County Sheriff Research Articles

Drug use, prostitution and the prevalence of AIDS: An analysis using census tracts

This paper reports on preliminary efforts to study at the census tract level the reciprocal relationships between AIDS and street crime, particularly prostitution and drug offenses and the prevalence of AIDS. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health provided the number of reported AIDS cases by census tract. The data on reported crimes and arrests, organized by reporting districts, came primarily from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Los Angeles City Police Department. Although this strategy needs replication and extension, the present findings suggest that sexual orientation, drug use and prostitution are useful risk variables at the census track level.

A Pure and Sublime System: The Appeal of Post-Revolutionary Freemasonry

By the time Hiram Hopkins took his seventh degree of in August 1826, had decided Freemasonry was of extraordinary importance. I thought, recalled, that nothing excelled the masonic degrees, except the Christian religion, and thought they were but little surpassed even by that. His final degree-the Royal Arch-involved two or three hours of hard labor, but Hopkins again found himself excited by the ritual, which was, according to the most popular contemporary handbook of indescribably more august, sublime, and important than all which precede it. Thus, when the man who had led Hopkins through the ceremony took him aside and warned him of a plan to the secrets of being contemplated by William Morgan of nearby Batavia, New York, Hopkins was appalled. If Morgan was guilty of such an outrage upon the laws of Masonry, later remembered thinking, it was just for him even to lose his life. Morgan's threat to publish Masonry became the topic of many anxious discussions in the weeks to come. Many wanted to send Morgan forcibly out of the country. Hopkins would have gone even further. I thought, recalled, he deserved to die. Less than a month later, area Masons abducted Morgan, taking him to what may have been his death. Hopkins, a resident of Lockport, New York, played a small role in the event, helping his cousin, the county sheriff, prepare the jail for the expected arrival of Morgan. After the incident became a major public issue, however, a guilt-ridden Hopkins turned against the fraternity. He decided his previous high opinion of

New Rules Extinguish 'Smoking Lamp' in Growing Number of Public Places

IN ABOUT two weeks, New York City begins strict enforcement of what has been called most sweeping nonsmoking law in the United States. It is just one of a growing number of indications that those Americans who continue to smoke in the months and years ahead will find fewer public places to do so. That eventually may include more of those who can't even go home to smoke—the inmates of the nation's jails and prisons. In Utah, for example, the Davis County Jail now is smoke free. The National Commission on Correctional Care, Chicago, says the Davis County sheriff made the decision after studying the experience of the smoke-free jail in Orchard Cove, Wash, noting the legislature's prohibiting of smoking in any general public place, realizing his jail is poorly ventilated, and arranging counseling and medical service for inmates addicted to tobacco. The commission says complaints have been minimal.

Ethnic Differences in Child Abuse and Sexual Abuse

A total of 4132 cases of child abuse that were reported to the Los Angeles County Sheriff s Department were analyzed to determine whether there were differences related to the ethnic group status of the victim or suspect. Results demonstrated that there were a number of significant differences attributed to ethnic group status. Comparing the ethnic group distribution of reported cases with that of the population in the county showed that Anglos and Hispanics were underreported with respect to their representation in the population whereas blacks were overrepresented. Among suspects, males (especially fathers) were the more frequent suspects in Anglo and Hispanic families, although females (and mothers) were the suspects most often in black families. The proportion of physical abuse to sexual abuse was higher for black families than for Hispanic and Anglo families, which had similar proportions of physical to sexual abuse. It was concluded that cultural differences need more systematic research attention in studies of child abuse.

Occupational stress, social support, and burnout among correctional officers.

Three alternative models of the role of workplace social support in ameliorating the effect of occupational stress on burnout symptoms were tested. Correctional officers (N = 166) completed a variety of questionnaire measures of job stress, the Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Analyses showed no support for either the direct or buffering models of social support. Rather, the data were consistent with the indirect model of social support in the workplace. Among the job stress indices, role ambiguity, work load, and direct contact with inmates were found to be independent predictors of burnout symptomatology. The findings suggest a preventive rather than remedial effect of workplace social support in reducing occupational stress and burnout.

