Diversifying the police applicant pool: motivations of women and minority candidates seeking police employment

Given the media attention to police killings of unarmed men of color, police agencies have increased their focus on the diversity of their applicant pools. Despite their efforts, policing leaders across the United States have cited challenges in recruiting a diverse police force and are exploring evidence-based solutions. However, the bulk of the literature on motivation to seek a career in policing is dated and includes small samples of women and minority respondents. The purpose of this study is to provide contemporary insight into reasons of women and minority candidates for applying to a police department. Thus, this study focuses on women and minority applicants to a large policing agency in the northeastern United States, asking respondents an open-ended question about their motivation to apply. Policing as a childhood dream, making a difference in the community and the opportunity to help people, and believing policing was a good transition from military to civilian life were the most commonly cited reasons for applying. Salary, benefits and job security were the least cited reasons for applying for a police position. Other findings and policy implications are discussed.     

A randomized trial testing deviant modeling,peer gender,and theft: replication and extension

Journal of Experimental Criminology - Replicate previous experimental findings on the causal effect of deviant peer modeling and assess whether the gender of peer models is an important determinant...     

The Crime and Threat Image Set (CaTIS): a validated stimulus set to experimentally explore fear of crime

Objectives

Fear of crime may develop in response to crime specifically (the narrow pathway) or may be a projection of broader threats (the broad pathway). New approaches are needed to examine how crime and threat, independently and in combination, influence people’s fear. To address this need, we created, evaluated, and validated an image set that varied across the dimensions of threat and crime.

Method

We used a 2 (Threat: high vs. low) × 2 (Crime: high vs. low) within-subjects factorial design. In three studies, participants (N = 24, 29, and 176, respectively) gave threat, crime, and fear ratings towards images. Participants also completed two traditional fear of crime measures and a measure of anxiety. Two evaluation studies explored the suitability of 178 images to produce a final set of 80 images (20 in each of the four categories). We validated this final set of 80 images in a third study.

Results

The validated Crime and Threat Image Set (CaTIS) contains 78 images across four categories: threat-and-crime (high-crime, high-threat), threat-only (low-crime, high-threat), crime-only (high-crime, low-threat), and neutral (low-crime, low-threat). There were significant main effects of threat and crime, and an interaction between Threat × Crime, on participants’ fear ratings. Participants’ own ratings of threat—but not crime—had a strong relationship with their fear ratings.

Conclusions

Threat had a stronger influence on participants’ fear ratings than crime. Thus, what is typically referred to as fear of crime may reflect broader fear. Further research with the CaTIS could explore the expression of this fear.

     

Guardians Ad Litem and Children's Attorneys in Arizona: A Qualitative Examination of the Roles

An ongoing debate exists with little research support concerning the differences in the roles of guardians ad litem (GAL) and children's attorneys (CA) in dependency cases. Through qualitative interviews, this study examined GALs’ and CAs’ perceptions and execution of roles. Both executed their roles similarly and agreed the best interests of the child and the child's wishes are important. Shared goals included child safety, ensuring the child's voice is heard, keeping the family together, and minimizing the distress to the child. Challenges to executing their roles were often systemic, including overwhelmed courts and lack of community resources to serve clients’ needs.     

Frozen: Thawing and Its Effect on the Postmortem Microbiome in Two Pediatric Cases,

Previous postmortem microbiome studies have focused on characterizing taxa turnover during an undisturbed decomposition process. How coexisting conditions (e.g., frozen, buried, burned) affect the human microbiome at the time of discovery is less well understood. Microbiome data were collected from two pediatric cases at the Wayne County Medical Examiner in Michigan. The bodies were found frozen, hidden in a freezer for an extended time. Microbial communities were sampled from six external anatomic locations at three time points during the thawing process, prior to autopsy. The 16S rRNA V4 gene amplicon region was sequenced using high‐throughput sequencing (Illumina MiSeq). Microbial diversity increased, and there was a distinct shift in microbial community structure and abundance throughout the thawing process. Overall, these data demonstrate that the postmortem human microbiome changes during the thawing process, and have important forensic implications when bodies have been substantially altered, modified, and concealed after death.     

