Matching Items (46)
ContributorsHenderson, Isabelle (Author) / Holohan, Brynn (Co-author) / DeCarolis, Claudine (Thesis director) / Robinson, Kevin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor)
Created2023-05
ContributorsHenderson, Isabelle (Author) / Holohan, Brynn (Co-author) / DeCarolis, Claudine (Thesis director) / Robinson, Kevin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
A creative project in the form of a video with the goal of educating police officers about Tourette Syndrome. The video is about 22 minutes in length. It consists of interviews with both professionals in the field and people who are personally affected by the disorder.
ContributorsStephens, Josie (Author) / Nascimento, Eliciana (Thesis director) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
This thesis expands on Procedural Justice Theory (PJT), which argues that all else equal, judgments of fairness are most strongly motivated by process and relational factors of an interaction. This includes neutral, consistent, and transparent decision-making as well as respectful and dignified interpersonal treatment. The bounded authority perspective argues that judgments of fairness are also influenced by evaluations of police respecting the boundaries of their authority and not overstepping into domains under personal jurisdiction. This study tests this argument using an online convenience sample (n =1048) recruited from Prolific Academic. Respondents completed surveys at three time points between April and June of 2020 that included measures of procedural justice, distributive justice, bounded authority, and overall fairness judgments of the police. Across all three waves, results showed that procedural justice, distributive justice, and bounded authority had strong positive associations with police fairness. Procedural justice had a significantly stronger association than either distributive justice or bounded authority, while the latter factors were not significantly different. I discuss the implications for our criminal justice and directions for future research as well the need for a representative sample and use of experimental design to clarify the impact of bounded authority concerns.
ContributorsHutchings, Gail (Author) / Trinkner, Rick (Thesis director) / Fine, Adam (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-12
Description
Body-worn cameras and early intervention systems have become best practices for police departments. A wide body of empirical work has examined body-worn cameras, and there is a growing focus on early intervention systems. However, little research has examined how these mechanisms of accountability influence officer behavior when employed together. Further, little attention has explored whether the effects of body-worn cameras and early intervention systems are stable by officer gender and race, important and largely untested assumptions of each program. To address these gaps, the current study uses longitudinal, administrative data from the Phoenix Police Department to examine patrol officer misconduct between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2020. Generalized estimating equation models predict seven alleged and sustained misconduct outcomes, including police crime, use of force, harassment/conduct unbecoming, obstruction of justice, neglect of duty, traffic-related, and an overall measure of misconduct. The findings revealed that body-worn camera implementation and activation and early intervention system implementation and referrals individually and in combination were associated with very few substantive changes in officer misconduct. Increases in body-worn camera activation were associated with reductions in sustained police crime (i.e., felonies and misdemeanors), while officers who received an early intervention system referral were more likely to be alleged of police crime in the future. These findings were stable by officer gender and race. Further, past work demonstrates that implementing accountability programs can lead officers to less self-initiated engagement with the public. The current study reaffirmed that body-worn cameras and early intervention systems have unintended effects on officers’ proactive behaviors with unique changes in arrests, citations, and self-initiated incidents across accountability program measures. Given the importance of addressing officer misconduct to build and maintain community trust, the rapid expansion of body-worn cameras and early intervention systems across the United States, and the cost of these systems, it is vital that police departments consider the accountability programs they implement and whether and how these programs influence officer behavior. The current study provides insight into this process in one police agency and offers policy implications and directions for future research.
ContributorsFreemon, Kayla (Author) / Katz, Charles (Thesis advisor) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / Huebner, Beth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Recently, videos of negative police interactions have gone viral on social media causing riots and protests nationwide. However, police scholars have spent little time exploring how these videos affect the legitimacy of this authority or why these videos are interfaced with—e.g., shared, liked, direct messaged, and quoted—on social media. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which the content of police videos and the source of who is sharing them impacts the legitimacy of the police as well as the likelihood of social media interfacing. This study used a factorial vignette design with an online sample (N = 179) that presented one of six experimental vignettes describing a scenario in which the participant received a video of a police interaction via social media. Within each vignette, the officer behaved in a procedurally just or unjust way and the video was shared by either a local news source, best friend, or online friend. Participants were asked questions assessing the legitimacy of the officer, as well as the likelihood they would share, like, direct message, or quote the video on social media. Participants in the procedurally unjust condition perceived the officer as less legitimate and were more likely to share the video than those in the procedurally just condition. The manipulation of source had no significant effects. The results from this study indicate that police departments need to be sensitive to these videos that are being interfaced with on social media by striving for a strong and positive social media presence in order to aid in being deemed as a legitimate authority that represents the community.