Hispanic perception of police performance: An empirical assessment

This exploratory study examines relationships between the police and Hispanics in Texas. Specifically, data were collected on Hispanic evaluations of police performance, expectations of police performance, and overall satisfaction with the police. A sample of 500 Hispanics throughout the state of Texas were surveyed on their experienced and perceived relationships with three levels of police agencies: local (municipal) police, sheriff's officers, and the state's Department of Public Safety. Findings are reported based upon overall ratings of the police, victim-related data, and data from individuals who had any form of contact with the police. Significant findings show that any form of contact with the police appeared to lower the rating of police performance. This appears to be a product of the interaction between high public expectations and qualitatively poor police performance. Further findings indicate that an increase in the fear of crime among Hispanics lowered evaluations of local police. Similarly, victimization lowered the evaluation of local police, the county sheriff, and the Department of Public Safety. Hispanics also perceived that officers have a “bad attitude,” that the police need to patrol and investigate more, that response time should be improved, and that there should be less discrimination against Hispanics. These findings appear to be largely influenced by ineffective communication (both symbolic and linguistic) and cultural conflict.

Crimes, arrests, and elections: Predicting winners and losers

Political candidates are frequently identified as being either “law and order” advocates or “soft” on crime; however, the importance of actual arrest and crime levels on election outcomes has not been examined empirically. One particular set of candidates for whom arrest and crime rates might be expected to be predictive is publicly elected law enforcement officials. Using 1976 Florida County Sheriff election data, this article examines the capacity for discriminating between winning and losing incumbent sheriffs by using county arrest and crime data in association with socioeconomic and political information. The findings show that a significant discrimination is obtained (significant = 0.009, canonical correlation = 0.59, and 76 percent of the counties were correctly classified) and that crimes and arrests are significant factors in determining the outcome of sheriff elections. The results indicate that although traditional political factors, such as party affiliation and number of terms in office, and socioeconomic factors, such as income, density, and unemployment rates, do well in discriminating winning from losing candidates, a sheriff-election model must also incorporate crime and arrest information, particularly information on murder and rape.

A portrait of county sheriffs in the United States

A survey of county sheriffs in the United States was conducted in late Spring, 1983 (N=1526). The survey found county sheriffs to be basically a group of fairly professional law enforcement officials leavened by an influx of new amateurs. The sheriffs averaged over ten years experience in law enforcement along with an average of six years service as sheriff. Over half the sheriffs had prior service in the department they now head. In addition, they reported a wide variety of training experiences along with a number of assignments across the spectrum of law enforcement and corrections activities. Nearly twelve percent of the sheriffs report that they had relatives who had served as county sheriff before their tenure. These familial ties combined with the essentially local character of the office make county sheriffs a difficult institution to reform and individual sheriffs fairly independent of outsiders.

Community Organizing, Client Involvement, and Poverty Law

Part of my own decision to formally study law stems from past experiences with the law (the police, the courts, the jails) first as a teen-aged black G.I. in the South before the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, later as a community organizer in the tumultuous Mississippi freedom movement, then still later as an inner city preacher-organizer in Chester, Pennsylvania, and North Philly where I had grown up. Lately I have come to know Roscoe Pound and torts and judicial review and the case method inter alia. But I met the law in a trash-poor shanty town in cottonbelt Oklahoma. He wore a big gun, called me Nigger, and put my black ass in jail for trying to sit down and eat inside a white restaurant. Up against Mississippi state highway patrolmen, county sheriffs, the Jackson city police, the FBI and the quasi-legal Ku Klux Klan, I learned that there can be light years between Supreme Court pronouncements and the fact of law as it is experienced by the millions of poor and minority peoples in the United States.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Opinions of attorneys and law enforcement personnel on the accuracy of eyewitness identifications.

