Law Enforcement Organizations Research Articles

The Performance Appraisal Milieu: A Multilevel Analysis of Context Effects in Performance Ratings

The purpose of this study was to take an inductive approach in examining the extent to which organizational contexts represent significant sources of variance in supervisor performance ratings, and to explore various factors that may explain contextual rating variability. Using archival field performance rating data from a large state law enforcement organization, we used a multilevel modeling approach to partition the variance in ratings due to ratees, raters, as well as rating contexts. Results suggest that much of what may often be interpreted as idiosyncratic rater variance, may actually reflect systematic rating variability across contexts. In addition, performance-related and non-performance factors including contextual rating tendencies accounted for significant rating variability. Supervisor ratings represent the most common approach for measuring job performance, and understanding the nature and sources of rating variability is important for research and practice. Given the many uses of performance rating data, our findings suggest that continuing to identify contextual sources of variability is particularly important for addressing criterion problems, and improving ratings as a form of performance measurement. Numerous performance appraisal models suggest the importance of context; however, previous research had not partitioned the variance in supervisor ratings due to omnibus context effects in organizational settings. The use of a multilevel modeling approach allowed the examination of contextual influences, while controlling for ratee and rater characteristics.

Does Minority Representation in Police Agencies Reduce Assaults on the Police?

Following recent high-profile deaths of unarmed African American suspects at the hands of police, a number of reforms have been proposed, among them improved minority representation in the ranks of law enforcement organizations. Previous research has explored the effects of minority representation on complaints against the police and other behaviors, but very few studies have examined violence toward the police. We merged several data sources together and tested the hypothesis that minority representation within police departments is inversely associated with assaults against the police. In an extension of prior research, we also conducted separate analyses for African American, Hispanic, and Asian officer representation. The results did not support the expectation that diversity within police organizations results in improved police-citizen interactions, as measured by assaults on police. This study is one of the few to examine how different measures of minority representation in police agencies relates to assaults on the police.

Estudio historiográfico sobre los sistemas de inteligencia de los antiguos cuerpos de seguridad pública salvadoreños

Este estudio pretende generar una radiografía sobre los sistemas de inteligencia de los antiguos Cuerpos de Seguridad Pública (en adelante CUSEP) en El Salvador: su estructura, conformación de personal, métodos y técnicas de inteligencia y casos relevantes, haciendo énfasis en las lecciones aprendidas en el desarrollo de sus labores. Se trata de un estudio historiográfico que busca dar a conocer experiencias pasadas de los sistemas de trabajo en materia de inteligencia y los impactos que estos generaron. El objetivo es contribuir al debate nacional sobre los desafíos estratégicos que enfrenta el aparato policial en materia de su especialización en inteligencia, analizar sus alcances y limitaciones, y presentar un documento recomendativo con incidencia potencial para formulaciones nuevas vinculadas a las necesidades de especialización y los sistemas de trabajo en los que se apoya la actual Policía Nacional Civil y demás cuerpos de inteligencia del Estado.

Terrorism‐Centric Behaviors and Adversarial Threat Awareness*

This article estimates situational awareness in a diverse collection of police officers with respect to their individual ability to identify nine key behaviors that are indicative of terrorism activity. The selected group of police officers was drawn from state, county, and municipal law enforcement organizations. The terrorist‐centric behaviors were presented to the test group in multicomponent text‐based scenarios that emulate real‐world police events and respondents were instructed to rate each scenario component on an 11‐point Likert‐type suspicion scale. With the exception of terrorist fundraising, law enforcement personnel tended to view all of the terrorist‐centric activities and behaviors as at least “somewhat suspicious.” The activities that could also be associated with “conventional” criminality such as weapons acquisition received higher ratings than those activities more exclusively related to terrorism such as recruiting. We also noted statistically significant differences based on agency type, officers’ assignment (patrol or detective), experience, gender, agency size, and education. Race had no effect.

