From the beat to the tweet: the use of Twitter (X) by police officers

Automated decision making is becoming the norm across large parts of society, which raises interesting liability challenges when human control over technical systems becomes increasingly limited. This article defines “quasi‐automation” as inclusion of humans as a basic rubber‐stamping mechanism in an otherwise completely automated decision‐making system. Three cases of quasi‐automation are examined, where human agency in decision making is currently debatable: self‐driving cars, border searches based on passenger name records, and content moderation on social media. While there are specific regulatory mechanisms for purely automated decision making, these regulatory mechanisms do not apply if human beings are (rubber‐stamping) automated decisions. More broadly, most regulatory mechanisms follow a pattern of binary liability in attempting to regulate human or machine agency, rather than looking to regulate both. This results in regulatory gray areas where the regulatory mechanisms do not apply, harming human rights by preventing meaningful liability for socio‐technical decision making. The article concludes by proposing criteria to ensure meaningful agency when humans are included in automated decision‐making systems, and relates this to the ongoing debate on enabling human rights in Internet infrastructure.

Despite the recent rash of social media videos of seemingly outrageous police misconduct, as mentioned earlier, police misconduct is difficult to document. One source of data is the individual police officer or police official. However, not only is it difficult to get information from individual officers or police officials (Collins, 1998) but because of the homogenous nature of police culture, findings from research at the individual level may be mixed, ambiguous and lack variability (Grant & Grant, 1996; McManus, 1969). Though somewhat more reliable than research at the individual level (Kane & White, 2009) research at the organizational level may nonetheless reflect an organizational subculture of policies formed by administrators but executed by individual police officers. For example, some police organizations may have a “siege mentality” of “them versus us” that permits and even encourages violent misconduct by individual police officers to maintain order on the streets (Fyfe & Skolnick, 1993). In such cases research at the organizational level may also be limited by its lack of variability but more importantly may suffer from external validity, in that administrative officials and supervisors in different police organizations may differ in determining what constitutes police misconduct in their particular organization.

This article examines how individual police officers in China interpret and justify the use of excessive force on social media through their WeChat Subscription Accounts (WSAs). Existing research examines how the police department uses social media to justify deadly force, but overlooks individual officers’ online justifications. Adopting a critical discourse analysis approach, this study analyses 211 articles commenting on a prominent case of police violence in China. The findings shed light on the online voice of Chinese frontline officers, revealing an ideology that defends the use of excessive force. The articles published in WSAs displayed strong empathy towards the involved officer; contested the characterization of the incident as police brutality by police officials, the public, and the media; and employed various strategies to justify the officer’s actions. The discussion section expands on these findings by drawing comparisons to justifications in the United States, emphasizing the distinctive dynamic between individual officers’ online expression and official police discourse in China, and offering insights for scholars examining online expression and digital nationalism in the Chinese context.

Racial Profiling

This chapter explores the impact of religion on the practice of policing. Although today many persons no longer adhere to institutional religion or subscribe to any religious beliefs, most persons worldwide still identify with, or acknowledge having a background in, religion. The same is true of those persons who are police officers. There are numerous ways that religion has informed and impacted the institution and practice of policing as well as individual police officers. Historically, policing has reflected deeply held beliefs about the human condition, crime and justice, and the need for social and political arrangements to safeguard the peace. For individual police officers, their worldview, often rooted in religion, impacts their view and practice of policing. For example, religion provides spiritual solace for police officers who experience strife and stress from their work. Also, religion motivates police officers' efforts to serve and protect their fellow citizens and the community in accordance with certain moral values and commitments.

