Firearms enforcement and officer safety: Do specialized units make a difference?

PurposeThe police killing of George Floyd and other high-profile incidents of force sparked massive protests around the world. Amidst eroding public perceptions of police legitimacy, politicians and activists have sought to achieve systemic change. Over the past year, several cities in the United States have implemented various police reform initiatives, including reallocating resources, cutting budgets, and downsizing specialized units. As a result of these changes, the “defund the police” movement may have far-reaching consequences on police culture, especially within specialized units most affected by budget and resource changes. Furthermore, as fentanyl overdoses are surging and the American opioid crisis continues, specialized drug investigation units face a host of challenges in responding to increases in drug-related crime in the aftermath of “defund the police”. Therefore, this study aims to examine the experiences of a Drug Investigation Section in a large metropolitan city.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses data from semi-structured interviews conducted between October 2021 to May 2022. The results of this study provide a thematic analysis that explores the narcotics detectives' perceptions of key features of police culture, as well as how current challenges affect those perceptions.FindingsKey features of the police culture were noticeably absent from detectives' responses, including an overemphasis on danger, machismo, conservatism, and social isolation. Elements of cynicism, group solidarity, and a mission/action-orientation, did emerge. The context of “defund the police” did little to alter their perceptions, except for heightening cynicism and negative perceptions of politicians and prosecutors (a form of “us vs them”, but not involving citizens). The interviews also revealed various other changes that have occurred in recent years that have adversely affected the section's traditional investigative capabilities, especially with regard to illicit fentanyl distribution, though the addition of an intelligence analyst minimized those negative effects.Originality/valueThis study adds to the scarce research on contemporary police culture in specialized units, especially in the aftermath of the “defund the police” movement, providing a glimpse into its context within a drug investigation section and its potential effects on police culture and narcotics investigations.

Police reform is risky and hard, and efforts to innovate in policing often fall short of expectations. This chapter examines sources of resistance to change in policing. Some are internal, including opposition to reform at virtually all levels of the organization and among special units. The position of unions vis-a-vis change is highly variable, particularly if proposals do not threaten working conditions and officer safety. Politicians and other potential opponents of change lurk in the vicinity of policing, and reformers need to bring them into the process as well. The public must understand how the investment they have in policing will be enhanced, and not threatened, by reform. If new strategies require the cooperation of other service agencies (as, for example, for problem-solving policing) the heads of those bureaucracies must understand they are partners in their city's program, not victims of empire building by the police. At the top, city leaders must match the commitment of chiefs and other police executives to change, if reforms are to survive leadership transition.

Even as the federal government increasingly deposits its surplus military supplies with local police departments and as Americans are more exposed to militarized police forces, study of its historical political development (1) or examination of its effects for American communities has mostly escaped scholarly attention. No national data source across the nation’s 18,000 police agencies tracks the incorporation of tactics, personnel, or gear traditionally used in military operations abroad. Without such a repository, scholars can neither measure the prevalence of police militarization and how it varies across American communities, nor develop empirical insights about how these developments affect the security of Americans. In his PNAS article, Jonathan Mummolo expands scholarly understanding of the consequences of increasingly militarized police forces in the United States, its politics, and its racial geography (2). Compiling detailed administrative data in one state of one kind of militarization, “special weapons and tactics” (SWAT) deployments, a national panel of which states acquired a special tactics team, and an original survey experiment of different levels of militarization, Mummolo examines whether militarization contributes to the safety of police officers, local crime reduction, and confidence in police among Americans. Militarized policing does not result in the anticipated public safety gains nor does it abet officer safety; it does impair confidence in police and elevate perceived crime. The logics and capacity of American police institutions have undergone a dramatic shift over the past half century (3, 4) spurring debate about the consequences of policing for public safety, trust, and other aspects of well-being. A prominent through-line of this work is that police interactions cause several negative outcomes: involuntary encounters with police have been linked to an increase in posttraumatic stress disorder (5), declining grades and test scores among American youth (6), legal estrangement (7), strategic avoidance of people, places, and … [↵][1]1Email: vesla{at}jhu.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Most agree that police officers cannot do their jobs effectively without the support of community members. However, little is known about the perceptions of small business owners who could potentially make a meaningful contribution to safety and security in such communities. There is also a paucity of research on immigrant-owned businesses in disorderly urban communities. To address the gap, this study explores the attitudes of small business owners toward the police in Detroit, Michigan, a city known for high levels of violent crime and presents an analysis of the qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with small business owners (n=39), with a special focus on Arab and Chaldean business owners. The findings indicate that although procedural justice perceptions are closely associated with police legitimacy perceptions, business owners are equally concerned about the effectiveness of police in dealing with crime. In particular, the perceived risk of victimization influences many Arab and Chaldean business owners’ perceptions of police. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Evaluation of an online training for improving self-reported evidence-based decision-making skills in cancer control among public health professionals

