Digital Commons Network^™

Collateral Visibility: A Socio-Legal Study Of Police Body Camera Adoption, Privacy, And Public Disclosure In Washington State, Bryce Clayton Newell

Indiana Law Journal

Law enforcement use of body-worn cameras has become a subject of significant public and scholarly debate in recent years. This Article presents findings from a study of the legal and social implications of body-worn camera adoption by two police departments in Washington State. In particular, this study focuses on the public disclosure of body-worn camera footage under Washington State’s public records act, state privacy law, and original empirical findings related to officer attitudes about—and perceptions of—the impact of these laws on their work, their own personal privacy, and the privacy of the citizens they serve. The law in Washington State …

The First Amendment And The Police In The Digital Age, Kermit V. Lipez

Maine Law Review

In almost thirty-two years as a judge, I have written over 1300 opinions. Each of these opinions was important to the parties involved, yet some have gained more prominence than others. This essay addresses one of those—a 2011 decision that involves the First Amendment, the complex relationship between the police and the communities they serve, and the revolution in communications technology. I emphasize two points as I begin. I have enormous respect for police officers and their work. They risk their lives on the job—a reality that we have seen far too often in recent years—and go to work every …

Bridging The Gap Between Police And Citizens: What We Know, What We've Done, And What Can Be Done, Melvin Colley

Justice

There is a long history of distrust between police and citizens and there have been no meaningful and sustained steps to correct this situation. Death and injuries are sustained by citizens and police, but still there has not been a real attempt to prevent this occurring because there is no trust between police and citizens and this lack of trust has created a rift or gap between police and citizens and this projects aim is to address the gap. Research into what causing damage and finding a way to repair the damaged relationship between police and citizens by way of …

Intutitve Decision-Making: Engagement, Agency, And Leverage, Roger E. Callese

All Capstone Projects

This project explored law enforcement decision-making through the review of decision-making literature, consideration of the Critical Decision Model (CDM), and semistructured interviews with law enforcement officers. In 2016, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) recommended the adoption and use of the CDM by law enforcement officers as a new way to approach tactical decisions. A review of the CDM suggests a linear, rational, weighing of options by officers. While this may be an excellent tool for slowly developing situations, for pre-mortems, or for debriefing, the CDM step four (identify options and determine best course of action) and step five (act, …

Commentary: Collaborative Problem Solving With Liquor Stores, Sharon Chamard

Vols 31-36 (2014-2019)

This article recounts the history of a successful community-based collaborative problem-solving process in the Fairview neighborhood in Anchorage to resolve a seemingly intractable public disorder problem associated with two area liquor stores. The story is an example of the "co-production of public safety" — residents actively working together with police and others to solve neighborhood problems, rather than waiting passively for police or other government officials to find solutions. The author is a member of the leadership of the Fairview Community Council and an academic and researcher with expertise in using community partnerships to address public safety concerns.

Third-Person Perceptions, Hostile Media Effects, And Policing: Developing A Theoretical Framework For Assessing The Ferguson Effect, Justin Nix, Justin T. Pickett

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Objectives

Policing in the United States has come under intense scrutiny following numerous deadly force incidents involving unarmed black citizens, which dominated the news media. Some have argued that consequently, a “chill wind” has blown through law enforcement, such that officers have become more distrustful of civilians, fearful of scandal, and are de-policing. To date, however, scholars have given insufficient theoretical and empirical attention to why and how media coverage of policing may lead to such outcomes.

Methods

We addressed this literature gap using data from a survey of officers in a metropolitan police department in the southeast.

Results

We …

Radio Dispatch Cognitive Abilities And Working Memory, David A. Buitron

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Public safety radio dispatchers incontrovertibly have to manage multiple tasks at any given time, from relaying lifesaving information to field units, to simultaneously overseeing several monitors and keeping up with the radio transmissions in a timely manner. Interestingly, however, the underlying cognitive abilities necessitated for performing such tasks have not been thoroughly investigated. To begin understanding the cognitive faculties that underlie dispatching tasks, we gauged cognitive ability measures relevant to dispatcher duties and introduced Working Memory Capacity (WMC) as underlying the differentiation on performance. The four general dispatcher cognitive factors identified by Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) literature, were …

Find My Criminals: Fourth Amendment Implications Of The Universal Cell Phone "App" That Every Cell Phone User Has But No Criminal Wants, Christopher Joseph

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Blurred Blue Line: Reform In An Era Of Public & Private Policing, Seth W. Stoughton

Faculty Publications

In April 2017, the Alabama Senate voted to authorize the formation of a new police department. Like other officers in the state, officers at the new agency would have to be certified by the Alabama Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission. These new officers would be “charged with all of the duties and invested with all of the powers of law enforcement officers.” Unlike most officers in Alabama, though, the officers at the new agency would not be city, county, or state employees. Instead, they would be working for the Briarwood Presbyterian Church, which Senate Bill 193 authorized to “appoint …

Who Should Own Police Body Camera Videos?, Laurent Sacharoff, Sarah Lustbader

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Numerous cities, states, and localities have adopted police body camera programs to enhance police accountability in the wake of repeated instances of police misconduct, as well as recent reports of more deep-seated police problems. These body camera programs hold great promise to achieve accountability, often backed by millions of dollars of federal grants.

