Public preferences regarding police facebook posts: a macro-level analysis

ABSTRACT

Police agencies have adopted social media quite widely, but researchers have paid relatively little attention to the phenomenon. To date few studies have explored public reaction to police use of social media. The current study uses a purposive sample with 7,116 police Facebook posts collected from 14 different police agencies during a one-year period to answer two principal research questions: (1) with respect to the number of likes, number of shares, or number of comments regarding different themes present in police Facebook posts, are there differences among police agencies corresponding to differences in the thematic content in their postings? and (2) What factors are related to the public reaction (i.e., likes, shares, comments) to a police Facebook post? The findings from ANOVA and negative binomial regression models clearly indicate that citizens do have definite preferences on police Facebook posts – they are more likely to like and make comments on posts of police personnel and police-public relations, but less likely to share posts of Social Networking Sites. Also, they are more prone to like posts with narratives and pictures, but less likely to favor posts containing hyperlinks. Policy implications and practice guidelines, study limitations, and future research are also discussed.     

Police oversight in the United Kingdom: The balance of independence and collaboration

A key feature of modern policing is external oversight of alleged police misconduct. The present paper focuses on the three UK oversight agencies: the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland (PCCS); and the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI). Document analysis and interviews were utilized to highlight the different models of oversight with regard to the balance of responsibility for complaint investigations. The PONI exemplifies a model of regulatory independence that provides a strong challenge to the very limited PCCS model and intermediate IPCC model. An emerging trend was indentified of co-operation between external and internal agency personnel working towards police reform and areas in which oversight agencies can contribute to reform are presented.     

To protect and collect: a nationwide study of profit-motivated police crime

This study is part of a larger research project on police crime in the United States. Police crimes are those criminal offenses committed by sworn law enforcement officers who have the general powers of arrest. Profit-motivated police crime involves officers who use their authority of position to engage in crime for personal gain. This study reports the findings on 1,591 cases where a law enforcement officer was arrested for one or more profit-motivated crimes during the seven-year period 2005–2011. The profit-motivated arrest cases involved 1,396 individual officers employed by 782 state, local, special, constable, and tribal law enforcement agencies located in 531 counties and independent cities in 47 states and the District of Columbia. Our data is the first systematic study of profit-motivated police crime. The study describes the nature of this form of police misconduct in terms of several dimensions, including the characteristics of police who perpetrate these crimes, where it occurs, the specific criminal charges, and the contexts within which profit-motivated police crime is punished through police agencies and the criminal courts.     

Switching on,switching off: reflections of a practitioner researcher examining the operational behaviour of police officers

ABSTRACT

Evidence-based policing is rapidly becoming adopted by policing agencies among policing jurisdictions. Many academic programmes have been established in higher education to train police managers in applied criminology. However, there is a lack of literature for police officer practitioner researchers (POPR) who might undertake qualitative research, especially research projects that examine police behaviour. This paper reflects on the changing role of the practitioner-researcher and suggests that police officers undertaking qualitative research need to learn to ‘switch off their police role’ and ‘switch on their researcher role’. The author’s insights are drawn from his own experience of qualitative fieldwork working with police officers from New Zealand Police and South Australian Police.     

Diversity in Policing

Abstract

Police and minority relations have received much interest among public and academic audiences, yet little is known about policing in Latino communities. As Latinos emerge as the largest minority group in the United States, researchers and police agencies are increasingly concerned with the experience of Latinos in the criminal justice system. One strategy for improving police and community relations is to enhance the diversity of law enforcement agencies. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the ethnic composition of law enforcement agencies in major U.S. metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2000. Using data from the U.S. Census and the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey, it appears that the growth in the U.S. Latino population has been met with an increase in the percentage of Latinos as sworn full-time police officers. Further, the degree of enhanced diversity varies by the ethnic composition of the community served. Implications of findings for improving relations between police and the Latino community are discussed.     

警务实战训练内容体系分析

警务实战训练作为现代公安教育训练工作的重要内容,一直倍受从事公安教育训练工作研究的专家学者们积极关注.本文从探讨警务实战的内涵和特点入手,运用系统论的观点从宏观视角对警务实战训练的内容体系进行分析,并对其具体内容的相互关系及影响进行探讨,以期为警务实战内容的进一步研究提供些许参考.     

