Situational and officer-based determinants of police coercion

Using data collected as part of an observational study of the police in Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida, this article examines police use of force to gain a better understanding of why the police resort to force. Like analyses from previous observational studies, the present inquiry borrows from both sociological and psychological theoretical orientations to explore various determinants of force. Unlike previous examinations, the universe of behaviors considered is substantially expanded to include numerous types or levels of force, ranging from verbal commands and threats to the use of impact methods. An ordered probit analysis of 3,116 police-suspect encounters shows that officers often respond to legal stimuli (e.g., suspects' resistance, safety concerns) when applying force. Countering previous findings, it found that officers were not more coercive toward disrespectful suspects. However, the analysis revealed that officers were also influenced by extra-legal factors. Male, nonwhite, poor, and younger suspects were all treated more forcefully, irrespective of their behavior. In addition, encounters involving inexperienced and less-educated officers resulted in increased levels of police force. The implications of these findings, for both policy and future research, are considered.     

Identifying variation in police officer behavior between juveniles and adults

This research explores the basis of officer decision making during encounters with juvenile suspects, and compares these encounters to those between police and adults. Specifically, two types of officer behavior are examined: the decision to arrest, and the exercise of authority. Officer behavior during encounters with juvenile suspects is compared and contrasted to encounters with adult suspects. Results from multivariate analyses find juveniles are significantly more likely to be arrested than adults; however, officers do not exercise different levels of authority during interactions with juvenile suspects. Results also indicate that the factors shaping officer behavior varies across age of suspect, namely, the community context and officer's race offer significantly different influences on juveniles than on adults. Other factors also influence officer discretion differently depending on the age of the suspect, most noteworthy being disrespectful demeanor. The results indicate that police officer behavior during encounters with juvenile suspects is very different than during encounters with adults.     

Police use of force: a transactional approach

Drawing on Tedeschi and Felson’s () theory of coercive actions for conceptual guidance as well as principles underlying the notion of a force continuum structure (i.e., proportionality and incrementalism), this research examines 3,544 police–suspect encounters from an observational study of the police in an attempt to better understand the transactional process of the police–suspect encounter. Results indicate, within the context of a force continuum structure, that officers escalated the level of force in about one of five encounters involving nonresistant suspects, and de‐escalated the level of force in three of four encounters involving resistant suspects. A series of logistic and multinomial regression models show that a number of factors differentially affect the manner in which officers apply force. The results suggest that before one can begin to judge the appropriateness of police force, one should measure and consider the extent to which force is applied proportionately and incrementally.     

DEMEANOR OR CRIME? WHY “HOSTILE” CITIZENS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE ARRESTED*

It is a criminological axiom that displays of hostility by citizens towards police officers directly increase the odds of arrest in police-citizen encounters. This axiom rests on nearly three decades of observational research of interactions between police officers and citizens. Two features of this work, however, raise questions about the validity of findings that citizen demeanor independently affects police arrest decisions. First, although demeanor is conceptually defined as legally permissible behavior, measures of demeanor often include criminal conduct. Second, criminal conduct is not controlled adequately when the effects of demeanor on arrest are estimated. In an analysis employing a demeanor measure that does not confound crime and that controls for crime more comprehensively, it is found that displays of hostility which violate no laws do not increase the likelihood of arrest in and of themselves. The implications of this finding are discussed.     

Explaining suspects' resistance and disrespect toward police

The importance of suspects' resistance toward police officers has almost always been described in terms of its influence on police behavior. Given the centrality of citizens' resistance in the literature on police behavior, it is surprising that so little attention has been focused on explaining suspects' resistance independent of its influence on police behavior. This research examined the factors influencing multiple measures of suspects' resistance using systematic observation data collected in 1977 from twenty-four departments in three metropolitan areas. The findings show that non-White suspects were more likely to be noncompliant toward White officers but were not more likely to show more aggressive forms of resistance (e.g., verbal aggression, physical aggression, or disrespect). In addition, female suspects were more likely to be disrespectful toward officers compared to male suspects. The relevance of these findings for future research is discussed.     

POLICING MENTALLY DISORDERED SUSPECTS: A REEXAMINATION OF THE CRIMINALIZATION HYPOTHESIS*

The criminalization hypothesis is based on the assumption that police inappropriately use arrest to resolve encounters with mentally disordered suspects. The current study uses data collected from two large‐scale, multisite field studies of police behavior‐the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN) conducted in 1996–1997 and the Police Services Study (PSS) conducted in 1977‐to examine the relationship between suspect mental health and use of arrest by police. Multivariate results show that police are not more likely to arrest mentally disordered suspects. Implications for future research on the criminalization hypothesis are discussed.     

