Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons^™

College Students’ Perception Of Law Enforcement, Joseph Lyon

Undergraduate Honors Theses

There are many ways that people can form an opinion about law enforcement even if they have had a personal interaction with someone who works in the field. This idea has always been interesting as there needs to be some type of understanding when it comes to this certain viewpoint. There can be many factors that result in having a certain perspective on law enforcement in general like their background growing up, hearsay from close relatives, friends, and whatever they have seen up close in person. This study is going to aim at a specific area of how people view …

The American Racial Divide In Fear Of The Police, Justin T. Pickett, Amanda Graham, Francis T. Cullen

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications

The mission of policing is “to protect and serve,” but recent events suggest that many Americans, and especially Black Americans, do not feel protected from the police. Understanding police-related fear is important because it may impact civilians’ health, daily lives, and policy attitudes. To examine the prevalence, sources, and consequences of both personal and altruistic fear of the police, we surveyed a nationwide sample (N = 1,150), which included comparable numbers of Black (N = 517) and White (N = 492) respondents. Most White respondents felt safe, but most Black respondents lived in fear of the police killing them and …

The Lasting Impact Of Deinstitutionalization: Policing And The Mental Health Crisis, Ruqayyah Sorathia

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Society is combating the detrimental effects of the deinstitutionalization policy, which transferred the treatment of mentally ill patients from state-run psychiatric hospitals to community-run psychiatric facilities. These patients frequently fall into relapses and are more likely to experience risky encounters with law enforcement officials who have no formal training in dealing with them. The paper analyzes the criminalization of mentally ill people, many with substance abuse and alcohol addictions, receiving treatment in jails and state prisons. Incarcerating people with mental illness, though reducing the homeless population from the street and disturbances faced by the public, still does not address the …

Reinforcing The Web Of Municipal Courts: Evidence And Implications Post-Ferguson, Beth Huebner, Andrea Giuffre

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Works

Investigations in Ferguson, Missouri, revealed that many individuals, particularly Black people, entered the criminal justice system for relatively minor offenses, missed court appearances, or failure to pay fines. Municipal courts were focused on revenue generation, which led to aggressive enforcement of municipal codes. Although subsequent reforms were passed, little is known about whether and how the legislative changes influenced the law-in-action in the municipal courts. Using data from qualitative interviews with St. Louis area residents and regional court actors, as well as court observations, this article documents the legal structure of municipal courts in the region after Ferguson. We address …

Criminal Justice Expertise, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

For decades, commentators have adopted a story of mass incarceration’s rise as caused by “punitive populism.” Growing prison populations, expanding criminal codes, and raced and classed disparities in enforcement result from “pathological politics”: voters and politicians act in a vicious feedback loop, driving more criminal law and punishment. The criminal system’s problems are political. But how should society solve these political problems? Scholars often identify two kinds of approaches: (1) the technocratic, which seeks to wrest power from irrational and punitive voters, replacing electoral politics with agencies and commissions; and (2) the democratic, which treats criminal policy as insufficiently responsive …

Safety Inside And Out: Why International Human Rights Standards Fail To Curb The Worst Excesses Of Police Policies And Practices, Dr. Mary O'Rawe

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Policing, Marissa Eastwood

Criminology Student Work

No abstract provided.

A Career With The Massachusetts State Police, Michael Germano

Criminology Student Work

No abstract provided.

