Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Law Enforcement’S Use Of Facial Recognition Software In United States Cities, Samantha Jean Wunschel

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Facial recognition software is something we use every day, whether it’s a suggested tag on our Facebook post or a faster way to unlock our phones. As technology becomes increasingly pervasive in our lives, law enforcement has adapted to utilize the new tools available in accessory to their investigations and the legal process.

The Yakuza: Organized Crime In Japan, Darlene N. Moorman

The Downtown Review

Examining organized crime groups should not be purely economic; in other words, the culture, social structure, political contexts, and so on, are also critical in an insightful analysis of any organized crime group. For this paper, the Japanese yakuza are considered both in an economic viewpoint, such as how they make money, but also in other areas, such as its syndicates' notable cultural contributions and specific social characteristics. Moreover, this paper explores the dynamic changing of the organization overtime, especially in regards to its shifting relationship with the Japanese government.

Justifying Force: Police Procedurals And The Normalization Of Violence, Emily Brenner

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

Much like the CSI effect in forensic crime dramas, portrayals of law enforcement in crime media can potentially skew a viewer’s perception of what the profession actually entails. Many studies address the depiction of law enforcement in the media, but few solely examine the use of force by television police officers, and the impact this may have on frequent viewers. In an era of calls for accountability over growing attention towards police brutality and misconduct, the media as an influencer has the potential to play a role in how real-world instances of brutality are perceived, and more importantly, how it …

Dirty Johns: Prosecuting Prostituted Women In Pennsylvania And The Need For Reform, Mckay Lewis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Prostitution is as old as human civilization itself. Throughout history, public attitudes toward prostituted women have varied greatly. But adverse consequences of the practice—usually imposed by men purchasing sexual services—have continuously been present. Prostituted women have regularly been subject to violence, discrimination, and indifference from their clients, the general public, and even law enforcement and judicial officers.

Jurisdictions can choose to adopt one of three general approaches to prostitution regulation: (1) criminalization; (2) legalization/ decriminalization; or (3) a hybrid approach known as the Nordic Model. Criminalization regimes are regularly associated with disparate treatment between prostituted women and their clients, high …

Encounters Between The Elderly And Law Enforcement: An Overview Of Mental Illness, Addictions, Victims And Criminals

Contemporary Southern Psychology

Abstract

The elderly population is growing dramatically throughout the world. Out of this growth comes an increase in the number of encounters between the aged and law enforcement. These encounters occur because of a variety of factors including mental illnesses and addictions. Furthermore, older adults may be victims as evidenced in different forms of abuse such as physical, emotional, or financial abuse. Sadly, some documentation exists that older adults are committing more crimes. Multiple reasons have been postulated for these crimes including poverty, jealousy, and boredom. All of these different situations with the aged have created an increase in the …

Influence Of Career Orientation And Expectations On Levels Of Burnout In Law Enforcement Officers- An Exploratory Study, Kelsey A. Keady

MSU Graduate Theses

Law enforcement officers will encounter many stressors in their careers. These stressors originate from a variety of sources and prolonged exposure can result in many negative outcomes, including burnout. This is especially concerning, as burnout can result in poorer work performance and more negative interactions with those whom these individuals serve. While burnout should be a significant source of concern, there is relatively little research on different factors that may contribute to burnout. In 1980, Cherniss proposed four career orientations: Self-investors, Social Activists, Careerists, and Artisans. Research has supported that different orientations experience different outcomes and levels of burnout. Another …

The Public Health Crisis Of Law Enforcement’S Over-Use Of Force, Mary E. Helander, Austin Mcneill Brown

Population Health Research Brief Series

The overuse of police force has public health implications. The rates of injury and death sustained while in law enforcement custody should be collected as a part of the public health strategy to minimize the over-use of force.

Assessing The Strategic Use Of Evidence Using A Psychologically Realistic Paradigm: Improving Diagnosticity Of Elicited Information In The Interrogation Room, Amelia R. Mindthoff

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) is an interrogation method that uses strategic timing (e.g., early vs. late disclosure) and framing of evidence disclosure to elicit verbal cues that can help interrogators discriminate between liars and truth-tellers. Despite mounting empirical support for its efficacy, there are gaps in the SUE literature that the present research addresses (e.g., studying SUE using a psychologically realistic interrogation paradigm). In Study 1, community members engaged in a supposed government-funded knowledge test. During testing, a research assistant posing as another participant prompted (guilty condition) or did not prompt (innocent condition) participants to cheat. An interrogator …

The Health Consequences Of Riot Control Methods, Austin Mcneill Brown

Population Health Research Brief Series

Riot control tactics pose a risk to the health and safety of protestors. This issue brief examines the health implications of riot control methods such as tear gas, pepper spray, and “less than lethal” munitions and the role of such techniques in recent protests.

