Understanding the Criminogenic Properties of Vacant Housing: A Mixed Methods Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 378-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren C. Porter ◽  
Alaina De Biasi ◽  
Susanne Mitchell ◽  
Andrew Curtis ◽  
Eric Jefferis
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Lower Proportion ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Neighborhood Crime ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Calls For Service ◽  
Interesting Variation ◽  
High Crime ◽  
Spatial Video ◽  
Vacant Housing

Objectives: Abandoned houses may attract or generate crime; however, little is known about the nature of this relationship. Our study is aimed at better understanding this link. Methods: Focusing on a high-crime neighborhood in Ohio, we use spatial video and calls for service (CFS) to examine how crime changed on streets where abandoned homes were removed. We also draw on the insights of 35 ex-offenders, police officers, and residents to examine how and why abandoned houses are connected to crime in this locale. Results: On average, streets where abandoned houses were razed accounted for a lower proportion of neighborhood crime after removal. Also, a lower proportion of total CFS from these streets related to serious crime. Our narrative data indicate that abandoned houses are opportunistic because they provide cover, unoccupied spaces, and are easy targets. Conclusions: The removal of abandoned housing was associated with positive changes in crime overall; however, our approach revealed interesting variation across streets. We surmise that the relevance of a particular abandoned house may be contingent on the larger context of that street or neighborhood. In order to understand these dynamics, future research should continue to “drill down” into micro-spaces.

Assessing Police Stops of Pedestrians: Toward a New Generation of Benchmarks

2021 ◽  
pp. 107808742110169
Author(s):  
Michael R. Smith ◽  
Rob Tillyer ◽  
Mitchell Smith ◽  
Caleb D. Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Future Research ◽  
San Jose ◽  
Calls For Service ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Racial Ethnic

This paper extends the stop and frisk literature from New York City by examining pedestrian stops made by San Jose, California, police officers from January 2013 through March 2016 with a particular focus on benchmarking. Using violent crime suspects and nuisance-related calls for service (CFS) as comparators, we consider whether San Jose Police Department (SJPD) officers disproportionately stopped individuals from the city’s dominant racial and ethnic groups citywide and in certain police beats with high levels of nuisance calls. Using violent crime suspects citywide as a benchmark, Whites were significantly overrepresented among those stopped by the police while Hispanics, Asians, and Blacks were underrepresented. The CFS findings at the beat level were consistent with the citywide findings for Blacks but reversed direction for Hispanics and varied for Asians depending upon beat and call type. We discuss possible reasons for this divergence across benchmarks and racial/ethnic groups and consider the implications for future research.

Calling the Police: Dispatchers as Important Interpreters and Manufacturers of Calls for Service Data

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rylan Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Team Sport ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Radio System ◽  
Calls For Service ◽  
Integral Role ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Police Dispatchers ◽  
Service Data

Abstract Policing has historically been conceptualized as a team sport which requires the work of many to produce the output of one. Although police officers have been the focus of much policing research, it is important to recognize that the work of officers hinges upon the work of dispatchers. As a lifeline for both citizens and police officers, dispatchers play an integral role in ensuring that help is provided where help is required via their management of the emergency (911) telephone and radio system. Despite their importance, however, dispatchers have largely been excluded from mainstream criminological scholarship. Supplemented by a narrative review of the scant literature on the subject of dispatching, this commentary illustrates the important role of dispatchers in policing operations, theorizes the dearth of research regarding dispatchers, and calls for future research to better understand their discretionary and interpretive work. This commentary thus casts light on these highly important but understudied and undertheorized figures in the policing nexus.

The Effect of Rape Myth Endorsement on Police Response to Sexual Assault Survivors

2020 ◽  
pp. 107780122091146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alondra D. Garza ◽  
Cortney A. Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Rape Myths ◽  
Rape Myth ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Police Response ◽  
Sexual Assault Survivors ◽  
Calls For Service ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Purposive Sample

The current study used a purposive sample of 517 surveys administered to police officers at one of the five largest and most diverse U.S. cities to assess police adherence to rape myths, while considering demographic, occupational, and neurocognitive predictors. This study also examined rape myth endorsement and self-reported levels of preparedness in responding to sexual assault calls for service. Officer sex and impulsivity were significant predictors of rape myth endorsement. In addition, rape myth endorsement decreased preparedness, whereas prior specialized sexual assault training increased preparedness. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.

Left alone when the cops go home: evaluating a post-mental health crisis assistance program

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 762-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Bonkiewicz ◽  
Alan M. Green ◽  
Kasey Moyer ◽  
Joseph Wright
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Mental Health Crisis ◽  
Assistance Program ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Calls For Service ◽  
Protective Custody ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a police department's Post-Crisis Assistance Program (PCAP) for consumers who experienced a police-abated mental health crisis. The authors analyzed three questions: First, does PCAP reduce a consumer's future mental health calls for service (CFS)? Second, does PCAP reduce a consumer's odds of being arrested? Third, does PCAP reduce the odds of a consumer being taken into emergency protective custody (EPC)? Design/methodology/approach – The authors use propensity score matching to analyze data from a sample of individuals (n=739) who experienced a police-abated mental health crisis. Findings – The authors find that PCAP consumers generated fewer mental health CFS, were less likely to be arrested, and were less likely to be taken into EPC than non-PCAP consumers six months following a police-abated mental health crisis. Research limitations/implications – The research only examined outcomes six months after a mental health crisis. The authors encourage future research to examine whether the benefits of PCAP persist over longer periods of time. Practical implications – The study demonstrates that partnerships between police departments and local mental health groups can help police officers better serve citizens with mental health conditions. Originality/Value – To the knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the impact of a PCAP for citizens experiencing police-abated mental health crises.

