Confidence In Law Enforcement Research Articles

Getting the message right: what are the impacts of counter-serious and organised crime awareness-raising strategies?

Abstract Counter-serious and organised crime (SOC) strategies often include an awareness-raising element. Such messaging aims to build support for counter-SOC efforts, and intolerance for organised criminal activity. However, a growing body of research suggests that raising awareness to ‘social bads’ like SOC may risk backfiring by encouraging pessimistic attitudes about whether they can be controlled and could even nudge people to agree with populist narratives which argue that political outsiders represent the only hope for tackling systemic problems. A nationally representative survey experiment in Albania was conducted to test, for the first time, the impact of messages about SOC. Typical of counter-SOC messaging in practice, the first message emphasised the harms SOC causes. The second was more positive, highlighting high levels of social disapproval of SOC, a theme that social norms research suggests may be effective. We find that the first message backfires by reducing confidence in law enforcement and encouraging support for populist ideas. The second message is unexpectedly found to also encourage support for a populist sentiment, while having no positive impact on attitudes about law enforcement. This suggests that even positive messaging about ‘social bads’ can risk triggering unwanted responses.

Dirty, filthy cities: Australian crime films and cultural contexts in Melbourne and Sydney

Australia is a country of extreme landscapes: untamed natural coastlines through to the mysterious and dangerous interior. Australian cinema has regularly showcased the country’s landscape, often creating a sense of character in the land itself. Although the majority of Australians live in the major metropolitan hubs of the country, cities in cinema lose distinctiveness on-screen to augment opportunities for international success. However, two cities can be considered as having strong identities that are present on film: Melbourne and Sydney. By examining a selection of films that are specifically linked to these locations, this article suggests the crime genre has identified and captured challenging trends in these cities’ recent histories: racial tension from increased diversity and multiculturalism in Australia’s urban centres, declining confidence in law enforcement and police corruption, and high levels of dangerous drug use. This article will closely examine four films: Romper Stomper (Geoffrey Wright, 1992), Animal Kingdom (David Michôd, 2010), Felony (Matthew Saville, 2013) and Little Fish (Rowan Woods, 2005).

Does Police Stop and Search Make Everyone Feel Safe? Evidence From the United States

Stop and search is an innovative policing approach aimed at deterring crime and disorder and promoting public trust and confidence in law enforcement. While many studies have investigated racial biases in this approach and its effectiveness in reducing crime and disorder, little attention has been paid to its role in fostering citizens’ feelings of safety. Using the 2016 General Social Survey data ( N = 2,876), this study examined whether police use of pedestrian stop-and-search practices generated citizens’ feelings of safety. Our results revealed prevailing disparities between Black and White Americans on the effectiveness of police stop-and-search practices. Namely, police stop and search made White persons feel safer and more protected in their neighborhood, compared to Blacks. The conclusion discusses the implications of this disparity, and potential policy and managerial solutions.

The Concept of Restorative Justice in Law Enforcement During COVID-19 Pandemic

The enforcement of justice in social life has a very important meaning in an effort to build a high and dignified nation's civilization. This is closely related to the condition of a pandemic COVID-19 which is still increasing and causing many victims. Not only casualties, but also affects other aspects such as economic life, social life, education, to the religious aspect. In line with this, through the Regulation of the Attorney General of the Republic of Indonesia Number 15 of 2020 concerning Termination of Prosecution Based on Restorative Justice, the prosecutor's office seeks to promote the values of justice in an effort to produce legal products that are more just by taking into account the conditions of the parties, especially victims and perpetrators of crime so that the criminal path is not the only way to go. Therefore, this study will examine several issues including the formulation is how is the concept of restorative justice in the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Indonesia <i>(Perja)</i> Number 15 of 2020 concerning Termination of Prosecution Based on Restorative Justice and its urgency in criminal law enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is a juridical-normative legal research with data collection methods, namely literature study and analysis descriptive-qualitative with a juridical philosophical approach. The conclusion of this study is that in terms of legal content, the Regulation of the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Indonesia Number 15 of 2020 concerning Termination of Prosecution Based on Restorative Justice is sufficient to meet the aspects of justice and meet the general principles of restorative justice. However, the need for some improvements such as context-related explanations imposible to in Article 5 and impelementation regulations for law enforcement officers in order to continue to promote a conscience so that law enforcement in Indonesia is getting better future and be able to restore public confidence in law enforcement and justice. In addition, in the midst of a pandemic, this concept is in line with government regulations in an effort to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic so that not all crimes must be resolved criminally as the conditions of prisons in Indonesia have exceeded capacity.

