Tennessee Citizen Police Academies: Program and Participant Characteristics

Citizen police academies (CPAs) are popular programs developed by police departments with the twin goals of educating the public about law enforcement and improving police-community relationships. Citizen police academies can help law enforcement agencies by providing them with graduates who may support police departments through volunteering, crime reporting, advocacy, and crime prevention. CPAs may aid citizens by providing them with opportunities to work with the police to make their communities safer. During the course of the citizen police academy, not only will participants have opportunities to learn more about the police depar'tment and their communities, but they may be given opportunities to patrol with police officers, solve mock crime scenes, or attend moot court. This study examines citizen police academies in Tennessee and provides an exploratory investigation of the programs and its participants. Data obtained from 31 police departments indicate CPA programs with more than a 20 year history in Tennessee. Results of a pretest and posttest of 4 citizen police academies’ participants found that attending these programs significantly and positively changed participants’ familiarity with the police chief, local law enforcement, community crime, and the criminal justice system.     

The Nature of Real,Implanted, and Fabricated Memories for Emotional Childhood Events: Implications for the Recovered Memory Debate

A central issue in the recovered memory debate is whether it is possible to remember a highly emotional incident which never occurred. The present study provided an in-depth investigation of real, implanted, and fabricated (deceptive) memories for stressful childhood events. We examined whether false memories for emotional events could be implanted and, if so, whether real, implanted, and fabricated memories had distinctive features. A questionnaire was sent to participants' parents asking about six highly emotional, stressful events (e.g., serious animal attack) which the participant may have experienced in childhood. Next, across three sessions, interviewers encouraged participants (N = 77) to recover a memory for a false event using guided imagery and repeated retrieval attempts. In the first interview, they were asked about one real and one false event, both introduced as true according to their parents. In two subsequent interviews, they were reinterviewed about the false event. Finally, after the third inquiry about the false event, participants were asked to fabricate a memory report. Results indicated that 26% of participants recovered a complete memory for the false experience and another 30% recalled aspects of the false experience. Real, implanted, and fabricated memories differed on several dimensions (e.g., confidence, vividness, details, repeated details, coherence, stress). These findings have important implications for the debate over recovered and false memories.     

Can a witness report hearsay evidence unintentionally? The effects of discussion on eyewitness memory

Abstract

When eyewitnesses are exposed to misinformation about an event from a co-witness, they often incorporate this misinformation in their recall of the event. The current research aimed to investigate whether this memory conformity phenomenon is due to change in the witness's memory for the event, or to social pressures to conform to the co-witness's account. Participants were shown a crime video and then asked to discuss the video in groups, with some receiving misinformation about the event from their discussion partners. After a one-week delay some participants were warned about possible misinformation before all participants provided their own account of the event. In Study 1, participants made remember/know judgments about the items recalled, and in Study 2 they indicated the source of their memories. Co-witness information was incorporated into participants’ testimonies, and this effect was not reduced by warnings or source monitoring instructions, suggesting memory change may have occurred. However, there was some indication that remember/know judgments may help distinguish between ‘real’ memories and co-witness information.     

COLLECTIVE ACTION IN PRISONS: PROTESTS,DISTURBANCES, AND RIOTS*

This study assesses competing explanations of inmate collective action using data from a nationwide sample of 317 adult maximum-and medium-security state prisons. Most previous studies have relied on data from only those prisons that have experienced riots. Hence, the conditions thought to cause collective outbursts may be equally present in prisons that did not experience such action. The current design allows for a comparison of riot and nonriot prisons. Additionally, this study examines the forces that generate other forms of collective action in prison, such as minor disturbances and inmate work stoppages. The results show that the variables under the administrative-control theory heading, but not the inmate-balance theory heading, help account for these events. Some consideration is given to the possibility that these two theories are complementary explanations.     

Victims' Rights, Victims' Expectations, and Law Enforcement Workers' Constraints in Cases of Murder

Research on crime victims and their experiences with the criminal justice system suggests that victims' rights (e.g., victim impact statements) and victims' services (e.g., crime victims' compensation, counseling) have not significantly improved victims' satisfaction with the criminal justice system or their recovery from the crime. Thus, we appear to know little about how to satisfy and assist victims of crime. This study uses the symbolic interactionist perspective to examine victims' experiences with law enforcement workers (e.g., detectives, counselors) with a focus on people who have lost a loved one to murder ("bereaved victims"). The data come from in-depth interviews with thirty-two bereaved victims, seven law enforcement workers, and three crime victims' advocates in Union County (pseudonym). Bereaved victims define the victim role differently from law enforcement workers, creating two main points of conflict with workers: (1) a conflict over their deceased loved one's body, and (2) a conflict over the flow of information in the case. Bereaved victims' frustrations over these conflicts created problems for their recovery. Bereaved victims' efforts to see their deceased loved one's body, guide detectives' investigation, and learn information about the murder and the investigation took a back seat to detectives' interests in protecting the integrity of the investigation and building a strong case for the prosecution. Policy implications are discussed.     

