Public Experiences of Police Violence and Corruption in Contemporary Russia: A Case of Predatory Policing?

“Predatory policing” occurs where police officers mainly use their authority to advance their own material interests rather than to fight crime or protect the interests of elites. These practices have the potential to seriously compromise the public's trust in the police and other legal institutions, such as courts. Using data from six surveys and nine focus groups conducted in Russia, we address four empirical questions: (1) How widespread are public encounters with police violence and police corruption in Russia? (2) To what extent does exposure to these two forms of police misconduct vary by social and economic characteristics? (3) How do Russians perceive the police, the courts, and the use of violent methods by the police? (4) How, if at all, do experiences of police misconduct affect these perceptions? Our results suggest that Russia conforms to a model of predatory policing. Despite substantial differences in its law enforcement institutions and cultural norms regarding the law, Russia resembles the United States in that direct experiences of police abuse reduce confidence in the police and in the legal system more generally. The prevalence of predatory policing in Russia has undermined Russia's democratic transition, which should call attention to the indispensable role of the police and other public institutions in the success of democratic reforms.     

A Reasonable Balance of Law and Sentiment: Social Order in Democratic Taiwan from the Policeman's Point of View

Taiwan's political democratization has engendered a contradiction in its legal regime: consolidation of rule of law at the macro-institutional level is matched by the persistent marginalization of legal authority in ground-level social practices. This article uses an ethnographic study of neighborhood police to explore certain practical and structural elements involved in maintaining this contradictory sociopolitical order. I examine some of the processes through which state authority is invoked and applied to the policing of public space, focusing on the ideals of legitimacy that animate these processes. The argument of the article is that historical and cultural factors embodied in contemporary Taiwan's "idea of police"—exemplified in the trope of a balance between reason, law, and sentiment—are crucial to understanding how solidification of the rule of law within state institutions is kept within the boundaries of a social sensibility that does not take law as the last word.     

Judging Police Misconduct: "Street-Level" versus Professional Policing

In their interactions with citizens, police officers are prohibited from (1) using unnecessary Force, (2) Abusing their authority, (3) speaking Discourteously, or (4) using Offensive language, all captured by the acronym FADO. However, acts of police misconduct are complex social phenomena that involve both following legal guidelines and responding to extralegal or mitigating circumstances. Using a factorial survey of police‐civilian interactions that introduce various dimensions of FADO and surrounding circumstances, respondents are asked to rate from zero to ten the seriousness of police misconduct in an encounter. Findings show that respondents' judgments of the seriousness of misconduct consider both legal and extralegal dimensions. On the legal side of the ledger, officers' unnecessary use of force and use of offensive language significantly increase judgments of serious misconduct; on the extralegal side of the ledger, civilians' confrontational demeanor significantly reduces judgments of serious misconduct. The findings suggest that citizens expect officers to behave professionally, or by the book, but with a recognition that “street‐level” discretion has a place in an officer's toolkit. Citizens' expectations that street‐level discretion has its place is also demonstrated by findings for the dimension abuse of authority: Abuse or threatening behavior by officers is not a significant predictor of serious police misconduct. In addition, characteristics of the respondents explain propensities to observe different degrees of police misconduct. Controlling for the social status, political orientation, and prior experience of respondents with the police, we find that (1) blacks rate police misconduct significantly higher than their white counterparts, and (2) liberals rate police misconduct significantly higher than their conservative counterparts. Differences in judgments by blacks and whites and by liberals and conservatives concerning judgments of police misconduct have important implications for the legitimacy of police authority.     

How Race,Sex, and Age Frame the Use of Authority by Local Government Officials

Thanks to the civil rights movement, women and racial and ethnic minorities increasingly hold positions of public authority—but they experience and exercise this authority differently from white men. Based on 162 narratives collected from 49 US local government officials (city administrators and police), I find that women, minorities, and younger officials in positions of authority face a paradox of rules. Because they have lower social status with the public and within their organizations, they must rely on formal and explicit rules as a key basis for their authority, but such reliance causes their very authority to be questioned. Social status based on implicit assumptions about social identities, including race or ethnicity, sex, and age, originates outside of organizations and has effects society wide. This study shows that social status continues to permeate US local government organizations in both subtle and explicit ways, even in bureaucratic settings that are formally committed to merit and professional norms.     

