Where Size Matters: Agglomeration Economies of Illegal Drug Markets in Philadelphia

There is a debate over whether police attention focused on an illegal drug market causes dealers to spatially displace their activities “around the corner” therefore having no positive impact on the aggregate level of illegal drug sales in the city. The alternative perspective is that focused police attention lowers the rate of illegal drug sales in the city. Recent research in Jersey City, New Jersey has demonstrated that focused police attention does not simply move illegal drug dealing around the corner. The present analysis explains why this finding is likely to be common in other cities using the economic theory of “agglomeration economies.” Agglomeration economies illustrate that taking the largest and most profitable site from illegal drug dealers will make dealing in the surrounding neighborhoods less rather than more profitable and lead to a smaller marketplace overall. The empirical analysis focuses on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.     

The Crime Preventers Scheme: A Community Policing Initiative for Regime Security in Uganda

ABSTRACT

For decades, Uganda has received substantial support from development partners to implement Security Sector Reforms (SSR). Using the crime preventers’ scheme that has been implemented by Uganda Police as an element of community policing, I argue that SSR achievements in the country seem unclear and limited. Based on an ethnographic study I illustrate that the widespread crime preventers’ scheme has had contrasting effects on the Ugandan security architecture. The scheme seems to have reduced the police-citizens social distance and augmented police presence while simultaneously cased operational excesses and is routinely used in regime security strategies. To provide a better conceptualization I ask and answer a number of questions; how and why has the crime preventers’ scheme been initiated? How is the scheme related to community policing as we know it? What is the political role of the crime preventers? What motivates people to become active members of the crime preventers’ scheme? How does the scheme empirically operate?     

Creating a ‘what works’ translational tool for police: a researcher-city government partnership

ABSTRACT

In recent years, a number of translational tools have been developed in policing to make the growing research evidence base more accessible and useful for practitioners and policymakers. Here we focus on the creation of the ‘What works in policing?’ website, which resulted from a collaboration between a government agency in Seattle, Washington and researchers at George Mason University and Arizona State University. We describe the site in detail and its similarities to and differences from existing translation tools, as well as the rationale for a local government’s involvement in translational work. In particular we focus on efforts to link the site with the work of the Seattle Police Department through a case study approach. We review indicators that suggest the site is being well-utilized and close with thoughts on the future of translational work in policing and efforts to ensure translational tools are useful to practitioners.     

Predicting law enforcement confidence in going ‘hands-on’: the impact of martial arts training,use-of-force self-efficacy,motivation, and apprehensiveness

ABSTRACT

In law enforcement, there are situations allowing officers to gain control of suspects by going ‘hands-on,’ or physically placing someone in custody beyond simple handcuffing. While much empirical attention is placed on more lethal use-of-force (UOF) measures, little is known about going hands-on. This is concerning considering when force is used, it is almost always with the use of hands, fist or feet only. The purpose of this pilot study is to examine whether martial arts training (MAT) and UOF self-efficacy predict confidence in going hands-on, after accounting for perceived motivation and apprehensiveness. It draws from an online survey, and a non-random subsample of 1,064 un-ranked patrol duty officers in the USA. Results indicate that MAT and high perceived UOF self-efficacy safely predict confidence in going hands-on, even after accounting for perceived motivation and apprehensiveness. Nonetheless, apprehensiveness, but not motivation, remains a strong predictor of not being confident in going hands-on.     

‘One step at a time’: An interview with Jean-Bertrand Aristide (former President of Haiti)

ABSTRACT

I am an African. I speak an African language.

Ngingum-Afrika. Ngikhuluma izilimi zase-Afrika. (isiZulu)

Ndingum-Afrika. Ndithetha ulwimi lwase-Afrika. (isiXhosa)

Mimi ni mAfrika. Nazungumza lugha ya waAfrika. (Swahili)

The sense of pride inherent in this statement belies the challenge that African languages face today. Multilingualism in African languages is not seen as a rich resource when confronted by the economic clout of English. A compromise is needed – one where the value of indigenous languages and that of English is recognised. A trained translator and interpreter is one such compromise, becoming the key link between African development and African achievement. For the non-English speaker, this link would enable understanding and, through it, knowledge and empowerment. With translation and interpretation, knowledge can come to every person at their level of understanding. This article argues that the training of the skilled translator and interpreter in an African language is the critical link in the development and achievement of the disadvantaged African person. Language now becomes a resource, affirming further that it is also language that provides pride in one's identity, hence … I am an African. I speak an African language.     

