Digital Commons Network^™

Nipping Crime In The Bud: The Spatial Relationship Between Crime And Meeting People’S Needs, Alicia Cerquone

LSU Master's Theses

The recent high-profile killings of people by the police brought attention to police violence, and prompted activists to call for an end to police violence. Drawing from an understanding of strain theory (Merton, 1938; Farnworth & Leiber, 1989; Agnew, 1992; Agnew, 2001; Agnew, 2008) and Tucker and Cadora’s (2003) ideas of justice reinvestment, this research was designed with the belief that police funding can be better used to help people meet their basic needs of housing, healthcare, and education. This research is concerned with the spatial relationship between crime and the quality of social infrastructure, or the programs in place …

Stress And Trauma-Related Concerns Among Law Enforcement, James Hughes

Master of Arts in Human Services

Law enforcement personnel work in environments with routine exposure to high stress and trauma which can lead to increased risk for mental health conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The purpose of this study was to learn about the prevalence and effects of PTSD and related mental health issues among law enforcement (LE) officers and how psychological issues are managed within the LE system. An explanatory sequential mixed methods design strategy was used that involved collecting quantitative data first and then explaining the results with in-depth follow-up qualitative data. In the first quantitative phase of the study, data was …

Calls Grow To Give New York's Ccrb More Power, Despite Police Resistance, Stephen Wentzell, Anastasia Tomkin, Moses Bustos, Olivia Graffeo

Capstones

This group capstone project, which was completed in the Criminal Justice Reporting Lab, is an investigative article exploring the current state of New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). Through more than a dozen interviews with complainants, board members, politicians, law enforcement, and others, the article highlights the push for the CCRB to have the authority to enforce disciplinary measures against police who are found to have engaged in misconduct. The article is accompanied by a video, with captions available in English and Spanish, that features bodycam footage from an incident involving police and our central compelling character who …

The Impact Of Peer Support, Ptsd Symptoms, And Attitudes Towards Seeking Mental Help In Police Officers, Cassandra Mary Ferraro

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study to determine if there is a statistically significant difference in perceived stress, self-reported post-traumatic stress symptoms, and mental help seeking attitudes in police officers who use peer support programs and those who do not use peer support programs. Police officers are consistently exposed to stress and trauma that has negative biological, physical, and mental health effects, leaving officers at risk for the development of mental health diseases and disorders. Identifying the need for mental health resources, and peer support groups are recommended; however, there is not enough literature to determine its effectiveness. The recovery model …

Code Blue: How Police And Health Care Providers Disrupt Healing For Violently Injured Black Men, Cherrell Green

Kroc IPJ Research and Resources

While Black males are disproportionately impacted by gun homicide, they are also grossly impacted by non-fatal shootings. The impact of gun violence extends far beyond the immediate physical harm inflicted by bullets; this harm can permeate and disrupt personal relationships, create lasting psychological distress, and undermine a sense of safety within communities. However, the needs of injured Black men are often overlooked in public discourse. Despite the prevalence of these traumatic experiences in the lives of low-income Black men, their response to trauma is often treated as pathology, with fewer resources devoted to addressing the adverse consequences associated with these …

Investigating For A Relationship Between Race/Ethnicity And The Presence Of A Mental Health Crisis Among Individuals Involved In A Fatal Police Encounter In Texas, Unaleshia O. Jackson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Mental illness is emerging in the United States as a public concern. In 2021, an estimated 60 million adults in the United States were affected by mental illness (National Institute of Mental Health, 2023). Mental illness is increasingly becoming a topic of conversation among households, churches, schools, and workplaces due to the diminishing of societal stigmas. Ongoing discussions among researchers underline the different manifestations and demographic disparities in the effects of mental illness. A 12-month study revealed a higher prevalence of mood, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders among non-Latino whites. In reference to Asians, African Americans, and Latinos, mood disorders …

Mass Exodus? Police Officer Turnover Intention And Organizational Commitment In New York City, Kenneth M. Quick, Kevin T. Wolff

Publications and Research

Purpose – This study assesses the relationship between job satisfaction, perceived organizational support, and workplace factors on officer turnover intention within an urban, municipal police organization.

Design/methodology/approach – Using data from an online survey of New York City Police Officers (n=1,823), both bivariate analysis and logistic regression models were utilized to assess the salience of police officer job satisfaction, perceived organizational support, and perception of six workplace domains, including financial compensation, environmental factors, professional fulfillment, work/quality of life balance, treatment from management, and occupational risk on predicting turnover intention.