Local Governments As Providers of Internal Security: The Case of Estonia

According to the development plan of Estonia’s internal security, safety means a stable living environment in which a person feels oneself safe. Local governments play important role providing security. This role can be effective only when there is successful cooperation with the police and other law enforcement organisations, but also with the citizens. Modern society is a complicated system of communication, which in turn is divided into sub-systems. We could call such systems self-referential, which means they define and choose their own base elements which guarantee the functioning of the system. Here autopoiesis is applied as the local governments form a kind of autonomous system in a legal order. This system functions according to the valid Constitution but still has enough legal autonomy in order to function independently. Upon using the terminology of the system-theory, we can say that local government is a structure that is a sub-system of a thorough system (state) and the autonomy given to a sub-system creates prerequisites for both functional and legal autopoiesis in the area of internal security. The main responsibilities of local governments in Estonia are stated in the local government law. The law does not state that municipalities have certain internal security or security related tasks (like fulfilling the functions of the police or rescue services). On the other hand, in some extent these responsibilities may arise from special laws or national strategies. Unfortunately, there are many problems in practice. There are also internal risks, such as corruption, hindering the internal security related auditing in the municipalities of Estonia. Often local regulations are not sufficient for carrying out such activities. Usually providing internal security in the communal level is carried out in cooperation with state structures.

Predicting per capita violent crimes in urban areas: an artificial intelligence approach

A major challenge facing all law-enforcement organizations is to accurately and efficiently analyze the growing volumes of crime data in order to extract useful knowledge for decision makers. This is an increasingly important task, considering the fast growth of urban populations in most countries. In particular, to reconcile urban growth with the need for security, a fundamental goal is to optimize the allocation of law enforcement resources. Moreover, optimal allocation can only be achieved if we can predict the incidence of crime within different urban areas. To answer this call, in this paper we propose an artificial intelligence system for predicting per capita violent crimes in urban areas starting from socio-economic data, law-enforcement data and other crime-related data obtained from different sources. The proposed framework blends a recently developed version of genetic programming that uses the concept of semantics during the search process with a local search method. To analyze the appropriateness of the proposed computational method for crime prediction, different urban areas of the United States have been considered. Experimental results confirm the suitability of the proposed method for addressing the problem at hand. In particular, the proposed method produces a lower error with respect to the existing state-of-the art techniques and it is particularly suitable for analyzing large amounts of data. This is an extremely important feature in a world that is currently moving towards the development of smart cities.

Hezbollah’s Global Tentacles: A Relational Approach to Convergence with Transnational Organized Crime

ABSTRACTThat terrorists, criminals, and their facilitators exploit the global marketplace is well known. While the global movement of illicit goods is well documented, robust empirical evidence linking terrorism and organized crime remains elusive. This article posits Network Science as a means of making these links more apparent. As a critical case study, Hezbollah is quite possibly the most mature globalized terrorist organization, although it thinks of itself as the “Party of God.” However, the means seem to justify the ends: this article shows that Hezbollah’s holy men have no qualms about resorting to pornography, contraband cigarettes, immigration fraud, and credit card fraud to raise funds. Beyond establishing links, Social Network Analysis reveals other important characteristics, such as the relative autonomy from Hezbollah headquarters that local fundraising networks enjoy. That finding implies a paradigm shift: Hezbollah is no less a terrorist organization than an organized crime syndicate. This is apparent in a network’s structure. Transnational Organized Crime is typically about nodes being connected to many others in the network. Yet, Hezbollah fundraising networks allow such connectivity because of the group’s typically high levels of mutual trust and familial relationships. This creates a vulnerability that can be exploited by law enforcement and intelligence organizations.

Keys under doormats: mandating insecurity by requiring government access to all data and communications

Twenty years ago, law enforcement organizations lobbied to require data and communication services to engineer their products to guarantee law enforcement access to all data. After lengthy debate and vigorous predictions of enforcement channels “going dark,” these attempts to regulate security technologies on the emerging Internet were abandoned. In the intervening years, innovation on the Internet flourished, and law enforcement agencies found new and more effective means of accessing vastly larger quantities of data. Today, there are again calls for regulation to mandate the provision of exceptional access mechanisms. In this article, a group of computer scientists and security experts, many of whom participated in a 1997 study of these same topics, has convened to explore the likely effects of imposing extraordinary access mandates. We have found that the damage that could be caused by law enforcement exceptional access requirements would be even greater today than it would have been 20 years ago. In the wake of the growing economic and social cost of the fundamental insecurity of today’s Internet environment, any proposals that alter the security dynamics online should be approached with caution. Exceptional access would force Internet system developers to reverse “forward secrecy” design practices that seek to minimize the impact on user privacy when systems are breached. The complexity of today’s Internet environment, with millions of apps and globally connected services, means that new law enforcement requirements are likely to introduce unanticipated, hard to detect