A survey was conducted to obtain the opinions of attorneys and law enforcement personnel regarding several important aspects of eyewitness evidence: (1) legal procedures concerning eyewitness evidence; (2) estimated frequency of mistaken eyewitness identification; (3) the effects of certain witness/ suspect characteristics on identification accuracy; (4) the amount of emphasis placed on eyewitness evidence by judges and juries; (5) the relationship between a witness' identification accuracy and certainty; and (6) the effect of stress and arousal on identification accuracy. The questionnaire was sent to a sample of defense and prosecuting attorneys in each of Florida's 20 Judicial Circuits, to each of the 67 county Sheriff's Departments in Florida, and to 100 randomly sampled Police Departments in Florida. Prosecuting attorneys and law enforcement officers indicated that they regard eyewitness identification as relatively accurate and that judges and juries appropriately emphasize its importance. Defense attorneys, on the other hand, felt that eyewitness identifications are often inaccurate and are overemphasized by triers of fact. The implications of these findings for the criminal justice system and their possible applications within the legal system are discussed.

Drug Survey of a Florida West Coast Laboratory

ABSTRACTThe Pinellas County Sheriffs Department Forensic Laboratory, in Largo, Florida, has conducted a study of the drugs analyzed during a twenty-four month period (January 1981 through December 1982). A total of 5,058 cases were analyzed during the study and the results reflect the numerous kinds of drugs and excipients which were seen. It is the hope that this survey will benefit other forensic laboratories by enabling them to compare trends seen in this part of the country with those seen elsewhere and allowing them to compare their case load with that of another laboratory.

Gaol Delivery in the Border Counties, 1439–1459: Some Preliminary Observations

C. J. NEVILLE The Background THE REGULAR DELIVERY of the county gaols of Newcastle ~pon Tyne, Carlisle and Appleby during the mid-fifteenth century was hindered by a number of factors. The effect of the Wars of the Roses on disorder in late medieval England has long constituted a lively topic of debate, but most historians agree that the period witnessed a general collapse in the maintenance of law and order. 1The aim of this paper is to examine briefly the workings of the king's common law in the Border counties during the years 1439 to 1459, and to relate the results of this study not only to the disorder believed to have been prevalent during the turbulent period of the wars, but more important, to the general nature of northern society itself. It is arguable that, in the North at least, the incidents which constituted the wars of dynasty had little direct effect on the administration of justice. This was influenced more heavily by problems endemic to the Border regions since the early Middle Ages. The sources upon which this study is based are the gaol delivery rolls of the three Border counties of Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland for the period 1439 to 1459. They are housed in the Public Record Office in London under the classification of Justice Itinerant III (JUST III Gaol Delivery Rolls). The material consists of thirty three parchment membranes, almost all contained in two rolls (JUST 3/211 and JUST 3/213). Two membranes recording the deliveries of the city goal of Newcastle upon Tyne are classified separately (JUST 3/54/23 and JUST 3/53/6).2 In some instances individual rolls are supplemented with calendars and files. The former constitute the county sheriff's agenda of prisoners in charge. Against the names enrolled in these, judgements were entered as the trials proceeded. The latter include odd writs,

Enhancing the chances of successful OR/MS implementation: the role of the advocate

This paper extends understanding of the role of the advocate in the implementation of Operations Research/Management Science models in governmental agencies. The first part of this paper presents and analyzes the data resulting from interviews with 39 criminal justice agencies regarding the model implementation process. The interview data indicated that the advocate performed important problem-solving and mediation functions needed to introduce the technology. The second part of this paper provides a case study describing an advocate's successful introduction of a Patrol Car Allocation Model (PCAM) in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. To assess the overall effectiveness of their implementation strategy, the project team conducted a questionnaire attitudinal survey of lieutenants, sergeants and officers in two of the pilot stations prior to PCAM implementation and after staffing changes. Overall, the attitude of the respondents was more favorable at the time of the second survey. The analysis of the interviews and the PCAM case study suggests a simple normative model for enhancing the chances of successful implementation of Operations Research/Management Science models.

Developing a program of mental health services in a rural county jail.