法治语境下的公安调解

公安机关调解了大量的社会纠纷是不争的事实,这不仅符合公安机关维护社会治安秩序、服务社会的法定职能,也是符合法治精神的一种纠纷解决形式,公安调解协议的实质是当事人对自己合法权利的处分,应当具有一定的法律效力。     

Constructing Police Abuse after Rodney King: How Skid Row Residents and the Los Angeles Police Department Contest Video Evidence

This ethnographic article explores the manner in which the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN), a grassroots organization made up of homeless and low‐income Skid Row residents, generates video evidence for use in lawsuits against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). For marginalized communities fighting police abuse, the 1992 acquittal of four LAPD officers charged with the beating of Rodney King demonstrated that even the most “obvious” and condemning video evidence is subject to reinterpretation and reframing by skilled legal professionals. In response, LACAN has developed interactional filming strategies designed to constrain officers' ability to offer alternative explanations, while alleviating disparities in court‐recognized authority. In the tradition of legal consciousness scholarship, this article “de‐centers” the law by shifting emphasis from formal judicial decisions in the courtroom to citizen groups in their own communities, as they learn to use legal norms and conventions in social justice campaigns.     

THE TRANSFORMATION OF TROUBLE: Police Certification and State Compensation of Sexual Assault Claims

This article is concerned with the transformation of private troubles into social and legal problems. It is argued that this transformation process involves a micro-and macro-politics of claims-making. Data are presented on police certification and state compensation of sexual assault claims in a mid western state. The largest urban area in this state is distinguished by the collective claims-making of antirape activists, and by the resulting presence of a sexual assault treatment center, which we expected would reduce the influence of racial characteristics on police certifications of innocence, while correspondingly increasing the influence of police certifications on the success of compensation claims. Our results confirm the above expectations. An implication of our findings is that black victims of intraracial sexual assaults are more likely to see their compensation claims succeed, and to see their troubles recognized as social and legal problems in those settings where macro-level antirape efforts have been institutionalized in treatment and/or advocacy centers. More generally, our findings suggest that the transformation of private troubles into social and legal problems can be contingent on collective claims-making in the context considered.     

Determinants of Citizens’ Perceptions of Police–Community Cooperation in India: Implications for Community Policing

In this study, we examine citizens?? perceptions of police?Ccommunity relationships in India. More specifically, in this exploratory study, we examine the extent to which factors such as general satisfaction with police services, police professionalism, feeling of safety, and perception of police integrity all explain the public confidence in police?Ccitizen relationships. Those who are generally satisfied with police like to work with police and view police?Ccommunity relationships positively. Further, we find that those who feel police are fair in dealing with citizens, irrespective of social status, and those who feel more safe in their communities are those who are most willing to work with police.     

Employment Discrimination Law and Industrial Psychology: Social Science as Social Authority and the Co‐Production of Law and Science

This article combines Monahan and Walker's classification of social facts, social authority, and social frameworks with political‐institutionalism's view of law and science as competing institutional logics to explain how, and with what consequences, employment discrimination law and industrial‐organizational (I‐O) psychology became co‐produced. When social science is incorporated into enforcement of legislative law as social authority—rationale for judicial rule making—law's institutional logic of relying on precedent and reasoning by analogy ensures that social science will have ongoing influence on law's development. By helping set research agendas and providing new professional opportunities, institutionalized legal doctrine shapes social science knowledge. But because of differences in institutional logic, wherein legal cumulation is backward looking whereas scientific cumulation is forward looking, co‐production of law and science may produce institutional mismatch between legal doctrine and scientific knowledge.     

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.     

What additional authority does the civil court need to uphold the objectives of temporary injunction? – A case study of Bangladesh

The civil court in Bangladesh, following some formal procedures, usually protects the subject matter of any suit by issuing an order of temporary injunction. But such orders are sometimes disobeyed and in toto preservation of suit property becomes unfeasible. Even the remedial measure for such disobedience seems insufficient to punish or restrain the violators. This study suggests that if the civil court had sufficient legal authority to direct local police to restrain the opposite party from violating its orders, the ultimate objectives of temporary injunction could be upheld properly. The higher courts in India have also found the legality of this concept.     

PROFILING AND POLICE LEGITIMACY: PROCEDURAL JUSTICE,ATTRIBUTIONS OF MOTIVE,AND ACCEPTANCE OF POLICE AUTHORITY*

This paper reports the results of four studies that investigate racial profiling as an attribution about police motives. Each study explores, first, the types of police behavior that heighten or lessen the occurrence of profiling attributions and, second, the consequences of such attributions. Results support prior studies in finding that judgments about whether the police are profiling are associated with the level of public support for the police. The studies then extend the analysis of subjective profiling judgments by examining their antecedents. The findings support the procedural justice hypothesis that the fairness with which the police exercise their authority influences whether members of the public view the police as profiling.     

LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE RULE OF LAW: IS THERE A TRADEOFF?

This essay assesses whether a strong evidence‐based argument can be made to support the proposition that when police violate the rule‐of‐law they do more harm than good with respect to their collective, as well as personal, interests. The assessment is undertaken to counter the common presumption among police officers that circumstances often justify cutting legal corners in the interests of public safety. The essay first examines what research shows about the facilitators of police law breaking. It then examines seven reasons why violating the rule‐of‐law works against the instrumental interests of the police themselves. After assessing the strength of the evidence against the instrumental benefit of violating the rule‐of‐law, suggestions are made about research that is needed to make the case more compelling. In conclusion, the essay discusses how empirical knowledge might be most productively used to change the culture of contemporary policing.     