Time series applications to intelligence analysis: a case study of homicides in Mexico

The scale of lethal violence in Mexico seen in the past decade has been a pressing concern for both Mexican and US officials, including law enforcement organizations, intelligence agencies, and policy makers. With much of the homicides being a result of the trafficking of illegal drugs, it has been suggested that the homicides in Mexico follow seasonal patterns tied to the drug trade, specifically to the cultivation of heroin. In this paper, conventional econometric time series methods are applied to test this hypothesis. Results demonstrate that not only do the drug-related homicides in Mexico display evidence of seasonality, but also that seasonality appears empirically related to the heroin trade. The paper makes the larger argument that time series and other statistical methods are an untapped resource that can complement standard intelligence analysis to support defensible judgments based on the scientific method of inquiry. However, a fuller integration of statistics and traditional analysis would require sufficient support structures be developed to encourage and promote such analysis.

Impact of Police Academy Training on Recruits’ Integrity

Police integrity, or the lack thereof, is a frequent topic throughout media, academia, and all law enforcement organizations. The issue has been addressed on an individual and organizational level but continues to raise as many questions as it answers. One argument is that police training causes declination in recruits’ values, which eventually leads to officers acting in unethical ways. The present study examined the extent to which police academy training impacts recruits’ self-reported integrity, which was measured at the beginning and end of academy training. Three different training formats ( n1 = 143, n2 = 87, n3 = 27) were observed, social desirability was assessed to control for response bias, and self-reported emotional intelligence was measured as a potential moderator variable. Results indicated that participants started with significantly higher than average levels of integrity (with Cohen’s d values ranging from .56 to .83) and training had no significant impact on their integrity scores, even when corrected for social desirability. The results were not impacted by the length of training, pre-academy level of emotional intelligence, or a variety of demographic variables. The study encourages law enforcement organizations to focus on ways to help their employees maintain high levels of ethical decision making.

Stress Recognition In Law Enforcement Organizations

The study identified more critically the role of organizational stressors and impacts on police officer functions while on duty. Those aspects of stress-related responses were shown to be associated with agency managerial, administrative, and procedural responsibilities. Even so, while there appears to be some level of trepidation on a managerial level, the administrator has yet to effectively address problematic policies and procedures regarding stress recognition and supervisory accountability. In the study, the determinants of decision characteristics, perception characteristics, and motor act characteristics correlate with an officer’s control of complex tasks (Violanti 1995). The focus of this study was to measure an officer’s ability in stressful environments utilizing the Polar heart rate monitor during specific police activities. The highlighted areas of the study consisted of a physical agility test, firearm training, emergency vehicle operation, and voluntary exposure to taser deployment. The data collected were used for general observation into an officer’s optimal performance in both low and high stress incidents.

The Problem Solving Management Process And The Best Practice Of The National University Of Public Service

Abstract It is the responsibility of the military and law enforcement leaders to solve different problems during their professional service. At the National University of Public Service the students study the main steps of the process of problem solving management. The essay leads the readers through the process of management step by step showing the best practice of the Hungarian military and law enforcement organizations. The essay pays special attention to the decision which is the main and most important step of the management process. All of the graduating students of the National University of Public Service carry out an annual management practice – The Common Public Service Practice. The implementation of this practice following a theoretical phase is to support the practical knowledge applying the best leadership practice during solving the different situations in the real time. The reader will gain a full insight into the problem solving management process and this experience can be successfully adapted to his own work.

Why Are Women Law Enforcement Officers More Burned-Out and What Might Help Them?