It is important to understand how uniforms influence public perceptions of the police. The current study utilized a randomized design in which undergraduate students at a Canadian university were exposed to a series of photographs of officers wearing different uniform configurations (i.e., special duty vs. traditional uniform, dark vs. light shirt, dishevelled vs. tidy uniform, and uniform trousers with and without a stripe). Participants rated each officer on numerous scales including: (1) the officer’s personal qualities (e.g., helpfulness), (2) abilities or behaviors that the officer is likely to display (e.g., excessive force), and (3) the behavioral intentions of the participant toward the observed officer (e.g., willing to confide sensitive information to them). When controlling for general perceptions of police legitimacy, results suggest that, compared to the control conditions (i.e., normal operational uniform), introducing the uniform manipulations significantly influenced ratings on items related to community relations, professionalism, and officer safety. The current study speaks to the complicated relationship between the police appearing approachable and professional to the public, while also considering possible officer safety concerns associated with their uniform.

Police continue to cite struggles of attracting applicants to their agencies. One means by which police attempt to attract applicants is via their recruitment videos. As part of the present research, I employ content analysis to descriptively assess the material contained within a large sample of recruitment videos from police agencies across the USA (N = 567). Trained coders reviewed each video and coded them for an array of different variables, including video characteristics, officer representation, informational content, and behavioural content. The analyses reveal that in addition to including some technical information about the job, many videos also feature high-speed driving, the use of firearms, the demonstration of canine as well as special weapons and tactics units, and an emphasis on men, masculinity, and physicality. Although many videos still highlight some community-oriented behaviours, such behaviours are often less salient than the former. By cataloging recruitment videos, I both identify and interrogate the behaviours highlighted by police as part of their recruiting efforts and discuss the associated implications for people’s potential interest in policing careers.

Injuries and Deaths During Police Operations: Special Weapons and Training Teams

Emergency medicine research on the front lines

Research in such fields as population planning, agriculture, and education has demonstrated the importance of intermediaries to ensure the dissemination of innovative practices However, little attention has been given to how organizations serve this function This article reports four case studies of regional educational service agencies in their role as disseminators of new knowledge Three characteristic approaches to dissemination were identified laissez-faire, entrepreneurial, and authoritarian These approaches wereshapedbyfivefactors in the agency's context state policy initiatives, client concerns, staff interests, history, and leadership External constraints, staff interests, and history created crosspressures that executive leaders responded to by developing missions for their organizations Missions that maximized dissemination services were often associated with some tension with external constituencies

BackgroundThe need for evidence-based decision-making in the health sector is well understood in the global health community. Yet, gaps persist between the availability of evidence and the use of that evidence. Most research on evidence-based decision-making has been carried out in higher-income countries, and most studies look at policy-making rather than decision-making more broadly. We conducted this study to address these gaps and to identify challenges and facilitators to evidence-based decision-making in Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Nutrition (MNCH&N) at the municipality, district, and national levels in Mozambique.MethodsWe used a case study design to capture the experiences of decision-makers and analysts (n = 24) who participated in evidence-based decision-making processes related to health policies and interventions to improve MNCH&N in diverse decision-making contexts (district, municipality, and national levels) in 2014–2017, in Mozambique. We examined six case studies, at the national level, in Maputo City and in two districts of Sofala Province and two of Zambézia Province, using individual in-depth interviews with key informants and a document review, for three weeks, in July 2018.ResultsOur analysis highlighted various challenges for evidence-based decision-making for MNCH&N, at national, district, and municipality levels in Mozambique, including limited demand for evidence, limited capacity to use evidence, and lack of trust in the available evidence. By contrast, access to evidence, and availability of evidence were viewed positively and seen as potential facilitators. Organizational capacity for the demand and use of evidence appears to be the greatest challenge; while individual capacity is also a barrier.ConclusionEvidence-based decision-making requires that actors have access to evidence and are empowered to act on that evidence. This, in turn, requires alignment between those who collect data, those who analyze and interpret data, and those who make and implement decisions. Investments in individual, organizational, and systems capacity to use evidence are needed to foster practices of evidence-based decision-making for improved maternal and child health in Mozambique.