Transformation of Macau policing: from a Portuguese colony to China’s SAR

This study examines policing in Macau and identifies major forces that have shaped its transformation over past decades. Prior to 1999, Macau was a Portuguese colony. Its criminal justice system inherited key features of the Continental system, including two independent law enforcement agencies: the Judiciary Police and the Public Security Police. In the colonial era, expatriate commanders drawn from the military or legal professions headed both departments, while the rank-and-file was composed mainly of local Chinese. This policing mechanism, together with the ‘laissez-faire’ policing philosophy adopted by colonial leaders, created segregation between policing agencies and the community. Citizens preferred minimal interaction with police, since they were skeptical about their professionalism, capability, and reliability. Macau became part of the Peoples’ Republic of China in 1999. The de-monopolization of the gaming industries in 2002 brought huge GDP growth, but generated internal social conflict. Growing public demand for accountable governance motivated a series of governmental reforms, some of which have extended to policing. These reforms have improved the transparency of policing, but it remains to be seen if they will ultimately succeed in generating public trust in the police forces.     

Present but not prevalent: identifying the organizational correlates of researcher-practitioner partnerships in U.S. Law Enforcement

ABSTRACT

Federal funding streams, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and policing executives and scholars alike have advocated for more researcher-practitioner partnerships in American law enforcement. While a few studies have explored the growth and prevalence of research partnerships in policing, less attention has been placed on the organizational correlates of such collaborative relationships. Using a nationally representative sample of US law enforcement agencies, the current study investigated participation in what we term ‘rigorous partnerships’ – more formal, long-term relationships between researchers and practitioners with increased opportunity for interactive knowledge exchange. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed, with a specific focus on the barriers and impediments that both parties face for successful collaborative efforts and research translation.     

The reliability of police employee counts: Comparing FBI and ICMA data, 1954-2008

Researchers commonly use secondary data counts of police employees from police agencies. There has been some concern with using such data, yet there have been no published systematic assessments of their reliability.

Purpose

This paper compares the reliability of annual counts of police officers and civilians from the FBI's Police Employees data to those in the International City/County Management Association's (ICMA) Municipal Year Book reported for 38 large city police agencies between 1954 and 2008.

Methods

We use bivariate correlations and visual analyses of line charts to demonstrate the reliability of these two datasets, examining in particular situations in which inaccuracies emerged.

Results

Overall, both data sets record accurate counts of police employees, but there is some evidence of reporting irregularities. These irregularities manifest themselves as either city/agency-specific or temporally-bounded reporting errors.

Conclusions

Although reporting errors are rare in these data, future researchers should consider the potential impact of reporting errors for certain years and agencies.     

College Students’ Satisfaction with Police Services in Taiwan

The purpose of this study was threefold: First, it explored the incidence of police-college student confrontations in Taiwan over the course of the three decades following the abolition of martial law in 1987. Second, it examined the correlates of satisfaction with police services among college students. Third, and most importantly, a Chinese cultural value I characterize as benevolent sympathy was introduced and integrated into a theoretical framework developed in Western societies to assess citizen satisfaction with police work. Using survey data collected from 688 college students across Taiwan, results derived from a series of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses showed that benevolent sympathy plays a significant role in the explanation of satisfaction with police services among these students. In addition, neighborhood disorder, collective efficacy, fear of crime, voluntary contact experience and nature of locality produced significant impacts even after controlling for demographic background characteristics. The public policy implications of the findings included the following: (1) Educators in college-level institutions might benefit from reviewing the curriculum of their academic programs and include the purposeful cultivation of good virtues such as benevolent sympathy in their courses; (2) Police administrators should likely institute training programs designed to improve communication skills, promote professional knowledge, and enhance neighborhood-specific services in sworn police officer training programs (particularly for officers serving in rural areas); (3) Police agencies should pay more attention to their behaviors and services in neighborhoods where disorder crimes and higher levels of fear exist; and (4) To enhance quality of police services to college students in particular, police departments need to take greater advantage of the effectiveness of the Internet for communicating with this population.     