Linking Organizational Justice to Organizational Commitment Among Nigerian Police Officers

2021 ◽  
pp. 009385482110361
Author(s):  
Ivan Y. Sun ◽  
Yuning Wu ◽  
Smart E. Otu ◽  
Gilbert C. Aro ◽  
Ikechukwu Charles Akor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Organizational Commitment ◽  
Organizational Justice ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Future Research ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Mediating Mechanisms ◽  
The Relationship

Organizational commitment is an imperative aspect of occupational attitudes as it signals employees’ willingness to stay with their organization and effectively achieve collective goals. Although recent studies have assessed factors influencing police officers’ organizational commitment, very little is known about the antecedents of police commitment in African countries. Based on a survey of Nigerian police officers, the study assesses the linkage between organizational justice and organizational commitment directly and indirectly through organizational trust and job satisfaction. Structural equation modeling (SEM) indicates that the relationship between organizational justice and organizational commitment is principally indirect through the mediating mechanisms of supervisory trustworthiness and job satisfaction. Officers who express greater organizational justice report higher trust in their management and supervisors and, subsequently, stronger job satisfaction, leading to higher organizational commitment. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.

scholarly journals Assessing the efficacy of investigative interviewing training courses: A systematic review

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-84
Author(s):  
Davut Akca ◽  
Cassandre Dion Larivière ◽  
Joseph Eastwood
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Training Effectiveness ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Laboratory Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Interviewing Skills ◽  
Training Courses ◽  
Interrogation Training ◽  
The Impact

Substantial resources have been dedicated to designing and implementing training courses that focus on enhancing the interviewing skills of police officers. Laboratory research studies and real-world assessments of the effectiveness of interview training courses, however, have found notably mixed results. In this article, empirical studies ( N = 30) that have assessed the effectiveness of police interview and interrogation training courses were systematically reviewed. We found a wide variation in terms of the type, length, and content of the training courses, the performance criteria used to assess the training effectiveness, and the impact of the training courses on interviewing performance. Overall, the studies found that basic interviewing skills can be developed to a certain level through even short evidence-based training courses. More cognitively demanding skills, such as question selection and meaningful rapport-building, showed less of an improvement post training. The courses that included multiple training sessions showed the most consistent impact on interviewing behavior. This review also indicated a need for more systematic research on training effectiveness with more uniform and longer-term measures of effectiveness. Our findings should help guide future research on this specific topic and inform the training strategies of law enforcement and other investigatory organizations.

Do Body-Worn Cameras Change Law Enforcement Arrest Behavior? A National Study of Local Police Departments

2020 ◽  
pp. 027507402098268
Author(s):  
Sunyoung Pyo
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
National Study ◽  
Behavior Changes ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black And White ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Disparate Treatment ◽  
High Crime

Controlling police officers’ discretionary behavior during public encounters has been an important issue in U.S. policing, especially following several high-profile police-involved deaths of racial minorities. In response, body-worn cameras (BWCs) were introduced to enhance police accountability by providing police managers an opportunity to monitor police–public encounters. Although many U.S. local police departments have now implemented BWC programs, evidence of program effects on daily police behavior has been limited. This study therefore focuses on whether officers’ arrest behavior changes when they perceive that BWCs are recording their interactions with the public. By conducting a difference-in-differences analysis using 142 police departments, I found that BWCs have negative and small treatment effects on arrest rates and null effects on the racial disparity between numbers of Black and White arrests. These findings imply that officers may become slightly more cautious in the use of arrests after wearing BWCs, but BWCs do not change their overall disparate treatment of Black versus White suspects. The results further indicate that the effects of BWCs on arrests are prominent in municipalities with high crime rates or a high proportion of non-White residents, which suggests that BWC programs demonstrate different effects according to the characteristics of communities served.

scholarly journals Evaluating the national multisite implementation of dialectical behaviour therapy in a community setting: A mixed methods approach

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Flynn ◽  
Mary Joyce ◽  
Conall Gillespie ◽  
Mary Kells ◽  
Michaela Swales ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
National Level ◽  
Team Leader ◽  
Barriers And Facilitators ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Community Settings ◽  
Team Leaders ◽  
Implementation Framework ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach

Abstract Background The implementation of evidence-based interventions for borderline personality disorder in community settings is important given that individuals with this diagnosis are often extensive users of both inpatient and outpatient mental health services. Although work in this area is limited, previous studies have identified facilitators and barriers to successful DBT implementation. This study seeks to expand on previous work by evaluating a coordinated implementation of DBT in community settings at a national level. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) [1] provided structural guidance for this national level coordinated implementation.Methods A mixed methods approach was utilised to explore the national multi-site implementation of DBT from the perspective of team leaders and therapists who participated in the coordinated training and subsequent implementation of DBT. Qualitative interviews with DBT team leaders ( n = 8) explored their experiences of implementing DBT in their local service and was analysed using content analysis. Quantitative surveys from DBT therapists ( n = 74) examined their experience of multiple aspects of the implementation process including orienting the system, and preparations and support for implementation. Frequencies of responses were calculated. Written qualitative feedback was analysed using content analysis.Results Five themes were identified from the interview data: team formation, implementation preparation, client selection, service level challenges and team leader role. Participants identified team size and support for the team leader as key points for consideration in DBT implementation. Key challenges encountered were the lack of system support to facilitate phone coaching and a lack of allocated time to focus on DBT. Implementation facilitators included having dedicated team members and support from management.Conclusions The barriers and facilitators identified in this study are broadly similar to those reported in previous research. Barriers and facilitators were identified across several domains of the CFIR and are consistent with a recently published DBT implementation Framework [2]. Future research should pay particular attention to the domain of characteristics of individuals involved in DBT implementation. The results highlight the importance of a mandated service plan for the coordinated implementation of an evidence-based treatment in a public health service.

scholarly journals Aggressive Policing and the Educational Performance of Minority Youth

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joscha Legewie ◽  
Jeffrey Fagan
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
African American ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Minority Youth ◽  
Educational Performance ◽  
High Crime ◽  
The Impact

An increasing number of minority youth experience contact with the criminal justice system. But how does the expansion of police presence in poor urban communities affect educational outcomes? Previous research points at multiple mechanisms with opposing effects. This article presents the first causal evidence of the impact of aggressive policing on minority youths’ educational performance. Under Operation Impact, the New York Police Department (NYPD) saturated high-crime areas with additional police officers with the mission to engage in aggressive, order-maintenance policing. To estimate the effect of this policing program, we use administrative data from more than 250,000 adolescents age 9 to 15 and a difference-in-differences approach based on variation in the timing of police surges across neighborhoods. We find that exposure to police surges significantly reduced test scores for African American boys, consistent with their greater exposure to policing. The size of the effect increases with age, but there is no discernible effect for African American girls and Hispanic students. Aggressive policing can thus lower educational performance for some minority groups. These findings provide evidence that the consequences of policing extend into key domains of social life, with implications for the educational trajectories of minority youth and social inequality more broadly.

Evaluation of an Experimental Educational Module on Opioid-Related Occupational Safety among Police Officers: Protocol for a Randomized Pragmatic Trial to Minimize Barriers to Overdose Response (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janie Simmons ◽  
Luther Elliott ◽  
Alexander Bennett ◽  
Leo Beletsky ◽  
Sonali Rajan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Pragmatic Trial ◽  
Occupational Risk ◽  
People Who Use Drugs ◽  
Safety Study ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach

BACKGROUND As drug-related morbidity and mortality continue to surge, police officers are on the front lines of the North American overdose crisis. Drug law enforcement shapes health risks among people who use drugs (PWUD), while also impacting occupational health and wellness of officers. Effective interventions to align law enforcement practices with public health and occupational safety goals remain under-researched. OBJECTIVE The Opioids and Police Safety Study (OPS) aims to shift police practices relating to people who use drugs (PWUD). It adapts and evaluates the relative effectiveness of a curriculum that bundles content on public health promotion with occupational risk reduction (ORR) to supplement a web-based overdose response and naloxone training platform (GetNaloxoneNow or GNN). This novel approach has the potential to improve public health and occupational safety practices, including using naloxone to reverse overdoses, referring PWUD to treatment and other supportive services, and avoiding syringe confiscation. METHODS This longitudinal study employs a randomized pragmatic trial design. A sample of 300 active-duty police officers from select counties in Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire with high overdose fatality rates will be randomized (150 each) to either the experimental arm (GNN + OPS) or the control arm (GNN + COVID-19 occupational risk reduction). A pre- and post-training survey will be administered to all 300 officers, after which they will be administered quarterly surveys for 12 months. A sub-sample of police officers will also be followed qualitatively in a simultaneous embedded mixed-methods approach. RESULTS Research ethics approval was obtained from the NYU Institutional Review Board. Findings will be disseminated widely, and the training products will be available nationally once the study is completed. CONCLUSIONS The Opioids and Police Safety Study is the first study to longitudinally assess the impact of an opioid-related occupational risk reduction intervention for law enforcement in the U.S. Our randomized pragmatic clinical trial aims to remove barriers to life-saving police engagement with PWUO/PWID by focusing both on the safety of law enforcement and evidence-based and best-practices for working with persons at risk of an opioid overdose. Our simultaneous embedded mixed-methods approach will provide empirical evaluation of the diffusion of naloxone-based response among law enforcement. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov #NCT05008523

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