‘The biggest gang in Oakland’: re-thinking police legitimacy

Literature defining ‘police legitimacy’ lacks qualitative research on those populations most often targeted by law enforcement agencies, including people of color in urban areas. This same literature defines police legitimacy as something unquestionable and automatic. Exploration of this concept is limited to strategies to increase public ‘trust’ in police, and public compliance to their authority. We address these limitations in the available scholarship through an analysis of interviews with a diverse sample of Oakland (CA) residents on their experiences with the Oakland Police Department (OPD). Their narratives are presented in the historical context of controversy, budget problems, federal investigations, and racialized violence that help to define the relationship between OPD and Oakland communities. Those interviewed, universally observed OPD’s failure to address the most common crime problems in the city, while others, particularly people of color, found them to be a personal or public threat to safety. Their narratives fly in the face of the manifest functions of municipal police forces, are fully supported by the contemporary empirical history of the OPD, and suggest the illegitimate authority – including the monopoly on the use of force – of organizations like OPD in a democratic society.     

English population statistics before 1800

The first national census of the British population was organized in 1801; the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths commenced in 1837; and the first tentative attempt by the state to compile statistics on migration was included in the census of 1841. Prior to 1801, the chief source of information on the demography of the country was provided by the clergy's registration of baptisms, marriages, and burials that had occurred in their parishes, supplemented by information on mortality in the Bills of Mortality that were published for certain large towns and by inferences drawn from various counts of taxpayers. The article focuses on the reliability of the parochial registration system and the way in which it was exploited by the state as measured against the state's objectives for establishing it in 1538. These objectives were rarely achieved. By the end of the 18th century, the parish registers were falling short of providing a national system of registration. Neither had the registers at any time provided the requisite detail to allow the verification of age, lineal descent, or right of inheritance. They had not been used as a way of raising revenue except briefly between 1694 and 1705. Moreover, the Anglican Church was extremely lax about the enforcement of its own regulations regarding the appropriate time for registering baptisms, burials, and marriages.     

From Great Britain to Sweden—The Import of Reassurance Policing. Local Police Offices in Metropolitan Stockholm

Martin Innes (2006) has called attention to a recent revitalization of community policing in the Anglo-American policing sphere, albeit in new forms and variations. The discursive and concomitant policy shift in Britain away from ‘community policing’ towards notions of ‘reassurance’ and ‘neighbourhood’ policing has not gone unnoticed in Sweden. Good ideas appear to travel readily eastwards from their British contexts to find translations in the Swedish context. Subsequently, in 2006 the regional police commander in the Stockholm metropolitan area initiated a new community policing programme with the establishment of 10–15 so-called local police offices in targeted depressed areas of the region, and by the end of 2009 there will be a total of 27. The overall goal of the programme is to create a sense of security among residents in these areas and to build upon and sustain the residents' trust and confidence in the police, while at the same time working towards achieving a reduction in crime and maintaining respect for law and order. In this paper I interrogate the translation processes whereby the notions of ‘reassurance’ and ‘neighbourhood’ policing have been partially adopted, adapted, and implemented in a Swedish policing context—collective translation processes that have been wrought with points of friction, i.e. both creative and unproductive resistance.     

Shaping Citizen Perceptions of Police Legitimacy: A Randomized Field Trial of Procedural Justice

Exploring the relationship between procedural justice and citizen perceptions of police is a well‐trodden pathway. Studies show that when citizens perceive the police acting in a procedurally just manner—by treating people with dignity and respect, and by being fair and neutral in their actions—they view the police as legitimate and are more likely to comply with directives and cooperate with police. Our article examines both the direct and the indirect outcomes of procedural justice policing, tested under randomized field trial conditions. We assess whether police can enhance perceptions of legitimacy during a short, police‐initiated and procedurally just traffic encounter and how this single encounter shapes general views of police. Our results show significant differences between the control and experimental conditions: Procedurally just traffic encounters with police (experimental condition) shape citizen views about the actual encounter directly and general orientations toward the police relative to business‐as‐usual traffic stops in the control group. The theorized model is supported by our research, demonstrating that the police have much to gain from acting fairly during even short encounters with citizens.