Law enforcement employment discrimination based on sexual orientation: A selective review of case law

Homosexuality has been the subject of discrimination from Biblical times through the present. Homosexuals continue to experience pervasive forms of discrimination, including denial of employment which they may be otherwise qualified to obtain. One profession that is particularly open in its discrimination against homosexual employees is law enforcement. This article traces the development of homosexuals’ rights as they specifically relate to employment in law enforcement. Examples of common arguments raised by police administrators to justify such actions are examined with each illustrated by an example from relevant case law. Finally, areas in which the law has begun to provide greater protection for the employment rights of homosexuals are identified.     

我国反就业歧视法律规控研究

就业歧视现象在我国普遍存在,而反就业歧视法制相当落后。就业歧视的本质特征是没有正当理由的差别对待,法律禁止就业歧视的主要目的是保障平等就业权并实现社会正义。在市场化就业背景下,反就业歧视必须正确处理用工自主权与平等就业权这对“轴心”权利的相互关系。我国应当以正面赋予劳动者平等就业权作为反就业歧视的权利基础,以准确界定就业歧视作为反就业歧视的中心任务,从立法、执法和司法三个层面逐步建立健全我国反就业歧视的法律规控体系。     

The intersection of racial profiling research and the law

There has been a significant increase in the litigation of selective enforcement cases based on racial profiling claims. This trend has resulted in two legal issues that are problematic for racial profiling research. First, selective enforcement claims that rely on statistical evidence must successfully measure “similarly situated persons” who were eligible for police stops to provide a comparison against those actually stopped by police. Second, the research must demonstrate “how much” statistical evidence of racial/ethnic disparities exists. Although these legal components are necessary for successful selective enforcement claims, the methodologies and statistical analyses currently used in racial profiling research cannot adequately address these issues. It is argued that the over-reliance on social science research, in general, and statistical techniques, specifically, to provide evidence of discrimination in selective enforcement cases places policing research and legal decision making at a crossroads.     

Applying game theory to the protection of public funds: Some introductory notes

Regulatory agencies responsible for preventing misuse of public funds do not all operate in the same fashion. Some carefully weigh the costs and benefits associated with various enforcement policies, but others do not. We use game theory to suggest that (1) regulatory agencies actually have a range of enforcement options at their disposal and (2) these enforcement options can have quite different cost-benefit ratios, depending on the resources of the enforcement agency, the nature of its connection to principals, and the strategies adopted by opportunistic actors. We conclude that enforcement organizations must be flexible in order to be effective.     

Equal employment opportunity and female employment in police agencies

One of the most significant developments in public personnel administration in the past decade has been imposition of the equal employment opportunity mandate. Of special importance to the traditionally male police profession is the requirement that all aspects of public service be open to women. This article discusses the application of equal employment opportunity law to women in policing. It outlines the two major theories of discrimination and then illustrates forms of discrimination against women in law enforcement agencies which have received judicial attention.     

Crimes,arrests, and elections: Predicting winners and losers

Political candidates are frequently identified as being either “law and order” advocates or “soft” on crime; however, the importance of actual arrest and crime levels on election outcomes has not been examined empirically. One particular set of candidates for whom arrest and crime rates might be expected to be predictive is publicly elected law enforcement officials. Using 1976 Florida County Sheriff election data, this article examines the capacity for discriminating between winning and losing incumbent sheriffs by using county arrest and crime data in association with socioeconomic and political information. The findings show that a significant discrimination is obtained (significant = 0.009, canonical correlation = 0.59, and 76 percent of the counties were correctly classified) and that crimes and arrests are significant factors in determining the outcome of sheriff elections. The results indicate that although traditional political factors, such as party affiliation and number of terms in office, and socioeconomic factors, such as income, density, and unemployment rates, do well in discriminating winning from losing candidates, a sheriff-election model must also incorporate crime and arrest information, particularly information on murder and rape.     

An optimal anti-drug law enforcement policy

This article presents a model for a drug law enforcement policy whose objective is harm reduction, including the net cost of law enforcement, social harm and surplus of agents. We consider a vertically organized distribution system with two levels, traffickers and retailers. The two questions concern which type of sellers have to be prosecuted and which law enforcement policy should be implemented that is, the probability of being caught and the severity of the punishment. We show that a trafficker-oriented law enforcement regime can avoid counter-productive policies. Moreover, decriminalization or depenalization is optimal under some conditions depending on the relationship between social harm and consumption.     

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.     