Findings – The cross-sectional study finds that job satisfaction, financial factors …

The Importance Of Policing, Stephen Rushin

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Civil Liability Views Of U.S. Midwestern Police, Daniel Hall, Morris Jenkins, Eric Lambert, Shanon L. Gillette, Yung Hyeock Lee

Justice, Law, and Public Safety Studies Department Faculty Conferences

In the past several years, there has been a greater social call for police officers to be civilly and/or criminally liable for their actions. It is unclear if concern for liability exists today among police officers and if this concern influences how officers interaction with community members. The current study explored the civil and criminal liability views of police officers and if officers feel that this liability changed how they provide services. Data for this survey came from a recent survey of police officers in the U.S. Midwest. The results will be presented and discussed

"They Just Looked At Me Like I Didn't Matter"- The Experiences Of Assaulted Lgbtq+ Women With The Police, Katherine Poehlmann

LLM Theses

Research reveals that LGBTQ+ women are subjected to high rates of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). It is widely known that most victim-survivors of SGBV do not report it to the police and when they do, they usually have negative experiences, often due to the influence of myths and stereotypes on police officers’ attitudes and conduct. LGBTQ+ communities are known to be subjected to a multitude of myths and stereotypes that perpetuate violence against them, particularly in the case of highly marginalized subgroups (e.g., trans women, bisexual women). Little attention has been paid, particularly in the Canadian context, to the …

A Bird’S Eye View Of Crime: Assessing The Effectiveness Of Mobile Watchtowers On Vehicle-Related Thefts, James D. Kelsay, Ian A. Silver, Jaya B. Davis, Brook Rollins

Open Initiatives Grant Funded Publications-Archive

Objective Recent reports suggest that thefts of vehicles and thefts from vehicles have increased significantly over the last several years. Some police agencies have turned to mobile surveillance watchtowers to address this problem. This study examines the effectiveness of these mobile watchtowers at reducing vehicle-related thefts in Arlington, Texas.

Methods An interrupted time series analysis is used to determine whether the use of mobile watchtowers reduces the frequency of vehicle-related thefts.

Results The watchtowers are associated with a small, but significant, decrease in vehicle-related thefts. However, this effect appears to decay over time.

Conclusion Mobile watchtowers may be a viable …

Emotional Labor, Worker Solidarity, And Safety Concerns Among Police And Nurses, Elizabeth A. Hoffmann, Emily Shinsky

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

To understand the connections among emotional labor, solidarity, and safety, this study interviewed 19 police officers and 20 nurses. Data analysis with words as the unit of analysis engaged both deductive and inductive processes. This qualitative study demonstrates that, despite numerous differences, both nursing and police have a professional focus on safety. However, while nurses’ safety concerns are first for their patients, police offers’ first concern of safety must be for themselves and their co-workers. Additionally, nurses and police differ in why they perform emotional labor. Nurses engaged in emotional labor in order for their charges to feel closer to …

The Influence Of Eyewitnesses And Police Tip Line Reports: An Exploratory Case Study Of A 2005 Homicide, Abigail Rose Torres

Dissertations and Theses

Public tip lines provide the public to provide information to the police when there is an ongoing investigation. These public tip lines could increase investigations where the public is being made aware of the investigation, increasing the amount of information being brought forward. Research focuses on how tips reporting is similar to eyewitnesses in that individuals recall information. The literature illustrates how the media can influence the tips. The study is an exploratory content analysis looking at potential themes or patterns that emerged from analyzing the tips and patterns of the tip line and media files related to an Illinois …

The Policing/Mediation Nexus: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of The Journey From Police Officer To Certified Mediator, Wendell C. Wallace

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

By their very nature, policing and mediation are viewed as disparate professions. However, since the inception of policing, police officers have traditionally been involved in managing and handling conflict situations and thus, mediation type interventions have historically been an important component of police work. For the most part, police officers are untrained in mediation; however, many police officers are comfortable serving as go-between for neighbors, families, and communities in conflict using their intuition. As a result of acting as a ‘mediator’ for conflicting parties, without any formal mediation training, many former and current police officers eventually engage in mediation training …

Who Do Civilian Review Boards Serve And Protect? Applying Andre Gorz’S Non-Reformist Reform Theoretical Framework To Empirical Analysis From New York State, Jackson Diamond

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the wake of countless high-profile instances of police violence and repression against civilians in the United States, waves of reformation have washed over American police departments. Some have questioned the efficacy of these reforms, as civilians continue to suffer acts of violence at the hands of the police. One such reform measure, adopted broadly in recent years, is the creation of civilian police review boards. To analyze how this reform has affected citizens’ ability to hold their police departments accountable for their actions, I analyzed a sample of 89 municipal police departments in New York state in the year …

