed that police officers are cognizant of the community policing type activities occurring in police organizations where COP is either formally or informally adopted. However, very little research has been done to examine whether or not police officers in other countries are engaging in similar COP type activities without the organizational endorsement or official implementation of community policing as it is known in the U.S. and elsewhere. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we compare law enforcement officers’ attitudes toward their conceptions of police work with specific attention to order maintenance and community oriented type police activities in two countries, Turkey (no formal COP programs) and the U.S. (formal and informal COP programs). Secondly, we examine to what extent police organizational and environmental factors in these two countries influence officers’ conceptions of community-oriented policing activities. Findings suggest that, relative to Turkey, U.S. police officers have a favorable disposition toward COP type activities, suggesting name does matter. However, findings in both countries also suggest that officers’ orientation to police work that is reflective of the police operational philosophy, and the organizational and environmental factors are better predictors of COP type activities.     

Determining the correlates of police victimization: An analysis of organizational level factors on injurious assaults

The current study attempted to expand the understanding victimization of police by examining the impact of a variety of factors related to community and aggressive policing styles on injurious assaults rates across 267 large municipal police departments. Regression analyses indicated that policing styles related to community meetings are associated with low levels of assault rates. Second, policing styles related to aggressive enforcement of drug laws has an aggravating effect on police victimization. Finally, departments that had high police-to-citizen population ratios also had lesser rates of injurious assaults.     

STYLES OF COMMUNITY POLICING

Police agencies have distinctive philosophies, or styles, of policing. James Q. Wilson identified three policing styles by analyzing the approach of police in order-maintenance and law enforcement situations Styles can also be developed by considering policing methods in relation to their impact upon the general community. The reactive-procrctive emphasis given to wrious combinations of positive and negative methods, or counselor and enforcer roles, is the basis for the four policing styles discussed.     

Street-level drug law enforcement: A meta-analytical review⋆

Our paper presents the results of a meta-analytical review of street level drug law enforcement. We conducted a series of meta-analyses to compare and contrast the effectiveness of four types of drug law enforcement approaches, including community-wide policing, problem-oriented/partnership approaches that were geographically focused, hotspots policing and standard, unfocused law enforcement efforts. We examined the relative impact of these different crime control tactics on street-level drug problems as well as associated problems such as property crime, disorder and violent crime. The results of the meta-analyses, together with examination of forest plots, reveal that problem-oriented policing and geographically-focused interventions involving cooperative partnerships between police and third parties tend to be more effective at controlling drug problems than community-wide policing efforts that are unfocused and spread out across a community. But geographically focused and community-wide drug law enforcement interventions that leverage partnerships are more effective at dealing with drug problems than traditional, law enforcement-only interventions. Our results suggest that the key to successful drug law enforcement lies in the capacity of the police to forge productive partnerships with third parties rather than simply increasing police presence or intervention (e.g., arrests) at drug hotspots.

Diversity in Policing

Abstract

Police and minority relations have received much interest among public and academic audiences, yet little is known about policing in Latino communities. As Latinos emerge as the largest minority group in the United States, researchers and police agencies are increasingly concerned with the experience of Latinos in the criminal justice system. One strategy for improving police and community relations is to enhance the diversity of law enforcement agencies. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the ethnic composition of law enforcement agencies in major U.S. metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2000. Using data from the U.S. Census and the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey, it appears that the growth in the U.S. Latino population has been met with an increase in the percentage of Latinos as sworn full-time police officers. Further, the degree of enhanced diversity varies by the ethnic composition of the community served. Implications of findings for improving relations between police and the Latino community are discussed.     

Citizens' perceptions of aggressive traffic enforcement strategies

In this study we examine citizens' support for aggressive traffic enforcement strategies and discuss whether the implementation of two different types of traffic enforcement decreases public support. We also examine whether citizens' perceptions of crime, quality of life, and the police are influenced by an increased police presence in their neighborhood. The public opinion data presented here are taken from two experimental target areas and one comparison area. Overall the findings suggest that citizens strongly support aggressive traffic enforcement practices and that the implementation of such strategies does not reduce their support. Residents of areas where police are using these types of tactics do not think that the police are harassing them. Citizens living in one of the experimental areas are significantly more likely to support the police, and think that the police work well with the neighborhood. Residents of the areas that experienced two types of aggressive enforcement, however, did not think that crime had decreased, nor that quality of life had improved. We discuss implications for the use of these strategies and for community policing in general.     