Improving Policing: Criticisms And Supports, Hannah M. Stephens

The Mid-Southern Journal of Criminal Justice

In today's society, there are many critical factors surrounding the profession of law enforcement. In the midst of allegations such as corruption, racism, and use of force, policing has lost its favor in the eyes of the public. By taking a closer look at these issues and the various ways of correcting their problems, perhaps true policing can once again be a source of effectiveness and pride in our criminal justice system. Traditional policing holds many values that have been lost. If our justice system and the public's trust in it is to be restored, education, various approaches to crime, …

The Rise Of Police Militarization And Impact On Civilians, Araceli Marquez

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Across the country, police are using aggressive, military-style policing tactics to enforce the law. These aggressive tactics disproportionately affect minorities and residents of lower-income communities. Recent protests by the Black Lives Matter movement have taken place in response to the deaths of individuals such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Aggressive police presence at these demonstrations has been prominent, despite protesters’ peaceful intent. The police are not only present at rallies and protests but also at celebratory events like major cities' sports celebrations. This paper examines militarization as a result of the War on Drugs, the 1033 program, racial politics, …

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: The Queensland Police Service As A Model For Sustainable Policing Reform, Geoffrey P. Alpert, Kyle Mclean

Faculty Publications

Police departments are consistently challenged to serve their communities by reducing misconduct and being held accountable. In the United States, policing reform is best described as déjà vu or Groundhog Day, with high-profile groups organising every few years to list the same recommendations for improving the police. Additionally, reform suggestions are too often countered by the comment, “we have always done it this way.” By stark contrast, through the Fitzgerald Inquiry and the work of scholars such as David Bayley, the Queensland Police Service stands as a model for creating sustainable change in policing. In this paper, we compare the …

(Un)Qualified Immunity: An Analysis On Qualified Immunity And Civilian Sentiments, Guy Hodge Ii

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Recent events involving the deaths of unarmed, African American citizens have brought forth an increased attention to the application of qualified immunity to law enforcement. This study aims to gain a civilian perspective on qualified immunity. Qualified immunity, as defined by the Supreme Court case Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982), grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Through a national-level survey, this study captures an overall favorability of qualified immunity as well as …

Bio-Spatial Policing In Theory And Practice: Examining Impacts And Resistance Through Mobilities And Children's Everyday Life, Emily Kaufman

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Despite decades of reforms and technological innovations, increasing evidence shows that state securitization disproportionately harms already racially, spatially, and socio-economically marginalized communities. My research investigates uneven impacts of state securitization, from punitive welfare programs to school surveillance to policing. Across sites, I focus on scales, voices and the everyday lived experiences often left out of scholarly discourse and sensational media. In the current climate of growing awareness and scholarship on police violence, my dissertation addresses three less-studied areas: 1) the interplay between racial, gendered, spatial, and technified police practices; 2) how these practices impact the everyday lives of those racially …

Policing Farm Crime: An Exploratory Study Of Agricultural Crime Units, Brianna Lynn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the practices, perceptions, and operations of agricultural crime units. To date, there has been little research conducted on policing agricultural crimes and no known research on units specializing in investigating them. The study utilizes data gathered from qualitative interviews with agricultural crime investigators across several states to fill this gap in the literature. The results allow for an examination of the fundamental practices of agricultural units, their perceptions and their experiences. In addition, they point to several implications for both policy and practice that may serve to guide our efforts to combat …

Boroughs And The Badge: Local Contexts And Confidence In Police, Henry F. Goodson

Student Publications

As citizens interact with the police more than most civil servants, increasing the citizenry’s confidence in police is key to helping maintain rule of law and internal stability within a state. One of the key areas to be investigated in the pursuit of better police-community relations is on the impact of public services and housing on police legitimacy. Historically, American cities have been widely segregated based on race and income, especially in urban areas, which in turn alters the services available in those areas. The public services and the neighborhoods in which they are delivered are key parts of many …

Public Perceptions Of Police Militarization: A Nuanced Understanding Of Public Support For Police Practices, Leobardo Lopez-Cristobal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In recent years, there has been heavily publicized incidents of police use of military weapons and tactics, which has raised concerns regarding the militarization of police. More famously, in 2014, Ferguson police utilized military weapons and tactics to quell the masses after the police shooting of Michael Brown incited protests and riots. Despite an overall decrease in incidents of police use of force and deadly shootings, individual dramatic events of police militarization paint a picture of a militarized police force. This coincides with an overall increase in military equipment transfers (e.g., weapons, vehicles) to police agencies in the United States. …

