The effects of supervisor education and training on police use of force

Police supervisors play a critical role in preventing unreasonable use of force. Despite their importance, only a few studies have examined the influences of supervisors on their subordinates’ daily practices, especially on their uses of police force. To bridge this gap, the current study explored the relationship between supervisors’ education level and use of force training and subordinate officers’ use of force practices. Using police use of force reports from 2004 to 2007 in a single urban police department, the current study examined how supervisor education and training impact on police use-of-force and found both highly educated and trained supervisors moderate their subordinate officers’ uses of higher levels of force.     

Organized crime and the political-criminal nexus in China

The research goals of this study, undertaken on behalf of the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC), were to describe the evolution of the political-criminal nexus (PCN) in China and predict its development, examine the causes and patterns of PCN in China, assess the anticipated threats of Chinese PCN, and identify options for external factors—inside and outside government—to weaken PCN in China. The researchers used a variety of techniques as part of an overall exploratory methodology, including interviews and field observations in three Chinese provinces. Key informants included law enforcement officers, government officials, scholars, prosecutors, judges, businessmen, and underworld figures. Interviews and site visits were supplemented with the review of a large collection of English and Chinese literature on the subject. The major findings are (1) in China, PCN is primarily a nexus between gangsters and low- and mid-level government officials from the criminal justice system; (2) the Chinese government is concerned with the problem of PCN mainly because it is eroding the authority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and not because of the threat of organized gangs to social and economic stability; (3) organized crime in China is going to be a local problem for many towns and cities in the foreseeable future; (4) reasons for the development of PCN in China could be categorized as economic, structural, social/cultural, and psychological/ideological and the impact of PCN could be categorized as social, economic, and political; and (5) several options exist for external governmental and nongovernmental measures to curb or at least control PCN in China, including research, education, and judicial reform.     

Snakeheads,mules, and protective umbrellas: a review of current research on Chinese organized crime

China’s red-hot economy in recent decades has not only brought the country unprecedented wealth and political prominence in the world but also created ample opportunities for criminal enterprises to flourish. A review of recently published literature reveals that two types of transnational criminal activities – human smuggling and drug trafficking – received a fair amount of empirical attention in the research community. Other crimes, however, although carrying equally significant cross-national implications, have received scant attention. Thanks to a handful of empirical studies in recent years, the notion that traditional Chinese crime syndicates dominated transnational criminal activities has largely been dispelled. Most of those involved in transnational crimes (at least in human smuggling and drug trafficking) were found to be otherwise ordinary individuals who exploit their social or familial networks to take advantage of emerging opportunities. The criminal underworld in China appears to be growing along two separate tracks, with transnational organized crimes operating on one track and locally based criminal organizations on the other. Both groups of criminal entities are not known to cross paths in any systemic way. Research on Chinese organized crime (either locally based or transnational) has remained rather limited. Future research needs to emphasize empirical strategies to explore these and other pressing transnational criminal activities, as well as to solidify recent findings.     

Into the Thick of It: Methodological Issues in Studying the Drug Trade in the Golden Triangle

This paper explores research methods used in a study about a sensitive topic in a sensitive area—the drug trade in the Golden Triangle. It covers issues such as entering and exiting the research site, obtaining approval from the people in power at the research site, recruiting and training research staff, developing and testing interview protocols, locating the subjects to be interviewed, and conducting the interviews. This article also discusses problems encountered in the process of conducting the study and the limitations of the research project. Finally, it relates what lessons have been learned that are of general interest to researchers studying similar topics under comparable conditions. Support for this research was provided by Grant SES-0095929 from the National Science Foundation. The opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of the National Science Foundation.     

Determination and distribution of clotiapine (Entumine) in human plasma, post-mortem blood and tissue samples from clotiapine-treated patients and from autopsy cases

The antipsychotic drug clotiapine (Entumine^®) has been marketed for more than 35 years, however there is little published data on the therapeutic and toxic concentrations of this drug. To fill this gap, two rapid and sensitive methods were developed for the determination of clotiapine (2-chloro-11-(4-methyl-1-piperazinyl)dibenzo-[b,f][1,4]-thiazepine), in human plasma and post-mortem blood and tissue samples. After simple liquid–liquid extraction at pH 9.5 with n-hexane/dichloromethane (85/15, v/v), clotiapine was quantitated by HPLC-DAD and by GC-NPD. The calibration curve was linear between 10 and 1000 μg/L. The limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) were found to be 2 and 6 μg/L for the GC-NPD method and 5 and 15 μg/L for the HPLC-method, respectively. These methods were applied to 12 plasma samples from patients treated with clotiapine, to seven autopsy cases and to one case of driving under the influence of drugs (DUID). Concentrations ranged for the clotiapine-treated patients between 6 and 155 μg/L (mean 46 μg/L), and for the autopsy cases between 22 and 341 μg/L (mean 123 μg/L).     

The impact of neighborhood crime levels on police use of force: An examination at micro and meso levels

Purpose

Neighborhood contextual factors have gained a considerable amount of attention, relating neighborhood crime levels to police force. Prior research mainly examined the relationship either at the police district level or at the city level. The current study intends to investigate the relationship at lower levels of geographic aggregation.

Methods

Using Geographic Information System techniques, the current study utilized four radial buffer zones around each use of force incident location to measure the impact of neighborhood violent criminal activities at the micro level on the level of police force used. In addition, hierarchical linear modeling using neighborhood crime rates within police command areas allowed for a comparison study to measure the impact of neighborhood criminal activities at the meso level on police force.

Results

The current study found that neighborhood crime levels have a significant and positive effect of increasing the level of police force used at the micro level.

Conclusions

The current study supports the work of Black and Smith, concluding that more training and supervision are required for officers working in high crime areas.     

Voluntary Regulations and Innovation: The Case of ISO 14001

Governments enact environmental regulations to compel firms to internalize pollution externalities. Critics contend that regulations encourage technological lock‐ins and stifle innovation. Challenging this view, the Porter‐Linde hypothesis suggests that appropriately designed regulations can spur innovation because (1) pollution reflects resource waste; (2) regulations focus firms’ attention on waste; and (3) with regulation‐induced focus, firms are incentivized to innovate to reduce waste. This article explores the regulation–innovation linkage in the context of voluntary regulations. The authors focus on ISO 14001, the most widely adopted voluntary environmental program in the world. Examining a panel of 79 countries for the period 1996–2009, they find that country‐level ISO 14001 participation is a significant predictor of a country's environmental patent applications, a standard proxy for innovation activity. The policy implication is that public managers should consider voluntary regulation's second‐order effects on innovation, beyond their first‐order effects on pollution and regulatory compliance.