Improving African American confidence in law enforcement: Recruit to optimize procedural justice, not racial quotas

Although a common maxim among many practitioners argues that police departments should recruit their way out of the African American confidence race gap by hiring more minority officers, that maxim is unfounded and redirects our recruitment efforts away from hiring to ensure procedural justice and police effectiveness—the two most powerful determinants of African American confidence in the police. The author’s nationwide survey revealed that African Americans living in cities with more racially representative law enforcement agencies were no more confident in local law enforcement than those living in cities where African Americans were underrepresented. That same survey proved, instead, that African American confidence is far higher where local police forces deliver procedural justice and effective policing than where local police forces are merely racially representative. This article presents the survey findings and explores the policy implications for law enforcement recruitment.

Improving African-American Confidence in Law Enforcement: Recruit to Optimize Procedural Justice, not Racial Quotas

Although a common maxim among many practitioners argues that police departments should recruit their way out of the African American confidence race gap by hiring more minority officers, that maxim is unfounded and redirects our recruitment efforts away from hiring to ensure procedural justice and police effectiveness—the two most powerful determinants of African American confidence in the police. The author’s nationwide survey revealed that African Americans living in cities with more racially representative law enforcement agencies were no more confident in local law enforcement than those living in cities where African Americans were underrepresented. That same survey proved, instead, that African American confidence is far higher where local police forces deliver procedural justice and effective policing than where local police forces are merely racially representative. This article presents the survey findings and explores the policy implications for law enforcement recruitment.

Confidence in Law Enforcement When African-Americans are Underrepresented on the Force: An Exploratory Study

Confidence in Law Enforcement When African-Americans are Underrepresented on the Force: An Exploratory Study, Charles E. MacLean, 2019: Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice. This dissertation explores the prediction that when African-Americans are underrepresented among sworn officers in a community’s local law enforcement agencies compared to the African-American proportions in that community’s overall population, African-American civilians’ confidence in their local law enforcement agencies may suffer, leading to impaired respect for law, reduced civilian cooperation with law enforcement, and civilian impressions of weakened procedural justice and fairness. With low civilian confidence, the argument goes, one could expect an enhanced sense of disenfranchisement among the underrepresented sub-populations. The purpose of this study is to consider the impact of underrepresentation of African-Americans among sworn officers serving a local community, explore the key correlates of civilian confidence viewed through the lens of African-American perceptions and attitudes, and confront the superordinate roles that procedural justice and police effectiveness play in forming African-American civilian attitudes of confidence, trust, and satisfaction in local law enforcement. To quantify representativeness, this study expresses relative racial compositions of the police and the policed as a Racial Mirror Index (“RMI”). If the percent of a community’s police, who are African-American, exactly matches the percent of the policed in that community, who are African-American, the RMI-AA (“Racial Mirror Index-African-American”) would equal 100. RMI-AAs over 100 indicate African-Americans are overrepresented on the local law enforcement agency compared to the African-American share of the general population; RMI-AAs under 100 indicate African-Americans are underrepresented among sworn officers on the force. Despite expectations, as this study makes clear, RMI-AA is not a significant predictor of African-American civilian confidence, trust, and satisfaction in local law enforcement. Instead, African-American attitudes about local law enforcement are overwhelmingly driven by African-American perceptions of procedural justice and police effectiveness. African-American confidence, trust, and satisfaction in law enforcement remains far lower than for Whites regardless of RMI-AA and the degree of underrepresentation on the force. Thus, law enforcement agencies cannot hire their way out of this confidence gap through minority recruitment. Instead, improving African-American confidence in local law enforcement will require the agencies to engage with the far more substantive work of ensuring their officers deliver both procedural justice and effective policing.