But so far, this promise of accountability has gone largely unrealized, in part because police departments exercise near-total control over body camera programs and the videos themselves. In fact, the police view these programs chiefly as a tool of ordinary law enforcement rather than accountability — as …

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #2: Police, Race Relations And Attitudes Regarding The Homeless And Mentally Ill In Hampton Roads, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

[Introductory paragraph]

This report examines regional and sub-regional perceptions of crime and police from the 2017 Life In Hampton Roads survey (LIHR 2017) conducted by the Old Dominion University Social Science Research Center. Data from prior years is also provided when available to show comparisons in responses over time. Responses were weighted by city population, race, age, gender, and phone usage (cell versus land-line) to be representative of the Hampton Roads region.

Body-Worn Camera Perceptions Of Southwest Florida Citizens And Police Officers, Anthony D. Skolarus

School of Criminal Justice Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study explored if police officers wearing body-worn cameras contributed to an increased perception of safety among community members. Further emphasis centered on community support of body-worn cameras, officers who deployed the technology, and perceived trust of citizens geared at improving relations between police and the community. The current study set out to provide an evaluation of police body-worn cameras and their perceived safety impact on citizens (n=166). Perceptions of police officers (n=200) supporting the cameras were also examined in the sampling. A One-Same Binomial Test proved ninety-one percent of citizen respondents believed the cameras would enhance …

Protest Escalation: A Comparative Case Study Exploring Tools For Police For Successful Protest Engagement, Keziah Richards

MA IDS Thesis Projects

Civil order is an important aspect of a healthy democratic society, however the right to express dissatisfaction at the state of affairs is also important to a democracy. These two points come into conflict when protests escalate out of control or turn into riots. Utilizing a comparative case study methodology with a grounded theory framework, this study seeks to understand how different police actions in protests can escalate the event into a riot, what factors are present when this occurs, what are the situations which necessitate that police make turning point choices, and what tools or concepts can police apply …

Missing Police Body Camera Videos: Remedies, Evidentiary Fairness, And Automatic Activation, Mary D. Fan

Georgia Law Review

A movement toward police regulation by recording is
sweeping the nation. Responding to calls for
accountability, transparency and better evidence,
departments have rapidly adopted body cameras.
Recording policies require the police to record more law
enforcement encounters than ever before. But what
happens if officers do not record? This is an important,
growing area of controversy. Based on the collection
and coding of police department body camera policies,
this Article reveals widespread detection and
enforcement gaps regarding failures to record as
required. More than half of the major-city departments
in the sample have no provisions specifying
consequences for not recording …

Moonlighting: The Private Employment Of Off-Duty Officers, Seth W. Stoughton

Faculty Publications

Every day, law enforcement officers across the country don their uniforms, strap on their gun belts, and head to work. They carry the equipment and weapons that they have been issued, and they bear the badges that symbolize their authority, but they are not all reporting to the government agency that employs them. Instead, many are “moonlighting.” From directing traffic at a busy church parking lot to making arrests at a packed nightclub to using deadly force, uniformed off-duty officers exercise the full panoply of police powers while working for private employers.

The private employment of off-duty officers blurs the …

The Police-Community Partnership: Civilian Oversight As An Evaluation Tool For Community Policing., Nathan Witkin

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Citizen review boards (CRBs) tend to act as unofficial criminal courts for police misconduct. Without the binding, legal powers of the court, these civilian oversight bodies are often ineffective and draw resistance from law enforcement. “Community policing,” or community-oriented policing (COP) is a law enforcement strategy that emphasizes the use of problem-solving skills through community engagement and partnerships, but performance through arrests/citation statistics only. Without a process to evaluate public relations skills, the COP strategy encourages officers to reduce distance between them and the community while retaining a crime-fighting focus—a dynamic that increases tension and violence between police and crime-prone …

Stress Management Training, Gender, Level Of Stress, And Coping In Police Officers, Samantha Leigh Fields Salain

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Stress has lasting and sometimes fatal effects on the law enforcement community, which can compromise the well-being of police officers. To date, there is little research on factors that influence the level of stress in police officers. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to investigate the relationship of gender, used coping mechanisms, and levels of organizational and operational stress among police officers who have and have not received stress management training. Bandura's social learning theory and Lazarus and Folkman's theory of cognitive appraisal provided the theoretical foundation. Cross-sectional survey data from a convenience sample of 134 male and …

The Emerging American Police State: The Problem Is Not With The Police, But Higher Up, William E. Nelson

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Police Contact And Mental Health, Amanda Geller, Jeffrey Fagan, Tom R. Tyler

Faculty Scholarship

Although an effective police presence is widely regarded as critical to public safety, less is known about the effects of police practices on mental health and community wellbeing. Adolescents and young adults in specific neighborhoods of urban areas are likely to experience assertive contemporary police practices. This study goes beyond research on policing effects on legal socialization to assess the effects of police contact on the mental health of those stopped by the police. We collected and analyzed data in a two wave survey of young men in New York City (N=717) clustered in the neighborhoods with the highest rates …