Employment discrimination: age discrimination and sexual harassment

This is the era of deregulation—and yet in U.S. labor markets, at least, the legal regulation of the employment relation has been expanding in recent decades. The laws have been stiffened and their enforcement, mainly through private lawsuits, has been beefed up. Currently the two most important areas, in terms of impact on employers, are age discrimination and sexual harassment, and these will be my focus.     

New laws but few cases: understanding the challenges to the investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases

All fifty states and the federal government have passed laws to combat human trafficking, but we know little about their effectiveness. Using data from investigative case records and court files for 140 human trafficking cases in 12 U.S. counties and qualitative interviews with law enforcement, prosecutors, and victim service providers, we examined the characteristics of and challenges to investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases under new state and federal laws. We found that few human trafficking cases are identified by local law enforcement, most cases forwarded to state prosecution are sex trafficking cases involving U.S. citizens, and state prosecutors overwhelmingly charge human trafficking offenders with other, lesser crimes. The legal, institutional, and attitudinal challenges that constrain prosecution of human trafficking are similar across study sites despite varying types of state antitrafficking legislation. Study results suggest prosecution of human trafficking cases is challenging. If new laws are to be effective, then local law enforcement and prosecutors should work collaboratively and adopt proactive human trafficking investigative strategies to identify both labor and sex trafficking cases. There is social benefit to holding traffickers accountable, but more emphasis should be placed on policies that identify and serve victims.     

State nursing home enforcement systems

This study presents interview and statistical data from a telephone and fax survey of state agency officials and statistical data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Online Survey Certification and Reporting (OSCAR) system. State survey activities for nursing facilities were reviewed and the number and types of intermediate sanctions issued by states in 1999 were reported, along with barriers to the use of such sanctions. Using five selected enforcement measures to create a summary score, states were classified by quartiles based on the stringency of their nursing facility enforcement activities. Controlling for the number of complaints as a proxy for quality, the predictors of a summary of state enforcement actions were: percentage of population at age eighty-five and above. Democratic governors, higher percentages of chain facilities, and lower facility occupancy rates. Regional differences in enforcement patterns also were shown. Many federal policies and resource constraints were identitied as barriers to effective regulation. The findings identified nursing facility survey and enforcement issues that need to be addressed by policy makers.     

Reconsidering Styles of Regulatory Enforcement: Patterns in Danish Agro‐Environmental Inspection

This study addresses enforcement styles of regulatory inspectors, based on an examination of the municipal enforcement of agro‐environmental policies in Denmark. Our findings make three contributions to the regulatory literature. One contribution is to add empirical support for theorizing about inspectors' enforcement styles as consisting of multiple components, rather than a single continuum. We show that inspectors' enforcement styles comprise the degree of formalism and the degree of coercion that they exercise when carrying out inspections. A second contribution is in showing the relationship of different types of enforcement styles to the two underlying dimensions of the concept. A third contribution is an examination of the ways in which inspectors' enforcement styles relate to their enforcement actions. The consistency of our findings with those of other studies suggests that the dimensions and types of inspectors' enforcement styles that we observed in Denmark can be generalized to other settings.     

Enhancing Data-Driven Law Enforcement Efforts: Exploring how Risk Terrain Modeling and Conjunctive Analysis Fit in a Crime and Traffic Safety Framework

Law enforcement’s examination of vehicle crashes is often nested in the Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS) framework which highlights the importance of hot spot analysis. To assist law enforcement efforts, this study explores how two additional spatial techniques, namely risk terrain modeling (RTM) and conjunctive analysis of case configurations (CACC), could be incorporated within the DDACTS framework. RTM was utilized to identify how the built, physical environment contributed to the risk of traffic incidents. RTM identified 6 risk factors related to the occurrence of vehicle crashes, and high-risk places were compared to hot spots on predictive accuracy. CACC was used to explore configurations likely to result in traffic incidents for the priority places. Our findings support the Theory of Risky Places and fit within a vulnerability-exposure framework, providing law enforcement with guidance for identifying places where vehicle crashes are likely to occur in the future. In addition to providing insight for law enforcement, we discuss how law enforcement can develop working partnerships with stakeholders capable of preventing and/or reducing traffic incidents, which is in line with the general DDACTS framework.

     

BADASSES: The Rise of Women in Criminal Justice

Little is known about the experiences and career trajectories of women working in the criminal justice field. Criminal justice, particularly law enforcement, has historically been largely a male-dominated career field. This study examines the experiences of 850 women working in the criminal justice field; in policing, courts, corrections, victim services, and academia. The present study collected data in 2017 and asked women working in the criminal justice field about their employment. Respondents said that they experienced a wide range of gender discrimination but did not see gender discrimination as a barrier to their success. The women identified personal and professional perseverance, strong mentorship, and family support as contributing factors to their success. Findings highlight the experience and challenges of women working at all levels and in all components of the criminal justice system and the journey of these women at a unique time in the history of criminal justice and evolution of women in the workplace. Implications for criminal justice, advice for current and aspiring women working in the field, and the nature of the experience for women in criminal justice are discussed.     