国家-社会关系视角下的社会主义警学理论研究

处理好国家与社会之间的关系对于建设社会主义和谐社会具有十分重要的意义。在联结国家与社会,达到它们之间的和谐共处并成为一个和谐的统一体方面,警察正扮演着越来越重要的角色。由于这一问题的关键性,社会主义警学理论也应当建立以处理国家-社会关系为导向的研究体系,从基础警学研究到应用警学研究都应当充分考虑到这一核心问题。     

Race relations in police operations: A legal and ethical perspective for officers

This presentation looks beyond the contemporary controversy over the use of race in drug courier profiling and examines the broad spectrum of rare relations affecting police operations. Racial controversy is not new to law enforcement, nor is it a recent phenomenon in American society. American police do not get enough credit for the enormous amount of positive daily interaction within minority communities. Police are pervasively present within minority communities around the clock successfully solving disputes, responding to calls for service, and addressing community concerns. It is against this backdrop that many in law enforcement are becoming increasingly frustrated by the perception, if not the reality of deteriorating race relations between police and minorities. One thing is certain: police cannot withdraw from racial conflict. Police will continue to operate within minority communities, regardless of the racial composition of either the community or the law enforcement agency. Therefore, officer and supervisory training should not only focus on how to avoid racial conflict, but also on how to ethically and legally perform in an environment where treatment of minorities is critically examined.     

An administrative dilemma: Sexual harassment and liability

Conservative estimates suggest that 40% of working women and 15% of their male counterparts have experienced some form of sexual harassment; and law enforcement personnel are no exception. Police officers are expected to adhere to the highest ethical standards and are subjected to greater public scrutiny than civilians. With criminal and civil remedies readily available to deter police misconduct, police agencies should be establishing policies that take a strong, pro-active stance against sexual harassment in the workplace. Surprisingly, though, 34% of police agencies in this country are still without formal policies regulating such behavior. This article is a guide to the legislation and case law that regulates those behaviours. Recommendations for policy formulation and implementation also are included. sexual harassment in the workplace presents a clear and present danger to law enforcement agencies. A recent survey found that thirty-four percent of law enforcement agencies in the United States have yet to formulate a written sexual harassment policy.     

Black and Blue Bloods: Protecting Police Officer Families from Domestic Violence

Officer‐involved domestic violence (OIDV) is a national problem, with police officer families having higher rates of domestic violence than non–police officer families. OIDV is also an underresearched problem with few studies or proposed solutions. Many victims of OIDV do not report their abuse precisely because their abuser is a police officer, whom they fear is in a unique position to protect him/herself from any legal consequences. Often, OIDV complaints are not investigated properly in a nonbiased manner. While a handful of police agencies around the country have developed specific policies and procedures to deal with OIDV, Washington State has enacted legislation that requires its police agencies to adopt OIDV‐specific policies. The International Associations of Chiefs of Police (IACP), an organization that addresses various issues confronting law enforcement, has also developed a model policy on OIDV. This Note proposes that, in light of the Washington legislation and the model policy proposed by the IACP, each state should enact a statute that requires its police agencies to develop policies on OIDV. This Note also outlines a specific set of procedures that such statutes should, at a minimum, require its police agencies to adopt, ranging from educating police officers on domestic violence to developing guidelines on responding to and investigating OIDV complaints.     

Organizational factors that contribute to police deadly force liability

Police use of deadly force is a significant concern for municipal policymakers and law enforcement agencies. Following U.S. Supreme Court case law, police agencies and municipal entities may be held civilly liable under Section 1983 for force that is not objectively reasonable; for failure to train; and for policies, customs, and practices that cause constitutional injury. This article analyzes eighty-six cases from the U.S. District Courts and the U.S. Courts of Appeals on Section 1983 liability regarding police use of deadly force. The article focuses specifically on police firearm use in deadly force situations, highlighting how managerial disorganization and administrative breakdown impacts departmental decision making. Principles of management, such as division of labor, hierarchy of authority, span of control, unity of command, and communication are used to explain bad shootings that lead to potential police liability.     

