The enforcer
"An Absolute Revolving Door": An Evaluation of Police Perception and Response to Proposition 36
Christine Gardiner
Criminal Justice Policy Review, September 2012, Pages 275-303
Abstract:
Proposition 36 (aka SACPA) radically changed how the criminal justice system in California deals with drug offenders - from a crime control model to an addiction-treatment model. Although it was anticipated that the diversion-to-treatment law would have a significant impact on drug offenders, courts, and corrections in the state of California, it was not anticipated to have a noticeable effect on law enforcement. Contrary to expectations, the current study found very high levels of frustration among law enforcement officers. The frustration altered the way some officers exercised discretion and led many to actively circumvent the legislation. Specifically, officers reported that they now seek out additional charges to disqualify offenders from being diverted through Proposition 36, and they are less likely to arrest offenders for being under the influence. These results are consistent with findings from other street-level bureaucracy studies of police response to new policies and programs.
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The Impact of Police Stops on Precinct Robbery and Burglary Rates in New York City, 2003-2010
Richard Rosenfeld & Robert Fornango
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
New York City experienced a dramatic reduction in crime during the 1990s and continuing through the first decade of the current century. Researchers and commentators have debated the role of policing in New York's crime drop, including the crime impact of New York's policy of "stop, question, and frisk" (SQF) - yet, prior research on the crime-reduction effects of SQF is limited in important respects. We seek to overcome many of these limitations in a study of SQF effects on yearly precinct-level robbery and burglary rates in New York between 2003 and 2010. Contrary to prior research, the study reveals few effects of SQF on robbery and burglary. We caution against drawing definitive conclusions from both the current and prior research and recommend that future research address both the impact of SQF on crime and possible collateral effects on the rights and liberties of citizens in the communities most affected by the policy.
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Policing Race: The Racial Stratification of Searches in Police Traffic Stops
Jeff Rojek, Richard Rosenfeld & Scott Decker
Criminology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on race effects in police traffic stops is theoretically underdeveloped. In this study, we derive propositions from Donald Black's theory of law to explain the interaction effects of officer and driver race on searches in traffic stops in St. Louis, Missouri. Our citywide results and those for stops in predominantly White communities are generally consistent with the theory: Searches are more likely in stops of Black drivers than in those of White drivers, especially by White officers, controlling for other characteristics of the officer, driver, and stop. In predominantly Black communities, however, stops of White drivers by White officers are most likely to result in a search. We interpret both sets of results as manifestations of racial profiling in segregated communities and suggest that Black's theory of law remains a promising theoretical framework for future research on the continuing significance of race-based policing in the United States.
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Searches and Traffic Stops: Racial Profiling and Capriciousness
George Higgins et al.
Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, Summer 2012, Pages 163-179
Abstract:
The purpose of the present study is to examine traffic stop data - in particular data on searches - to better understand racial profiling. We use a measure of capriciousness to understand whether the decision to search occurs at random. Using data from more than 40,000 traffic stops from Louisville, Kentucky, the present study finds that race is one of many factors that are used in the determination of a search. For the overall, White, and Black samples, we find that the decision to search occurs at random, suggesting that racial profiling is not occurring in these data.
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Rob Tillyer
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent evidence suggests that police officers engage in discretionary searches of minority citizens at a disproportionate rate; however, the impact of citizen criminal history on this relationship is largely unknown. Using the theoretical framework of officer suspicion, this study examines the impact of citizen race on the likelihood of a discretionary search and whether this relationship is mediated by citizen criminal history. A series of multilevel models were computed on officer-initiated traffic stops in a manner that conforms to Baron and Kenny's recommendations to test for mediation effects. Results indicated that while citizen race was predictive of a discretionary search, this effect was mediated by consideration of criminal history. These findings have implications for understanding the decision-making process of officers, the influence of citizen race on these decisions, and the role of officer suspicion in police-citizen encounters.
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The contemporary foreclosure crisis and US crime rates
Ashley Arnio, Eric Baumer & Kevin Wolff
Social Science Research, November 2012, Pages 1598-1614
Abstract:
Foreclosure rates in America reached unprecedented levels during the last half of the 2000s, and many observers have speculated that elevated crime rates were one of the probable negative collateral consequences of this trend. We examine this issue with a comprehensive county-level analysis of the role of foreclosure in shaping contemporary crime patterns, highlighting the possibility of theoretically informed non-linear and conditional relationships. Multivariate regression models that account for the well-documented spatial autocorrelation of crime rates and the possible endogeneity of foreclosure reveal a positive association between rates of foreclosure and property crime that accelerates significantly once foreclosure rates attain historically high levels. Multiplicative models indicate that this pattern holds for burglary across diverse county conditions, but the observed non-linear effect of foreclosure on robbery rates is limited primarily to areas that also exhibit relatively high levels of resource deprivation and limited new housing construction.
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It Is Not Always Black and White: An Examination of Black and Latino Intergroup Violence
Lyndsay Boggess
Criminal Justice Review, September 2012, Pages 319-336
Abstract:
Criminological research has consistently found evidence that residential instability leads to increases in violent crime, but little research assesses whether a specific type of residential turnover - racial and ethnic succession - impacts who is involved in the violent crime event. The purpose of this study is to investigate the consequences of Black to Latino transition in a disadvantaged area of Los Angeles and, importantly, to examine the impact of racial change on intragroup and intergroup youth violence. The author utilizes structural equation modeling to estimate a series of four simultaneous equations testing the rates of Black on Black, Black on Latino, Latino on Latino, and Latino on Black-aggravated assaults and robberies between 2000 and 2006. Since many theories of intergroup violence cite the economic differential between groups as a motivating factor, the author incorporates the ratio of Black to Latino median household income as a predicative factor. The author finds some evidence that racial/ethnic change leads to increased violence, but only for within-group robberies, and that racial/ethnic change is not a significant predictor of intergroup violence. Contrary to theoretical expectation, income inequality is not a significant predictor of changes in intergroup violence.
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Lie detection during high-stakes truths and lies
Marianna Carlucci, Nadja Compo & Laura Zimmerman
Legal and Criminological Psychology, forthcoming
Purpose: The current study seeks to expand the deception detection literature by using real-world pre-interrogative interviews to discern differences in how novices (students) versus experts (police officers) make judgments about truths and lies.
Methods: Videotapes of routine traffic stops depicting either liars (incriminating evidence was found in the car) or truth-tellers (no evidence was found in the car) were edited so the final car search was cut out. Novices and experts watched the tapes and made truth or lie judgments about the subject in each video.
Results: Overall accuracy of detecting truths and lies for students was 63%, while overall accuracy for police was 60%. The difference between the groups was not significant. These results were then compared with previously published rates (Bond & DePaulo, 2006). Students' overall accuracy rates in this study were higher than previously published accuracy rates. However, police officers' accuracy rates were not higher than previously published accuracy rates.
Conclusions: Realistic stimulus materials seem to increase overall accuracy rates for students. However, despite differences in experience, there was no difference between novice and expert truth and lie accuracy.
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Roles and Power within Federal Problem Solving Courtroom Workgroups
Danielle Rudes & Shannon Portillo
Law & Policy, October 2012, Pages 402-427
Abstract:
Problem solving (PS) courts (e.g., drug, family, gang, prostitution, reentry) are becoming more commonplace. Today, PS courts exist or are planned in nearly all of the ninety-four U.S. federal districts. These courts focus on integrating therapeutic jurisprudence into the courtroom environment while emphasizing group decision-making processes among courtroom workgroup members. In this legal setting, courtroom workgroup teams, regularly consisting of judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers (POs), and treatment providers engage a collective, case management approach to decision making with shared power among team members. However, despite the court's therapeutic and collaborative design, we find that POs wield powerful influence in decision making. Informed by sixteen months of qualitative fieldwork, including semistructured interviews, observation of courtroom workgroup meetings, and court observations in five federal PS courts in three federal districts, we find that POs exert undetected informational, technical, and relational power within the PS courtroom workgroup. This role and its accompanying power transforms POs into key decision makers, regardless of PS court type, workgroup dynamics, and decision-making style. The POs' role makes them critical contributors to the outcomes in federal PS courts with important implications for punishment decisions in the federal justice system. With an increasing number of PS courts currently in the planning stages at the federal level, our study has implications for the structure and decision outcomes in these growing courtroom workgroups.