Society's Views Of Law Enforcement Use Of Force, Roxann Marie Fisk

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Individuals observe their surroundings and naturally judge others by what they observe or

hear. In recent media portrayals, law enforcement officers were scrutinized for use of

force and individuals were quick to verbalize their interpretation of events. Bandura's

social learning theory served as a focal lens to guide the study. This qualitative

phenomenological study examined lived experiences and what factors influence public

perception of law enforcement use of force. Interviews were conducted with 10

participants who have encountered or witnessed law enforcement officers utilize use of

force during a citizen encounter. NVivo software was used to code and analyze themes …

Investigating Barriers To Mental Health Care In Law Enforcement Officers, Samantha F. Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The profession of law enforcement is an inherently stressful job. Although the physical stress of the job is often discussed, the mental health impact on officers is often ignored, resulting in poor mental health and increased risk for suicide. The purpose of the current study was to investigate factors related to the reluctance of law enforcement officers (LEOs) to seeking treatment, as well as to gain an understanding of the prevalence rates of disorders in a law enforcement population. Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants (N = 306) across a variety of agencies. Correlation, moderated regression analysis, and structural …

Why Arrest?, Rachel A. Harmon

Michigan Law Review

Arrests are the paradigmatic police activity. Though the practice of arrests in the United States, especially arrests involving minority suspects, is under attack, even critics widely assume the power to arrest is essential to policing. As a result, neither commentators nor scholars have asked why police need to make arrests. This Article takes up that question, and it argues that the power to arrest and the use of that power should be curtailed. The twelve million arrests police conduct each year are harmful not only to the individual arrested but also to their families and communities and to society as …

Learning From Ferguson: African American Attitudes Towards Community Policing In Saint Louis, David Graham

Theses

This study combines an American Political Development approach to researching the history of racial segregation in Saint Louis with quantitative data focusing on African American attitudes related to politics, police and social prejudice following the civil unrest in Ferguson and Saint Louis City. The research I present emphasizes that decades of race-based municipal segregation in the Saint Louis area has combined with recent events and caused a majority of African American residents to become more suspicious of white police officers patrolling their neighborhoods

“Lord Forgive Me, But He Tried To Kill Me”*: Proposing Solutions To The United States’ Most Vexing Racial Challenges, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

How The City Of Indianapolis Came To Have African American Policemen And Firemen 80 Years Before The Modern Civil Rights Movement., Leon E. Bates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores a series of events that occurred in the spring of 1876. The relationship between the Indianapolis city government, the Marion County Courts, the Indianapolis Police Department, and the African American community came together to usher in changes never before envisioned. The Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) was formed in 1855, then disbanded 12 months later in a political dispute. From 1857-to-1876, the IPD was all white. These changes took place as the Reconstruction era was coming to a close. The first Ku Klux Klan was at its apex, terrorizing black communities, and Jim Crow was coming into its …

Police Funding Arrangements In Engand And Wales: Report To The Nrcn, Ajs Gibson, S Asthana

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

Informant Witnesses And The Risk Of Wrongful Convictions, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

Several studies in the last two decades have revealed that false criminal informant testimony is a leading factor in wrongful convictions, along with false confessions, eyewitness misidentification, and faulty forensic science. Although a great deal more remains to be done, many jurisdictions have implemented evidence-based reforms to these last three categories of evidence. Policy about criminal informants, however, seems to be stubbornly stagnant, and relevant social science is virtually nonexistent. This Article questions the relative lack of attention to informant testimony and suggests that the dangers posed by informant testimony are both greater and different than previously thought. Unlike much …

Characteristics Of Newly-Hired Members Of The New York City Police Department As Predictors Of Subsequent Job Performance, Francis E. Spangenberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It would be advantageous for law enforcement agencies if it could be determined which applicants for employment were most likely to provide superior performance over the course of their careers. In order to do this, it is necessary to determine a) what constitutes superior performance by police officers, b) what measurements can be used to record such performance, and c) if there are characteristics known about newly-hired police recruits that can serve as predictors of superior performance over an extended career. This study looked at the career histories of the 1,707 members of the New York City Police Department class …

To Promote Or Not To Promote: An Inquiry Into The Experiences Of Female Police Officers And Their Decisions To Pursue Promotion, Kristin Poleski

Dissertations

Despite an increase in the number of female police officers in U.S. police agencies, female representation in supervisory (sergeant and lieutenant) and command (captain, assistant chief and chief) positions in most agencies is limited. This research study focuses on the promotional aspirations as an explanation of limited female representation with attention to the decision-making criteria female police officers use when deciding to participate in the promotional process. This study also examines the institutional, political, organizational structures, and/or personal factors which may impact the female police officers’ decisions to participate in the promotion process. And, this study examines a factor mentioned …

Lockdown In Manchester Is A Slippery Slope, Risa Evans

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "Liberty. Security. Both are essential to a good life. But of course, neither is absolute, and at times circumstances demand that a society trade some measure of liberty for security. The tricky part is deciding when and how to draw the line."