Legal Studies Commons^™

Police Integrity Lost: A Study Of Law Enforcement Officers Arrested, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Steven P. Lab, Steven L. Brewer Jr

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

There are no comprehensive statistics available on problems with police integrity, and no government entity collects data on all criminal arrests of law enforcement officers in the United States. Police crimes are those crimes committed by sworn law enforcement officers with the general powers of arrest. These crimes can occur while the officer is either on- or off-duty and include offenses committed by officers employed by state and local law enforcement agencies. This study provides a wealth of data on a phenomena that relates directly to police integrity— data that previously did not exist in any usable format. The first …

Research Brief One-Sheet No.8: The Impact Of Police Crime On Lgbtq+ People, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This research brief provides a summary of a research presentation at the Forum on 21st Century Policing: Protecting the Rights of LGBTQ+ People held by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services at the U.S. Department of Justice, on July 21, 2016, in Washington, DC.

Federal Civil Rights Litigation Pursuant To 42 U.S.C. §1983 As A Correlate Of Police Crime, Philip M. Stinson, Steven L. Brewer Jr

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The Civil Rights Act of 1871 (codified at 42 U.S.C. §1983 and commonly referred to as Section 1983) provides a civil remedy for aggrieved persons to sue state actors who under the color of law violate federally protected rights. Since the 1960s there has been an explosion of Section 1983 litigation in the federal courts against police officers and their employing municipal and county agencies. Due to a lack of official statistics and poor methodologies, research has yet to determine how common Section 1983 actions are against the police nationwide. This study examines the relationship between police crime and being …

California Police Sexual Misconduct Arrest Cases, 2005-2011, Philip M. Stinson, Zachary J. Calogeras, Natalie L. Dichiro, Ryan K. Hunter

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This report was prepared at the request of the California Research Bureau. The data are from a larger study on police crime in the United States. Police crimes are those crimes committed by sworn law enforcement officers given the general powers of arrest at the time the offense was committed and/or at the time when the officer was arrested. These crimes can occur while the officer is on- or off-duty and include offenses committed by state, county, municipal, tribal, or special law enforcement agencies. Police crimes damage the occupational integrity of police officers, the organizational legitimacy of the employing law …

Intercoder Reliability Assessment Of Supplemental Document Coding In A Quantitative Content Analysis Study Of Police Crime In The United States, Raven Ory, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Dr. Stinson maintains an object-relational research database in OnBase, Bowling Green State University’s enterprise-level content management system. An analysis of the intercoder reliability of the supplemental articles indexed in OnBase during the years 2012-2014 was conducted to determine and promote reliability among research assistants. This project is important because reliability is the hallmark of any research database, and because the institutional memory is short with annual turnover of student research assistants working in Stinson’s research group. Training recommendations are made from the findings of this study for the purpose of improving the reliability of document coding in the project object …

Police Shootings: A New Problem Or Business As Usual?, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Police Integrity Lost: Police Crime In The United States, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Violence-Related Police Crime Arrests In The United States, 2005-2011, Philip M. Stinson, Steven L. Brewer Jr, Joelle K. Bridges

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This study is a quantitative content analysis of news reports and court records on 3,328 violence-related arrest cases of 2,586 individual sworn law enforcement officers during the years 2005-2011. The arrested officers were employed by 1,445 nonfederal state, local, special, constable, tribal, and regional law enforcement agencies located in 805 counties and independent cities in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Binary logistic regression and classification and regression tree (CART) analyses were conducted to predict criminal conviction in violence-related police crime arrest cases. Finding indicate that conviction of police officers on one or more offenses charged are driven by …

Police Crime: The Criminal Behavior Of Sworn Law Enforcement Officers, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This essay examines the criminological conceptualizations and research on police crime, that is, the criminal behavior of sworn law enforcement officers. It starts with an overview of the conceptualization of police crime as it relates to organizational and scholarly perspectives of social deviance. Police deviance is often conceptualized to include various misconduct, corruption, and/or crime committed by police organizations and police officers. This essay focuses on police crime resulting in the arrest of a sworn law enforcement officer and is organized within a conceptual framework that incorporates five types of police crime: sex-related police crime, alcohol-related police crime, drug-related police …

