Gender equity approach to policing in Kenya: Lessons, challenges and prospects

2021 ◽  
pp. 146135572110643
Author(s):  
Resila A Onyango ◽  
Mangai Natarajan
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Climate ◽  
Gender Equity ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Theory Change ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Women Officers ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Police Service ◽  
Physical Strength

Despite ample evidence of women's value, ensuring gender equity–equality is a major challenge for police departments worldwide. Using survey data gathered from a sample of 455 male and female police officers in the Kenya Police Service, this study examines the non-western plights of women in policing and describes a theory change to formulate gender-equity strategies for improved recruitment and retention of women in police service. Findings indicate that women officers can undertake most tasks better than or to the same degree as men, except for a small proportion of line duties, mirroring the literature on women in policing internationally. However, family commitments, an emphasis on physical strength for promotion, performance based on male standards, and male supervisors’ attitudes present severe challenges for women in the police service, reflecting the organizational climate and prevailing cultural norms. Implications for theory, policy and research are discussed.

The Effect of a Narrated Video of an Arrest on Civilians’ Perceptions of Police

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Giaimo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Perceptions Of Police

Trust of the police is at a 22-year low in the United States (Jones, 2015). Many police departments hold community discussions in an attempt to educate civilians and increase trust in the police (Star, 2017). This research explores whether an in depth, play-by-play explanation of force used during a video of a violent arrest can increase civilians’ perceptions of the police. Participants either watched a video of a violent arrest with narration or the same video with no narration. The narrator explained the tactics used by the police officers and how the tactics were used to avoid escalation of the violence during the arrest. After viewing one of the videos, both groups filled out the Perceptions of Police (POP) scale to indicate the participants’ feelings about the police. The type of video watched did not influence POP scores, however two interactions were significant. These results suggest that the police should focus on other methods of gaining the trust of Americans.

scholarly journals The Network Structure of Police Misconduct

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 237802311987979 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Wood ◽  
Daria Roithmayr ◽  
Andrew V. Papachristos
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Police Misconduct ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Network Ties ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Using Data

Conventional explanations of police misconduct generally adopt a microlevel focus on deviant officers or a macrolevel focus on the top-down organization of police departments. Between these levels are social networks of misconduct. This study recreates these networks using data on 16,503 complaints and 15,811 police officers over a six-year period in Chicago. We examine individual-level factors associated with receiving a complaint, the basic properties of these misconduct networks, and factors related to officer co-naming in complaints. We find that the incidence of police misconduct is associated with attributes including race, age, and tenure and that almost half of police officers are connected in misconduct ties in broader networks of misconduct. We also find that certain dyadic factors, especially seniority and race, strongly predict network ties and the incidence of group misconduct. Our results provide actionable information regarding possible ways to leverage the co-complaint network structure to reduce misconduct.

Evaluation of Threat by Police Officers: Initial Findings

2005 ◽  
Vol 49 (9) ◽  
pp. 846-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen A. Delos Santos ◽  
Shawn C. Stafford ◽  
James L. Szalma ◽  
Tal Oron-Gilad ◽  
P.A. Hancock
Keyword(s):  
Signal Detection ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Green Light ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Laptop Computer ◽  
Training Tool ◽  
Threat Level ◽  
Threat Categories ◽  
Static Images ◽  
New Recruits

Police officers' threat perception of static images was examined using images reflecting the range of five threat categories on which police officers are trained. Thirteen experienced officers from a police departments in the southeastern United States participated in this study. Officers rated their perceived threat level for 110 images that were presented to them on a laptop computer. Each of these images was rated twice by each officer. Officers used all five categories to rate the stimuli, and their responses to the extremes (images rated as 1 or 5) were faster than responses to more ambiguous stimuli in the other categories. These results were generally consistent with predictions based on Fuzzy Signal Detection Theory. Further studies will evaluate performance with these images in the context of a signal detection task. Once fully developed, this tool could be used to evaluate new recruits' decision-making process before given the green light to carry a badge. These assessments could also be used as a modified training tool for experienced officers if the stimuli were to be placed in a semiimmersive environment.