Adolescents' confidence in institutions: Do America's youth differentiate between legal and social institutions?

It is widely believed that there is a crisis of confidence in law enforcement in the United States. What remains to be seen, however, is whether adolescents actually differentiate between legal authorities and other types of authorities. Leveraging cross-sectional, nationally representative data of 12th graders from every year from 2006 to 2017 from Monitoring the Future (N = 10,941), the results indicate that adolescents distinguish between legal authorities (e.g., law enforcement, justice system) and social authorities (e.g., schools, religious institutions). Youth report more confidence in social authorities than in legal authorities. Furthermore, whereas confidence in social authorities remained largely stable between the cohorts over the last decade, confidence in legal authorities, and in law enforcement in particular, has declined markedly. Although there may be an era of mistrust in legal authorities, it cannot be attributed to a ubiquitous anti-authority attitude among modern adolescents in the United States. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The thin blue line of health: Police contact and wellbeing in Europe.

Increasing evidence suggests that even minor forms of contact with the criminal justice system-such as being stopped by police-may be implicated in poor health. Police use of force can increase the risk of physical injury, whereas interactions accompanied by abusive rhetoric or threats can lead to psychological and emotional harm. Police contact may also have no health consequences for individuals or even be linked to good health because of an increased sense of public safety and confidence in law enforcement. This is the first study that explores whether contact with law enforcement is related to health and wellbeing in Europe. We estimated multilevel models with data from 26 countries that participated in the 2010 round of the European Social Survey. Across all outcomes-self-rated health, functional limitations, happiness, loneliness, and emotional wellbeing-having been approached, stopped or contacted by police was associated with worse health and wellbeing, especially when police treatment was perceived as unsatisfactory.

'He said he was going to kill me'

This article uses a case study design to explore attempted intimate femicide in metropolitan São Paulo, Brazil. We conducted 30 in-depth interviews with adult women on community and personal relationship experiences, health-care services, and national legislation about violence against women. Through a thorough transcript review, we identified two participants, Maria* and Raquel*, whose intimate partners attempted to kill them. We used a modified grounded theory approach to code the entire sample, and further analysed these transcripts to identify missed opportunities for intervention in both the prevention of- and responses to intimate partner violence (IPV), and the antecedents of attempted intimate femicide.&#x0D; Both women had normalized experiences of violence, and experienced psychological abuse prior to the attempted intimate femicide. Social and familial networks were sources of shame for Raquel and support for Maria. Neither woman expressed confidence in law enforcement’s ability to protect women and girls from IPV.&#x0D; These cases illustrate the need for multi-tiered interventions to prevent femicide in Brazil, which boasts one of the highest global female homicide rates. Although anti-femicide laws exist, better mechanisms are needed to integrate health, legal and social services for IPV and femicide prevention. In addition, community- and interpersonal- level interventions that counteract the Brazilian ‘culture of violence’ and machismo may provide support for at-risk women and girls.&#x0D; *pseudonyms have been used to protect the identity of the participants

The Polls—Trends Confidence in Law Enforcement

Public confidence in law enforcement remains high but showed some signs of slight decline from the late 1990s to the middle of this decade. Confidence in law enforcement fluctuated some in apparent response to the terrorist attacks of September 11 and has not been particularly strong when viewed through a racial lens. In keeping with falling crime rates through the first part of this decade followed by a recent rise, the percentage of the public that believed anticrime spending to be too little declined slightly from the late 1990s to 2005 but rebounded in 2006.

Reporting violent acts to the police

Members of minority groups, particularly minority groups that are race based, report less confidence in law enforcement across a number of dimensions. These people believe that the police act in a discriminatory manner. The current emphasis on community policing, among other things, should improve community attitudes toward the police. The data reported here suggest that the reverse is true for one southern city. In that city, minority subjects are less willing to report acts of violence that they believe to be wrong to the police.