Police Response to Crime

Abstract

Based on victim accounts provided by the National Crime Victimization Survey from 1992 to 1999, this paper examines issues related to police responses to reported incidents of assault, robbery, and rape. The primary goal was to determine the extent to which victim and offender race influence police responsiveness at various stages of the criminal justice system. The data indicate that overall, police exert more effort when victims are white. They arrive faster at the scene of the crime, and demonstrate more follow-up effort after the crime has taken place. However, they do not exert more, or less effort, during their initial visit to the crime scene, when there is proximate contact with the victims. This suggests that contextual factors may affect the penchant for discrimination. This relationship held even after controlling for other factors such as poverty, weapon use, injury to the victim, and location.     

Differential Police Response to Black Battered Women

Abstract

Dorothy Bracey has spent her entire academic career at one institution located in her home town of New York City, but her intellectual pursuits have crossed many boundaries and taken her around the globe. Her scholarship and her life have been influenced by her interest in the overlap of law and justice and have led to her studies of police corruption, juvenile prostitution, the Chinese justice system and Native American legal contradictions. A woman of many interests, in addition to her work as a scholar, she has held a variety of leadership positions in both the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the American Society of Criminology and has served as the editor of two professional journals.     

Residential Stability and Trust in the Police: an Understudied Area of Police Attitudinal Research

American Journal of Criminal Justice - Residential in/stability has been observed to influence several behavioral outcomes such as mental health, child abuse, adolescent substance uses and...     

Response to Criticism: Police Legitimacy,Beyond the Entrenched Niches of Expertise

The purpose of this article is to first re-state the key points of the rejoinder by Cao and Graham. It then proceeds to defend and clarify the arguments that we have made in our article by raising a few misinterpretations by the two reviewers. I end this article with an advice from John Braithwaite 30 years ago that we should nurture the new endeavors in criminology instead of being united against such undertakings.

     

Domestic Violence and Police Response in a Pro-Arrest Jurisdiction

ABSTRACT

The Minneapolis Experiment indicated that police could have a positive impact on domestic violence. Though these results are presently being challenged, the time seems ripe to look at factors affecting the likelihood of police to arrest in a jurisdiction with pro-arrest legislation supported fully by departmental policy. The following factors were studied in terms of their impact on self-reported likelihood to arrest when responding to a domestic violence call: officers' demographics and attitudes towards women; the amount of domestic assault training received; their understanding of the departmental domestic assault policy; the degree to which they view police involvement as beneficial in responding to these calls; and their use of violence in their own homes. Results indicate that belief in the utility of police involvement, knowledge of the department's policy, and attitudes towards women are all significant in accounting for the variation in the likelihood of police to arrest.     

Clarifying the Contours of the Police Legitimacy Measurement Debate: a Response to Cao and Graham

Asian Journal of Criminology - With the emergence of police legitimacy as a major indicator of good policing, scholars have continued to push our conceptual understanding of this construct. In...     

Informing Police Response to Intimate Partner Violence: Predictors of Perceived Usefulness of Risk Assessment Screening

Substantial research has demonstrated the value of using risk assessment tools for the prediction and management of violence risk, including for intimate partner violence (IPV) (Mills, Kroner, and Morgan 2011). Such tools have been advocated for use by police officers (Hilton, Grant, and Rice 2010), but little is known about police officers’ perceptions of using these tools to inform their decision-making. Using a sample of 159 Canadian police officers (73% male, M age =?41.8 years, SD?=?8.9), the current study examined police officer’s experiences with IPV risk tools, their attitudes about using such tools, and identified predictors of these attitudes using an online survey. Most of this sample had previously used an IPV risk tool, which was most commonly the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (64.1%). Most police officers rated use of risk tools as at least somewhat to extremely helpful (73.5%), and 67.4% indicated that they would use a risk tool with sufficient training on it. Regression analyses indicated that police officers’ perceived IPV risk tool usefulness was significantly predicted by older respondent age and greater perceived need for guidance in responding to IPV calls. In conclusion, most police officers view IPV risk screening as valuable for informing their responses to such calls for service and are likely to embrace such decision-aids with sufficient training on their potential impact for enhancing safety.     

Preferences for Police Response to Domestic Violence: A Comparison of College Students in Three Chinese Societies

While a large amount of research has been conducted in the West on domestic violence related issues, only a small number of studies have focused specifically on Chinese societies. Using survey data collected from Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taipei, this study compares college students’ preferences for traditional and proactive police intervention into domestic violence and assesses the determinants of such preferences in the three Chinese societies. The findings indicate that Hong Kong students showed the highest level of support for traditional police response, followed by students in Beijing and Taipei, while students in Taipei displayed the strongest preference for proactive police response, followed by students in Hong Kong and Beijing. College students’ preferences for traditional police response were shaped mainly by their locality, whereas their preferences for proactive police intervention were influenced chiefly by their attitudes toward violence and gender roles. Directions for future research are discussed.     

