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 GETTING INTO THE CITY BEAT: Challenges facing our metro police

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth Newham
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Crime Prevention ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
The Past ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
The City

It has been a little over five years since metropolitan police departments were first established in South Africa. Despite relatively small numbers of operational personnel, they now form a familiar part of the policing landscape. With good reason, metro police officers do better at traffic control than crime prevention, and their relationship with the SAPS needs attention. This article reflects on their achievements over the past years and some of the key challenges confronting these local level police agencies.

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.

New Mayors: France and the United States

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (x) ◽  
pp. 263-275
Author(s):  
Richard Balme ◽  
Jeanne Becquart-Leclercq ◽  
Terry N. Clark ◽  
Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot ◽  
Jean-Yves Nevers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Socialist Government ◽  
The University ◽  
The City ◽  
Significant Support ◽  
The Welfare State

In 1983 we organized a conference on “Questioning the Welfare State and the Rise of the City” at the University of Paris, Nanterre. About a hundred persons attended, including many French social scientists and political activists. Significant support came from the new French Socialist government. Yet with Socialism in power since 1981, it was clear that the old Socialist ideas were being questioned inside and outside the Party and government—especially in the important decentralization reforms. There was eager interest in better ways to deliver welfare state services at the local level.

An esham-ijara structure in the United States?

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hummel ◽  
Blake Goud
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Risk Sharing ◽  
Local Economic Development ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conventional Approach ◽  
Islamic Finance ◽  
Tax Increment Financing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The City

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore Islamic borrowing at the local level in redevelopment authorities in the USA through an ijara and esham framework. Design/methodology/approach A hypothetical example is approached with a real redevelopment authority in the City of Pompano Beach, Florida. Actual data from past borrowing in a tax increment financing district are compared to an Islamic financing approach to test for competitiveness to a conventional approach. Findings It was found that when incorporating a crowdsourced option along with an ijara and esham approach, the returns on investment are higher than for a conventional approach. The risk is higher, but the returns are also higher which possibly increases the incentive to invest in these options. Research limitations This scenario is only hypothetical and based on many assumptions. A real-world application of the approach would have to be attempted to confidently determine its viability. Practical implications The potential competitiveness of this financing approach as well as its higher sustainability makes this a favorable approach for local redevelopment authorities to implement for needed money for infrastructure projects in blighted areas of the city. It is also of interest to Muslim countries that are devolving authority to their local governments. Originality/value This paper considers an alternative approach to tax increment financing which relies on a revenue sharing arrangement called an esham–ijara and esham–sukuk risk-sharing structure in Islamic financing terminology. There is currently very little discussion of esham in Islamic finance and no discussion of the application of Islamic finance to local economic development enterprises.

scholarly journals Transitioning from pandemic to normalcy: what police departments can learn from the rank-and-file

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne E. Gaub ◽  
Marthinus C. Koen ◽  
Shelby Davis
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Coding Schemes ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Police Executives ◽  
Police Personnel

PurposeAfter more than 18 months of life during a pandemic, much of the world is beginning to transition back to some semblance of normalcy. As that happens, institutions – including policing – need to acknowledge changes that had been made during the pandemic and decide what modifications and innovations, if any, to continue moving forward.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use semi-structured interviews and focus groups of police personnel in the United States (US) and Canada. The sample includes police officers and frontline supervisors (n = 20). The authors conduct qualitative analysis using deductive and inductive coding schemes.FindingsThe sample identified four areas of adaptation during the pandemic: 1) safety measures, 2) personnel reallocation, 3) impacts on training and 4) innovation and role adjustments. These areas of adaptation prompted several recommendations for transitioning police agencies out of the pandemic.Originality/valueA growing number of studies are addressing police responses to the pandemic. Virtually all are quantitative in nature, including all studies investigating the perceptions of police personnel. The body of perceptual studies is extraordinarily small and primarily focuses on police executives, ignoring the views of the rank-and-file who are doing the work of street-level police business. This is the first study to delve into the perceptions of this group, and does so using a qualitative approach that permits a richer understanding of the nuances of perception.

scholarly journals Do White Police Officers Unfairly Target Black Suspects?