The police officers who blocked the Gretna Bridge may have in fact violated several rights guaranteed by the Constitution. However, this Comment focuses on only one-the right to the freedom of travel. This Comment argues that the City of Gretna should be held civilly liable for its actions; and, that the individual police officers who blocked the bridge should be held both civilly and criminally liable for their actions. By blocking the bridge, the officers intentionally deprived New Orleans residents of their right to the freedom of travel. Part II contextualizes this argument by providing a history of the poverty and racism long faced by many New Orleans residents. To a large extent, poverty and health shaped New Orleanians' evacuation and survival strategies; and, examining the reasons behind the strategies employed by different sectors of the population is fundamental to understanding why so many New Orleans residents did not or could not evacuate. Racism further complicated these strategies. The history of police brutality in and around New Orleans indicates that routine abuse may have been an aggravating factor in Katrina's aftermath. In addition, both the media and government officials perpetuated negative stereotypes about New Orleans residents, which prolonged evacuation and rescue efforts and greatly exacerbated evacuees' suffering. The Gretna Bridge incident is just one illustration of how, in the wake of Katrina, poverty and racism collided to produce unjust consequences for residents who were simply struggling to survive. Part III reviews the fundamental right to travel under the Due Process Clause and discusses this right in the context of emergency situations. Part IV considers the possible civil and criminal consequences under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 18 U.S.C. § 242 for depriving individuals of their right to travel. Finally, Part V applies the fundamental right to travel and the remedies afforded under § 1983 and § 242 to the Gretna Bridge incident. This section argues that the City of Gretna should be held civilly liable for the officers' actions and that the individual police officers who blocked the Gretna Bridge should be held both civilly and criminally liable for their actions.

Police discretion, as an inevitable part of policing, allows police officers to make tailor-made decisions and decide whether and how to enforce the law. Since it has been acknowledged that police officers have discretionary powers (i.e. the beginning of the 1960s), empirical research regarding police discretion has been initiated to get a grip on police decision-making in practice and which factors influence the decisions made by individual police officers. Furthermore, researchers have identified policing styles to categorize police officers’ styles of law enforcement. Despite the added value of these studies, it is difficult to stay informed of the research that has been conducted since the 1960s as we lack a systematic overview of these studies and the findings they have generated. Therefore, we conducted a scoping review that summarizes the available, empirical research on police decision-making, with a particular focus on the factors that (do not) impact police officers’ decision-making processes. This is a highly relevant exercise for both police theory and police practice.KeywordsPoliceDecision-makingDiscretionPolice researchScoping review

In addition to high-risk and high-stress events that police officers routinely encounter, many are also exposed to extreme traumatic exposures or disasters caused by nature (eg. Hurricanes) and human action (e.g., terrorist attacks or plane crashes). These exposures can result in a variety of adverse reactions including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), acute stress disorder, major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders. Understanding and accurately measuring the burden of disease arising from involvement in extreme events, on policing organizations and individual police officers is critical for policy makers and those who plan and deliver services. This systematic review synthesizes existing research on large-scale disasters, in order to further our understanding of how extreme events impact the mental health of police officers. The results found variability in the reported rates of mental disorder; however, there are some clear trends. Overall, the rates of PTSD among police officers that are consistently lower than those of civilians affected by the same disaster, and are lower than other occupations. This undoubtedly speaks to the resilience and training of members of policing organizations that prepare them for this work. Studies also demonstrate that reported distress in terms of acute stress disorder, anxiety and depression, continues to rise in some groups as time-elapsed from the event lengthens; suggesting a need to ensure that mental health supports are provided at later stages after the event.

#trial: clinical research in the age of social media

Community Policing has been in practice since long and the idea has now gained fillip, as various countries have felt encouraged from the success of different community policing schemes across many jurisdictions. The essence of Community Policing is to bridge the distance between the police officers and citizens in such a way that the police officers become an integrated part of the community that they serve. In other words, the individual police officer should know each member of the community and the community members should in turn, know the police officer. One key to the success of any Community Policing Project is the ability of its ‘sponsors’ to ‘sell’ the project to its beneficiaries for this it is necessary that the beneficiaries are clearly identified and wooed. Communities rely on police departments to protect and serve and the police, in turn, rely on community support and cooperation, but the relationship is not always harmonious. To maintain the harmonious relationship between police & community it is very important to minimize gap between police and community. The present paper examines the concept of community policing in all its dimensions and its role and utility in crime control and prevention. The aim here is to assess the experience and success of community policing in many national legal systems and its desirability in and the extent to which it has been incorporated and applied in Indian legal system.

The volatile political environment that surrounds the issue of “racial profiling” has led local and state police agencies across the nation to start collecting information about traffic and pedestrian stops. The controversy over this issue is overwhelmed by the unsupported assumption that all race-based decision making by police officers is motivated by individual police officers' racial prejudice. This article reviews recently published studies on racial profiling and critiques both their methods and conclusions. Using the conceptual framework for police research presented by Bernard and Engel, it reviews a number of theories that may explain racial disparities in the rates of police stops. The authors argue that to explain police behavior better, theoretical models must guide future data collection efforts.