Federal Civil Rights Litigation Pursuant To 42 U.S.C. §1983 As A Correlate Of Police Misconduct, Philip M. Stinson, Steven L. Brewer Jr, Theresa M. Lanese, Mallorie A. Wilson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Police officers acting in their official capacity are subject to being sued in federal court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983 for violating constitutional rights under the color of law. Using data obtained in a larger study on police crime in the United States, names of more than 5,500 nonfederal sworn law enforcement officers who were arrested during the years 2005-2011 were checked against the civil case party master name index of the federal courts’ Public Access to Courts Electronic Records (PACER) system. Findings indicate that more than 20% of the police officers who were arrested for committing one or more …

Police Crime Arrests In The United States, 2011, Philip M. Stinson, Evin J. Carmack, Jacob M. Frankhouser, Mallorie A. Wilson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to provide empirical data on cases of police crime arrests during the year 2011. The study identifies and describes incidents in which nonfederal sworn law enforcement officers were arrested for one or more criminal offenses. Research Design & Method – The study is a quantitative content analysis of news articles identified through the Google News search engine using 48 automated Google Alerts queries. The unit of analysis in this study is criminal arrest case (not individual arrested officer). Intercoder Reliability – The Krippendorf’s alpha coefficient is strong (Krippendorf’s α = .9153) across …

Police Sexual Misconduct: Arrested Officers And Their Victims, Philip M. Stinson, Steven L. Brewer, Brooke E. Mathna, John Liederbach, Christine M. Englebrecht

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Police sexual misconduct encompasses a range of acts from less serious noncriminal behaviors to more egregious criminal behaviors including police sexual violence. Victims of sex crimes are often reluctant to report sexual abuse when the offender is a police officer. The study provides empirical data on 771 sex-related arrest cases in years 2005-2008 of 555 sworn officers at 449 nonfederal law enforcement agencies across the United States. The study identifies and describes incidents where officers were arrested for sex crimes through a quantitative content analysis of published newspaper articles and court records. Findings focus on arrested officers and their victims.

Lorain Police Department: A Study To Improve Patrol Deployment, Philip M. Stinson, Steven L. Brewer Jr, John Liederbach

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The Lorain (OH) Police Department requested research assistance from the Ohio Consortium of Crime Science (OCCS) for the purpose of evaluating and revising the current patrol districts and the allocation of resources within the districts. The OCCS is an association of researchers from universities and state agencies working together to provide evidence-based solutions to the real-world problems faced by local criminal justice agencies. The goal of the project was to evaluate and revise the current police districts and the allocation of resources within those districts. The first objective in support of the project goal was to assess calls for service, …

Assessing Sheriff’S Office Emergency And Disaster Website Communications, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, L. Fleming Fallon, Hans Schmalzried

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Sheriff’s offices are an integral component of the public health emergency preparedness and response system in the United States. During a public health emergency or disaster, sheriff’s offices need to communicate with people affected by the event. Sheriff’s office websites are logical sources for information about disaster preparedness and response efforts. No prior research evaluates emergency preparedness and response resources available through sheriff’s office websites. The current research is a national study of sheriff’s office websites to assess the availability of information relating to emergency preparedness and response. A content analysis of 2,590 sheriff’s office website homepages was conducted to …

Police Sexual Misconduct: A National Scale Study Of Arrested Officers, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Steven L. Brewer, Brooke E. Mathna

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Police sexual misconduct is often considered a hidden crime that routinely goes unreported. The current study provides an empirical data on cases of sex-related police crime at law enforcement agencies across the United States. The study identifies and describes incidents where sworn law enforcement officers were arrested for one or more sex-related crimes through a quantitative content analysis of published newspaper articles and court records. The primary news information source was the Google News search engine using 48 automated Google Alerts. Data are analyzed on 548 arrest cases in the years 2005-2007 of 398 officers employed by 328 nonfederal law …

Juries And Social Media: Northwest Ohio's Response To This Phenomenon, Erica Lunderman

Honors Projects

The 21^st century is an era in which the dependence on technology is at an all-time high. The availability of information on social networking sites has recently sparked a debate in regards to jury impartiality. Over the last few years states such as Florida, Michigan, and New York have received scholastic attention for making changes to local jury instructions to ensure defendant’s rights of an impartial jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Federal national jury instructions addressing juror social media usage has also drawn attention. Little, however, scholastic attention has been directed towards Northwest Ohio. This project will look …