Police-Made Law, Brenner M. Fissell

Faculty Publications

This Article presents evidence that police are writing laws that they enforce. This newly discovered phenomenon compounds the existing understanding of police “making” law through the exercise of discretion. They make law in a far more direct way, functioning as quasi-legislators at the local level—identifying a social problem, drafting an offense to address it, and directly proposing their offense for enactment. The conduct targeted, and the reasons for doing so, are diverse. For example, in one city a police chief successfully criminalized public intoxication so that intoxicated people would go to jails instead of hospitals; in another, a chief pushed …

A Review Of Terms Related To Race In School Psychology Journals, Malyra Bendson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Black Lives Matter movement has been an increasing movement since the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. Over the next decade there has been an increase in the movement due to Black lives continuing to be lost at the hands of police. School psychologists play a key role in supporting the mental health of students within schools. It is essential that research discuss how to best support students who have been affected by this movement as children have witnessed, so much on television and social media over the years. The current review explores whether these sociopolitical issues have also …

Social Undermining Among Police Officers In The United States., Weston B. Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Policing is a large and critical part of the American criminal justice system. Although a focal study group for research, little is known of how social undermining impacts police officers and organizations. Social undermining can cause a variety of negative consequences, including lower job satisfaction, reduction in work-related outcomes, and mental and physical health problems (Duffy et al., 2002; Hershcovis & Barling, 2010; Sabeen & Arshad, 2019). To date, no study has examined social undermining in police officers within the United States. This qualitative research examined social undermining among police officers. Using a blend of inductive and deductive thematic analysis, …

Unreasonable Traffic Stops, Sam Kamin

William & Mary Law Review

In 1996, the Supreme Court announced in Whren v. United States that a traffic stop is constitutional if there is probable cause to believe a traffic infraction has occurred. So long as the officers who stop an individual can point—even after the fact—to any violation of the traffic laws, their actual, subjective motivations for initiating a stop are legally irrelevant. Case-by-case determination of reasonableness is unnecessary in the traffic stop context, the Court concluded, because the balancing of interests has already been done. Unlike warrantless entries into homes, the use of deadly force, or unannounced warranted entries, a traffic stop …

Whom Do Prosecutors Protect?, Vida Johnson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Prosecutors regard themselves as public servants who fight crime and increase community safety on behalf of their constituents. But prosecutors do not only seek to protect those they are supposed to serve. Instead, prosecutors often trade community safety, privacy, and even the constitutional rights of the general public to enlarge police power. Prosecutors routinely advocate for weaker public rights, shield police from public accountability, and fail to prosecute police when they break the law.

This Article will show how prosecutors often protect police at the expense of the public. This Article suggests a novel theory of evaluating the conduct of …

Survival Labor, Yvette Butler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article makes one simple, novel claim: crime is labor when it generates income, allows individuals to pursue self-sufficiency, or allows them to fulfill societal expectations of providing for or caring for dependents. When individuals engage in survival crimes, instead of seeing them as criminals, we should see them as workers engaged in survival labor.

The carceral system continues to disproportionately harm racial minorities and people living in poverty. The foundations of many laws regulating racialized bodies and the policing of those bodies has created a culture where blackness is equivalent to criminality. While a penal abolitionist framework is helpful …

Understanding The Role Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Resilience In Police Officers, Wayne F. Handley

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Police officers are subject to a variety of stressors not only from job-related events resulting from direct or vicarious trauma exposure (Andersen & Papazoglou, 2014; Brown et al., 1999; Iversen et al., 2008) but also from family and personal concerns (Burke, 1998; Page & Jacobs, 2011), and administrative pressures originating from within their own agencies (Violanti et al., 2018; White et al., 2016). Prior to their careers as police officers, individuals may also be exposed to traumatic events early in life. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are described as negative events related to emotional, physical, or sexual abuse or neglect, exposure …

A War On Resistance: Police Repression And Criminalization Of Land Defense Movements, Lydia Macy

Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities

Statement of Purpose:

In this paper, I examine the roles and functions of policing in the United States in relation to environmental justice movements and protest. Building upon analyses of the history of policing and their role in enforcing and maintaining racial capitalism, I explore how the police enable and protect the destruction of land and environments. To demonstrate the intersections of policing, racial capitalism, and environmental crises I use three case studies: the protests at Standing Rock to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, the movement to Stop Line 3, and the movement to Stop Cop City. I found my …

