Matching Items (23)
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- All Subjects: Police
- Creators: School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
- Creators: Wallace, Danielle
Description
Effectiveness and efficiency of the police have been contentious topics from the public perspective. Police departments have developed policies to help better their patrol officers' effectiveness on the streets in both quality and timeliness. Although there have been few recent studies about the response time of officers to calls for service, this is a subject that should not go overlooked. As an important aspect to the patrol officer's repertoire, response time can have effects on the community and its perception on the police. This study uses a multi-level modeling approach to examine the effects of incident and neighborhood factors on police response time within a medium size Southwest city. Police departments use a scale to determine the priority of a call for service, commonly referred to as the PRI. This index scale was found to have the most effect on the response times, while a few cyclical patterns were obtained of level 1 variables. Neighborhood characteristics showed significant effects, measuring structural disadvantage, however, caution should be used in generalizing these findings to other public jurisdictions.
ContributorsSullivan, Eamon (Author) / Ready, Justin (Thesis advisor) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / Katz, Charles (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Society places great trust in the police to uphold and protect the law. People who have a duty to protect (vs. no duty) and violate the institution they are supposed to safeguard are often judged more harshly. I test whether people will punish an on-duty police officers more severely for committing a violent crime compared to an off-duty officer or a civilian. I hypothesized that this effect might be enhanced when a perpetrator commits a violent crime against an African-American compared to a Caucasian. Furthermore, I predicted that this effect will be exacerbated after highly publicized controversial incidents of police use-of-force. In a mock jury paradigm involving a defendant who committed a violent crime, I found that the protective role of the perpetrator and race of the victim did not affect punishment judgments. Participants did, however, punish defendants less and identified with police more after a highly publicized incident (the Ferguson grand jury decision) compared to before the incident.
ContributorsSanchez, Manuel Justin (Author) / Salerno, Jessica (Thesis director) / Schweitzer, Nicholas (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
DescriptionAn analysis of police reform failure through prior literature and officer feedback.
ContributorsNelson, Wednesday Mae (Author) / Telep, Cody (Thesis director) / Wright, Kevin (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Department of Military Science (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Though problem-oriented policing and hot spot policing are both effective modern policing strategies, some critics have argued that the risk of crime displacement can outweigh the returns of hot spot policing, ultimately rendering it inefficacious. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that crime displacement is not only uncommon, but significantly rarer than diffusions of benefits. As diffusion is a desirable side effect of any policing strategy, it follows that police officers should use the phenomenon to their advantage. Using the data and methodologies of a number of hot spot policing studies—especially Koper’s (1995) research on temporal diffusion—this paper proposes a number of simple steps a police department can take to maximize their department’s effectiveness in high-crime areas.
ContributorsShermett, Nathanael Paul (Author) / White, Michael (Thesis director) / Sweeten, Gary (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Police use of force is a controversial practice on both the political stage and by scholars of criminal justice. Scholarly research has highlighted best practice for police departments’ use of force policies. Diverging from these policies may produce ineffective and harmful use of force practices within departments. Because of these potential consequences of police departments diverging from research-based evidence, it is necessary to identify when recommended policy is not being utilized. The purpose of this study is to identify whether there are points of dissent or congruence between criminal justice scholars and police departments with regards to use of force policy. Efforts have been made to empirically identify best practices of use of force policy. The findings of this study indicate that points of dissent do exist in the policies of police departments in the U.S. and the policy recommendations of criminal justice scholars. The implications of these findings include reform to the use of force policies of police departments to more accurately reflect the policies recommended by scholars in the use of force.
ContributorsThu, Katrina Lauren (Author) / Montes, Andrea (Thesis director) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Police use of force is a controversial practice on both the political stage and by scholars of criminal justice. Scholarly research has highlighted best practice for police departments’ use of force policies. Diverging from these policies may produce ineffective and harmful use of force practices within departments. Because of these potential consequences of police departments diverging from research-based evidence, it is necessary to identify when recommended policy is not being utilized. The purpose of this study is to identify whether there are points of dissent or congruence between criminal justice scholars and police departments with regards to use of force policy. Efforts have been made to empirically identify best practices of use of force policy. The findings of this study indicate that points of dissent do exist in the policies of police departments in the U.S. and the policy recommendations of criminal justice scholars. The implications of these findings include reform to the use of force policies of police departments to more accurately reflect the policies recommended by scholars in the use of force.
ContributorsThu, Katrina Lauren (Author) / Montes, Andrea (Thesis director) / Wallace, Danielle (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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
Description
Police use of force and race often garners a good deal of attention, however it is also important to understand the influence of gender when dealing with male-dominate populations, like police officers. The current study aims to add to the current body of literature by using data from seven cities to examine the relationship between officer gender and police use of force, as well as officer gender and citizen resistance. In relation to use of force, the results show that male officers used significantly less force than female officers. In terms of citizen resistance, the results indicate that officer gender had no effect. Additionally, a number of control variables were significantly related to police use of force and citizen resistance. The implications of these findings are discussed.
ContributorsWeiser, Marah Brooke (Author) / William, Terrill (Thesis director) / Trinkner, Rick (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
A Regional Analysis of Police Shootings Through Local Media Coverage studies broadcast reports of officer-involved shootings in the most dangerous cities across the country in order to determine if bias is present while providing readers with a tool they can use to analyze officer-involved shooting stories in their own community. Based on the geographical regions of the United States, the website analyzes the most dangerous city of the region and the most dangerous city in the most dangerous state in the region. For each city, a random broadcast piece is selected from the local media coverage. I then created a list of 10 points journalists should be aware of when reporting on officer-involved shootings. I used this list to break down and analyze how the story fared against my list. In the beginning of this process, I believed that all local media would have a slight bias depending on the region from which they were reporting. In my original hypothesis, I believed that the reports from the West would be against police, reports from the South and Southwest would be pro police, reports from the Midwest would be against police, and reports from the Northeast would be pro police. After analysis, many of the reports did not show any obvious bias. I wanted this project to be a tool readers and viewers could use in order to learn more about officer-involved shootings. With the help of my checklist, viewers would be able to then analyze stories on officer-involved shootings and determine the quality of the reporting. Not only did this project open my eyes to the different reporting styles that could be used to report an officer-involved shooting, it instilled a deeper sense of pride for local journalism. Even through the recent eruptions surrounding officer-involved shootings, the stories I analyzed continue to stick to journalistic ethics and remain unbiased, even in breaking news.
ContributorsIsenberg, Sydney Elizabeth (Author) / Dunn, Heather (Thesis director) / Johnston, Coy (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In the wake of in-custody deaths of civilians at the hands of police officers, body-worn cameras (BWCs) have entered the national conversation as a possible tool to increase officer accountability, build trust, and potentially prevent these incidents. Current research looks promising, as rates of complaints filed against officers tend to drop after BWCs are implemented; however, any research surrounding the subject is still new and there are few existing empirical studies that focus on BWCs. The success or failure of BWC pilot programs going forward will have a large influence on future law enforcement policy and officer-citizen interactions. In this study, surveys were administered to officers from the Spokane, WA Police Department throughout 2015 and the Tempe, AZ Police Department from 2015 to 2016. The surveys gathered officer opinions on a range of issues, such as how they believe citizens and officers will act in the presence of a BWC, their use in completing incident reports, and their role in collecting and presenting evidence. This paper examines current police officers' views on BWCs, their possible benefits and setbacks, and how their implementation might factor into law enforcement practices.
ContributorsPatterson, Quin (Author) / White, Michael (Thesis director) / Gaub, Janne (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12