Good cop—Bad cop: Problem officers,law enforcement culture,and strategies for success

Police officers are the only professionals mandated by society to use discretionary coercive physical force as a necessary component of fulfilling their duty to maintain public safety and uphold the law. If community policing is to prevail as an effective and credible style of law enforcement, the legitimate use of competent police authority will continue to be a vital issue. This article analyzes the types of officer problems and problem officers that can harm community policing efforts. These include (1) individual factors, such as attitudes, personality traits, and psychological disorders; (2) police-citizen interaction factors, such as interpersonal dynamics and community attitudes; and (3) organizational factors, such as training and supervision, departmental philosophy, and the “cop culture.” The article then offers practical strategies for improving officer performance, including (1) selection and screening of officers; (2) training and supervision; (3) fitnessfor-duty evaluations; (4) effective supervision and discipline; (5) coaching and counseling strategies; and (6) the most productive use of psychological services. Throughout this discussion, the concept of the police officer as a law enforcement professional is emphasized as essential for guiding public safety policy into the 21^st century.     

The effect of local political culture on policing behaviors in the 1990s: A retest of Wilson’s theory in more contemporary times

In research on policing, James Q. Wilson was among the first scholars to suggest that local political culture constitutes a significant factor in explaining variation among law enforcement agency practices. Almost forty years after the publication of Varieties of Police Behavior, a classic study of police organizational behavior, Wilson’s monograph remains the basis of a widely held theory used to explain variation in police agency behaviors. More specifically, Wilson (1968) identified three distinctive styles of policing: the legalistic, the watchman, and the service styles. In his empirical work with these styles of policing, Wilson argued that local political culture was the major determinant of variation in policing styles. The purpose of this study was to retest the validity of Wilson’s argument in today’s policing environment. Using panel data collected among police agencies across the U.S. surveyed in 1993, 1996, and 2000, the authors found that there was little evidence to support the application of Wilson’s theory to the practices of contemporary police organizations.     

Examining the blue line in the rainbow: the interactions and perceptions of law enforcement among lesbian,gay, bisexual,transgender and queer communities

ABSTRACT

Despite the fact that LGBTQ individuals are at greater risk of victimization than the average citizen, the LGBTQ community’s relationship with law enforcement has been a turbulent one. Using a mixed-methods approach, including surveys, semi-structured interviews and observations of town hall meetings, and following the participatory action research framework, this study examines the interactions between the LGBTQ community and law enforcement, and the perceptions of police within the LGBTQ community. The current study demonstrates how members of the LGBTQ community continue to have negative experiences with police that adversely impact their perceptions of law enforcement. Moreover, the findings underline the importance of examining how multiple identities impact an individual’s experiences with and their perceptions of law enforcement. Expanding past research on this topic, this study offers an analysis based upon suggestions of the study’s participants of what steps must be taken in order to improve relations between these two groups.     

The inchoate nature of community policing: Differences between community policing and traditional police officers

Over the past 20 years, police departments across America have adopted a community—or problem-oriented—policing philosophy. Community policing has not been implemented wholesale, however. Most departments have assigned some officers to community policing roles but kept the majority in traditional motorized patrol assignments. Pertinent literature suggests that these two groups do not see eye to eye on their respective roles and duties. In this study, work-redesign theory is used as a conceptual framework to explain officer functioning in both community policing and traditional motorized policing settings. Findings indicate key similarities between community policing officers and officers assigned to traditional motorized patrol, despite differences in job satisfaction, perception of impact, and policing style.     

The Reconstitution of Law in Local Settings: Agency Discretion, Ambiguity, and a Surplus of Law in the Policing of Hate Crime

An important yet poorly understood function of law enforcement organizations is the role they play in distilling and transmitting the meaning of legal rules to frontline law enforcement officers and their local communities. In this study, we examine how police and sheriff's agencies in California collectively make sense of state hate crime laws. To do so, we gathered formal policy documents called “hate crime general orders” from all 397 police and sheriff's departments in the state and conducted interviews with law enforcement officials to determine the aggregate patterns of local agencies' responses to higher law. We also construct a “genealogy of law” to locate the sources of the definitions of hate crime used in agency policies. Despite a common set of state criminal laws, we find significant variation in how hate crime is defined in these documents, which we attribute to the discretion local law enforcement agencies possess, the ambiguity of law, and the surplus of legal definitions of hate crime available in the larger environment to which law enforcement must respond. Some law enforcement agencies take their cue from other agencies, some follow statewide guidelines, and others are oriented toward gaining legitimacy from national professional bodies or groups within their own community. The social mechanisms that produce the observed clustering patterns in terms of approach to hate crime law are mimetic (copying another department), normative (driven by professional standards about training and community social movement pressure), and actuarial (affected by the demands of the crime data collection system). Together these findings paint a picture of policing organizations as mediators between law‐on‐the‐books and law‐in‐action that are embedded in interorganizational networks with other departments, state and federal agencies, professional bodies, national social movement organizations, and local community groups. The implications of an interorganizational field perspective on law enforcement and implementation are discussed in relation to existing sociolegal research on policing, regulation, and recent neo‐institutional scholarship on law.     

Hispanic Perceptions of Community Policing

Abstract

The two core elements of community policing are community partnership and problem solving (Rosenbaum, 1994). A major challenge that continues for proponents of community policing is developing and evaluating programs in areas with diverse ethnic groups. While many agencies have successfully developed community policing programs, empirical evaluations of community policing are scarce in areas that include a variety of minority groups. This research explores the effectiveness of community policing by examining citizen satisfaction with local police. Analyses are conducted with data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics on Criminal Victimization and Perceptions of Community Safety in 12 United States cities. The results indicate that Whites and Hispanics have the most positive perceptions of police, while Blacks, Eskimos, Asians, and Pacific Islanders have negative perceptions of police.     

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.     

Role Conflict and the Psychological Impacts of the Post-Ferguson Period on Law Enforcement Motivation,Cynicism, and Apprehensiveness

In the wake of high-profile deadly force cases in the post-Ferguson era, a number of negative psychological outcomes have been depicted by law enforcement officers. We examine if negative post-Ferguson outcomes predict current cynicism, motivation, and apprehensiveness. Further, we account for whether role orientations, specifically support for a law enforcement orientation or a community policing orientation, mediate the psychological effects of the post-Ferguson period. Since the law enforcement orientation, exercised through strict enforcement of the law, has been called out of favor in the post-Ferguson area, supporting this role may negatively impact officers via role conflict. The opposite may be observed for those supporting a community policing orientation. We test these arguments using results from an online survey of law enforcement officers in the USA, administered 6 months following highly publicized incidents in Dallas and Baton Rouge where police were targeted and killed. Results showed that post-Ferguson psychological impacts continued to affect current levels of cynicism, motivation, and apprehensiveness. Support for law enforcement or community policing orientation did not mediate the effects of post-Ferguson sentiments. Nonetheless, role orientations played a significant role in predicting current cynicism, motivation, and apprehensiveness and provided support for the theory of role conflict.     

Policing styles: Notes on an empirical synthesis of Wilson and Muir

The works of James Q. Wilson and William Ker Muir stand as classics in the recent but voluminous literature on police. The concept of style is central to both analyses. Wilson focuses on departmental approaches to law enforcement, while Muir examines individual police perspectives. Both emphasize, however, that style is a critical component of law enforcement policy.Scrutiny of the typologies constructed by Wilson and Muir reveals patterns of compatibility and conflict. Assuming that simple congruity of approach carries critical consequences for policing, the authors initiated an empirical extension and synthesis of the works of Wilson and Muir.Surveying police in eighteen departments across the country (72.2 percent of the 900 potential respondents returned completed questionnaires, leaving a sample of 650), the authors hypothesized that simple congruity of policing style along three lines of comparison (individual officer and supervisor, individual officer and squad, and individual officer and department) would be associated with attitudinal perspectives long thought to be part and parcel of the “police personality.” Additional hypotheses were advanced about the relationship between congruity of style and other officer perceptions—particularly job satisfaction and assessments of supervisor support, departmental discipline, and management.The results: indicate that style congruity is critical at the lowest levelsof the organization, reinforce the importance of the first-line supervisor in policing, extend and refine the concept of style as advanced by Wilson and Muir, and demonstrate the utility of replication and synthesis in social science.     

Cops and cameras: Officer perceptions of the use of body-worn cameras in law enforcement

PurposeThere has been a recent surge in the adoption of and media attention to the use of body-worn cameras in law enforcement. Despite this increase in use and media attention, there is little to no research on officer perceptions of body-worn cameras.MethodsThis study relies on baseline data of officer perceptions toward body-worn cameras collected from surveys administered to Orlando Police officers who are participants in a randomized experiment evaluating the impact of body-worn cameras (Taser AXON Flex) in law enforcement.ResultsResults suggest that police officers are, by and large, open to and supportive of the use of body-worn cameras in policing, they would feel comfortable wearing them, and that they perceive a potential for benefits of body-worn cameras in improving citizen behavior, their own behavior, and the behavior of their fellow officers.ConclusionsOfficers are generally supportive of body-worn cameras, and they hold perceptions that these devices can be beneficial in positively affecting relevant outcomes. Study limitations and implications are also discussed.     

Women in Law Enforcement

ABSTRACT

Despite equal employment opportunity laws, affirmative action policies, and studies which demonstrate the capability of females, women account for only 8% of all municipal police officers in this country. The underrepresentation of social groups in policing is not a new phenomenon and can be explained through the “denial hypothesis.” The present study uses tobit regression techniques to examine the variation in female employment as law enforcement officers in municipal police departments within the State of Florida. The findings indicate that the distribution of sworn female officers does not resemble local labor market conditions. Neither the degree of parity between men and women in local economic conditions nor the availability of a qualified female applicant pool affect agency gender composition.     

Policing Race,Gender, and Sex: A Review of Law Enforcement Policies

Growing attention to the unique ways in which women of color’s bodies are racially profiled and policed has prompted questions concerning gender-specific impacts of law enforcement practices. Arrest statistics, patterns of enforcement, and high-profile cases of police violence against Black women and other women of color suggest that gaps in policy and implementation will disproportionately affect women of color. In the current research, the policies of 36 police departments across the country were examined to ascertain the degree to which they address profiling, police sexual misconduct, and other gendered experiences of policing. The findings reveal considerable divergence in attention to regulating police behavior in the context of interactions with women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, exposing important gaps in police policies, and highlight a need for further research and action specifically focused on intersectional factors at play in the context of policing women’s bodies.     

Technology-Mediated Exposure to Police–Citizen Encounters: A Quasi-Experimental Assessment of Consequences for Citizen Perceptions

Anecdotal evidence suggests that recent video-recorded police–citizen encounters have undermined police legitimacy and fueled civil unrest across the United States. Drawing from the process-based model of policing, social cognitive theory, and past research on media effects, we assess the influence of viewing cell phone videos of police–citizen encounters on perceptions of law enforcement. Using quasi-experimental methods and video footage of an actual police–citizen encounter captured on cell phones, the effects of viewing these videos are assessed using a series of repeated measure ANOVAs. Results indicate that viewing cell phone videos of police–citizen encounters significantly impacts perceptions of law enforcement, though little evidence of differing effects based on point-of-view, number of video exposures, or ordering of video exposures was found. The process-based model of policing should consider further incorporating the contributions of technology to provide a more holistic account of the factors influencing perceptions of police.     

Crime as a negotiated commodity: The police use of informers

Criminologists have long been interested in the relationship between policing and community participation. Traditionally, it has been argued that law enforcement agencies are dependent upon the general community for crime information. Recently, however, there is a growing interest among criminologists to explore the dependency relations police create within different subpopulations, especially diverse street subcultures. This study explores the social organization of police-street hustlers relations. Using qualitative data on 70 hustlers and 50 police officers, we examine how crime is manipulated as a commodity in advancing the interests of informers and the police. It is argued that although separate and unrelated situational factors are important, a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of these exchanges warrants an investigation of social networks and law. It is concluded that the informal contexts of law significantly pervade the informal contexts of these encounters. This topic demands considerable attention given the lack of organizational policies or standards which jeopardizes public confidence and erodes the informer's constitutional protections.