Public Expectations of State Legislators

When members of Congress neglect the needs of their districts or vote contrary to the wishes of their constituents, their public approval suffers. Does the same hold true for representatives at the state level? Using experiments, I explore whether people dole out similar rewards and penalties to state legislators and members of Congress for their successes and shortfalls in representing constituents. I find that a similar model of political accountability travels from national politics to state politics. People value policy representation, casework, and attention to the district as much from state legislators as they do from members of Congress.     

Don't Sweat the Details! Enhancing Congressional Committee Expertise Through the Use of Detailees

In contrast to the dramatic growth in the size and influence of the executive branch over the past 40 years, congressional committee staffing levels are at an all‐time low. Faced with growing demands to produce legislation and to conduct oversight of executive branch policymaking, Congress can and does supplement its existing staff by borrowing personnel, known as detailees, from federal agencies. Using an original dataset of detailees from 1997 to 2015, we analyze the degree to which congressional committees rely on detailees to increase legislative capacity. We find that committees in the House and Senate use detailees in different ways to further both legislative and oversight initiatives.     

Expediency,Legitimacy, and the Rule of Law: A Systems Perspective on Civil/Criminal Procedural Hybrids

In recent years an increasing quantity of UK legislation has introduced blended or ‘hybridised’ procedures that blur the previously clear demarcation between civil and criminal legal processes, typically on the grounds of normatively-motivated political expediency. This paper provides a critical perspective on instances of procedural hybridisation in order to illustrate that, first, the reliance upon civil law measures to remedy criminal law infractions can raise human rights issues and, second, that such instrumental criminal justice strategies deliberately circumvent the enhanced procedural protections of the criminal law. By conceptualising the rule of law as a structural coupling between the political and legal systems, and due process rights as necessary and self-imposed limitations upon systemic operations, this paper employs a systems-theoretical approach to critique this balancing act between expediency and principle, and queries the circumstances under which legislation contravening the rule of law can be said to lack legitimacy.     

Bricks,clicks and Calk: Clustering services for citizen‐centred delivery

Abstract: Since the mid‐1980s, the traditional “bricks‐and‐mortar” approach to delivering a single service through face‐to‐face contacts in government offices has been improved by the creation of one‐stop walk‐in centres that provide multiple services of a related or unrelated nature, by telephone call centres that provide both personal service and interactive voice response, and by the rapid growth of service delivery through the Internet. The challenge for governments is to determine how best to join up services within and between departments, across levels of government, between governmental and non‐governmental service providers, and across channels. This article focuses on the delivery of government services by bringing them together in “clusters” and delivering them through more than one service channel. The article explains the concept of service clustering and provides a model of its major components; uses this model as a framework for describing innovative clustering initiatives in several countries; and examines the implications of service clustering for public administration, with particular reference to privacy and security issues. Sommaire: Depuis le milieu des années 1980, I'approche traditionnelle brique et mortier adoptée pour la prestation d'un service unique par le biais de contacts personnels dans les bureaux du gouvernement a connu une amelioration avec la mise en place des guichets uniques qui offrent de nombreux services de nature connexe ou non, de centres d'appels téléphoniques fournissant à la fois des services personnels et une réponse vocale interactive, et grâce au développement rapide de la prestation de services par Internet. Pour les gouvernements, le défi consiste à déterminer comment regrouper les services au sein d'un ministère et entre les ministères, entre les paliers de gouvernement, entre les foumisseurs de services gouvernementaux et non gouvernementaux, et entre les mécanismes de prestation. Le présent article se concentre sur la prestation des services gouvernementaux regroupés et fournis par l'intermédiaire de plusieurs mécanismes de prestation. Il explique le concept de regroupement des services et présente un modèle de ses principales composantes; il se sert de ce modèle comme cadre pour décrire les initiatives innovatrices en matière de regroupernent de services dans plusieurs pays; enfin, il examine les répercussions du regroupernent des services sur l'administration publique, en particulier du point de vue de la confidentialité et de la sécurité.