Drinking and driving: Detecting the “dark figure” of compliance

The “dark figure” of undetected alcohol-impaired driving in the United States is acknowledged to be very high. However, this “dark figure” may lead to premature pessimism about the prospects for deterrence unless there is a countervailing estimate of “the other dark figure”—the rate of compliance with the drinking-driving laws under conditions of negligible arrest risk. This was a feasibility study in the use of survey data (N = 1,401) to identify patterns of compliance on the last drinking occasion as a function of social roles as drivers and passengers. A small but statistically significant proportion of U.S. drivers took these steps to reduce alcohol-impaired driving: reduction of drinking before driving, allocation of the driving role to low volume drinkers, and relinquishment of the driving role to an alternate driver after heavy drinking. There was no evidence for the selective use of public transportation as a means for diverting heavy drinkers from alcohol-impaired driving.     

Examining the “CSI-effect” in the cases of circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimony: Multivariate and path analyses

As part of a larger investigation of the changing nature of juror behavior in the context of technology development, this study examined important questions unanswered by previous studies on the “CSI-effect.” In answering such questions, the present study applied multivariate and path analyses for the first time. The results showed that (a) watching CSI dramas had no independent effect on jurors' verdicts, (b) the exposure to CSI dramas did not interact with individual characteristics, (c) different individual characteristics were significantly associated with different types of evidence, and (d) CSI watching had no direct effect on jurors' decisions, and it had an indirect effect on conviction in the case of circumstantial evidence only as it raised expectations about scientific evidence, but it produced no indirect effect in the case of eyewitness testimony only. Finally, implications of the present study as well as for future research on the “CSI-effect” on jurors are discussed.     

When is personal data not “personal data” – The impact of Durant v. FSA

The Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”), which implements the EU Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC), applies to personal data and governs the activities of data controllers and data processors in relation to such data. In Michael John Durant v. Financial Services Authority (2003), the scope of the Act was restricted. In particular, key provisions, including “personal data” and “relevant filing system”, became the subject of narrow judicial interpretation when the Court of Appeal sought to limit the “unjustifiable burden and expense” imposed on data controllers in complying with the Act. Although questioned by commentators and subject to investigation by the European Commission, the significant shift in approach initiated by Durant has been endorsed in two subsequent cases: (1) David Paul Johnson v. The Medical Defence Union (2004) and (2) Terence William Smith v. Lloyds TSB Bank Plc (2005). This article considers the main principles of the Act, how the Information Commissioner, the courts and the European Commission have responded to Durant and what happens next.     

Characteristics associated with the prevalence and severity of force used by the police

Using a diversity of samples, sources of data, measures of force, analytical methods, and theoretical frameworks, prior research reported that the prevalence of police use of force ranges from 0.8% to 58.1% of police-suspect encounters. In addition, few characteristics of officers, suspects, police departments, or neighborhoods are associated consistently with the amount of force used by the police. Using self-report data by police from 7,512 adult custody arrests in six jurisdictions, this study found that the associations between encounter-level characteristics and police use of force are dependent on the incorporation of suspects' resistance and on the measure of force used.     

Procedural justice during police-citizen encounters: The effects of process-based policing on citizen compliance and demeanor

Purpose

Theories of procedural justice have facilitated the development of a process-based approach to policing which emphasizes the fairness of the manner in which the police exercise their discretion. The study examines whether procedurally fair behavior by the police affects two types of citizen behavior during encounters: citizen disrespect toward the police and citizen noncompliance with police requests.

Methods

This study uses data from systematic social observations of police-citizen encounters to examine procedural justice factors on citizen behavior. Because of the reciprocal nature of police-citizen interactions, an instrumental variable is used in the statistical analysis to help address the causal relationship between police force and citizen disrespect.

Results

The statistical analyses find limited support for procedural justice factors. Two types of procedurally fair behavior by the police, police demeanor and their consideration of citizen voice, are significant in reducing citizen disrespect and noncompliance, respectively.

Conclusion

Procedural justice factors have limited and inconsistent impacts on the two types of citizen behavior, and future research should address the limitations of this study and evaluate process-based policing with more data from social observations of police-citizen encounters.     

Practical guidelines on incorporating “partnering” within IT agreements for public sector bodies

“Partnership” and “partnering” are two of the most frequently used terms in public sector procurement. They may be used by both customers and suppliers to justify their respective negotiating positions. A supplier may argue that, since the agreement is a “partnership agreement”, there should be no service credits or liquidated damages payable. The customer on the other hand, may argue, on similar grounds, that it wants to benchmark the supplier and have a broad right to audit every aspect of the supplier’s business.But despite being well used phrases, most guidance relating to these concepts does not define how “partnerships” or “partnering” is to work in practice. While most talk of the supplier and the customer working together “in partnership” with common aims, there is little information available as to how this will be incorporated into agreements, particularly in the context of large scale IT procurements.¹ The purpose of this article is to review the available guidance and detail some of the ways in which this guidance can be incorporated into legal agreements.     