Institutional Legacy As Trigger Of Armed Violence Against The Police: Manifestations And The Underlying Factors In African Countries, Usman A. Ojedokun, Muazu I. Mijinyawa

The Journal of Social Encounters

Armed violence targeting police personnel and police facilities has conspicuously emerged as one of the dominant challenges confronting many police agencies in Africa. Consequently, police officers in African countries are increasingly becoming vulnerable to violent deaths and attacks in the line of duty. In view of this prevailing situation, this paper critically interrogates the nexus between institutional legacy and armed attacks targeting the police in African countries. Tom Tyler’s theory of procedural justice was employed as the conceptual framework for the discourse (Tyler,1990; 2003). The paper argues that the negative labelling that is generally associated with policing and police image …

Police Chases And Pit Maneuvers: Examining The Role Of Officer Conduct In Pursuit-Related Felony Murder Convictions, Margaret L. R. Dubose

Georgia State University Law Review

The United States Supreme Court has described a police officer's decision to terminate a high-speed car chase by making physical contact with the fleeing vehicle as a "choice between two evils." Indeed, while many speed-related deaths occur on Georgia's roadways without the involvement of law enforcement, deaths also transpire when officers choose to make such contact through Precision Intervention Technique (PIT) maneuvers.

In 2015, a Georgia jury found a driver guilty of committing felony murder—a conviction which carries with it a life sentence. The victim, a passenger in the driver's speeding car, died after a law enforcement officer performed a …

Recruitment And Retention In The Post-Floyd Era: A Phenomenological Study Of Miami-Dade County Law Enforcement, Carlos A. Vesco

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study employed a phenomenological approach to analyze law enforcement professionals' perspectives regarding police recruitment and retention in Miami-Dade County after the murder of George Floyd. The study focuses on two primary issues: the ongoing shortage of police officers and the absence of effective retention measures. The study’s theoretical approach is informed by the principles of transformational leadership theory and Herzberg’s two-factor motivation-hygiene theory. The research utilized a qualitative methodology, including face-to-face interviews with a total of twenty-nine participants from three police jurisdictions within Miami-Dade County. These individuals were selected based on their experience in the field. The data was …

Servant Leadership: The Change Needed In Law Enforcement, Shane H. Shetler

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Servant leadership is a moral-based form of leadership in which leaders place the well-being of followers before their own (Canavesi & Minelli, 2022). It is a theory that has gained increased notoriety over the past several decades. Despite this, there remains a limited amount of empirical research on it and its potential benefits. However, several professions have adopted it, and their results have been positive. Leadership change is needed in many professions, and law enforcement is no exception. The policing profession faces many challenges, such as recruiting quality candidates and retaining existing personnel. Furthermore, the challenges plaguing policing also exert …

Improving Police Officer Recruiting, Retention, And Job Satisfaction, Mitch Christensen

Master of Arts in Criminal Justice Leadership

This Capstone paper covered the topics of police officer recruiting, retention, and job satisfaction. It detailed current issues surrounding these topics, and promoted actionable and evidence-based changes to improve those issues. Topics were analyzed through administrative, ethical, and legal and legislative lens views. These proposed measures served as confirmation that current concerning trends can be mitigated, if not reversed, with thoughtful and thorough actions by police administrators and frontline employees alike.

Transforming Law Enforcement To Attract Candidates From The Millennial Generation, Jason Muelken

Master of Arts in Criminal Justice Leadership

There is a widespread shortage of law enforcement candidates throughout the nation, resulting in agencies needing to increase their efforts to maintain staffing. The largest group in the workforce, the millennial generation, holds unique set of traits that make recruiting, retention, and leadership challenging for law enforcement administration. With the decrease in law enforcement applicant pools, recruitment and retention success is paramount to maintaining a successful organization in the future. An action plan is needed to practically, and ethically apply the change of approach to a workplace. This paper discusses how these changes may impact peers, the community, and additional …

“Swifties” Or Swift Suppression? How Police Officers Exploit Copyright Law And Practice Online To Evade Public Accountability, Jeremy Lamstein

Cardozo Law Review

The video recording of the tragic killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers had an immediate and profound impact on the public. The video held essential evidentiary value in the prosecution of Floyd’s killers, as it told a very different story than what the police officers had made the situation out to be. It was by no means the first recording of police misconduct that generated significant attention from the public, but it remains among the most notable.

Now, imagine that the world had never seen the extent of this horrific incident. In this alternate universe, the video never …