ContributorsGeoghan, Stephanie Jena (Author) / Trinkner, Rick J (Thesis advisor) / Reisig, Michael (Committee member) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Scholars have extensively researched citizens’ preferences regarding the actions, language, and demeanors displayed by officers during citizen-police interactions. Specifically, there are a multitude of factors that can influence a citizens’ perception of such interactions as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. What appears to be missing from the literature, however, is police officers’ understanding of citizens’ preferences for regarding factors. In other words, it is unclear if and how officers are actively attempting to interact with victims and witnesses based on actual citizen preferences or if officers do not consider these preferences during citizen interactions. This gap has important implications for officer training on citizen’s preferences due to the influence such interactions can have on citizens, specifically citizens’ physical and psychological well-being, as well as citizens’ perceptions of - and reaction to - the criminal justice system. This project examines original data collection of citizen and officer surveys regarding officers’ actions, language, and demeanors. Additionally, observations during ride-alongs are presented to expand on the current literature regarding citizen preferences during interactions with the police and to assess officers’ understanding and application of this knowledge. Results indicate that, while officers seem to understand what actions, language, and demeanors will increase citizen satisfaction, officers may believe that there exist situational factors that are more important in affecting citizen satisfaction with officers. Observations revealed that the vast majority of citizen-police interactions were positive and productive. Even so, results from the surveys and observations point to several important policy implications for improvement between officers and citizens.
ContributorsGagnon, Analisa (Author) / Fox, Kate (Thesis advisor) / Telep, Cody (Committee member) / Chamberlain, Alyssa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Over the last decade, scholars have become increasingly attentive to the role of procedural fairness in shaping police officer attitudes and behaviors. In Chapter 1, I review key developments within this research, and identify several theoretical and methodological issues present in the current literature. I then outline the issues I seek to address through the three studies presented in this dissertation. In Chapter 2, I explore a divergence in how scholars conceptualize and measure sources of internal procedural fairness (IPF) within police departments. I discuss the implications of these divergences, and then compare three conceptualizations of IPF sources. I find that officers appear to form separate IPF judgement for each source, and that each procedural fairness judgment has unique associations with several outcomes. In Chapter 3, I examine the relationship between internal procedural fairness and officer engagement in external procedural fairness (EPF). Drawing upon the group engagement model (GEM), I argue that the relationship between IPF and EPF is mediated by organizational identification. Comparing the GEM against the prevailing explanation for this relationship, I find that the GEM better accounts for the relationship between IPF and EPF. In Chapter 4, I explore the role of organizational emphasis in shaping police officer support for several different policing strategies. The GEM suggests that IPF will simply bond officers to organizational goals and norms; it is this bond that motivates officers to adopt the strategies emphasized by their department. Examining support for several policing strategies, I find that officers who are more committed to their agency are more sensitive to changes in the emphasis placed on specific strategies. In Chapter 5, I review the findings of the various studies presented in this dissertation and discuss the implications of this research. Collectively, these three studies offer several insights into how IPF shapes police officer attitudes and behaviors. They highlight the importance of officer identification with organizational norms and value in shaping police officer attitudes and behaviors and establish new avenues for IPF research within police organizations.
ContributorsTyler, David H. F. (Author) / Maguire, Edward R. (Thesis advisor) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / Trinkner, Rick (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Discretion is central to policing. The way officers use their discretion is influenced by situational, officer, and neighborhood-level factors. Concerns that discretion could be used differentially across neighborhoods have resulted in calls for increased police transparency and accountability. Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have been promoted to further these goals through increasing oversight of police-citizen encounters. The implication is that BWCs will increase officer self-awareness and result in more equitable outcomes. Prior researchers have largely evaluated the direct impact of BWCs. Researchers have yet to examine the potential for BWCs to moderate the influence of neighborhood context in individual incidents.