An Exploration Of Crime By Policewomen, Philip M. Stinson, Natalie E. Todak, Mary Dodge

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The current study explores criminal conduct by policewomen. This information is increasingly relevant as police departments hire more women, especially if the crimes committed by policewomen differ from those of policemen. News searches identified 105 cases depicting arrests of policewomen. A content analysis was performed. Findings indicate differences exist between crimes committed by policemen and policewomen, as well as by policewomen and women in general. Crime by policewomen is most often profit-motivated. Policewomen had fewer years of service and lower ranks, committed less violent crimes, and were more likely to receive suspensions for off-duty crimes compared to their male peers.

Police Integrity Lost: Preliminary Findings Of A National Study Of Law Enforcement Officers Arrested, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This presentation presents preliminary research findings of a study on the nature and extent of police crime in the United States. It provides information on the factors that influence how a law enforcement agency responds to arrests of its officers. The data indicate that civil rights litigation is a correlate of police misconduct.

Drink, Drive, Go To Jail? A Study Of Police Officers Arrested For Drunk Driving, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Steven L. Brewer, Natalie E. Todak

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The purpose of the current study is to provide empirical data on cases of police driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol and/or drugs. It identifies events that may have influenced the decision to arrest, including associated traffic accidents, fatalities, officer resistance, the refusal of field sobriety tests, and the refusal of blood alcohol content (BAC) tests. The study is a quantitative content analysis of news articles identified through the Google News search engine using 48 automated Google Alerts queries. Data are analyzed on 782 DUI arrest cases of officers employed by 511 nonfederal law enforcement agencies throughout the United …

Fox In The Henhouse: A Study Of Police Officers Arrested For Crimes Associated With Domestic And/Or Family Violence, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The problem of violence within police families has been increasingly recognized as an important socio-legal issue, but there is a lack of empirical data on what has commonly been referred to as officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV). There are no comprehensive statistics available on OIDV and no government entity collects data on the criminal conviction of police officers for crimes associated with domestic and/or family violence. Prior self-report officer surveys are limited by the tendency to conceal instances of family violence and the interests of officers to maintain a "code of silence" to protect their careers. The purpose of the current …

A Study Of Drug-Related Police Corruption Arrests, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Steven L. Brewer, Hans Schmalzried, Brooke E. Mathna, Krista L. Long

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to provide empirical data on cases of drug-related police corruption. It identifies and describes incidents in which police officers were arrested for criminal offenses associated with drug-related corruption.

Design/methodology/approach – The study is a quantitative content analysis of news articles identified through the Google News search engine using 48 automated Google Alerts queries. Statistical analyses include classification trees to examine causal pathways between drugs and corruption.

Findings – Data were analyzed on 221 drug-related arrest cases of officers employed by police agencies throughout the United States. Findings show that drug-related corruption involves …

The Nature Of Crime By School Resource Officers: Implications For Sro Programs, Philip M. Stinson, Adam M. Watkins

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

School resource officers (SROs) have become a permanent presence in many K-12 schools throughout the country. As a result, an emerging body of research has focused on SROs, particularly on how SROs are viewed by students, teachers, and the general public. This exploratory and descriptive research employs a different focus by examining the nature of crimes for which SROs were arrested in recent years with information gathered from online news sources. The current findings are encouraging insofar as they reveal that SROs are rarely arrested for criminal misconduct. When SROs were arrested, however, they are most often arrested for a …

Research Brief One-Sheet No.5: Police Criminal Misuse Of Conductive Energy Devices, Philip M. Stinson, Bradford W. Reyns, John Liederbach

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The purpose of the research is to explore and describe the nature and character of arrest cases that involve the criminal misuse of TASERS by police officers through a content analysis of news articles. The research specifically focuses on factors that were common among the arrest events involving CEDs, especially with regard to the actions and motivations of the arrested officers and how the situational context appeared to influence the criminal misconduct of police officers.