Joining anthropology and law enforcement

The role of anthropology in law enforcement involves three aspects of law enforcement activity; forensic anthropology, police-community relations research, and legal ethnographic research on the law enforcement agencies themselves. The first of these contributions to law enforcement by physical anthropologists faces competition from other closely related fields. Police-community relations research is a potential growth area for the application of anthropological efforts, as is legal ethnographic analysis of police organizationa. These latter two areas are within the realm of social anthropology, while the former is a specialty of physical anthropology. This article reviews the contributions of anthropologists and the applications of anthropological methods to law enforcement. It contends that criminal justice educators and police practitioners alike can benefit from knowing more about how these anthropological specialties have contributed and can continue to contribute to law enforcement.     

The Nature and Extent of Conservation Policing: Law Enforcement Generalists or Conservation Specialists?

Little is known about law enforcement agencies with responsibility for fish, wildlife, and natural resource protection. Traditional conceptions of fish and wildlife police associate these officers almost entirely with fishing and hunting activities. The relative scarcity of academic literature regarding fish and wildlife police agencies results in a lack of understanding about their role in the criminal justice system in general. The current study seeks to contribute to the limited existing literature by examining conservation policing in Florida, a state not yet studied in this context, by analyzing some 2,910 field events. Findings indicate that officers devote a considerable portion of their attention to traditional law enforcement activities in addition to the type of enforcement customarily associated with fish and wildlife law enforcement.     

Equipping witnesses with transferable skills: the Self-Administered Interview©

The Self-Administered Interview^© (SAI) is a novel investigative interview tool with potential practical benefits. Research revealed that the SAI increases the recall of correct information without a decrease in accuracy. In addition, it seems to prevent forgetting. Participants who had completed the SAI after viewing an event remembered more correct details following a delay than participants who did not have this early recall opportunity. The current study examined whether the beneficial effects of the SAI go beyond the well-established testing effect. Does the SAI make a good witness for one event or for a better witness in general? If the SAI provides general skills, its effects may transfer at least partially to a new event. Two groups of participants watched an event followed by SAI or free recall (FR) instructions. After a one-week delay participants were presented with a second event and received FR instructions. In addition to replicating the SAI effect, experienced SAI participants recalled more correct details for the second event than inexperienced individuals. The findings suggest that the SAI equips witnesses with transferable skills they can use during future retrieval of new events.     

从惩罚到激励:公司法实施机制探微

为了促进公司法实体规则的实施,立法者除了需要重视法律责任和惩罚措施的运用之外,还应当建立各种激励机制,即以经济利益的给付、道德声誉的褒奖、相关权利的优先享有以及法律责任的豁免为手段来促使公司及其参与人主动遵守法律。因为激励机制在解决"共益权行使的集体行动问题"以及"义务规则的非标准化问题"等方面具有不可替代的作用,而且激励机制的运用还有助于把公司法的公共实施转化为私人实施,进而降低法律实施的成本。     

Religious Motivated Hate Crimes: Reporting to Law Enforcement and Case Outcomes

Relative to non-bias motivated crimes, hate crimes have much graver consequences for victims and their community. Despite the large increase in religious hate crimes over the past decade relative to all other hate crime, little is known about these types of crimes and the factors associated with both reporting to law enforcement and case outcomes. Utilizing the National Crime Victimization Survey and National Incident-Based Reporting System datasets, this study examines the relationship between victim, offender, and incident characteristics on reporting to law enforcement and case outcomes. Most religious hate crimes are not reported (41.3 %) in part due to perceptions of law enforcement’s perceived response. Of the violent incidents that are reported, the vast majority do not result in the arrest of an offender (22.2 %). Whereas only a small number of variables related to the seriousness of the offense are associated with both reporting and arrest, these exhibited large effect sizes.     

Optimal Law Enforcement with Dissemination of Information

In this paper we discuss the implications of introducing imperfect information on the optimal law enforcement literature. We assume that individuals can be imperfectly informed about the probability of apprehension and about the sanction.Imperfect information about the probability and the sanction might pose a problem to criminal deterrence. If that is the case, there are clear incentives to disseminate information about law enforcement (probability and severity of sanction). However, note that individuals also have incentives to buy information about law enforcement: they may erroneously decide to become criminals (because they have underestimated the expected sanction) or they may erroneously decide not to become criminals (because they have overestimated the expected sanction).This paper proposed that it is optimal to complement criminal punishment with some disclosure of information.     