Reversing the historical tide of iatrogenic harm: A therapeutic jurisprudence analysis of increases in arrests of domestic batterers and rapists

Therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) proposes that the law is a social force that can heal or cause harm to parties in a legal action. Historically, women victims of intimate partner rape and domestic violence could not seek justice in the legal system because police, like other actors in the justice system, treated these offenses as private matters or fabrications. In domestic violence and intimate rape cases, TJ is concerned with the needs of the victims, and how the law and police play a role in increasing their well-being. In this article, we use a TJ approach to the study of police responsiveness to victims of these offenses by investigating arrests of the offenders pursuant to law reforms that encourage or mandate arrest. Given that in these offenses, victims have the lowest reporting rates of any violent crime, the victim decision to call the police represents an expectation that the mere physical presence of a police officer may redefine the nature of the violence from a private conflict to a societal wrong that will not be tolerated. Police partnership with and treatment of the victim with respect and dignity can change the dynamics of the violence, terminate the violence, and set the criminal justice process in motion by arresting the offender in most cases. Police arrest, and subsequent prosecution and conviction, sends a message to offenders that society does not tolerate their violence, and allows the victim to begin to heal. Yet, past research indicates that police are less likely to arrest intimates than acquaintances and strangers in misdemeanor and aggravated assault, rape, and sexual assault cases. Using the National Incidence Reporting System (NIBRS) for the year 2000, we examine police arrests of intimate partner rape and domestic violence in jurisdictions with mandatory and presumptive arrest policies compared to police arrests in full discretion jurisdictions. We also ascertain whether arrest rates are higher for strangers and acquaintances than for intimates in misdemeanor and aggravated assault, kidnapping, and rape and sexual assault. Third, we determine whether police arrests of intimate partner rape is more likely if there is evidence of violence, injury to the victim, and use of a weapon. Our multivariate findings suggest that both the rape and the domestic violence reform movements have reversed the tide of historical negative treatment of female victims of these offenses. Logistic regression analysis indicates that police agencies in mandatory and preferred arrest jurisdictions increase the odds of arrest for domestic violence incidents and violations of orders of protection, compared to police agencies in jurisdictions with permissive/discretionary arrest policies. In addition, intimate violence increases the odds of arrest by 98%; forcible rape accompanied by simple assault or kidnapping increases the odds of arrest by 467 and 222%, respectively whereas forcible fondling accompanied by simple assault increases the odds of arrest by 293%. We discuss the implications of our findings for future law reform as well as TJ.     

Occupational culture as determinant of knowledge sharing and performance in police investigations

Police investigation units represent a knowledge-intensive and time-critical environment. Knowledge sharing is a key process in investigations. In this paper, we present an empirical study of performance in police investigations. Police investigation units are defined as value shops, where primary detective work is performed. Knowledge sharing is found to have a significant influence on the police investigation value shop. Furthermore, this research suggests that knowledge sharing is influenced by occupational culture. Occupational culture is a reduced, selective, and task-based version of organizational culture that is shaped by the socially relevant worlds of policing occupation. Four dimensions of occupational culture were identified: team culture, planning culture, theoretical culture, and traditional culture. Only the extent of team culture was found to have a significant influence on the extent of knowledge sharing and performance in police investigations.     

Becoming ‘European’ through police reform: a successful strategy in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Police reform plays a key role in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s internationally-supervised statebuilding process. It is one of the four key conditions to move the country closer to its European future. Against this background the article analyses the role that the European Union Police Mission (EUPM) plays in preparing Bosnian police agencies for this challenge. Using as guiding tools some of the key elements of the Mission’s leitmotif—local ownership, European police standards—the article comes to the conclusion that EUPM has introduced much needed reforms but these have been overshadowed, among other things, by the police restructuring process and its unnecessary politicisation of “European police standards/practices” to fit a model of statehood not shared by all local stakeholders.

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Evaluating Police Reform in Post‐Conflict Nations: A Solomon Islands Case Study

The process of post‐conflict police reform has been the subject of serious scholarly attention, principally driven by the sense that police institutional rebuilding cannot be achieved quickly and that the police are only one part of the wider justice sector. However, police reform is a complicated process, and the cultural, institutional, and political challenges to effective development are immense. The process of reform is further complicated through the inherent difficulty in evaluating the impact of a development programme on police performance. This study uses an outcomes‐ or evidence‐based police measurement system called ‘Police Reform Indicators and Measurement Evaluation’ (PRIME) to assess the performance of the police capacity‐building programme and other improvement projects that have commenced since the deployment of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in July 2003. The application of the process to the Royal Solomon Islands Police (RSIP) identified that, although there are a number of areas that are still to be strengthened or rebuilt, the Participating Police Force (PPF) has been able to implement capacity development programmes that have resulted in the advancement of the RSIP towards a professional police service. The application of PRIME to the RSIP and the intervening police mission demonstrates that it could be used as a tool to evaluate police reform efforts in similar post‐conflict nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan.