Unanalyzed evidence in law-enforcement agencies: a national examination of forensic processing in police departments

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela K. Reitler
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
National Examination

Motivations for Police Support of Domestic Violence Response Team Implementation With Advocates

2020 ◽  
pp. 107780122093082
Author(s):  
Laura Johnson ◽  
Elisheva Davidoff ◽  
Abigail R. DeSilva
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Perceived Benefits ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Serious Crime ◽  
Response Team ◽  
Domestic Violence Organizations

In New Jersey, collaboration between police departments and advocates from domestic violence organizations is mandated by state policy, which requires law enforcement agencies to participate in domestic violence response teams (DVRTs). The purpose of this study is to examine factors that motivate police officers to implement DVRT. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted with DVRT coordinators and domestic violence liaison police officers. Findings suggest that police motivation for implementing the intervention is often influenced by perceived benefits to police response and investigation, perceived benefits to victims, the need to comply with mandates, and recognition of domestic violence as a serious crime.

The Criminal Law and Law Enforcement Implications of Big Data

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 293-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Brayne
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Legal Responses

Law enforcement agencies increasingly use big data analytics in their daily operations. This review outlines how police departments leverage big data and new surveillant technologies in patrol and investigations. It distinguishes between directed surveillance—which involves the surveillance of individuals and places under suspicion—and dragnet surveillance—which involves suspicionless, unparticularized data collection. Law enforcement's adoption of big data analytics far outpaces legal responses to the new surveillant landscape. Therefore, this review highlights open legal questions about data collection, suspicion requirements, and police discretion. It concludes by offering suggestions for future directions for researchers and practitioners.

Design Considerations in the Proliferation of Police Body-Worn Cameras

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-22
Author(s):  
Joel Suss ◽  
Alexis Raushel ◽  
Adam Armijo ◽  
Brian White
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Human Factors ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Data Transfer ◽  
Automatic Detection ◽  
Biometric Identification ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Design Considerations ◽  
Concealed Weapons

More and more police departments are equipping their officers with body-worn cameras. To maximize the utility of body cams, designers have considered issues such as camera-mounting position, camera-mount stability, methods of activation, and data transfer methods. The human factors/ergonomics community can make important contributions to the design of body-worn cameras and identify and address issues that could arise from the introduction of new technologies (e.g., biometric identification and automatic detection of concealed weapons). Engaging with this ever-expanding technology will benefit law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve and protect.

De-Policing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rushin ◽  
Griffin Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Mandated Reform ◽  
External Regulation ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Growing Pains ◽  
Law Enforcement Leaders

102 Cornell Law Review 721 (2017)Critics have long claimed that when the law regulates police behavior it inadvertently reduces officer aggressiveness, thereby increasing crime. This hypothesis has taken on new significance in recent years as prominent politicians and law enforcement leaders have argued that increased oversight of police officers in the wake of the events in Ferguson, Missouri has led to an increase in national crime rates. Using a panel of American law enforcement agencies and difference-in-difference regression analyses, this Article tests whether the introduction of public scrutiny or external regulation is associated with changes in crime rates. To do this, this Article relies on an original dataset of all police departments that have been subject to federally mandated reform under 42 U.S.C. § 14141 — the most invasive form of modern American police regulation. This Article finds that the introduction of § 14141 regulation was associated with a statistically significant uptick in some crime rates, relative to unaffected municipalities. This uptick in crime was concentrated in the years immediately after federal intervention and diminished over time. This finding suggests that police departments may expe- rience growing pains when faced with external regulation.

Racial Discrimination in Urban Police Departments

1975 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Rafky
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Principal Finding ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Emotional Issue

The highly emotional issue of racial discrimination in hiring by law enforcement agencies is examined. Circumstances that make this topic both salient and problematic are discussed, and a conceptual model is presented which outlines barriers to the em ployment of blacks in predominantly white police departments. Barriers are classified according to purpose (whether intentional or unintentional) and location (within the individual police officer, the law enforcement organization, or other social institution). The literature concerning all these obstacles is reviewed and data are presented which bear on one phase of this model—namely, barriers that are unintentional and departmental. The principal finding is that white officers, irrespective of racial beliefs, are un willing to relinquish certain role behaviors to black officers.

Variability in the Use of Misdemeanor Arrests by Police Agencies From 1990 to 2013: An Application of Group-Based Trajectory Modeling

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 536-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Lum ◽  
Heather Vovak
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Trajectory Modeling ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
Zero Tolerance Policing

Arrest for minor offenses has become one tool that some police departments employ to fight crime and disorder in their jurisdictions. Dubbed by some as “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” policing, a few police agencies in the 1990s and 2000s notably and significantly increased their use of arrest for such misdemeanors, such as New York City and Baltimore. But was this the case for other law enforcement agencies in the United States? Our analysis is the first to examine long-term trends in the use of misdemeanor arrests in a sample of U.S. law enforcement agencies using group-based trajectory modeling. Results show that police agencies have distinct longitudinal patterns of use of arrests for minor crimes from 1990 to 2013; some agencies significantly increased their use of arrests for minor crimes while others did not. Further analysis of possible explanations for agency membership in any given longitudinal trajectory found that agencies with similar patterns in their use of misdemeanor arrests were not similar on demographic or crime characteristics. This finding suggests that the decision to increase the use of arrest for minor offenses may have been a policy choice by agencies influenced by factors not detected here.

Policing in a pandemic: how law enforcement communicates with the public

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley K. Farmer ◽  
Allen Copenhaver
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The Usa

PurposeThis study, a content analysis, aims to analyze general communications from law enforcement via agency websites about the COVID-19 pandemic and how this affected police roles. The authors study the extent to which police departments used their websites to inform the public about COVID-19, changes to their policies and additional information they felt necessary to give members of the public. This is important for understanding how the police inform the public during a pandemic and how the pandemic affected their police role.Design/methodology/approachThe data gathered for this project came from a content analysis of the official websites of the largest municipal police departments in the USA. The researchers collected quantitative data from the official websites of law enforcement agencies who serve the 200 largest cities in the USA in March 2020 and coded the information from the websites to determine what themes were most prevalent.FindingsThe messages most often provided on department websites included information about COVID-19 (52% of websites included this information), modifications to services (33%) and informing users that services such as fingerprinting would be altered (42%). Websites also reminded the public of restrictions on public gatherings (25%) and stay-at-home orders (38%). Further logistic regression analyses explored significant associations among these variables to understand how police/public communications influenced the role of law enforcement during the pandemic.Originality/valueLittle is known about how law enforcement communicates online with the public during a global pandemic like COVID-19 or how this might affect the police role. Police departments can use their websites to communicate important information to citizens and keep communities updated. Policy implications suggest that agencies continue to update websites with important information and be direct about expectations from the public regarding compliance while also being transparent about how police roles might change.

scholarly journals The Eyes of Law Enforcement in the New Panopticon: Police-Community Racial Asymmetry and the Use of Surveillance Technology

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh A. Hendrix ◽  
Travis A. Taniguchi ◽  
Kevin J. Strom ◽  
Kelle A. Barrick ◽  
Nicole J. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Supplementary Information ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Local Law Enforcement ◽  
Surveillance Technology ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Crime Reports

This study examines the relationship between police-community racial asymmetry and the use of surveillance technology by local law enforcement. The data come from a nationally representative survey of law enforcement agencies, with supplementary information provided by the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics Survey, the Census, and the Uniform Crime Reports. Results indicate that police departments that underrepresent African Americans in the community are more likely to use or plan to implement surveillance technology, controlling for a range of agency-and contextual-level factors. One potential explanation for these findings is that surveillance technology operates as a form of social control that is differentially applied to racial minorities to manage what is perceived to be a greater proclivity toward criminal behavior. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Four Fundamental Principles to Enhance Police Performance and Community Safety

2021 ◽  
pp. 231-245
Author(s):  
Eamonn Arble ◽  
Bengt B. Arnetz
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Police Training ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Community Safety ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Police Performance ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Police Leadership ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies

Reviewing the preceding 14 chapters from both researchers and law enforcement personnel, the editors identify four cross-cutting and fundamental principles that must be met to create law enforcement agencies and members that have the capacity to deliver high-performance policing within a framework of community safety, trust, and equity. The four identified principles are as follows: 1) police training should embrace an evidence-based philosophy, 2) police departments should utilize technology effectively and judiciously, 3) police training should emphasize justice and community relations, and 4) police leadership should embrace a culture of accountability. Each of these principles is discussed and explored.

Screening Police Applicants: A Study of Reliability with the MMPI

1980 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence S. Schoenfeld ◽  
Joseph C. Kobos ◽  
Ivan R. Phinney
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Interrater Reliability ◽  
Selection Procedure ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Selection Procedures ◽  
Selection Strategies ◽  
Screening Device ◽  
Criterion Variables ◽  
Current Selection

The problem of selecting candidates for law enforcement agencies is difficult and poorly understood. Behavioral scientists are becoming more involved as consultants to police departments and are being asked to validate current selection procedures. The MMPI is being used as a screening device. This study explored the interrater reliability of two experienced judges using the MMPI “clinically” in a simulated selection procedure. The judges used markedly different selection strategies and disagreed on nominal placement into two classes on about one-third of the cases. They reached the near maximum non-chance agreement possible, given that they used the nominal classes at different rates. Neither judge was more accurate in his selections than the other despite different selection strategies. They could not improve their over-all individual performances when collaborating. Criterion variables require improved definition before the search for valid predictors can be objectified.

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