Law Commons^™

Policing A Negotiated World: A Partial Test Of Klinger’S Ecological Theory Of Policing, Christopher Salvatore, Travis A. Taniguchi

Christopher Salvatore

The primary goal of the current study is to examine a portion of Klinger’s theory. Specifically, we test the influence of organizational and environmental contextual factors, guided by Klinger’s theory, on one measure of officer vigor. To date, few studies have taken this approach to examine Klinger’s theory. The study builds on prior research that has tested aspects of Klinger’s theory and adds new analytic strategies that prior studies have not used. The results of this study have implications for both theory and practice, and they add to the growing literature examining the influence of ecological and organization factors on …

Where Concerned Citizens Perceive Police As More Responsive To Troublesome Teen Groups: Theoretical Implications For Political Economy, Incivilities And Policing, Christopher Salvatore, Ralph B. Taylor, Christopher Kelly

Christopher Salvatore

The current investigation extends previous work on citizens' perceptions of police performance. It examines the origins of between-community differences in concerned citizens' judgments that police are responding sufficiently to a local social problem. The problem is local unsupervised teen groups, a key indicator for both the revised systemic social disorganization perspective and the incivilities thesis. Four theoretical perspectives predict ecological determinants of these shared judgments. Less perceived police responsiveness is anticipated in lower socioeconomic status (SES) police districts by both a political economy and a stratified incivilities perspective; more predominantly minority police districts by a racialized justice perspective; and in …

State Labor Law And Federal Police Reform, Stephen Rushin, Allison Garnett

Stephen Rushin

No abstract provided.

Interrogation Parity, Stephen Rushin, Kate Levine

Stephen Rushin

This Article addresses the special interrogation protections afforded exclusively to the police when they are questioned about misconduct. In approximately twenty states, police officers suspected of misconduct are shielded by statutory Law Enforcement Officer Bills of Rights. These statutes frequently limit the tactics investigators can use during interrogations of police officers. Many of these provisions limit the manner and length of questioning, ban the use of threats or promises, require the recording of interrogations, and guarantee officers a reprieve from questioning to tend to personal necessities. These protections, which are available to police but not to ordinary criminal suspects, create …

Police Executive Opinions Of Legal Regulation, Stephen Rushin, Roger Michalski

Stephen Rushin

By conducting a national survey, this Article empirically assesses how American police leaders perceive external legal regulation.

At various times, policymakers have decried external police regulations as too expensive, too complicated, or too difficult to apply to different factual scenarios. Critics have also alleged that police regulations change too frequently, inadequately consider input from the law enforcement community, and unduly risk the safety of officers or the broader community.

These complaints underscore an uncomfortable but unavoidable reality: efforts to regulate police behavior often require policymakers to make compromises. A rule that promotes one goal may necessarily compromise another important goal. …

De-Policing, Stephen Rushin, Griffin Sims Edwards

Stephen Rushin

Critics have long claimed that when the law regulates police behavior it inadvertently reduces officer aggressiveness, thereby increasing crime. This hypothesis has taken on new significance in recent years as prominent politicians and law enforcement leaders have argued that increased oversight of police officers in the wake of the events in Ferguson, Missouri has led to an increase in national crime rates. Using a panel of American law enforcement agencies and difference-in-difference regression analyses, this Article tests whether the introduction of public scrutiny or external regulation is associated with changes in crime rates. To do this, this Article relies on …

Exploring Places Of Street Drug Dealing In A Downtown Area In Brazil: An Analysis Of The Reliability Of Google Street View In International Criminological Research, Elenice De Souza Oliveira, Ko-Hsin Hsu

Elenice De Souza Oliveira

This study assesses the reliability of Google Street View (GSV) in auditing environmental features that help create hotbeds of drug dealing in Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil’s largest cities. Based on concepts of “crime generators” and “crime enablers,” a set of 40 items were selected using arrest data related to drug activities for the period between 2007 and 2011. These items served to develop a GSV data collection instrument used to observe features of 135 street segments that were identified as drug dealing hot spots in downtown Belo Horizonte. The study employs an intra-class correlation (ICC) statistics as a measure …

Claudia Rankine's 'Citizen': Documenting And Protesting America's Halting March Toward Racial Justice And Equality, Susan Ayres

Susan Ayres

After the first election of President Barak Obama in 2008, there was a sense that the United States had reached a post-racial phase in its history. That sentiment was relatively short-lived, because by 2013, when Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, it was clear that President Obama’s election was not transformative. More recently, during the presidential campaign and after the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, undisguised racism in the United States has reared its ugly head. Activists such as the Reverend Al Sharpton have been outspoken in their criticism of President Trump. Sharpton has claimed, “Everything King fought …