Serving And Protecting People With Mental Illness And/Or Developmental Disabilities: An Evaluation Of The Los Angeles Sheriff Department’S Field Operations Crisis Intervention Skills Program, Veronica Plascencia, Melissa Mcdonald

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT The Los Angeles Sheriff Department’s Field Operations Crisis Intervention Skills (FOCIS) program is a collaborative effort aimed at preparing law enforcement officers for crises that involve individuals with severe mental illness and/or developmental disabilities. That is, the ultimate goal of the program is to train officers to serve, protect, and build connections with the community’s most vulnerable citizens. Embracing a pre-experimental design, this study assessed the effectiveness and applicability of the FOCIS program among 53 law enforcement officers in Los Angeles County. Findings from non-parametric analyses revealed that the FOCIS training increased officers’ knowledge on mental illness and developmental …

Psychopathy And Police Officers: A Cross-Sectional Analysis Of The Relationship Between Psychopathic Traits And Police Work Across Temporal Factors, Hunter N. Moore

Student Theses

It’s estimated that psychopathic personalities constitute about 1% of the general population but is seen at elevated rates in particularly stressful and harsh environments (Babiak & Hare, 2006; Hare, 1996). A career in law enforcement is one known to be uniquely stressful (Lucas et al., 2012), and the trauma from their career seems to be having an impact on their personality (Wills & Schuldberg, 2016). While psychopathy traits have been reported in police officers (Próchniak, 2012), these traits have yet to be assessed as a function of time. The current study explores these relationships by assessing psychopathy traits, as measured …

Understanding Body-Worn Camera Diffusion In U.S. Policing, Justin Nix, Natalie Todak, Brandon Tregle

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

By 2016, approximately one half of American police agencies had adopted body-worn cameras (BWCs). Although a growing body of research has examined the impact of BWCs on outcomes such as use of force, complaints, and perceptions of police, few have considered how and why some agencies adopted BWCs, while others have not. With guidance from the diffusion of innovations paradigm, this study explores variation in BWC adoption by police agencies. Drawing on a survey administered to a national probability sample of 665 municipal police executives in the spring of 2018, we found agency size, region, and the demographic composition of …

Digital Forensic Readiness: An Examination Of Law Enforcement Agencies In The State Of Maryland, James B. Mcnicholas Iii

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

Digital forensic readiness within the law enforcement community, especially at the local level, has gone mostly unexplored. As a result, a current lack of data exists that examines the digital forensic readiness of individual agencies, the possibility of proximity relationships, and correlations between readiness and backlogs. This quantitative, crosssectional research study sought to explore these issues by focusing on the state of Maryland. The study resulted in the creation of a digital forensic readiness scoring model that was then used to assign digital forensic readiness scores to thirty (30) of the one-hundred-forty-one (141) law enforcement agencies throughout Maryland. It was …

Public’S Perception Of Law Enforcement In Schools, Amarielis Morales

Criminology Student Work

Law Enforcement is inserted into schools all over the United States to ensure the school’s safety. Law Enforcement and community relationships are most important in developing trust between law enforcement and schools, including staff, students, and families. Once trust is established, law enforcement in schools is utilized by providing their services to better the school’s community. This research aims to get an insight into how people currently feel about law enforcement and what people would want from law enforcement in schools. Which raises the question, what does the public think about law enforcement in schools? The sample includes people above …

Clergy & Police A Semiotic Analysis Of Clergy On Patrol, Ricardo Estevan Reyes

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

The Clergy On Patrol (COP) program is a collaboration between the Norfolk Police Department and community faith leaders of the Norfolk Urban Renewal Center. This study analyzed themes and patterns in the communicative relationship between police and clergy members, using a semiotic approach and the scholarship of intergroup communication. Additionally, an added secondary analysis of media coverage helped focus the results of the study using themes. This thesis merged the two semiotic analyses to examine a style of community policing that has lacked a closer eye.

This thesis guided itself by the argument that clergy-police collaborative programs structure …

Initial Reliability And Validity For The Critical Hire® - Screen, Tony Tatman, Matthew T. Huss

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Although the use of integrity testing during the application process has become a frequent practice in general business settings, their use has been rather nonexistent in the field of corrections. This limited use may stem from a lack of awareness about integrity tests in corrections, as well as a lack of integrity measures that have been normed and validated for use with correctional applicants. This study outlines the development, reliability, and validity for the Critical Hire®-Screen (CH-S), an overt integrity assessment measure developed for probation, parole, and other correctional officer job applicants. Four separate studies were conducted and provide evidence …

Show Me, Don’T Tell Me: A Picturesque View Of Perceptions Of Police, Nancy Marion, Jason Twede

