American Law Enforcement Agencies Research Articles

The strategy of evaluative argumentation as a means of linguistic modeling of the police image in oppositional Russian and American newspapers

The article is devoted to the strategy of evaluative argumentation in the Russian and American mass media discourse aimed at linguistic modeling of the Police image. The strategy of evaluative argumentation is one of the most effective communicative strategies for modeling the image of a social institution, where the addresser through appeal to the addressee’s emotions creates a certain model verbalized in value components and capable of having a speech impact forming the addressee’s opinion and attitude to a certain object or phenomenon. The category of assessment has the greatest speech-influencing potential due to the fact that it can replace logical argumentation in a media text, and evaluations can obtain the character of arguments themselves. The main functions of law enforcement agencies all over the world are to protect citizens’ life, health, rights and freedoms, that is, the highest values. That is why the value model is of the greatest interest in the study of the Police as a social institution. The author analyzes media texts, represented in such oppositional newspapers as “Novaya Gazeta”, “Kommersant”, “The Washington Post” and “The New York Times” for the period from 1 to 30 January 2021. As a result of the analyses of arguments and argumentative acts from oppositional newspapers representing information about the Russian and American law enforcement agencies’ activities, the author concludes that the positive image of the social institution of the Police in Russianlanguage and English-language media texts is actualized in such evaluative components as “morality”, “ethic”, “humanity”, “protection”, “safety”, “professionalism” and “legitimacy”, and the negative image is verbalized in the components “illegitimacy”, “arbitrariness”, “brutality”, “unprofessionalism”, “bias” and “threat”.

Disorder Oriented Policing: A Revealing Case Study of a Special Differential Response Unit in the Houston Police Department

Proactive policing has been a preferred approach among American law enforcement agencies for decades. While most of the systematic studies done in this area focus on the effect of proactive policing programs, limited research has analyzed factors that cause police departments to adopt a particular style of proactive policing. Using propositions primarily derived from social disorganization and broken windows theories and path analysis, this study examines the characteristics and associates of everyday activities of the Differential Response Team (DRT)—a proactive policing team—in Houston, Texas. Our findings suggest that DRT activities are driven mostly by neighborhood characteristics and the occurrence of reported serious crimes. The most significant predictor of DRT activities is violent crime rate of a neighborhood.

The Relationship Between Citizen Oversight and Procedural Justice Measures in Policing: An Exploratory Study

Some American law enforcement agencies continue to experience disruptions in the level of trust and legitimacy ascribed to them by their communities. Citizen review boards (CRBs), may be an effective means for improving the police-community relationship. Utilizing a framework grounded in procedural justice and citizen participation, this study examines whether a link exists between CRBs and community satisfaction in the police and four procedural justice measures: 1) trust in the police, 2) belief the police are held accountable, 3) belief the police treat all people equally, and 4) belief the police are building positive community relationships. To estimate these correlations, this study uses a unique dataset from 48 U.S. cities and employs bivariate and multivariate methods to analyze the data. The findings indicate a mostly positive association between CRBs and procedural justice measures, which suggests that CRBs may be able to bolster legitimacy and enhance the police-community relationship in some communities.

Federal (De)Funding of Local Police

Across the political spectrum, politicians, commentators, and activists frequently invoke federal funding as a lever to induce changes in local police behavior. But can federal funding function as an effective policy lever at the local level? Is federal funding or the threat of defunding a sufficiently strong tool to effectuate deeply contentious policy goals over local opposition? This Essay conducts an empirical examination of federal funding for local and state police agencies in the United States. It finds that the federal government remains a relatively minor contributor to local police budgets. We find that federal funding only reaches a minority of local police agencies. Similarly, federal funds account, on average, for a relatively small percentage of what the typical American municipality spends on policing each year. Overall, our findings suggest that most American law enforcement agencies are not acutely reliant on federal funding. These findings have several important implications for the literature on police reform and accountability. First, efforts to use the lever of federal funding to alter the behavior of local police departments may be ineffective. This may be particularly true when the reform demanded by federal lawmakers is expensive or unpopular locally. In such cases, rational local leaders may assess that the risk of losing federal funding is preferable to change demanded by federal lawmakers. Second, our findings suggest that federal lawmakers may be better off considering alternative paths other than the withholding of federal funds in promoting constitutional policing. To this point, we briefly lay out some additional avenues for federal police reform that do not rely on leveraging limited federal funds. Finally, our findings reinforce the fact that the ongoing debate about defunding police departments and reimagining public safety must occur primarily at the local, not federal level.