Examining Police Effectiveness as a Precursor to Legitimacy and Cooperation with Police

Numerous studies by Tyler and colleagues, as well as other scholars, support a normative, process model to account for variation in the public’s cooperation with police in the USA and other developed nations. However, a recent study in Ghana suggests that in developing countries fraught with high levels of violent crime and corruption, cooperation may instead be accounted for by a utilitarian, rational-choice model. Our study examines whether public cooperation with police in the developing nation of Trinidad and Tobago is associated with the process model or rational-choice model. Using in-person structured interviews with residents, we examined whether victims’ decisions to report to police were related to individuals’ perceptions about police effectiveness or police legitimacy. We found support for the process model. We discuss possible explanations for the divergence with Tankebe’s research in Ghana and suggest avenues for future research.     

香港警队枪械训练对内地警察武器使用训练的启示

依法使用武器是法律赋予警察的权力,是维护社会治安、惩治违法犯罪、保护人民群众和警察生命安全的有力武器。而警察武器使用的训练是一个技能与法律法规密切结合的实战训练,也是一个不断发现问题和解决问题,熟能生巧的、有制度的、严格规范的、长期的、永恒的训练过程。香港警队的警务实战训练代表了世界最先进、最科学、最实用的训练水平,他们的枪械训练为内地警察武器使用的训练提供了很好的训练思路和训练方向。在目前形势下,我们应借鉴香港警队先进的训练理念和训练模式,开拓我们的思路,促使我们的警察武器使用训练发生质的变化,走上一个崭新的台阶,使训练与实际执法真正的结合起来。     

香港水警警务运作模式对水上公安工作的启示

已有160年发展历史的香港水警无论在工作机制、警员培训、资源整合、科技意识以及预案制定上均突显出其紧密联系实战需要的工作思路。深入了解和探讨香港水警警务运作模式的特点,有利于完善和加强全国各地水警队伍水上公安工作。     

警察文化建设与公安工作

警察文化是当代人民警察在公安实践中创造的精神和物质成果的总和,是增强人民警察思想政治工作吸引力和感染力的重要载体。大力加强警察文化建设,有助于推进思想政治工作深入化,增强队伍的凝聚力,同时对于树立人民警察的良好形象、进一步密切警民关系也有着十分重要的作用。为此,我们应该提高认识,建构警察文化中的主流文化,在加强警察思想文化建设的同时,努力提高民警的科学文化素质。     

网络赌博犯罪的网络警务研究

网络赌博犯罪作为集网络犯罪与赌博犯罪于一体的新型赌博犯罪,具有隐蔽性强、时空跨度大、监控困难、危害极其严重等特点。网络警务是公安部门对网络赌博犯罪所采取的侦查、打击、取证及使用网络技术手段等的警务活动,其重要方面是侦查。提出网络赌博犯罪侦查策略主要有从网络平台入手进行侦查,从人员到案件进行侦查,从赌资流动链进行侦查几种形式,强调刑侦、网监、技侦相结合,建立适时打击的侦查理念;针对赌客登录赌博网站,通过网络赌博集团,利用网络视频等进行赌博活动的,提出相应侦查方法;认为侦查的主要难点是传统证据固定性与电子证据虚拟性的矛盾,侦查管辖确定性与网络犯罪跨地域性的矛盾等。     

Training Police Investigators to Interview to Detect False Intentions

This study is the first to investigate police investigators’ adherence to, and the effectiveness of, a training program for detecting true and false intentions. Experienced police investigators (N = 53) were either trained or not trained in how to interview to discriminate between true and false intentions. All investigators interviewed mock suspects (N = 53), of which half lied and half told truth about their intentions. Both subjective and objective measures showed that the trained investigators interviewed in line with the training received. That is, a large proportion asked about the planning of the stated intentions. Noteworthy, none of untrained investigators reported to have posed such questions for strategic purposes. The trained investigators reached a higher detection accuracy level (65 %) than their untrained colleagues (55 %), however not significantly. Given that the investigators adhered to the training, this training package is a viable starting point for developing more effective training programs.     

警察职权的配置与警察权益的保护

我国现行法律赋予了警察机关以广泛、重大的职权,但立法上对警察机关行政职权制衡机制配置上的不完善,对警察行政强制权特别是即时强制权配置上的失衡,导致警察执法过程中种种滥用警察权和警察权益受损情形同时存在.因而,从立法上加强对警察权的限制、制约与规范,合理配置警察职权,不仅是保障警察执法活动和警察个体权益的需要,而且是更有效地保护执法相对人的权益、公民的权益、社会公共利益的需要.