Third‐Party Policing and Insurance: The Case of Market‐Based Crime Prevention

This paper examines a relatively new trend: market‐based crime prevention. The insurance firm is an exemplary agent of this new type of crime prevention. Although the traditional focus of insurance has been on losses sustained after a crime or other catastrophe, we explore the shift from reactive to proactive crime management by the insurance industry. This trend is part of a more general decentralization of policing, from state‐controlled agents to community‐ and market‐based third parties. New ideologies support these shifts, including an actuarial logic about crime and a view of the prudent person.     

A National Picture of Prison Downsizing Strategies

Abstract

Many states faced fiscal pressures on their corrections budgets as the country entered a deep recession in 2008. A 2011 survey by the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) asked corrections officials in all 50 states about changes in correctional facilities, focusing on closures, new facilities, and altering existing facilities as a response to budget pressures. States employed a combination of these strategies. Between fiscal year (FY) 2007–2008 and FY 2011–2012, 148 facilities were closed, 29 new facilities were opened, and 23 states added 22,740 beds to existing facilities, resulting in about a 19,000 net bed reduction overall. Closures did not necessarily appear to be related to fiscal pressures or always related to reductions in the prison population. Despite the Great Recession, correctional funding is still a large part of state expenses and many states’ correctional populations continue to grow.     

Results from experimental trials testing participant responses to White, Hispanic and Black suspects in high-fidelity deadly force judgment and decision-making simulations

Objective

Advance the methodological techniques used to examine the influence of suspect race and ethnicity on participant decisions to shoot in an experimental setting.

Methods

After developing and testing a novel set of 60 realistic, high definition video deadly force scenarios based on 30 years of official data on officer-involved shootings in the United States, three separate experiments were conducted testing police (n?=?36), civilian (n=?72) and military (n?=?6) responses (n?=?1,812) to the scenarios in high-fidelity computerized training simulators. Participants’ responses to White, Black and Hispanic suspects in potentially deadly situations were analyzed using a multi-level mixed methods strategy. Key response variables were reaction time to shoot and shooting errors.

Results

In all three experiments using a more externally valid research method than previous studies, we found that participants took longer to shoot Black suspects than White or Hispanic suspects. In addition, where errors were made, participants across experiments were more likely to shoot unarmed White suspects than unarmed Black or Hispanic suspects, and were more likely to fail to shoot armed Black suspects than armed White or Hispanic suspects. In sum, this research found that participants displayed significant bias favoring Black suspects in their decisions to shoot.

Conclusions

The results of these three experiments challenge the results of less robust experimental designs and shed additional light on the broad issue of the role that status characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, play in the criminal justice system. Future research should explore the generalizability of these findings, determine whether bias favoring Black suspects is a consequence of administrative measures (e.g., education, training, policies, and laws), and identify the cognitive processes that underlie this phenomenon.     

The ethical dilemma codification: equity?

For the past seven years, the governing council of the American Society for Public Administration and its subcommittee on Professional Standards and Ethics have tried to write a code of ethics. This paper suggests that when one explores the overlapping domains: professional ethics, which includes dilemmas of choice--social justice and administrative discretion with the merit system, larger questions should be raised. That is, is becoming a profession ethical? Will existing inequities be magnified? Can questions of political philosophy be ignored?     

Client abilities to assist counsel and make decisions in criminal cases

Three studies of attorney-client decision making were conducted in a public defender office. In studies 1 and 2 a structured interview was used to debrief attorneys regarding clients' participation in their cases. Study 1 examined a sample of 200 felony and misdemeanor cases selected prospectively and resolved by any means (92.5% by plea); study 2 examined 200 felony and misdemeanor cases resolved by trial. Study 3 involved debriefing both attroneys and clients regarding perceptions of client participation in 35 recently closed felony cases. Attorneys doubted the competence of 8%–15% of clients charged with felonies and 3%–8% of clients charged with misdemeanors. In cases involving clients of doubted competence, attorneys often responded by means other than referral to mental health professionals for competence evaluations. As compared with clients whose competence was presumed, attorneys tended to view clients whose competence was doubted as less helpful and as less actively involved in their cases, but as actively involved in making key decisions. Defendants' perceptions appeared to be roughly consistent with attorneys' perceptions, allaying concerns that attorneys' reports may be distorted in order to conform to expected norms.