Research Brief One-Sheet No.6: Officers Arrested For Drunk Driving, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Steven L. Brewer, Natalie E. Todak

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Cases involving police who drive drunk are part of the larger problem of driving under the influence (DUI). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that alcohol-impaired traffic accidents kill over 10,000 people annually, accounting for nearly one-third of all traffic-related deaths in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). But, cases that involve police who drive drunk (or, Police DUIs) should also be recognized as a phenomenon that presents unique problems. Police DUI's have the potential to weaken public trust and the legitimacy of strategies designed to mitigate drunk driving, because the drunk driver in …

Chaid Analysis Of Drug-Related Police Corruption Arrests, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Steven L. Brewer, Hans Schmalzried, Brooke E. Mathna, Krista L. Long

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Purpose- The purpose of the study is to provide empirical data on cases of drug-related police corruption. The study identifies and describes incidents in which police officers were arrested for criminal offenses associated with drug-related corruption.

Design/methodology/approach- The study is a quantitative content analysis of news articles identified through the Google News search engine using 48 automated Google Alerts queries. Statistical analyses include classification trees to examine casual pathways between drugs and corruption.

Findings- Data are analyzed on 221 drug-related arrest cases of officers employed by police agencies throughout the United States. Findings show that drug-related corruption involves a wide …

Drunk Driving Cops: A Study Of Police Officers Arrested 2005-2010, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Natalie E. Todak, Steven L. Brewer

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Police officers are generally exempt from law enforcement (Reiss, 1971) and it is widely known that police officers who drive drunk are rarely arrested, even when they are pulled over in a traffic stop for driving drunk. Using data from a larger study on police crime arrests, this is an exploratory study of 763 cases from years 2005-2010 of on- and off-duty police officers arrested for driving under the influence (DUI). The officers arrested for DUI were employed by nonfederal law enforcement agencies located in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Preliminary findings indicate that almost half of …

Research Brief One-Sheet No.3: Police Drug Corruption: What Are The Drugs Of Choice?, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Steven L. Brewer, Hans Schmalzried, Brooke E. Mathna, Krista L. Long

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Police scandals during the 1980s and 90s exposed dramatic cases of drug-related corruption in a number of large American cities. The scandals in New York City culminated in the establishment of the Mollen Commission which focused on the investigation of corruption within the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The two year investigation identified a nexus between police misconduct and the operation of local drug markets, in particular cocaine and crack. A handful of scholarly studies from the same period provide the basis for most of our knowledge on the problem of drug-related police corruption. Data from these studies are …

Research Brief One-Sheet No.4: Officer-Involved Domestic Violence, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Officer-Involved Domestic Violence (OIDV) refers to instances of domestic and/or family violence that occur within police families. OIDV has been recognized as an important issue for both police scholars and practitioners. The movement to recognize OIDV gained momentum through the last two decades, beginning with exploratory research that linked police stress and family violence (Johnson, 1991). The movement also involved enactment of the Violence Against Women Act (1994) and the Lautenberg Amendment to the federal Gun Control Act that prohibits individuals—including police officers—from owning or using a firearm if they are convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. The …

Research Brief One-Sheet No.2: Off-Duty Crime By Police Officers, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Tina L. Freiburger

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Virtually all of the existing data on the off-duty misconduct of police officers describes the misbehavior of New York Police Department (NYPD) officers (see e.g. Fyfe and Kane, 2006; Kane and White, 2009). These data indicate that a significant portion of police misconduct emanates from behavior that occurs off-duty, including domestic violence, bar fights, drunk driving, burglary, and sex offenses. The NYPD data are agency-specific however; so very little is known about the nature and character of off-duty misconduct perpetrated by police employed by other police agencies. The purpose of this study is to explore off-duty police crime in the …

Off-Duty & Under Arrest: A Study Of Crimes Perpetuated By Off-Duty Police, Philip M. Stinson, John Liederbach, Tina L. Freiburger

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The findings of independent commissions and research derived from a data-set of career-ending misconduct among New York Police Department (NYPD) officers suggests that police engage in a wide variety of crimes while they are off-duty including domestic violence, bar fights, drunk driving, burglary, and sex offenses (The Mollen Commission, 1994; Fyfe & Kane, 2006; Kane & White, 2009). The off-duty misbehavior of police is an important concern for police agencies exposed to potential liability costs, and scholars engaged in debates about whether studies on police deviance should include acts committed while an officer is technically off-duty. The problem for scholars …