The Influence of Agency Policies on Conducted Energy Device Use and Police Use of Lethal Force

Law enforcement agencies across the United States, partly in response to public outcries over fatalities associated with police use of lethal force, have adopted numerous less lethal technologies, including conducted energy devices (CEDs). Although the device was intended to reduce citizen deaths resulting from police use of force, various human rights groups have linked its usage to increased fatalities. The present study adds to the literature on CEDs by examining (a) the relationship between the restrictiveness of CED-related policies and CED deployments and (b) the relationship between these policies and fatal police shootings. Using data from a nationally representative sample of American law enforcement agencies, this study estimates a series of count regression models to examine the influence of departmental policies on CED usage and fatal shootings by police. Findings illustrate that less restrictive CED policies are associated with increased CED usage and fewer fatal shootings by police. Although design limitations preclude causal arguments, these results suggest that police departments should at least consider adopting more liberal policies regarding the application of this less lethal technology. Future studies on this issue using more rigorous designs are warranted.

Intelligence-led policing and forces of organisational change in the USA

The intent of this study is to explore organisational factors that, both conceptually and operationally, facilitate or inhibit a police agency from adopting intelligence-led policing (ILP). Research to date is yet to explore organisational factors related to ILP among American law enforcement agencies. Drawing from original survey data of national law enforcement agencies as part of a 2009 US Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice-funded project, the present study incorporates force field analysis to explore factors of ILP adoption in the USA. Findings suggest state and local agencies' familiarity with the intelligence-led concept and utilisation of open source and received information appear to be driving adoption. Conversely, formal policies, lack of sufficient personnel, training and a lack of intelligence-led decision-making appear to be inhibiting change towards the ILP paradigm. It appears agency size has minimal influence on an agency's shift towards ILP. Access to necessary resources and training appear to pose a significant challenge to law enforcement. Limited resources to develop an intelligence-led approach may result in the capability going underdeveloped or taking the form of other policing practices related to available resources – such as homeland security preparedness. This research is one of the first empirical explorations of ILP adoption, especially with a national sample of state and local agencies. Further conceptual clarity of the ILP paradigm is provided and organisational factors are discussed.

Negotiated Order: The Fourth Amendment, Telephone Surveillance, and Social Interactions, 1878–1968

In the United States the words “telephone surveillance” bring to mind contemporary security concerns about smart phone tracking, the NSA warrantless wiretapping scandal, and the telecommunications provisions of the Patriot Act. Yet telephone surveillance is as old as telephony itself, dating back to the nearly simultaneous commercialization of the telephone and phonograph. This article examines telephone surveillance by American law enforcement agencies from the inception of telephone service to the passage of the Federal Wiretap Law in 1968, focusing on the challenges an advancing, proliferating, and shrinking technology posed for Fourth Amendment law. To highlight the technological, institutional, and cultural interactions that have shaped Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the article deploys Jack Balkin's theory of cultural software and Anslem Strauss's concept of a negotiated order and brings together major cases, federal legislation, and evidence of government surveillance. The article argues that during the first ninety years of telephone usage in America, laws on search and seizure developed not from constitutional consistency or logic but as the result of a complex negotiation process involving new media and human agency.

Pilloried in the Press: Rethinking the Constitutional Status of the American Perp Walk

The perp walk is the practice, common among some American law enforcement agencies, of “walking” a criminal suspect before the press to be filmed. Perp walks have been challenged under the Fourth Amendment as unreasonable seizures of the person, but with limited success. This article examines the governing Fourth Amendment case law on perp walks. It finds the cases have deviated from conventional Fourth Amendment doctrine, instead establishing a bright-line rule based on an overstated distinction between different types of perp walks. The cases also overestimate the perp walk’s informative value while overlooking its punitive effects. Drawing on media studies, the article questions the claim that perp walks increase public access to the criminal justice system, arguing that they are necessarily distortionary media events. Drawing on both legal and anthropological sources, it goes on to suggest that perp walks are also inherently punitive events, akin to traditional shaming sanctions. Finally, the article offers a prescriptive analysis of how the perp walk cases can be brought back into line with Fourth Amendment doctrine and made to account for the perp walk’s distortionary and punitive effects.