What’S Wrong With Police Unions?, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

In an era of declining labor power, police unions stand as a rare success story for worker organizing—they exert political clout and negotiate favorable terms for their members. Yet, despite broad support for unionization on the political left, police unions have become public enemy number one for academics and activists concerned about race and police violence. Much criticism of police unions focuses on their obstructionist nature and how they prioritize the interests of their members over the interests of the communities they police. These critiques are compelling—police unions shield officers and block oversight. But, taken seriously, they often sound like …

Policing Protests: An Exploratory Analysis Of Crowd Management Policies, Logan P. Kennedy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Several policing strategies have been used to manage protest crowds over the past 50 years. Research suggests that escalated force and command and control strategies were utilized until the 1990’s (Bourne, 2011; Schweingruber, 2000), while negotiated management has emerged as a prominent protest management strategy within recent decades (Gillham, 2011; Gillham & Noakes, 2006). While literature describes the general evolution of protest strategies over time, there has been no systematic documentation of police approaches to crowd management.

This study examines police policies governing protest management to identify current U.S. police practices. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) provides …

Police Body-Worn Camera Perceptions Pre/Post Deployment, Aaron Veerman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if officers’ perceptions of Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) changed over the course of a six-month pilot program. Officers from a Midwest police department were surveyed prior to or shortly after receiving their BWCs (Pre-Test) and again approximately six months later (Post-Test). Once completed, independent samples t-tests, mean comparisons, and Pearson’s correlations were used to analyze the data. This study did not produce many significant differences in officers’ perceptions over the course of the study, according to t-test results. However, several significant differences were found after each shift was analyzed separately. Overall, less than …

Examining Perceptions Of Online Harassment Among Constables In England And Wales, Thomas J. Holt, Jin R. Lee, Roberta Liggett, Karen M. Holt, Adam Bossler

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

The ubiquity of the Internet and computer technology has enabled individuals to engage in bullying, threats, and harassing communications online. Limited research has found that local line officers may not view these offenses as serious compared to real world crimes despite their negative physical and emotional impact on victims. The perceptions of officers can produce poor interactions with victims during calls for service, particularly victim blaming, which can reduce citizens’ confidence in police agencies generally. However, local law enforcement agencies are increasingly mandated to respond to these cases, calling to question how their views may impact the community. This study …

Changes In Student Definition Of De-Escalation In Professional Peace Officer Education, Pat Nelson

Criminal Justice Department Publications

Since the release of the 21st century policing report in the United States, the techniques of de-escalation have received a lot of attention and focus in political systems, policy changes, and the media. The challenge in professional peace officer education is that there is a vast range of defining de-escalation and understanding the various techniques involved, many of which are based on popular media. This research surveyed professional peace officer education university students on their definition of de-escalation and the techniques associated with de-escalation before specific communications coursework was completed. The students were then surveyed after the communication coursework was …

Furthering Understanding Of Forensic Units: A Detailed Examination Of Knoxville Police Department's Crime Scene Unit., Cassandra Christina Rausch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the past three decades, the criminal justice system has decidedly employed new technologies for the purposes of establishing guilt or innocence. Forensic science, with its synthesis of scientific methodology and investigative considerations of law enforcement, ushered in the development of DNA profiling and forever changed the process of crime scene investigation.This shift in focus also led to a shift in the individuals involved in investigation, producing the widespread formation of stand-alone crime scene units. Utilizing both civilian and sworn employees of a law enforcement agency, these units became responsible for the documentation, collection, and preservation of evidence that would …

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

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

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 …

Edward A. Ross: Social Development And Social Control, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

With a foundation in philosophy and history, core concepts of sociology and criminology that were initially posited over a century ago are still useful in understanding the workings of today's society. The contributions of Edward A. Ross have helped latter day researchers centralize their studies of polycentric topics by using social control as an omnipresent social fact. By comparing Ross's descriptions of 19th century society and the researcher's descriptions of 21^st century society, a continuous understanding of a heavily pluralistic discipline comes to life.