基层法院的执行生态与非均衡执行

执行生态是指法院执行活动所处的环境和氛围,主要包括组织纵向生态、横向生态组成的法院内生态,以及政治生态、经济生态和社会生态组成的法院外生态。对基层法院的调研表明,当前执行工作面临的来自法院外生态的压力过大,这些压力包括政治生态的治理压力、经济生态的救济压力和社会生态的互动压力,而法院内部生态也在一定程度上加大了这些压力。执行生态的过重压力催生出法院对非均衡执行策略的需求与偏好,导致法院一方面通过终结本次执行及执行和解来规避压力,另一方面通过周期性启动运动式执行来缓解压力。非均衡执行策略容易诱发执行不规范现象,有损执行权威。要实现“切实解决执行难”的目标,需要改善执行生态,弱化法院对非均衡执行策略的需求,其中的关键是要建构社会场景下的执行权威,实现良性的执行生态与能动的均衡执行的相互促进。     

Police use of deadly force: Research and reform

Police use of deadly force first became a major public issue in the 1960s, when many urban riots were precipitated immediately by police killings of citizens. Since that time scholars have studied deadly force extensively, police practitioners have made significant reforms in their policies and practices regarding deadly force, and the United States Supreme Court has voided a centuries-old legal principle that authorized police in about one-half the states to use deadly force to apprehend unarmed, nonviolent, fleeing felony suspects. This essay reviews and interprets these developments.     

Occupational stress and psychological functioning in law enforcement officers

Law enforcement officers experience a variety of stressors because of their police work responsibilities. The use of avoidance coping in order to cope with emotions, thoughts, and memories of traumatic or stressful events may explain increases in occupational stress and poorer psychological functioning. In this study, avoidance coping, occupational stress, and psychological distress were assessed in law enforcement officers. The sample was majority Caucasian, male, and married with a mean of 12.4 years of law enforcement experience. Results indicated that participants reported high levels of psychological distress as compared to an adult male non-patient sample. The use of avoidant coping was associated with higher levels of organizational stress. Additionally, a predictor of psychological distress was the use of avoidant coping strategies and high levels of occupational stress, respectively. Implications of these findings concerning the role of workplace acceptance in a law enforcement setting are discussed. Authors’ Note: Significant institutional support was provided by the police administration to conduct this study. The authors would like to thank all of the police officers that took their time to participate in this study. This study was funded by a fellowship from the Jim Mikawa Ethnic Minority Fund. Data collection was provided by Rebecca M. Pasillas. Natalie M. Rice. Kathleen M. Palm. Leah, M. Leonard, and Lindsay Gray.     

Who’s going to leave? An examination of absconding events by forensic inpatients in a psychiatric hospital

Absconding is a potentially risky event that has wide reaching consequences both for the institution and greater community; however, few studies have examined the characteristics of clients who abscond, their motivations, and details about their absconding event, especially within a forensic context. The purpose of this research was to determine if risk factors could be identified that might predict absconding behavior. A retrospective chart review was conducted of all reported absconding events between 1 January 2012 and 31 August 2015 by clients on forensic units in a public psychiatric hospital in Ontario, Canada. In addition, these clients were matched with a comparison group. Categories of motivations for absconding including goal-directed, frustration/boredom, symptomatic/disorganized, and impulsive/opportunistic were identified. The best indicator of a client’s risk for absconding was having experienced a stressful, significant event in the two weeks prior to the absconding event. Additionally, total scores on the HCR-20 and the presence of a co-occurring substance use disorder differentiated the absconders from the comparison group. This research contributes to our knowledge base regarding absconding events by forensic psychiatric patients and highlights specific targets for clinical staff in assessing risk for absconding and managing privileges leading to more effective care planning.     

A Review of “Taking Back Eden: Eight Environmental Cases That Changed the World”

Abstract

The biological aspects of illegal harvests of threatened wildlife are outlined. It is shown that local agriculturalists are beneficiaries of illegal harvesting and that competition from agriculture exacerbates the extinction risk. Illegal harvesting of wildlife is driven by the profitability of the exercise, but law enforcement activity can deter poaching by reducing the associated expected profits. Law enforcement may be unable to limit illegal harvesting to levels threatened populations can sustain as a result of perverse consequences or strategic responses by poachers to law enforcement activity. Poaching activity is sensitive to the beliefs of participants about future prices and the availability of wildlife. Erroneous beliefs result in price collapses being observed. Integrating legal markets with increased local control of wildlife and punitive law enforcement strategies may be the most effective and efficient means to constrain illegal harvests.     

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.     

Intoxication Levels of Bar Patrons at an Organized Pub Crawl in a College Campus Community

This field study examined whether participants of a traditional, end-of-semester pub crawl in a college campus community had higher levels of intoxication than non-participating bar patrons on the same night as the event. A total of 693 bar patrons participated in the study. Anonymous interview and breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) data were collected from pedestrians in a bar district at the end point of the pub crawl route between 10:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. on the night of the event during three different semesters (November, 2007, May, 2008, and May, 2009). A multivariate model adjusting for participant demographics and drinking variables showed that participation in the pub crawl was associated with a 70% reduced risk of being highly intoxicated (i.e., BrAC ≥ 0.08 g/210 L). The lower intoxication levels among pub crawl participants may have implications for harm reduction practices at high-risk drinking events. These implications are discussed.