Summary While previous studies have offered insight into evidence-based practices that are effective in promoting safety and well-being, the underlying contextual implementation conditions that influence these outcomes in child welfare agencies are less understood. To address this gap, this study relied on organizational survey data collected from child welfare workers and supervisors during the process of implementing an evidence-based practice—the Positive Parenting Program—and merged those data with data gathered by the Parents' Assessment of Protective Factors survey. Findings Results showed a significant increase between baseline and termination of services in social connections and overall protective factors index scores. Parents who received services from organizations inclusive of supportive leadership experienced greater increases in social connections. Lower protective factors index scores were associated with workers’ perception that evidence-based practices were required; however, scores increased as supportive leadership increased. Parents who identified as African American experienced lower protective factors index scores compared to parents in other racial categories. Parents who were engaged with workers who felt evidence-based practices were appealing were likely to experience greater increases in protective factors index scores. Applications Intended client outcomes are more likely to be achieved when agency leaders (1) provide workers support to learn and use evidence-based practices and (2) rely on methods to increase evidence-based practice appeal rather than mandate implementation. Future research is needed to (1) understand why the implementation contexts or Positive Parenting Program itself are not as effective for African Americans as they are for oteher racial/ethnic groups and (2) validate findings in other agency contexts and with other evidence-based practices.

Introduction:Telehealth has the potential to mitigate the lack of health care access in rural and underserved communities; however, telehealth is only viable where sufficiently high-speed internet broadband is available to patients. Existing broadband data sets may not accurately reflect the state of broadband, particularly in rural communities. We examined consumer internet speed test data from two organizations to see if the number of tests per 1,000 residents varied across county-level rurality.Methods:We analyzed county-level data from Measurement Labs (M-Lab) and Ookla for Good (Ookla fixed and mobile) across the calendar years 2020 and 2021. We used the number of tests conducted per 1,000 residents within United States counties as the outcome variable, and Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC) as the main independent variable of interest.Results:Using negative binomial models with robust standard errors, we found that the number of fixed speed tests conducted per 1,000 residents was generally lower in rural counties relative to counties with over one million residents. However, we found no associations between any categories of county-level rurality for the number of mobile tests conducted per 1,000 residents. Patterns of association with other covariates emerged as significant in some models and not in others, suggesting key differences among users generating speed tests among these data sources.Conclusions:Our findings demonstrate the poor representation of residents from very rural counties in M-Lab and Ookla fixed data sets of user-generated internet speed tests. Additional data are needed to inform broadband infrastructure investment to identify those communities most left behind by broadband expansion efforts.

In cases where officers communicated with a positive tenor (e.g., demeanor), suspects were compliant 99.3% of the time. Similarly, the use of noncoercive verbal communication and directives (e.g., asking, suggesting, persuading) were also shown to significantly increase suspect compliance. However, accusing suspects of wrongdoing and using other coercive language, such as threats and commands, did not significantly impact suspect compliance. These results highlight the need for police training programs to prioritize communication skills that minimize the use of force when possible. Focusing on noncoercive directives and exhibiting a positive tenor could mitigate the likelihood of suspect resistance or noncompliance, thereby reducing the need for physical intervention and possible injuries to those involved. Prior literature also suggests these strategies may be important for improving community relations and perceptions of police legitimacy.

Prior studies have illustrated racial differences in perceptions of police legitimacy. African‐Americans’ views, however, appear to be complex, shaped by perceptions of over‐enforcement of crimes committed by African‐American offenders coupled with under‐enforcement of crimes involving African‐American victims. Using data from the 2002 National Incident‐Based Reporting System, we examine whether victim race (alone, and in combination with offender race) affects police case clearance of four types of violent criminal incidents (homicide, aggravated assault, rape, and robbery) as a potential explanation of African‐Americans’ reduced levels of support for the police. Results suggest that the race of the victim, particularly in combination with the race of the offender, is related to police clearance of violent criminal incidents, but that this relationship is not as strong as those between agency, offense type, and situational characteristics of the incident. Implications for research and policy on police—community relations are discussed.