2022 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. p12
Author(s):  
John R. Lott, Jr ◽  
Carlisle E. Moody
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fixed Effects Model ◽  
Discrimination Test ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
Fbi Data ◽  
The City

Using a unique data set we link the race of police officers who kill suspects with the race of those who are killed across the United States. We have data on a total of 2,706 fatal police killings for the years 2013 to 2015. This is 1,333 more killings by police than is provided by the FBI data on justifiable police homicides. We conducted three tests of discrimination. The results of these tests are different. In the first test we find some evidence that white officers are more likely to kill a black suspect who is later found to be unarmed than they are to kill an unarmed white suspect. However, this result could not be confirmed using a fixed effects model on panel data aggregated to the city level. In the second test, we find that white police officers are no more likely to kill an unarmed black suspect than are black or Hispanic officers. The results of this test are confirmed by the panel data version of the test. The third discrimination test indicated that black suspects, whether armed or not, are no more likely to be killed by a white officer than they are to be killed by black or Hispanic officers. Similarly, Hispanic suspects are no more likely to be killed by white offices than officers of other races. These results are also confirmed by panel data analyses. We find that when there is more than one officer on the scene, unarmed black suspects are not more likely to be killed by white police officers than unarmed white suspects. This could be evidence supporting a policy of reducing the number of officers working alone. Also, we find no evidence that body cameras affect either the number of police killings or the racial composition of those killings.

Electric Utility Operational Cost and Emissions Management With Grid-Scale Energy Storage

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chioke Harris ◽  
Michael E. Webber ◽  
Jeremy P. Meyers
Keyword(s):  
Energy Storage ◽  
Objective Function ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electric Utility ◽  
Mixed Integer ◽  
Potential Cost ◽  
Solar Photovoltaics ◽  
Marginal Costs ◽  
The City

In the United States, installation of emission-free sources of power generation, such as wind and solar photovoltaics, has increased recently. Unfortunately, these generation technologies present unique challenges to utilities and grid operators because they are variable and not dispatchable. While energy storage can provide capacitance to the system and thereby make renewable power more dispatchable, storage implementation at the municipal scale is poorly understood. This paper examines future applications of energy storage to reduce costs and improve system reliability for electric utilities at the local level. The city of Austin, Texas was selected as the study area because the city has set aggressive targets of 30–35% of total electricity generation from renewable sources, primarily wind and solar photovoltaics, by 2020. For this analysis, generation assets currently used and those planned for future development by the local utility, Austin Energy, are treated in a unit commitment model using a mixed integer programming (MIP) approach. The model has been developed such that it can be provided any objective function and generation portfolio, and the results can be used by whatever stakeholder has generated those particular inputs. To best simulate operational dispatch conditions, the model includes ramp rate constraints, generator turn-on penalties, and minimum operation levels. Energy storage is included by allowing the model to assign an unconstrained asset throughout the study period, 24 hours, to whatever values will minimize the objective function. For this initial analysis, storage system efficiency, capital and marginal costs were not included, though they may significantly affect total allocated storage. Modeling results indicate that storage availability yields a reduction of as much as $600,000/day in marginal costs for the study area, based primarily on improved utilization of more efficient generating units. This result does not consider savings associated with NOx reductions. Such reductions were studied with a second objective function. While NOx reductions of approximately 9–23% were observed, these emission reductions were accompanied by significant increases in operating costs. Energy storage requirements and potential cost savings under the scenarios examined might be beneficial to researchers interested in grid-scale storage. These results can also be used to determine appropriate cost targets for storage researchers and manufacturers.

scholarly journals Future Policy Award 2018: The Good Food Purchasing Program, USA

2022 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Daniels ◽  
Alexa Delwiche
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Food System ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
Food Purchasing ◽  
The City ◽  
Good Food

