scholarly journals The The Making of Crime Predictions: Sociotechnical Assemblages and the Controversies of Governing Future Crime

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-215
Author(s):  
Daniel Edler Duarte
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Risk Scores ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Gut Feelings

We are witnessing an upsurge in crime forecasting software, which supposedly draws predictive knowledge from data on past crime. Although prevention and anticipation are already embedded in the apparatuses of government, going beyond a mere abstract aspiration, the latest innovations hold out the promise of replacing police officers’ “gut feelings” and discretionary risk assessments with algorithmic-powered, quantified analyses of risk scores. While police departments and private companies praise such innovations for their cost-effective rationale, critics raise concerns regarding their potential for discriminating against poor, black, and migrant communities. In this article, I address such controversies by telling the story of the making of CrimeRadar, an app developed by a Rio de Janeiro-based think tank in partnership with private associates and local police authorities. Drawing mostly on Latour’s contributions to the emerging literature on security assemblages, I argue that we gain explanatory and critical leverage by looking into the mundane practices of making and unmaking sociotechnical arrangements. That is, I address the chain of translations through which crime data are collected, organized, and transformed into risk scores. In every step, new ways of seeing and presenting crime are produced, with a significant impact on how we experience and act upon (in)security.

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 Exploitative Revenues, Law Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Service

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Goldstein ◽  
Michael W. Sances ◽  
Hye Young You
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Municipal Government ◽  
Criminal Investigation ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Government Service ◽  
Revenue Collection ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Commuting Time

A growing body of evidence indicates that local police departments are being used to provide revenue for municipalities by imposing and collecting fees, fines, and asset forfeitures. We examine whether revenue collection activities compromise the criminal investigation functions of local police departments. We find that police departments in cities that collect a greater share of their revenue from fees solve violent and property crimes at significantly lower rates. The effect on violent crime clearance is more salient in smaller cities where police officers’ assignments tend not to be highly specialized. We find that this relationship is robust to a variety of empirical strategies, including instrumenting for fines revenue using commuting time. Our results suggest that institutional changes—such as decreasing municipal government reliance on fines and fees for revenue—are important for changing police behavior and improving the provision of public safety.

scholarly journals Police Officer on the Frontline or a Soldier? The Effect of Police Militarization on Crime

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Bove ◽  
Evelina Gavrilova
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Temporal Variations ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Local Police

Sparked by high-profile confrontations between police and citizens in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere, many commentators have criticized the excessive militarization of law enforcement. We investigate whether surplus military-grade equipment acquired by local police departments from the Pentagon has an effect on crime rates. We use temporal variations in US military expenditure and between-counties variation in the odds of receiving a positive amount of military aid to identify the causal effect of militarized policing on crime. We find that (i) military aid reduces street-level crime; (ii) the program is cost-effective; and (iii) there is evidence in favor of a deterrence mechanism. (JEL H56, H76, K42)

scholarly journals In Every Artery of Society? How Dutch Community Police Officers Perceive Their Role in Early Detection of Violent Extremism among Youth

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annemarie van de Weert ◽  
Quirine A M Eijkman
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Early Detection ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Community Police ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Violent Extremism

Abstract Early detection of radicalization processes that may lead to violent extremism takes place in a grey area. Primarily because no one can truly predict when someone poses a risk before there are any indications of criminal acts. The local police have been given an important role in countering violent extremism (CVE) policy; namely proactive information gathering at a stage in which people are still law-abiding citizens. However, little is known about how they perceive their role in CVE. Therefore, this article examines how community police officers deal with their mandate to engage in early detection, and discusses the side effects that accompany this practice. Based on open interviews with 22 constables in the Netherlands, we focus on the risk assessments made by these local professionals. In this article, we aim to contribute to a more thorough, inclusive, and well-informed debate about community policing with regard to suspicions of extremist behaviour among youth.

Police Perceptions of Their Working Environment: Surveying the Small Department

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 245-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Sims ◽  
Jim Ruiz ◽  
Ginger Weaver ◽  
William L. Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Police Chief ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
South Central ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Central Pennsylvania ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Small Department

This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study designed to provide a local police chief and other key stakeholders with perceptions of police officers related to policing a small town in south central Pennsylvania. Following a brief review of the literature that examines many of the issues addressed in the present study, the methodology and major findings from the study are reported and discussed. The paper concludes with recommendations for possible interventions that could be undertaken, by not only the department in question, but by small police departments in other locations as well.

Assessing (In)Equality in the Structural Covariates of Drug-Specific Arrest Counts

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun A. Thomas ◽  
Rick Dierenfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Composite Measures ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Specific Mortality ◽  
Drug Arrests

Prior research assessing the structural covariates of drug arrests has focused on composite measures of arrests. Prior studies have also neglected to simultaneously consider the influence of characteristics of communities, law enforcement agencies, police officers, and drug-specific mortality rates on drug-specific arrests. As such, the extant literature offers an incomplete understanding of the structural correlates of drug arrests. The current study addresses these limitations by assessing the structural covariates of drug-specific measures of arrests for cocaine, crack, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine. Results highlight substantive distinctions in the structural covariates of drug-specific arrests across places, particularly related to racial diversity within the community and local police departments, and drug-specific mortality (i.e., overdose) rates findings that have important implications for future research.

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 Cardiopulmonary performance in allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation recipients—evaluation of pre-transplant risk assessments

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Pahl ◽  
Sarah Waibel ◽  
Anja Wehrle ◽  
Gabriele Ihorst ◽  
Albert Gollhofer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Composition ◽  
Cell Transplantation ◽  
Predictive Power ◽  
Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation ◽  
Risk Index ◽  
Hematopoietic Cell ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Risk Scores ◽  
Organ Systems ◽  
Cardiopulmonary Performance

AbstractCardiopulmonary performance reflects how well different organ systems interact. It is inter alia influenced by body composition, determines patients’ quality of life and can also predict mortality. However, it is not yet used for risk prediction prior to allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantations (alloHCT). Thus, we aimed to examine the predictive power of peak oxygen consumption (VO2peak) as a representative of cardiopulmonary performance and that of body composition before alloHCT to determine overall survival (OS) and non-relapse mortality (NRM) 2 years after transplantation. We also compared it with the predictive power of four commonly-used risk scores: revised Pretransplant Assessment of Mortality (rPAM), Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation-specific Comorbidity Index (HCT-CI), revised Disease Risk Index (rDRI), European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT). Fifty-nine patients performed a cardiopulmonary exercise test and body composition assessments before alloHCT and were observed for 2 years. Sixteen patients died. VO2peak and most risk scores assessed pre-transplant revealed no association with OS or NRM. Body composition parameters only within univariable analyses. But higher rDRI and the male sex, were associated with shorter OS and higher NRM. We thus propose that the current risk assessments be reconsidered. The predictive value of VO2peak and body composition need further clarification, however.

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.

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