The police patrol rifle

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott W Phillips ◽  
John P Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Police Agency ◽  
Federal Bureau ◽  
Natural Evolution ◽  
Police Patrol ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Paper Survey ◽  
Internal Sources ◽  
American Police

This work focuses upon the training associated with patrol rifles in American police agencies. Patrol rifles are the firearms most commonly employed by tactical units, but are now often carried by police officers in their patrol cars. The inevitability thesis suggests that arming street-level officers with patrol rifles is part of the natural evolution of firearms in policing. Officers, however, must be adequately trained. Data were gathered from a broad sample of police agencies from across the country. Police officers attending the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Academy in the spring and summer of 2015 completed a pen and paper survey with questions about police agency training and policies regarding the use of patrol rifles. In total, 370 usable surveys were completed. Results show that over 95% of American police agencies allow street-level officers to deploy with patrol rifles. Although training is primarily provided by internal sources, officers are trained for a variety of situations in which such rifles are necessary and appropriate. A discussion of the veracity of some training is also provided.

scholarly journals The Importance of Establishing a New Counterterrorism Unit at Local Level: Combining Different Perspectives in Policing

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 219
Author(s):  
Ahmet Eker ◽  
Ersan Ozkan
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Police Agency ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Mutual Trust ◽  
Huge Amount ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Contingency Plans

The number of terrorism related attacks and deaths of innocent people as a result of those terrorist assaults have been increasing. This was despite the huge amount of budget devoted towards fighting against terrorism by the governments. One of the reasons for being insufficient to reduce the number of terrorist attacks is the limited involvement of the local police agencies in the fight against terrorism. Most of them do not have separate terrorism units and are not full-time police officers. Those agencies which have separate units assign only four or less officers. As a result, their ability to get information on terrorism related activities and the level of information sharing with the federal and national agencies is very limited. It is suggested in this paper that each local police agency should establish a separate terrorism unit and assign sufficient number of full-time police officers. These officers and managers should be trained by national experts. Officers in these units should develop mutual trust with different groups that have diverse political and religious backgrounds. A strong relationship and cooperation should also be developed with other local and national agencies. In addition, each local police agency should prepare contingency plans prior to any attack.

Racial Profiling: A Survey of African American Police Officers

2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Barlow ◽  
Melissa Hickman Barlow
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
American Police

Cops and COVID: an examination of California officers' perceptions and experiences while policing during a pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Shjarback ◽  
Obed Magny
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Sensitive Information ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Police Executives

PurposeUsing online survey data from a sample of 440 police officers in California throughout May 2020, the current study collected time-sensitive information on officers' perceptions and departmental experiences in the wake of the pandemic. It examined officers' perceptions of agency responsivity as well as their perceptions of morale, stress and risk following agency responses and changes in policy patterns, service delivery innovations and other administrative challenges.Design/methodology/approachCOVID-19 had a tremendous impact on the law enforcement community, who continued to work and adapt in order to provide public safety. During the first few months of the pandemic, a number of national data collection efforts set out to understand what police agencies, at the organizational-level, were doing to address the crisis. Largely missing from these initial discussions were the perspectives of individual officers, particularly how they felt about their respective departments ensuring safety and balancing risk.FindingsResults from ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions found that the number of departmental changes made in the wake of COVID-19 that reduced police–public contact was associated with (1) increased levels of perceived agency responsivity to officer needs (i.e. balancing officer safety, taking active steps to maintain officers' mental health) and (2) reduced levels of perceived negative outlook (e.g. stress, low morale, danger/risk). Policy implications and the importance of police executives' decisions during crisis are discussed.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to examine perceptions of policing during the pandemic from an individual officer point of view rather than an organizational standpoint.

Organisational justice’s relationship with job satisfaction and organisational commitment among Indian police

2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanif Qureshi ◽  
James Frank ◽  
Eric G Lambert ◽  
Charles Klahm ◽  
Brad Smith
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Organisational Commitment ◽  
The North ◽  
Organisational Justice ◽  
Distributive Fairness ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Indian State

The concept of justice plays an important role in shaping the attitudes of citizens towards criminal justice agencies. Additionally, research indicates that police officers’ perceptions of justice within their own organisation can affect their attitudes towards it. Most of the research to date has focused on police officers in Western nations; however, the effects of organisational justice could be universal (i.e. cut across different police agencies and nations) or contextual (i.e. vary between cultures). The current study examined the association between perceptions of two dimensions of organisational justice, distributive (fairness in outcomes) and procedural (fairness in procedures/processes), with job satisfaction and organisational commitment among Indian police officers. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis of survey data collected from 827 officers stationed in the Sonepat and Rohtak districts in the north Indian state of Haryana indicated that perceptions of distributive justice and procedural justice (in terms of promotions and evaluations) had significant positive relationships with both job satisfaction and affective organisational commitment. The findings support the contention that perceptions of organisational justice have important effects on Indian police officers.

Extending Research on the “War on Cops”: The Effects of Ferguson on Nonfatal Assaults Against U.S. Police Officers

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Shjarback ◽  
Edward R. Maguire
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Law Enforcement Officers ◽  
Federal Bureau ◽  
Monthly Data ◽  
National Debate ◽  
American Law ◽  
Time Series Analyses ◽  
Perceptions Of Safety ◽  
The Impact

This study tests whether violence directed toward American law enforcement has increased in the wake of events in Ferguson, Missouri, in summer 2014. Using monthly data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) reports (2010–2016), we carried out time-series analyses to examine trends in nonfatal assaults on police officers in a sample of 4,921 agencies. Neither injurious nor noninjurious assaults on officers increased following Michael Brown’s death in August 2014. The findings are robust across a variety of model specifications and estimation techniques, providing little evidence of a “War on Cops” through 2016. The study adds empirical rigor to an ongoing national debate based largely on speculation/anecdotes. The impact and potential consequences of the current climate for officers’ perceptions of safety/risk are discussed.

The formation of suspicion: A vignette study

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-284
Author(s):  
Scott W Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Police Training ◽  
The Body ◽  
Police Culture ◽  
Heuristics And Biases ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Vignette Study ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Survey Results

Being suspicious is part of police training, and is emphasized in police culture. Tversky and Kahneman argued that people make decisions based on a limited number of heuristic factors to reduce a complex task to likely probabilities ( Tversky A and Kahneman D [1974] Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Science 185[4157]: 1124–1131). This study contributes to the body of scholarship studying police suspicion. It uses vignettes describing an incident involving characteristics important when police officers form suspicion. This design allows respondents to judge a situation before actual engagement. A convenience sample of police officers, supervisors, and administrators from police agencies of different sizes located in two different states responded to an online survey. Results demonstrated that the time of an event, the person’s race, and their manner of dress, contributed to the formation of suspicion. Other factors (i.e., suspect age, neighborhood) were not significantly related to suspicion. Further, respondents with few years of experience were more likely to see the conditions within a vignette as suspicious. The findings indicate that unacceptable stereotyping can result from using scanty or outdated heuristic tools to simplify decision-making. Further, there is a need for additional research examining the conditions related to suspicion formation.

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