Individual and situational determinants of the use of deadly force: A simulation

The study of police use of deadly force is a complicated issue because of the scarcity of observed high-risk encounters in the field. The present research explores police shooting behavior in both life-threatening and non-life-threatening situations in a simulated environment. The results suggest that officers’ characteristics, such as race and gender, are not associated with officer shooting behavior. The one exception is that officers with less police experience show more restraint than veteran officers in responding to non-life threatening situations. Suspect demographics, such as race, gender, and age, show inconsistent relationships with officer shooting behavior. One consistent finding is that officers who show poor judgment, slow response, or poor marksmanship suffer a high casualty rate in reacting to life-threatening situations involving multiple suspects.     

Supreme Court of Canada's “Beautiful Mind” case

The Supreme Court of Canada's (SCC) first case involving capacity and the refusal of involuntary psychiatric treatment involved a self described “professor” who had been referred to as “Canada's Beautiful Mind”. He had been found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder for uttering death threats. While considered incapable of making a treatment decision by psychiatrists and a review board, three levels of court, including the SCC, found him to be capable. “Professor” Starson therefore continued to refuse treatment for his psychosis and spent over seven years detained because he refused the treatment required to become well enough to be released. This refusal of treatment is permitted under Ontario law, although it is not permitted in some other Canadian provinces, and in many other countries.This article describes Starson's situation, Ontario's law with respect to consent to treatment and relevant Canadian constitutional and criminal law. It provides an analysis of the Consent and Capacity Board decision and the court appeals. Implications from Starson's case are analyzed in relation to what happened to Starson, human rights and comparative law pertaining to involuntary patients' refusal of treatment, especially their relevance to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and laws in some other countries. Many Canadian and foreign jurisdictions where laws apparently accord with human rights codes do not allow a person to refuse the treatment required to restore their liberty. We conclude that a law that allows a person with a mental illness to be incarcerated indefinitely in a “hospital” because needed psychiatric treatment cannot, by law, be provided is not justifiable in a caring democratic jurisdiction.     

Involuntary outpatient treatment as “desintitutionalized coercion”: The net-widening concerns

In American jurisprudence, two justifications have traditionally been put forth to support the government's social control of persons with mental illness: police power and parens patriae. As public mental hospitals became less available as loci in which to exercise these functions, governments sought alternative means to achieve the same ends. One prominent but quite controversial means is involuntary outpatient treatment (IOT). While the concerns about IOT have been myriad, one often alluded to but never documented is that of “net-widening.” That is, once IOT became available, it would be applied to an ever greater number of individuals, progressively expanding the margins of the designated population to whom it is applied, despite the formal standard for its application remaining constant. We tested the net-widening belief in a naturalistic experiment in Massachusetts. We found that net-widening did not occur, despite an environment strongly conducive to that expansion. At this time, whatever the arguments against IOT might be, net-widening should not be one of them.     

Race and Officer Decision Making: Examining Differences in Arrest Outcomes between Black and White Officers

Since the 1960s, one of the major reform efforts in law enforcement has been to increase the number of Black Americans within police agencies and on patrol in the streets. The general premise behind these efforts has been that increased diversity will improve police–community relations and will decrease biased police behavior, particularly against Black citizens. Policies seeking to reform policing through increasing the numbers of African American officers have been implemented with little empirical evidence that an officer's race (or ethnicity) is actually related to their behavior towards citizens, in particular arrest decisions. Using data from systematic social observations of police–citizen encounters in Cincinnati, OH, this study examines the influence of officer race on arrest outcomes, focusing on the behavior of Black officers. Findings suggest that officer race has direct influence on arrest outcomes and there are substantive differences between White and Black officers in the decision to arrest. In general, White officers in our study were more likely to arrest suspects than Black officers, but Black suspects were more likely to be arrested when the decision maker was a Black officer.     

“Dangerousness” within a juvenile institution

Experiments were conducted to test three hypotheses within a maximum security juvenile institution: (1) that the Overcontrolled Hostility (OH) scale, the Socialization (So) scale, and the Hand Test may be used to differentiate dangerous from nondangerous inmates; (2) that an instrument can be constructed that will differentiate dangerous from nondangerous youths; and (3) that there is a negative correlation between staff's perception of a youth's degree of dangerousness and their desire to not work with dangerous youths.The So, OH, and Hand Test were administered as was a twenty-five-word adjective checklist (the “TB”) with four response levels so that low scores signified dangerousness. A questionnaire produced a list of subjects with whom staff wanted to work and those with whom they did not want to work.The hypothesis that the So scale, the OH scale, and the Hand Test could discriminate between dangerous and nondangerous “subjects” was not confirmed. The hypothesis that an instrument could be constructed that would differentiate dangerous from nondangerous youths was confirmed. The hypothesis that staff's perception of dangerousness affects their working relationship with youths was solidly confirmed.     

IMPROVING OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES OF POLICE

Despite advances in measurement and the sophistication of statistical technique, quantitative studies of police behavior seems to have reached the limits of their capacity to explain variance, develop and test theory, and inform policy choices. This paper suggests that further advances in observational studies of police behavior require that researchers account for the cognitive decision processes police use in exercising their discretion. A method for debriefing officers after encounters with the public is described. The results of a preliminary test of the method indicate that valuable in formation can be obtained with quite limited reactivity effects.