DRIVING WHILE BLACK: EFFECTS OF RACE,ETHNICITY, AND GENDER ON CITIZEN SELF‐REPORTS OF TRAFFIC STOPS AND POLICE ACTIONS*

Are African‐American men, compared with white men, more likely to report being stopped by police for traffic law violations? Are African‐American men and Hispanic drivers less likely to report that police had a legitimate reason for the stop and less likely to report that police acted properly? This study answers these questions using citizen self‐reports of their traffic stop encounters with the police. Net of other important explanatory variables, the data indicate that police make traffic stops for Driving While Black and male. In addition, African‐American and Hispanic drivers are less likely to report that police had a legitimate reason for the stop and are less likely to report that police acted properly. The study also discusses the validity of citizen self‐report data and outlines an agenda for future research.     

CHANGES IN POLICE NOTIFICATION FOR RAPE, 1973–2000*

We use data from the National Crime Survey (NCS) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to explore changes in the likelihood of police notification in rape incidents. The findings indicate that during the 1970s and 1980s there was a significant increase in police notification by third parties and by victims raped by non‐strangers. During the 1990s the increase in rates of police notification in rape incidents accelerated and broadened in scope. In addition, differences in police notification between stranger and non‐stranger incidents diminished during the 1970s and 1980s and, by the early 1990s there was no significant difference.     

Becoming “Copwise”: Policing,Culture, and the Collateral Consequences of Street‐Level Criminalization

Over the last four decades, the United States has witnessed a historic expansion of its criminal justice system. This article examines how street‐level criminalization transforms the cultural contexts of poor urban communities. Drawing on five years of fieldwork in Los Angeles’ Skid Row–the site of one of the most aggressive zero‐tolerance policing campaigns to date–the study finds that residents develop and deploy a particular cultural frame–“cop wisdom”–by which they render seemingly‐random police activity more legible, predictable, and manipulable. Armed with this interpretive schema, “copwise” residents engage in new forms of self‐presentation in public, movement through the daily round, and informal social control in order to deflect police scrutiny and forestall street stops. While these techniques allow residents to reduce unwanted police contact, this often comes at the expense of individual and collective well‐being by precluding social interaction, exacerbating stigma, and contributing to animosity in public space.     

"They Have Started to Dress Better"

According to Russian experts, police reform failed to improve the crime detection rate and to introduce new criteria for assessing police performance.     

Police uniforms,attitudes, and citizens

This study focuses on identifying the relationship between the citizen's attitude toward the police and the police uniform and authoritarian attitude. The perceived authority associated with the police uniform has been an essential ingredient of the police role. Consequently, the police uniform influences attitudes and behaviors of the wearers as well as the citizens with whom they interact. The citizen's attitude is negatively affected by the traditional military style police uniform in conjunction with the authoritarian attitude exhibited by police officers in performance of their duties. Consequently, when the uniform and officer's attitude are altered, there will be a corresponding change in the citizen's attitude toward the police. The attitude of the officer, in conjunction with the uniform, exerts considerably more influence on the citizen's attitude than does the uniform, officer's attitude, or any additional factor acting independently.     

Predicting police behavior: Ecology,class, and autonomy

Social ecological theories of crime have recently been extended to explain spatial variation in police behavior. Although these theories successfully identify community characteristics affecting local policing, they fail to acknowledge the class-based origins of formal social control and the relative autonomy of the police. This paper addresses the neglected class issue by integrating social ecological and critical theories in a model of police behavior. Cross-sectional data was obtained from twenty-five police agencies’ vice divisions and their corresponding jurisdictions to test the integrated hypothesis. Four social ecological variables and a fiscal measure of relative autonomy are examined as police behavior predictors. Findings reveal that both the autonomy measure and three of the social ecological variables explain significant variance in police behavior, thus supporting the inclusion of structural Marxism in a general theory of police behavior.     

Demeanor,sex, and race in police processing

Recent increases in arrests of women have stimulated much controversy about the causes and extent of female crime and created much speculation about the differential treatment of female offenders by police officers. This article reports an empirical study of police processing of female offenders. During September–December 1978, 282 questionnaires were completed by police officers and detectives in a large, metropolitan area in a southeastern state. Each officer was asked to indicate a police decision in five hypothetical situations which varied by types of offense, race of the offender, sex of the offender, and demeanor of the offender. An analysis of the responses of the police officers indicates that decisions of police are not contingent on the sex and race of the offenders. The major variables in determining how police officers will respond are the nature of the offense and the manner in which the offender behaves when confronted by the officer.     

The commemoration of death,organizational memory,and police culture

Police scholars document that although there is fragmentation of the so‐called “monolithic” police culture, historically consistent features of the occupational culture of police exist. By drawing on ethnographic observations in three U.S. police departments, I describe how one consistent feature of police culture—the preoccupation with danger and potential death—is maintained by the commemoration of officers killed in the line of duty. Through the use of commemorative cultural artifacts, officers and departments construct an organizational memory that locally reflects and reifies the salience of danger and potential death in policing. Furthermore, commemoration of fallen officers is not restricted to a department's own; the dead of other departments are commemorated by distant police organizations and their officers, maintaining broad, occupational assumptions of dangerous and deadly police work that transcend a single department and its localized organizational memory. Implications for the study of police culture, inequalities in policing, and police reform are considered.     

The Lawrence Inquiry – Incompetence, Corruption, and Institutional Racism

The inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in South London in 1993, which reported earlier this year, documents a catalogue of police incompetence and 'institutional racism'. The report also puts forward a number of far-reaching recommendations, echoing long-standing demands by the black community, for the reform of policing in Britain. Yet, in its approach to 'institutional racism', the report can be seen to have downplayed the need for a critical re-examination of policing policies and priorities at a strategic level. As a result, many of its key recommendations, in such areas as stop and search and the policing of racist crime, may prove ineffective. The government's commitment to 'anti-racism', following the Lawrence report, is also called into question by its subsequent decision to further restrict the rights of defendants and the ability of black people to defend themselves against racist police practices through the criminal justice system.     

Beatings,Beacons, and Big Men: Police Disempowerment and Delegitimation in India

It is a truism that police in India generally lack legitimate authority and public trust. This lack is widely understood by scholars, policy analysts, and police practitioners as being rooted in the institution's colonial development as a means of oppression, and its alleged corruption and criminalization in the postcolonial period. The social facts of situational hyper‐empowerment and the widespread decadence of police do much to explain their poor image and performance, but these explanations do not account for the fact that police in India are also structurally disempowered by cultural‐political and legal‐institutional claims to multiple and conflicting forms of authority that challenge and often overwhelm the authority of police. This structural disempowerment and its performances in everyday interactions between the police and the public constitute an ongoing social process of delegitimation of police authority in contemporary India. Following ethnographic analysis of this process of delegitimation, I explore the implications of focusing on police disempowerment for theorizations of the sources and capabilities of state legal authority more generally.     

Gennady Korepanov: "We Are Obliged to Guard Russian Citizens Against Cruelty"

The speaker of the Tiumen Oblast Duma Sergei Korepanov argues that the chief tasks of the police reform are to forewarn citizens about possible crimes and to prepare a new kind of police.     

Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation No. 1166 of December 31, 2012, Moscow, "Questions of Organization of the Work of Precinct Police Plenipotentiaries"

Order No. 1166 defines the responsibilities of precinct police plenipotentiaries and contains Instructions for Organization of the Work of Precinct Police Plenipotentiaries.     

Law of the Russian Federation "On Countering Extremist Activity" (as amended by Federal Laws No. 148-FZ of July 27, 2006; No. 153-FZ of July 27, 2006; No. 71-FZ of May 10, 2007; and No. 211-FZ of July 24, 2007)

The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) Chief Directorate of Internal Security names the sore points in relations between society and the police.

The personnel purges that took place in the MVD system in 2011 rid the police of "ballast" and united the ranks of honest policemen-head of the MVD Chief Directorate of Internal Security Iurii Draguntsov declared on Monday. In his opinion, the ministry succeeded in conducting an effective purge and in "infusing new blood." However, a representative of the independent [militia] trade unions is not in full agreement with this.     

The relationship between education, experience, and police performance

This study used data from 299 police officers from 12 municipal police departments across the state of Virginia to determine the relationship between education and police performance. Performance was measured by supervisor evaluations of each officer's overall performance, communication skills, public relations skills, report writing skills, response to new training, decision making ability, and commitment to the police department. Significant correlations were found between education and most measures of performance. Most importantly, the results show a significant correlation between overall performance and education (r=24, p.<001). The only variables not proving to be significantly related to education were objective measures of the volume of arrests, number of times the officer required discipline, and number of accidents. Interestingly, the benefits of a college education do not become apparent until police officers gain experience. In addition, police, officers with only a high school diploma decreased in overall performance after five years of experience.     