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Police Response Time to In-Progress Burglary: A Multilevel Analysis
Abdullah Cihan, Yan Zhang & Larry Hoover
Police Quarterly, September 2012, Pages 308-327
Abstract:
The need for rapid response has been a perennial issue in policing. Although several studies have examined the effect of response time on apprehension probability, little attention has been given to the relationship between police response time and community characteristics. Using 2007 call for service data from the Houston Police Department and 2000 census statistics, the current study examines the relationship between police response time to in-progress burglary calls and neighborhood characteristics. In addition, the effects of incident characteristics on the likelihood of arrest are examined. The results suggest that disadvantaged neighborhoods enjoy a shorter police response whereas rapid response increases the probability of in-progress burglary apprehension.
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Unemployment and crime: A neighborhood level panel data approach
Martin Andresen
Social Science Research, November 2012, Pages 1615-1628
Abstract:
Twenty-five years ago, David Cantor and Kenneth Land presented a model of the relationship between unemployment and crime. This model showed the complexity of this seemingly simple relationship. Namely, there are two independent and counteracting effects from unemployment that affect crime: motivation and guardianship. In their analysis, Cantor and Land found that the guardianship effect dominates the motivation effect, but subsequent research has questioned this result. In this paper, the unemployment and crime relationship is tested using a neighborhood level hybrid modeling approach. Such a method allows for the nuances of Cantor and Land's model to be tested at a fine ecological resolution for the first time. It is found that both motivation and guardianship matter for crime, but at different time frames: motivation matters in the long-run whereas guardianship matters in the short-run, similar to what Cantor and Land hypothesized.
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Public attitudes to airport security: The case of whole body scanners
Timothy Mitchener-Nissen, Kate Bowers & Kevin Chetty
Security Journal, July 2012, Pages 229-243
Abstract:
This study engages with the public to identify and assess methods for improving the operation of whole body security scanners within UK airports. We examine the reasons why individuals prefer either body scans or pat-downs. We also measure the effects of presenting passengers unbiased information about scanners at the screening checkpoint. Our key findings are as follows. There was high public acceptance of body scanners (>90 per cent) and a strong preference for them over pat-downs (>80 per cent) with scanners perceived as less intrusive than pat-downs and a quicker option. Presenting passengers with information on backscatter X-ray scanners resulted in significant positive increases in their overall favourability towards this technology and its current operation. Our models also show that presenting information about scanners combined with undertaking a scan results in the greatest probability a passenger will voluntarily opt for a scan. This has implications for airport security, which we discuss.
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Miriam Northcutt Bohmert & Grant Duwe
Criminal Justice Policy Review, September 2012, Pages 327-351
Abstract:
The Affordable Homes Program (AHP) is a prison work crew program managed by the Minnesota Department of Corrections (MNDOC). To examine whether AHP has increased postrelease employment, lowered recidivism, and reduced costs to the State of Minnesota, this study uses a retrospective, quasi-experimental design in which propensity score matching was used to control for observable selection bias. The results show that during the 1998-2008 period, AHP (a) built 285 affordable homes, (b) significantly increased offenders' odds of obtaining postrelease employment in the construction field, and (c) produced US$13.1 million in costs avoided. It did not, however, significantly reduce recidivism.
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The Physical Hazards of Police Work Revisited
Steven Brandl & Meghan Stroshine
Police Quarterly, September 2012, Pages 262-282
Abstract:
This study examines the extent to which injuries to police officers have changed from 1996-1998 to 2006-2008. Data were obtained from injury reports filed by sworn officers of the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Police Department. Results indicated that the frequency and rate (injury incidents per officer) of officer assaults, other suspect-related injuries, and accidents declined during the study period. While the specification of the reasons for these changes remains a topic for future research, the decline in assaults and suspect-related injuries may well be a function of the increased availability and more routine use of less lethal technology, enhanced training, and the more common use of protective equipment.