Negotiated Order: The Fourth Amendment, Telephone Surveillance, and Social Interactions, 1878–1968

In the US, the words ‘telephone surveillance’ bring to mind contemporary security concerns about smart phone tracking, the NSA warrantless wiretapping scandal, and the telecommunications provisions of the Patriot Act. Yet telephone surveillance is as old as telephony itself, dating back to the nearly simultaneous commercialization of the telephone and phonograph in 1878. First put to use by users, so they would have a written record of business meetings held over the phone, recorders were later put to use by police for surreptitious recording of criminal suspects’ conversations. This article examines telephone surveillance by American law enforcement agencies from the inception of telephone service to the passage of the Federal Wiretap Law in 1968, focusing on the challenges an advancing, proliferating, and shrinking technology posed for Fourth Amendment law. To highlight the technological, institutional and cultural interactions that have shaped Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the article deploys Jack Balkin’s theory of cultural software and Anslem Strauss’s concept of a negotiated order, and brings together major cases, federal legislation, and evidence of government surveillance. The article shows how telephone surveillance brought the Fourth Amendment into prominence and inspired many of its most contentious debates; the article argues that during the first 90 years of telephone usage in America, laws on search and seizure developed not from constitutional consistency or logic, but as the result of a complex negotiation process involving new media and human agency.

Evidence‐based solution to information sharing between law enforcement agencies

PurposeThe aim of this study is to test a technological solution to two traditional limitations of information sharing between law enforcement agencies: data quality and privacy concerns.Design/methodology/approachEntity Analytics Software (EAS) was tested in two studies with North American law enforcement agencies. In the first test, duplicated cases held in a police record system were successfully identified (4.0 percent) to a greater extent than the traditionally used software program (1.5 percent). This resulted in a difference of 11,954 cases that otherwise would not have been identified as duplications. In the second test, entity information held separately by police and border officials was shared anonymously between these two organizations. This resulted in 1,827 alerts regarding entities that appeared in both systems; traditionally, this information could not have been shared, given privacy concerns, and neither agency would be aware of the relevant information held by the other. Data duplication resulted in an additional 1,041 alerts, which highlights the need to use technological solutions to improve data quality prior to and during information sharing.FindingsThe current study demonstrated that EAS has the potential to merge data from different technologically based systems, while identifying errors and reducing privacy concerns through anonymization of identifiers.Originality/valueWhile only one potential technological solution (EAS) was tested and organizations must consider the potential expense associated with implementing such technology, the implications resulting from both studies for improved awareness and greater efficiency support and facilitate information sharing between law enforcement organizations.

An Examination of Strategic Planning in American Law Enforcement Agencies

Strategic planning in police departments represents a significant departure from a traditionally reactive orientation to one that is more proactive in nature. This study followed an inductive reasoning approach to investigate the implementation of strategic planning in American law enforcement agencies and then develop theoretical models that might capture variation across organizations. Based on the initial results from telephone interviews and selective site visits, we were able to identify two key dimensions that seemed to differentiate the implementation of strategic planning among these law enforcement agencies. As a consequence, four styles of strategic planning emerged. This article discusses the development of strategic planning in U.S. police agencies and implications for the future.

Patterns of Community Policing in Nonurban America

To date, most community policing research has taken place in large urban areas. Only a handful of studies, most using case study or small-N cross-sectional methodologies, have explored patterns of community policing in the small police agencies and nonurban areas that exist throughout much of the United States. Using data from the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, this study examines levels and patterns of community policing implementation in a sample of nearly 6,000 American law enforcement agencies serving populations less than 50,000. The authors find significant variations in levels of community policing activity by geographic region and department size, with larger agencies and those from the Western region of the United States practicing a wider range of community-policing-related activities. The implications of these findings are discussed for three areas: future research on the police, current federal community policing programs and policies, and the broader community policing reform movement.