To address this gap, I use Phoenix Police Department data collected as part of a three-year randomized-controlled trial of BWCs to examine variation in police discretion. These data include over 1.5 million police-citizen contacts nested within 826 officers and 388 neighborhoods. I examine two research questions. First, how do proactivity, arrests, and use of force vary depending on situational, officer, and neighborhood contexts? This provides a baseline for my next research question. Second, examining the same contexts and outcomes, do BWCs moderate the influence of neighborhood factors on police behavior? As such, I examine the untested, though heavily promoted, argument that BWCs will reduce the influence of extralegal factors on officer behavior.
Using cross-classified logistic regression models, I found that situational, officer, and neighborhood factors all influenced proactivity, arrest, and use of force. BWCs were associated with a lower likelihood of proactivity, but an increased likelihood of arrest and use of force. Officers were more proactive and were more likely to conduct arrests in immigrant and Hispanic neighborhoods. The moderating effects suggest that officers were even more likely to proactively initiate contacts and conduct arrests in immigrant and Hispanic neighborhoods when BWCs were activated. However, after BWCs were deployed, use of force was significantly less likely to occur in black neighborhoods. Given that high-profile police use of force incidents involving black suspects are often cited as a major impetus for the adoption of BWCs in American police agencies, this finding is a key contribution to the literature.
To address this gap, I use Phoenix Police Department data collected as part of a three-year randomized-controlled trial of BWCs to examine variation in police discretion. These data include over 1.5 million police-citizen contacts nested within 826 officers and 388 neighborhoods. I examine two research questions. First, how do proactivity, arrests, and use of force vary depending on situational, officer, and neighborhood contexts? This provides a baseline for my next research question. Second, examining the same contexts and outcomes, do BWCs moderate the influence of neighborhood factors on police behavior? As such, I examine the untested, though heavily promoted, argument that BWCs will reduce the influence of extralegal factors on officer behavior.
Using cross-classified logistic regression models, I found that situational, officer, and neighborhood factors all influenced proactivity, arrest, and use of force. BWCs were associated with a lower likelihood of proactivity, but an increased likelihood of arrest and use of force. Officers were more proactive and were more likely to conduct arrests in immigrant and Hispanic neighborhoods. The moderating effects suggest that officers were even more likely to proactively initiate contacts and conduct arrests in immigrant and Hispanic neighborhoods when BWCs were activated. However, after BWCs were deployed, use of force was significantly less likely to occur in black neighborhoods. Given that high-profile police use of force incidents involving black suspects are often cited as a major impetus for the adoption of BWCs in American police agencies, this finding is a key contribution to the literature.
ContributorsHuff, Jessica (Author) / Katz, Charles M. (Thesis advisor) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / Maguire, Edward R. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Mental illness creates a unique challenge for police. Changes in medical infrastructure have left many mentally ill without adequate access to resources or treatment. They often face additional challenges of substance abuse and homelessness. This has led to increasingly frequent contact with police and a shift from mental illness being treated as a health problem to being treated as a police problem. Police are unable to provide treatment, and are frustrated by the amount of their time consumed by persons with mental illness (PMI) and by the amount of time and effort it takes to connect them with treatment. Due to the unpredictable behavior often caused by mental illness and the way police are trained to deal with uncooperative behavior, persons suffering from mental illness are subject to the use of force by police at a disproportionate rate. Police are trying to combat these problems with the implementation of advanced training and the development of Crisis Intervention Teams and Mobile Response Units, as well as increasing connections with local medical facilities to promote treatment over arrest. Other strategies have been experimented with, both in the United States and across the globe, but there is currently a limited amount of research on how effective these programs are. Anecdotally, the most successful programs seem to be those that take a comprehensive approach to mental illness, creating solutions that include police, medical facilities, courts, dispatchers, first responders, and the community. Due to the limits of programs confined to one institution, it is recommended that treatment be expanded and police receive advanced training in dealing with mentally ill people, as well as involving others in the criminal justice and medical communities so that they provide a coordinated response to PMI.
ContributorsMcveety, Matthew James (Author) / Fradella, Hank (Thesis director) / Scott, Michael (Committee member) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05