Women police officers are an asset to law enforcement organizations. Compared to their male counterparts, they rely more on communication skills to manage interactions, and they are less likely to use physical force. In addition, the single largest police call category nationwide is violence against women, and women officers are more likely to effectively respond to those calls [1]. Despite those findings, women are a minority of law enforcement officers (LEOs), and efforts to increase their recruitment and retention have had limited success [2]. Burnout may lead to lower job performance and leaving an occupation or work setting [3–5]. Understanding burnout and its correlates might allow developing programs to enhance and extend women LEOs’ careers. This report is a sub-study of a randomized controlled trial of a worksite wellness and safety program for LEOs [6], and in addition to psychological dimensions, information was gathered concerning diet, exercise, stress, sleep and fatigue. Although studies of the link between burnout and a healthy lifestyle are limited, cross-sectional investigations appear to indicate a reciprocal relationship. Those manifesting burnout were more likely to report low physical activity and greater obesity [7]. Conversely appropriate sleep patterns, regular physical activity and a healthy diet may attenuate feelings of burnout [8]. We assessed differences between women and men LEOs concerning burnout, demographics and lifestyle habits and compared women LEOs stratified on the burnout dimension to identify relationships that might inform subsequent efforts to prevent and remediate burnout among women LEOs.

New Approaches for Maintaining the Peace at Political Demonstrations : Communication and Dialogue as Important Strategic and Tactical Tools of Public Assembly Management

The unsustainability of the traditional, force – and coercion–based strategies and tactics used in public assembly management has been recognized in many European countries. This paradigm shift has been confirmed by the events that occurred in Kiev, in the period of November 2013 and January 2014. The improperly chosen public assembly management strategies and procedures applied during the Maidan square events have not only shook public order fundamentally, but also led to consequences which may hurt the state sovereignty and territorial integrity itself. The democratic rule of law, the pressure of the mass media — complete with the modern theories of social psychology developed in relation to the behaviour of the crowd — force giving up the practice previously used by the law enforcement organizations implementing public assembly management. As the first–line defender of the freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, European law enforcement organizations recently had to look for new methods, and had to organize their practice used in public assembly management along entirely new concepts. Backed up by the results of social science, the police strategies and tactics based on communication, dialogue, and facilitation gather ground in Europe more and more. In my study I would like to introduce these new principles used in public assembly management.

Why Diversity May Not Mend Adversity — An Australian Commentary on Multicultural Affirmative Action Strategies in Law Enforcement

As Australia becomes progressively more diverse, there are repeated calls for the Australian police service to mirror the multicultural complexion of society. These concerns have often culminated in affirmative action policies in other Western nations, some of which endeavour to artificially increase the numbers of minorities in law enforcement organisations. Though well intentioned, the ideas that underpin such policies often overlook the various reasons for minimal minority interest in a policing career. They also incorrectly assume that an increase in police diversity will automatically purge discrimination from the service and enhance community relations. This comment contends that a structurally accountable and regulated police service, combined with recruiting practices aimed at employing service-oriented, non-discriminatory officers regardless of ethnicity, engenders an inclusive, accepting and transparent police culture capable of dealing effectively with ethnically diverse populations.

Emotional Taint

Poised within the borderlands between two nations, Border Patrol agents form the largest federal law enforcement organization in the nation, yet the public knows very little about agents themselves. Agents complete a variety of job duties that may be viewed as “dirty work,” or work that society considers physically, socially, or morally objectionable. They also perform emotional duties and emotional labor, which are often stigmatized by the public. This interpretive ethnographic research provides a descriptive portrayal of the Patrol and extends theory in the areas of emotional labor—the emotional performances required to carry out certain jobs—and dirty work. This article asserts that emotion and emotional labor are emotionally tainted, and that engaging emotion provides one strategy for workers to make sense of this type of dirty work. A definition and framework for emotional taint are offered, extending the current discussion of both emotion and taint at work.