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 Are College-Educated Police Officers Different? A Study of Stops, Searches, and Arrests

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Rosenfeld ◽  
Thaddeus L. Johnson ◽  
Richard Wright
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
Primary Basis ◽  
Traditional Performance ◽  
College Educated

A study of more than 60,000 police traffic stops found that college-educated officers were more likely than other officers to stop drivers for less serious violations, perform consent searches, and make arrests on discretionary grounds. These results are consistent with those of prior research indicating that college-educated officers are more achievement-oriented and eager for advancement based on the traditional performance criteria of stops, searches, and arrests. The results raise questions regarding the recommendation of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing to improve police-community relations by hiring more college-educated police officers, especially in urban communities where concerns about over-policing are widespread. If community engagement were to become a primary basis for professional advancement, however, the current results suggest that college-educated officers may adapt to the new standards as diligently as they have to the traditional criteria for reward and promotion in U.S. police departments.

scholarly journals The Economics of Policing and Public Safety

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Emily Owens ◽  
Bocar Ba
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Relative Magnitude ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Indirect Benefits ◽  
Monitoring Strategies ◽  
Police Action ◽  
The City

The efficiency of any police action depends on the relative magnitude of its crime-reducing benefits and legitimacy costs. Policing strategies that are socially efficient at the city level may be harmful at the local level, because the distribution of direct costs and benefits of police actions that reduce victimization is not the same as the distribution of indirect benefits of feeling safe. In the United States, the local misallocation of police resources is disproportionately borne by Black and Hispanic individuals. Despite the complexity of this particular problem, the incentives facing both police departments and police officers tend to be structured as if the goals of policing were simple—to reduce crime by as much as possible. Formal data collection on the crime reducing-benefits of policing, and not the legitimacy costs, produce s further incentives to provide more engagement than may be efficient in any specific encounter, at both the officer and departmental level. There is currently little evidence as to what screening, training, or monitoring strategies are most effective at encouraging individual officers to balance the crime reducing benefits and legitimacy costs of their actions.

scholarly journals Negotiating Gender and Police Culture: Exploring the Barriers to Retention and Progression of Female Police Officers in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Shannon M. Chan
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Police Culture ◽  
Women Officers ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
New Rhetoric ◽  
Women's Narratives ◽  
Female Police Officers

<p>Women officers represent a minority within the New Zealand Police (Police) particularly within the senior ranks. In recent years, Police have made concerted efforts to increase women’s representation as well as improve the working environment. However, recent reviews of the 2007 Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct have reported that women continue to face barriers to full integration and furthermore, that the changes to the police culture have reached a plateau. New Zealand and international research have established that police culture continues to pose a barrier to women’s full acceptance within policing. This culture is characterised by predominantly white, heterosexual males, who form what has been described as a “cult of masculinity”. Therefore, women find they must adopt the culture in order to “fit in” and be accepted as “one of the boys”.  Adopting a qualitative framework, this research involved semi-structured face-to-face interviews with sworn female police officers. Exploring female police officers’ experiences identified five pertinent barriers to women’s retention and progression. These were the emphasis on physical skills and excitement, the police camaraderie and the cult of masculinity, sexual harassment within the workplace, women’s minority status, and balancing motherhood with policing. It was found that the persistence of these barriers came back to core features of police culture. Due to the strong allegiance to the positive aspects of the police culture, such as the camaraderie, negative features such as sexual banter and harassment were subsumed within the wider culture. Negative features were tolerated and accepted as part and parcel of working in the Police. Women’s narratives demonstrated that they adhered to core police culture features and thus contributed to the sustenance of the culture. Furthermore, how women articulated their experiences and perceptions of barriers was complex and nuanced. Many held the belief that there were no longer any barriers for women in the Police, yet such positive views were in contradiction with their own experiences. The tension between “perceptions” and “reality” creates a situation where the Police currently sit at a crossroads between the “old” culture and the new rhetoric of “change”.</p>

scholarly journals Occupational Stress, Personality Traits, Coping Strategies, and Suicide Ideation in the South African Police Service

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacobus Pienaar ◽  
Sebastiaan Rothmann ◽  
Fons J. R. van de Vijver
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Occupational Stress ◽  
South African ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Suicide Ideation ◽  
The South ◽  
Police Service ◽  
South African Police Service ◽  
South African Police

The objective of this study is to determine whether suicide ideation among uniformed police officers of the South African Police Service could be predicted on the basis of occupational stress, personality traits, and coping strategies. Using a cross-sectional survey design, the Adult Suicide Ideation Questionnaire, the Police Stress Inventory, the Personality Characteristics Inventory, and the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced are administered to a stratified random sample of 1,794 police employees from eight South African provinces. A logistic regression analysis shows that low scores on conscientiousness, emotional stability, approach coping, and turning to religion as well as high scores on avoidance coping are associated with more suicide ideation.

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