Adopted first by the City of Los Angeles in 2012, the Good Food Purchasing Program® creates a transparent supply chain and helps institutions to measure and then make shifts in their food purchases. It is the first procurement model to support five food system values—local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare and nutrition—in equal measure and thereby encourages myriad organizations to come together to engage for shared goals. Within just six years, the Good Food Purchasing Program has catalyzed a nationwide movement to establish similar policies in localities small and large across the United States, and inspired the creation of the Center for Good Food Purchasing. First adopted by the City of Los Angeles in 2012, it is a procurement standard that offers institutions a system in which current investments toward food are redirected toward more sustainable and fair suppliers. It uses a metric-based, flexible framework that produces a star rating. The Good Food Purchasing Program promotes the purchase of more sustainably produced food, from local economies, especially smaller and mid-sized farms and other food processing operations, which results in production returns at a more regional and local level, and ensures that suppliers' workers are offered safe and healthy working conditions and fair compensation, that livestock receives healthy and humane care, and that consumers—foremost school children, patients, the elderly—enjoy better health and well-being as a result of higher quality nutritious meals. This article will detail its implementation since 2012, provide current information on the impacts the Program has had on the agroecology of regions in the US food system, and recommendations for policy changes that could catalyze more accelerated impact.

scholarly journals Police Bodycams as Equiveillance Tools?: Reflections on the Debate in the Netherlands

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-287
Author(s):  
Lotte Houwing ◽  
Gerard Jan Ritsema van Eck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Police Officer ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regulatory Framework ◽  
Police Action

In the United States of America, police body-worn cameras (bodycams) were introduced to protect civilians against violence by law enforcement authorities. In the Netherlands, however, the same technology has been introduced to record and discipline the behavior of the growing number of citizens using their smartphone cameras to film the (mis)conduct of police. In answer to these citizens sousveilling the police and publishing their images on social media, the bodycam was introduced as an objective referee that also includes the perspective of the police officer. According to this view, the bodycam is a tool of equiveillance: a situation with a diversity of perspectives in which surveillance and sousveillance are in balance (Mann 2005). Various factors, however, hamper the equiveillant usage of bodycams in the Netherlands. Firstly, the attachment of the bodycam to the uniform of the officer leads to an imbalanced representation of perspectives. The police perspective is emphasized by the footage that is literally taken from their perspective, in which others are filmed slightly from below, making them look bigger and more overwhelming. Also, the police officers’ movements create shaky footage with deceptive intensity that invokes the image of a hectic situation that calls for police action. Secondly, it is the officer who decides when to wear a camera and when to start and stop recording. This leaves the potential to not record any misconduct. Thirdly, access to the recorded images, whilst in theory open to police and citizens alike, is in practice exclusively for the police. Within the current regulatory framework, bodycams are thus not neutral reporters of interactions between civilians and the police. We will end our contribution to this Dialogue section with suggestions for the improvement of those rules and reflect on the question of whether bodycams can ever be objective referees.

Police self-legitimacy and democratic orientations: Assessing shared values

2021 ◽  
pp. 146135572110326
Author(s):  
David R White ◽  
Michael J Kyle ◽  
Joseph A Schafer
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Organizational Fit ◽  
Democratic Policing ◽  
Municipal Police ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Municipal Police Departments

Using a sample of frontline police officers from several mid-sized municipal police departments in the United States, this study explores the relationships between frontline police officers’ self-legitimacy, organizational fit, moral alignment with policed communities, and attitudes toward democratic policing principles. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, the analysis frames democratic policing using a formative latent construct to test several hypotheses. The results support a direct positive relationship between self-legitimacy and attitudes toward democratic policing, and suggest the relationship is partially mediated by officers' perceptions of moral alignment with their policed communities. The results further demonstrate that self-legitimacy is significantly related to organizational fit, but organizational fit does not appear to mediate the relationship between self-legitimacy and attitudes toward democratic policing.

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