BARGAIN AND BLUFF: Compliance Strategy and Deterrence in the Enforcement of Regulation

A strategy of compliance in which enforcement agents rely on negotiation is identified as a characteristic feature of water pollution control work. The strategy arises from the nature of the conduct and activities subject to regulation and from the need to maintain a continuing relationship with the regulated. In securing compliance regulatory agents shape their enforcement tactics by reference to assumptions held as to why polluters fail to comply. Bargaining is central to compliance strategy, but if a conciliatory approach fails, a more threatening posture will be taken in which a variety of mores, including bluffs about legal sanctions, may be employed. Law enforcement is treated as a matter of compliance as well as compulsion.     

Nondiscrimination on the basis of age in programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance from HHS. Final rules

These final regulations implement provisions of the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and the general, governmentwide regulation published in the Federal Register on June 12, 1979, codified at 45 CFR Part 90. The Age Discrimination Act of 1975 prohibits discrimination on the basis of age in programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. The Act also contains certain exceptions that permit, under limited circumstances, use of age distinctions or factors other than age that may have a disproportionate effect on the basis of age. The Act applies to persons of all ages. These final regulations are designed to guide the actions of recipients of financial assistance from HHS. The regulations incorporate the basic standards for determining what is age discrimination that were set forth in the general regulations. They discuss the responsibilities of HHS recipients and the investigations, conciliation and enforcement procedures HHS will use to ensure compliance with the Act.     

Deception Detection Expertise

A lively debate between Bond and Uysal (2007, Law and Human Behavior, 31, 109-115) and O'Sullivan (2007, Law and Human Behavior, 31, 117-123) concerns whether there are experts in deception detection. Two experiments sought to (a) identify expert(s) in detection and assess them twice with four tests, and (b) study their detection behavior using eye tracking. Paroled felons produced videotaped statements that were presented to students and law enforcement personnel. Two experts were identified, both female Native American BIA correctional officers. Experts were over 80% accurate in the first assessment, and scored at 90% accuracy in the second assessment. In Signal Detection analyses, experts showed high discrimination, and did not evidence biased responding. They exploited nonverbal cues to make fast, accurate decisions. These highly-accurate individuals can be characterized as experts in deception detection.     

When farmworkers and advocates see trafficking but law enforcement does not: challenges in identifying labor trafficking in North Carolina

This article reports on the perceptions and experiences with labor trafficking of farmworkers, stakeholders, and law enforcement representatives in North Carolina. We found a sizeable number of farmworkers who had experienced labor trafficking violations, albeit with a convenience sample; and community agencies reported stories of labor trafficking victimization. However, most of the state and local law enforcement agencies that we attempted to contact simply ignored our requests for information about labor trafficking or reported no evidence of such victimization. Notwithstanding the sample limitations, we found a general lack of awareness of agricultural labor trafficking problems among law enforcement officials in our surveyed jurisdictions. We question whether our current law enforcement system will ever be in a position to effectively enforce the anti-labor-trafficking law; and suggest an alternative specialized mechanism be established.     

Becoming a Game Warden: Motivations for Choosing a Career in Wildlife Law Enforcement

Conservation law enforcement is a type of specialized policing that occurs mostly in rural areas. Game wardens have the primary responsibility of enforcing hunting and fishing laws. Little research exists on the motivations for entering this branch of specialized law enforcement. This study took a qualitative approach to data collection and examined the motivations of Montana state game wardens for choosing a career in wildlife law enforcement. Three main categories for becoming a warden were identified that included a desire to work in the outdoors, a desire to protect natural resources, and other.     

Analyzing the Equity and Efficiency of OSHA Enforcement

Our study evaluates the equity and efficiency of OSHA enforcement relating to the nature of the firm, the intensity of the inspection, and the size of penalty, based on the experience of 6,842 firms between 1979 and 1985. We found that: (1) enforcement actions against firms with one hundred to five hundred employees had greater general and specific deterrence effects than against larger or smaller firms; (2) superficial inspections that checked only the firm's injury records were ineffective. Health inspections, which tend to be more intense, also reduced injuries, but repeated inspections in the same year did not; and (3) larger penalties did not increase either general or specific deterrence. Small penalties decreased injuries as much as larger ones, and took considerably less inspection time. We discuss implications for policy, and emphasize the need for further research on the equity and efficiency of enforcement.