“Losing The Humanity Of The Street”: Retired Police Officer Narratives Of The Evolution Of Low-Level Enforcement In New York City, Megan Welsh

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Low-level enforcement activities such as pedestrian and traffic stops, the issuance of criminal court summonses (tickets or citations), and misdemeanor arrests comprise the vast majority of police-citizen encounters relative to the policing of more serious, felony-level offenses. The complexities of these activities – particularly from the perspectives of the police officers who carry them out – have received relatively little scholarly attention. In an effort to more fully understand the nuances of low-level enforcement, in particular how such activities have changed over time and how police officers have experienced such changes, in-depth interviews were conducted with a small sample of …

Procedural Justice And Citizen Compliance: Police Officer Demeanor And Crime Severity, Shiny Sharma

Student Theses

Little is known about how police officer demeanor impacts citizen compliance under specific conditions such as the severity of a crime. Using a sample of 141 college students, we randomly assigned vignettes that manipulated crime severity type (e.g., petty theft or armed robbery) and police officer demeanor (e.g., procedurally just or not procedurally just) to gain a better understanding of this nuanced relationship. Participants were more likely to report suspicious behavior, regardless of crime severity, if the officer demeanor was procedurally just. Additionally, participants were more likely to consent to a search and report a suspicious person in the procedurally …

How Japan’S Cultural Norms Affect Policing: A Side-By-Side Comparison With The United States, Katrina Tran

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

The ways of policing have been critiqued throughout the years—some have advocated for a direct approach while others value diplomatic techniques. Consideration is emphasized by how culture affects policing in the United States and Japan. In the United States, the customs of policing involve violence, individualism, pragmatism, social mobility, and low power distance, whereas Japan encourages non-violence, face-saving, conservatism, and high power distance. The difference in these cultural norms reflects how policing is conducted in these two countries. To understand how policing in these two countries are different, this paper examines the difference of cultural norms and its impact on …

An Examination Of The Evolution Of Racially Biased Pretextual Investigatory Stops And Their Legitimacy In Policing, Brett A. Lacey

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the use of tactics originally purposed as a component of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Operation Pipeline and their evolution since their creation in the 1980’s. The paper provides a history of investigatory policing stops regarding the argument of Epp et al. (2014) that primarily relied on Police Chief magazine and Remsberg’s Street Survival. Epp argues that the methods used in investigatory stops are an invasion of privacy, use racial profiling, and have proliferated from a tactic used in the war on drugs to combat drug trafficking to a routine day-to-day policing tactic. Through the use of a …

Realigning Community Policing In A Homeland Security Era, Alfred Stanford Titus, Jr.

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The priority shift from community policing to homeland security in local police departments in the United States has threatened the relationships and successes established by community policing, though little empirical research explored the relationship between funding and implementation of homeland security versus community policing objectives among local law enforcement agencies. Using Karl Popper's conceptualization of the liberal democracy as the framework, the purpose of this descriptive study was to examine how trends in funding and implementation of both community policing and homeland security objectives changed among American law enforcement agencies between 1993 and 2013. Data were acquired from the Law …

To Shoot Or Not To Shoot: An Analysis Of Police Officers' Deadly Force Decision-Making Processes, Jordan Clare Pickering

Dissertations

How police officers exercise their unique power to use deadly force continues to be a topic of interest among academics and, due to recent events, has moved to the forefront of public policy concerns. A number of scholars have proposed theories as to how police officers make the decision to use deadly force, but arguably the most comprehensive deadly force decision-making framework was put forth by Arnold Binder and Peter Scharf three and a half decades ago (1980; Scharf and Binder, 1983). They posit that officers’ decision-making processes during an encounter that either includes police use of deadly force, or …