#{149}In1975 a U.S. district court in Alabama issued an order enjoining the badly overcrowded Alabama state prison system from accepting any new prisoners until the prison population was reduced to a manageable 1evel. The order required all persons sentenced to the state prison to serve their sentences in the jail of the county from which they were sentenced. The result was to immediately create backlogs of state prisoners in the county jails. Within a few months the population of the Marengo County jail, located in a rural area of west central Alabama, increased from an average of 1 5 inmates to an average of 38, and soon thereafter reached 45. On weekends, with the normal influx of persons arrested for misdemeanor changes, the overnight population of the small jail often exceeded its 52 beds. The average length of stay also increased. Where previously no one was sentenced to the jail for more than two years, at one time in 1978 the average sentence was 25. 15 years. Even before the court order was issued, the Marengo County sheriff, who served as administrator of the jail, had approached the director of the West Alabama Mental Health Center to request a joint program by mental health-criminal justice agencies to improve conditions in the jail. His goals were to provide mental health senvices to inmates, to develop programs that would assist in reducing the negative impact of the anticipated overcrowding, and to improve jail administration. The mental health center agreed to provide a psychologist on a contractual basis; the sheriffs office would provide the facilities and most of the funding under a grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. The

The effects of a resident deputy program on attitudes and perceived law enforcement services

An evaluation of a Resident Deputy Program was conducted to determine the program’s impact on residents’ perception and attitudes regarding the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. A per- and post-intervention survey was, conducted using a random selection of the target population. The results indicate that the program led to more positive perceptions and attitudes.

Disorder in the House: The Inaccessible Record

The assistant in charge of the dumping stated that he was under orders to make sure the books were completely covered by the bulldozer at the dump before leaving the scene. He later explained that he had never mentioned the dumping because it didn't strike [him] as peculiar. Even though the records of the House of Representatives will never find their way to a public landfill, the newspaper item is not entirely irrelevant. The House of Representatives has exhibited the same ambivalence towards records as the members of the Prince George's County sheriff's office: on the one hand, indifference has led to such careless filing, storing, and general unconcern for records that losing them is not considered peculiar; on the other hand, concern over the importance of House records has led to such firmly enforced restrictions on access that they are effectively buried in the National Archives.

The Rural County Sheriff: An Issue in Social Control

The study of criminal justice in the United States has maintained a consistent urban focus. While this is to some degree understandable, valuable comparative perspectives are lost w hen rural areas are ignored. The present study attempts to lay a groundwork for the studi' of rural police. The literature that addresses the impact of communit v and political structures upon stiles of policing is reviewed. Though they are few in number, studies that have examined rural settings indicate a marked difference in the nature of police behavior. This work attempts to document that e vpectation. This is an exploratorY studi' that wvas conducted through the use offield-research techniques. The determinants of police action were sought in a number of contexts. Both formal and informal community structures were examined to understand the motivation for police action. Like their urban counterparts, rural police patrols were observed to be primarily reactive in nature. This was due to the thorough integration of the police into the informal normative si stem. Because consensus about the tolerable limits of crime and deviance was Widespread, the sheriffs department was able to provide services largely compatible with the desires of the public. Four specific kinds of situations (trqffic offenses, drunks, domestic affairs and felonies) are presented to further illustrate this point. The behavior of rural police was most like that of urban officers in matters of less discretion felonies. The paper concludes hb, identi/fing the bulA of ruralpatrol as (consensual in nature.

A Review of Detective Work:A Study of Criminal Investigations

Abstract The author, a sociologist, spent a year as a participant-observer studying detectives at work in a county sheriff's office. The result is the best writing about criminal investigation this reviewer has read. It stands in direct and favorable contrast to the regrettable study released in 1975 by the Rand Corporation of “The Criminal Investigation Process.” Sanders' work, a major contribution to the literature, is a typical piece of good academic (yet practical) research—the kind that seldom seems to be supported by the federal government. On the other hand, the half-million dollar funding of the Rand Study by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration resulted in a product that charitably can be described as less than memorable.

It Doesn't Matter If You Win or Lose, Unless You're Losing: Organizational Change in a Law Enforcement Agency

This study reports the results of a 4-year organization development project in the Metro County Sheriff's Department. Interventions included confiontation team-building sessions, management training, process consultation, survey feedback, thirdparty consultation, technological interventions, methods of increasing accountability, and changes in the organization structure, the physical setting, and the policy formulation procedures. Results include considerable improvement in organization climate and leader effectiveness, a marked decrease in employee turnover and jail breaks, a significant improvement in the managerial ability of the Department administrators, and a substantial increase in resources allocated to the organization.

New Applications

The Lewis County Sheriff's Office, Washington, has an effective new tool–faster access to information.