SPECIFICATION PROBLEMS,POLICE LEVELS,AND CRIME RATES*

Research on the relationship between police and crime, like many criminological topics, is subject to uncertain causal direction and omitted controls. We recommend procedures that mitigate these problems: the Granger causality test, proxies for missing variables, robustness checks, and making data available to other researchers. Because specification problems are common in the social sciences, this strategy has applicability beyond the issue of police and crime. We analyze yearly police data and UCR crime rates, at the state and city levels, pooled over two decades. We find Granger causation in both directions. The impact of crime on the number of police is slight, but the impact of police on most crime types is substantial. The latter result is more robust at the city level.     

The impact of race/ethnicity, neighborhood context, and police/citizen interaction on residents' attitudes toward the police

The purpose of this study was to extend the current knowledge of public attitudes toward the police. Independent variables derived from three models, the demographic, the neighborhood context, and the police/citizen interaction models, were used to explain public perceptions of the police. More specifically, public attitudes toward the police was measured in two dimensions— General Attitudes toward the police and Specific Trust in the police. The data was obtained by a telephone survey of 756 respondents in Houston, TX in 2008. The primary findings suggested that race, gender, age, victimization, and satisfaction with police work were significant predictors. Hispanic respondents reported lower levels of General Attitudes toward the police than their White counterparts. In addition, there was no significant difference between Whites and Hispanics in terms of Specific Trust in police such as the use of Taser guns. These results and their practical implications for police agencies were addressed in discussion.     

Applying police legitimacy,cooperation, and collective security hypotheses to explain collective efficacy and violence across neighbourhoods

This study examines views about police legitimacy and competence in neighbourhoods over time. The study compares theories about police legitimacy, the cooperation hypothesis, and the collective security hypothesis to predict violence. Findings suggest that when police legitimacy is deficient in neighbourhoods, a culture supportive of violence to resolve disputes may develop. Results show the importance of police competence to suppress violence and build collective efficacy. Finally, police are more successful in neighbourhoods that are collectively efficacious. The cooperation hypothesis is fully supported, but the collective security hypothesis and LaFree’s legitimacy theory receive partial support. Findings underscore the merit of examining neighbourhood consequences of police legitimacy, including how institutions, like police, can impact neighbourhood socialisation processes and are impacted by them.     

Integrity,culture, and scale: an empirical test of the big bad police agency

Building on Klockars et. al. (2000) analysis of survey data on police agency integrity, this analysis develops an economic model of police corruption within police agencies. Empirical estimates of the economic model are consistent with Klockars et. al. (2000) in that there is no evidence to support the traditional theory that police agency corruption is attributable to the “individual bad-apple.” Independent of other factors, the present analysis shows that police culture fosters corruption. Furthermore, the present analysis shows that incentive structures within police agencies increase the problem of corruption as the scale of police agency operation increases. Policies that would promote higher levels of integrity are considered.     

Force,Stress, and Decision-Making Within the Belgian Police: the Impact of Stressful Situations on Police Decision-Making

Stress and fear are inevitable aspects of the police job and may have a large impact on police officers’ decision-making process. Many studies have explored how stress and fear may influence assessments of police officers, especially with regard to the use of force. This article aims to contribute to this research domain by reporting the findings from two empirical studies among Belgian police officers: a quantitative study of police officers’ attitudes towards and experiences with the use of force and a qualitative study on the influence of stress and emotions on officers’ decision-making and assessment abilities and accuracy of shooting. Both studies confirmed that stress and fear are often present in Belgian police practice. One of the main findings is that Belgian police officers are anxious about the consequences of their actions because they know they will be held accountable for them. The pressure that results from this accountability can make it even more difficult for police officers to react to stressful situations. Therefore, we need to look for the right balance in this difficult position, by providing tools that support police officers in making daily decisions, and help them do their job as effectively as possible.     

The importance of police contact in the formulation of youths' attitudes toward police

The central focus of this study was to examine types of contact between adolescents and police as determinants of attitudes toward these authority figures. Three value or group expressive determinants — race, deviance, and parental defiance — were used as control variables to specify conditions under which the importance of actual contact with police is enhanced or diminished. Positive contact with police was found to be predictive of positive attitudes and negative contact was predictive of negative attitudes toward police. Further investigation revealed that the relationship between positive contact and positive attitudes toward police became significantly stronger among youths who had experienced negative encounters with police, as well as among those who reported being frequently involved in deviance, and among those who had been defiant of parental authority. The effects of negative contact with police were most significant among whites, those who report infrequent deviant behavior, and those youths who had experienced little or no positive contact with police.