The criminality of women and girls in India

Sharing a legal status equal to that of males, females in India are by no means socially and economically equal, nor do they exhibit official and self‐reported crime rates any where near those of men and boys. As commonly found around the world, a distinct gender‐gap in arrests exists in India with overall male:female ratios of around 20:1. While commonly found in other third world countries, this ratio is about four times greater than occurs between males and females in economically developed countries. Self‐report data narrows this gender‐gap considerably. But, the remarkable thing about the criminality of women and girls in India is that their is so little of it. Due to the lack of basic data, explaining female crime in India remains a task yet to be undertaken. However, there is reason to believe that theoretical concepts of etiology developed in Western criminology may apply to India also. As such, the relatively minuscule offense rates for Indian females may reflect how their suppressed social position, in effect, inhibits their ability to initiate or engage in criminal conduct as such. Suggestions for future research on virtually all dimensions of female crime and justice are made.     

浅谈公安机关执法中的“重实体,轻程序”现象

由于基层公安机关自身的问题和民警法律意识淡薄等深层次原因,目前,全国公安机关掀起了以执法规范化建设为重点的＂三项建设＂战役,迫切要求其改进工作方法,树立执法为民、以人为本的执法理念,杜绝执法执勤过程中存在的＂重实体,轻程序＂的不规范行为,防止执法者滥用权力,以此促进社会主义和谐执法建设的进程。     

Shadow Writing and Participant Observation: A Study of Criminal Justice Social Work Around Sentencing

The study of decision‐making by public officials in administrative settings has been a mainstay of law and society scholarship for decades. The methodological challenges posed by this research agenda are well understood: how can socio‐legal researchers get inside the heads of legal decision‐makers in order to understand the uses of official discretion? This article describes an ethnographic technique the authors developed to help them penetrate the decision‐making practices of criminal justice social workers in writing pre‐sentence reports for the courts. This technique, called ‘shadow writing’, involved a particular form of participant observation whereby the researcher mimicked the process of report writing in parallel with the social workers. By comparing these ‘shadow reports’ with the real reports in a training‐like setting, the social workers revealed in detail the subtleties of their communicative strategies embedded in particular reports and their sensibilities about report writing more generally.     

Comparative criminal justice—search and seizure,interrogation, and identification of suspects in India: A research note

India's legal system derives, as does the American system, from British common law. Some of the familiar principles and procedures have been modified to reflect Indian cultural, economic, and demographic realities. This note explores the similarities and contrasts in the methodology of the police in India and the United States during three key stages of the investigative process.     

中国区际警务执法合作的建构过程与特征初探

中国的区际警务执法合作是在四个互不隶属的法域、三种不同的法系、两种不同的政治社会制度中进行,尽管各法域的历史过程有所不同形成了文化区别,但都植根于中华文化文明,所以,构建过程中依赖共同文化底蕴和民族生存与发展的需要。经过30多年努力地孕育和开拓,从相互隔绝到接触、碰撞、磨合,达到今天的互信,构建了具有中国特色的区际警务执法合作机制,并基本适应了维护各地社会治安稳定的需要。     

Regulatory Pragmatism,Legal Knowledge and Compliance with Law in Areas of State Weakness

The literature suggests that compliance with law is unlikely in areas of state weakness absent additional state capacity. Utilizing three novel data sets collected in adjacent districts in India and Nepal, this article demonstrates that weak states can significantly increase compliance by fostering accurate legal knowledge—something the literature often assumes is widespread. This assumption is problematic because principal–agent problems prevent many weak states from behaving consistently; target populations often lack education and competent legal advice and struggle to learn about the law via observation. States that employ regulatory pragmatism, however, may overcome this challenge; they do so by designing implementation strategies for on‐the‐ground realities. I investigate two such efforts—delegated enforcement and information dissemination through local leaders. The data indicate that strategies consistent with regulatory pragmatism, in contrast to those that are legally doctrinaire or deterrence based significantly increase legal knowledge and compliance, even where the state is locally weak.     

Choice,Privacy and Publicly Funded Legal Advice at Police Stations

Section 58 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 confers on all suspects held in police custody a right to consult a solicitor in private. The free legal advice which suspects arrested for certain minor offences can request is restricted to telephone advice from a call‐centre operated by CDS Direct. It is lawful for the Legal Services Commission to restrict the delivery of legal advice in this way. Empirical research, however, reveals that there are police stations that lack the facilities for suspects to speak by telephone with legal advisers secure in the knowledge that what is said will not be overheard. It is unlawful and incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights to expect suspects to speak by telephone to a legal adviser under such conditions.