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

A positive relationship between law enforcement and the public is critical for the effective operation of the agency and continued safety of the community. The public’s perception of law enforcement officers is one indication of the nature of that relationship. Past research on perception of the police has used questionnaires to untangle how the public views officers. This research uses an alternative method to measure the public’s perceptions of the police by asking respondents to draw a picture of a police officer. By analyzing the drawings, it can be seen what characteristics people identify with law enforcement. This study analyzed …

The Development Of The Rapport Scales For Investigative Interviews And Interrogations, Observer Version (Rs3i-O), Justin Loren Magee

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Rapport between an interviewer and a source is a vital component of successful investigative interviews and interrogations. Accurate measurement of rapport in these interactions is crucial to understanding its development and maintenance. The Rapport Scales for Investigative Interviews and Interrogations, Source version (RS3i-S; Duke et al., 2018) was developed to measure sources' perception of rapport, but no tool has been developed to measure rapport from a third-party observer's perspective. The primary purpose of this study was to develop the Rapport Scales for Investigative Interviews and Interrogations, Observer version (RS3i-O), a tool that allows observers to rate the rapport generated in …

Expressions Of Sexual Deviance In Black Serial Killers, Lucia J. Weatherall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The number of Black serial killers (BSKs) has increased, but empirical studies have not focused on this unique population, including their expressions of sexual deviance. The purpose of this case study was to understand the common socialization experiences and the expressions of sexual deviance in BSKs. Two conceptual frameworks were used to identify the concepts to explore: Bandura’s social learning theory of aggression and Agnew’s general strain theory. Data collected came from archival court and police records in Texas. A content-analysis approach was used to analyze the archival data, organized by criminal background, sexual deviance, familial data, and social development. …

There Are Always Two Sides To Policy: Police Use Of Deadly Force, Jana Cole

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This qualitative phenomenological study examined the policy-specific, perceptional, and conceptual knowledge that citizens have regarding policing policies and police-citizen deadly force encounters to gain a greater understanding of how media, social media, and community leaders impact this public knowledge. This study provided insight into the public’s policy-specific knowledge and perceptions about policing policies and police-citizen deadly force incidents filling the gap within the existing police use of force literature. Bittner’s theory on policing, constructionism of reality, and the exemplification theory were used in a unique conceptual framework to understand this phenomenon. Interviews were conducted with 19 members of the public. …

Use Of Machine Learning To Predict Ethical Drift In Law Enforcement, Ryan Mann

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

U.S. law enforcement agencies are facing a legitimacy crisis. Incidents of police misconduct are the subject of widespread media coverage. Officer conduct continues to be a problem despite effectiveness of candidate screening. Underlying causes of ethical drift must be understood to reduce police misconduct. The purpose of this nonexperimental quantitative study was to examine the relationship between police ethical drift and agency size, officer age, officer gender, and officer education level. Ethical drift was the conceptual framework. Archival secondary data from local law enforcement agencies and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission were obtained …

Stress And Coping Strategies Of Female 911 Emergency Telecommunicators, Briana Denise Kelley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Emergency number 9-1-1 is the most widely known and used telephone number in the United States and Canada, yet turnover, understaffing, and low retention of staff are national concerns in 9-1-1 emergency telecommunication centers. Emergency (9-1-1) telecommunicators are often the “first” first responder in the emergency cycle and are responsible for the collection and dissemination of emergency information to police, fire, and medical units. Resilience theory was utilized to see how some individuals adjust, adapt, and assimilate with presenting environmental stressors and/or conditions. This study of female emergency telecommunicators in a Southern Combined Emergency Dispatch Center explored the stressors …

Misdemeanors By The Numbers, Sandra G. Mayson, Megan T. Stevenson

All Faculty Scholarship

Recent scholarship has underlined the importance of criminal misdemeanor law enforcement, including the impact of public-order policing on communities of color, the collateral consequences of misdemeanor arrest or conviction, and the use of misdemeanor prosecution to raise municipal revenue. But despite the fact that misdemeanors represent more than three-quarters of all criminal cases filed annually in the United States, our knowledge of misdemeanor case processing is based mostly on anecdote and extremely localized research. This Article represents the most substantial empirical analysis of misdemeanor case processing to date. Using multiple court-record datasets, covering several million cases across eight diverse jurisdictions, …

Race And Reasonableness In Police Killings, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Alexis D. Campbell

Faculty Scholarship

Police officers in the United States have killed over 1000 civilians each year since 2013. The constitutional landscape that regulates these encounters defaults to the judgments of the reasonable police officer at the time of a civilian encounter based on the officer’s assessment of whether threats to their safety or the safety of others requires deadly force. As many of these killings have begun to occur under similar circumstances, scholars have renewed a contentious debate on whether police disproportionately use deadly force against African Americans and other nonwhite civilians and whether such killings reflect racial bias. We analyze data on …