Correlating messages from multiple IM networks to identify digital forensic artifacts

In recent years the usage of instant messaging (IM) has increased manifold. Recent reports show that law enforcement organizations are making requests for instant messaging information as a result of involvement in criminal activity. There can be multiple reasons for investigation of instant messenger histories. Among all issues, renown are involvement in fraudulent activities, social engineering, identity theft, spread of malicious software (worm) to circumvent innocent users or critical security devices, revealing IP address of correspondent for launching further attacks, IM spam and offensive material, in general for communicating with group members regarding corruption, target killing, gambling, kidnapping, theft, robbery, etc. In this paper, we focus on a unique case in which two group members of criminal network are communicating through IM aggregator (like Digsby) and using multiple IM protocols to complete a single conversation session instead of following a traditional single IM client such as Yahoo Messenger for whole conversation. We propose a method to identify that multiple IM protocols are used for single conversation session and describe how to establish a sequence of collected messages. An analysis of volatile memory is performed to collect the remnants of whole or partial conversation, as supportive or actual evidence.

Costs and Consequences of Arming America's Law Enforcement with Combat Equipment

The catalyst for this report was an U.S. Army Iraq Veteran describing the similarity between the streets of Boston during the manhunt following the Boston bombing to those in Bagdad. An alarming and unprecedented number of federal spending programs have transformed local police departments and law enforcement organizations into lethal combat units patrolling the cities and towns of the United States. While these federal programs directed money to assist local law enforcement agencies with drug interdiction and emergency management operations, the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri highlight the dangers of supplying combat equipment to local law enforcement personnel who lack the training, discipline, and command and control structure of military combat units. The radical increase of resources and combat power has directly affected the relationship citizens and the community at large have with local law enforcement and has led to perilous policing strategies. This report details twelve separate government programs overseen by three federal agencies providing law enforcement agencies with combat equipment.Although the dollar amounts of these programs are staggering, the disregard of Federal control and oversight after money and combat equipment is distributed to local agencies risks catastrophic consequences. Now that the genie is out of the bottle and almost every metropolitan force, city, and small town possesses the capabilities on display in Ferguson, Missouri, violent confrontation between citizens and law enforcement threatens to become the new American normal. As pictures and journalist descriptions from Ferguson, Missouri demonstrate, combat equipment used by law enforcement threatens the safety of citizens and can exacerbate already tense situations.While there may be a time and a place for the use of combat equipment on United States soil, it should be rare and deployed within the command and control structure of a military trained and accountable to civilian authorities. Army and Air National Guard units already exist in all 50 states. These units can be activated by order of their state Governor and placed under his or her control. National Guard units have an established rank structure and the training to use their weapons and equipment effectively and safely. Activating National Guard units when a crisis occurs rather than relying on a militarized police force is not only more effective, but also ensures respecting the civil liberties of the community.

Providing an Applied Model for Knowledge Management Development Planning in Military Organizations : Providing Proposed Methodology for Naja

Organizational knowledge is considered as the most important capital of current century organizations. Polling among superior global companies indicates that over 90% of managers in successful firms have claimed that knowledge management related activities are their second working priority. On the other hand, the diversity and broadness of knowledge management related systems which associate a certain aspect of organizational knowledge has caused that in recent years, the selection and plans to use different KM systems and tools can be seen as one of the main issues for managers in big global organizations. By using this method, senior managers in military and law enforcement organizations can decide on their investments on knowledge management through a strategic and comprehensive plan emanated from the special conditions of their own organizations. What addressed in present paper is an applied model to select knowledge management systems for decision making by senior managers in military and law enforcement organizations who want to manage their organizational knowledge.

Local approaches to counterterrorism: the New York Police Department model

Ever since the 9/11 attacks elevated terrorism to the top rank of concerns for security studies scholars, attention by academics as well as practitioners has focused at the national and international level. Although it is often recognised that ‘all terrorism is local’, most counterterrorism is federal or above. But this approach is wrong, as effective defence against terrorism is to a significant degree a local project. Just as the US officials have argued that “homeland security begins with hometown security”, international and national security against terrorism is profoundly affected by local policies. This article argues that national defence against terrorism is best achieved through approaches that incorporate local law enforcement and intelligence organisations, and it examines the most prominent such American effort: the New York City Police Department intelligence programme.