The article is focused on the consideration of the motivation of police officers of the National Police of Ukraine as determinants of professional efficiency. The authors have analyzed the domestic and international experience of studying the professional motivation of police officers and the possibilities of its practical use in the system of psychological provision of the employees of the National Police of Ukraine. The levels and components of motivation, directions of its improvement have been studied. The authors have accomplished review of research on the motives for choosing a service in the police as a profession, as well as the factors of further motivation of the employees. The relationship between individual motivation, learning productivity, work and police officers’ satisfaction with the work has been traced. The role of self-motivation and self-organization in increasing the efficiency of professional activity has been determined. Motivating factors have been provided – achievement, recognition, responsibility, promotion and growth, etc., means to support motivation, as well as demotivators – stress due to internal factors, poor health and physical well-being, a negative example of employees who lost interest in the service, etc. The importance of organizational justice and personal example of the head, his awareness and attention to the factors of individual motivation and productivity of the employee for the optimization of the police activity has been substantiated. The perspective of developing diagnostic tools and development of motivation of police personnel in the field of work with psycho-technologies of diagnostic, therapeutic, normative and influential orientation has been outlined.

Classical theories of moral judgment (e.g., Piaget, 1965; Kohlberg, 1983) were tested against a modularity hypothesis in police officers. Patrol and investigation officers were compared in a series of experiments using functional measurement in which policemen were asked to make judgments, from both objective and subjective perspectives, about the severity of acts involving verbal or physical aggression. Information in the incidents included justification for the act, intent on the part of the harmdoer and harm caused to the victim. Differences were found between patrol and investigation officers in their responses to moral dilemmas, confirming the importance of professional experience in moral judgment. Individual police officers were also found to switch moral codes according to the perspective from which they made their judgments, lending support to the modularity hypothesis. Findings are discussed in terms of both moral relativity and moral modularity.

Purpose: This study comprehensively identified which of the sub-Factor s of organizational fairness they per-ceived had a positive effect on organizational effectiveness. In addition, this study verified how power distance tendency, an individual characteristic variable, affects the relationship between their job satisfaction, organiza-tional commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior. Method: The scope and method of this study are as follows. First, the time range of the study ran from Decem-ber 1, 2020 until December 30, 2020, and the spatial range of the study was the Daegu Metropolitan Police Agency, 10 police stations affiliated, and 31 patrol divisions within the police station. Second, as for the method of the study, a reference study and an empirical study were concurrently conducted via a questionnaire survey. Results: The results of this study are as follows. First, it was found that the organizational fairness perceived by police officers had a significant positive effect on organizational effectiveness. Second, in the influence of power distance tendency on organizational effectiveness, it was found that the higher the power distance tendency, the more negative effect on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior. Conclusion: The implications of this study are as follows. First, the establishment of a fair police organizational culture should precede. Second, in order to ensure that individual police officers have an active and positive attitude in enhancing organizational effectiveness, organizational efforts should be made to resolve complaints based on compensation results. Third, it is necessary to solve operational problems by receiving expert diagnoses on the operation of the performance-based pay system of the police organization and to actively collect and reflect the opinions of police officers who are subject to application.

The main purpose is to analyze the role of Indonesian female police deployed as Individual Police Officers in the United Nations peacekeeping operation in Darfur from 2016 to 2018. This research was designed as a qualitative case study that triangulated data from previously published researches, institutional documents, and semi-structured qualitative interviews. Previous scholarly publications were used to observe gender deficit – which is the lack of female personnel in UN peacekeeping missions. Institutional documents, particularly ex-Indonesian female police reports, were analyzed to contribute to data enrichment in this research. Lastly, the authors conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with some ex-female police who have completed their deployment in UNAMID (2016-2018). Concerning the gender equality and counterinsurgency concepts, this research figured out that Indonesian female police could demonstrate their strategic role to provide skill-building activities, trust-building with refugees, and human rights advocacy. The numbers of Indonesian female police in this mission remained higher than other Southeast Asian contributing countries, but the Indonesian female police were also functional in line with the UN gendering peace and security agenda.