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Cody Telep, Renée Mitchell & David Weisburd
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Hot spots policing has been shown to be an effective strategy for reducing crime across a number of rigorous evaluations, but despite this strong body of research, there still exist gaps in our knowledge of how officers can best respond to hot spots. We report on a randomized experiment in Sacramento, California that begins to address these gaps by testing the recommendation from prior research that police officers randomly rotate between hot spots, spending about 15 min patrolling in each. Our results suggest significant overall declines in both calls for service and crime incidents in the treatment hot spots relative to the controls. Additionally, the study was carried out primarily by the Sacramento Police Department without any outside funding. In an era of limited economic resources for policing, this experiment suggests a model by which police agencies can take ownership of science and oversee the implementation and evaluation of evidence-based interventions.
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Juror Perceptions of the Legitimacy of Legal Authorities and Decision Making in Criminal Cases
Amy Farrell, Liana Pennington & Shea Cronin
Law & Social Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
Literature on trust in legal authorities and institutions demonstrates that trust affects individual behavior, yet there is little research on whether attitudes toward legal authorities such as the police or courts influence juror behavior as a third party assessing evidence and determining legal outcomes for others. Additionally, the literature on juror decision making confirms that juror race is an important predictor of juror decisions, but explanations for differences among racial groups are not clear. Since minority groups hold less favorable attitudes toward legal authorities generally, legitimacy theory may help explain racial differences in decision making among jurors. Using data from nearly 2,000 jurors in felony trials, this research utilizes multilevel modeling techniques to find that jurors' trust in legal authorities is related to juror outcomes, though the effect of juror trust and confidence in the police is opposite that of juror trust and confidence in the courts. Additionally, juror race conditions the effect of trust in police and courts. Trust is a stronger predictor of both perceptions of evidence and voting for black jurors than it is for white jurors.
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Megan Alderden & Sarah Ullman
Violence Against Women, May 2012, Pages 525-551
Abstract:
This study sought to identify factors that predicted outcomes for sexual assault cases involving female victims across several decision-making points and compare these findings to prior studies. The results indicate that there continues to be a high attrition rate in the handling of sexual assault cases. Only 9.7% of cases examined resulted in charges. In regards to processing decisions, most of the factors that predicted whether cases were founded, resulted in arrest, presented to the prosecution, or resulted in felony charges were extralegal factors. One factor appeared to influence several decision-making points: whether officers noted discrepancies in victim statements.
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Use of force in minority communities is related to police education, age, experience, and ethnicity
Christopher Chapman
Police Practice and Research, September/October 2012, Pages 421-436
Abstract:
Some experts argue that better-educated police may use less force, but research has been equivocal. In three mainly-minority US cities, 511 officers reported their use of force, acceptance of others' force use, age, experience, ethnicity, and education. Among patrol officers only, education predicted less frequent force and lower levels of force use. Across all duties, including patrol officers, detectives and other, younger officers used more force, but with age controlled, more experienced officers used more force. Those who reported greater use of force were less accepting of use of force in general. These complex relationships may help explain previous contradictory results. Research on excessive force must take officer characteristics into account.
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The Comparative Technical Efficiency of Florida Campus Police Departments
Joseph Ferrandino
Criminal Justice Review, September 2012, Pages 301-318
Abstract:
Formal police departments comprising sworn officers have been increasingly utilized on college campuses, but to date there is little empirical research on their comparative performance outcomes. The present study is the first known to analyze the technical efficiency of these departments using data envelopment analysis. Using data from 2008 to 2010, the Florida university police departments are compared to their local municipal counterparts as well as the departments that comprise the North Carolina university system. The results reveal that Florida campus police departments are far less efficient than the municipal agencies they are modeled on, yet more efficient than the North Carolina campus departments on the same measures though efficiency has decreased in all three samples over the 3-year period. These results are used to analyze the security versus law enforcement functions of campus police in general. Specifically, these outcomes are intended to inform campus policy makers and show the need for the development of new campus police performance metrics.