Police College Research Articles

Parental violence and adolescent mental health

Being the target of parental violent acts decreases child adjustment and increases the likelihood of mental health problems in childhood and adolescence. Our study analyses how different types of parental violence ranging from verbal threats and swearing to hitting and kicking a child, are associated with child adjustment, indicated by strengths and difficulties scale (SDQ) total problem score, internalizing and externalizing problems as well as prosocial behaviour. We also study whether girls and boys and youths in two Nordic countries respond differently to parental violence. The data consists of a large-scale community sample of 15-16-year old Finnish (n=5,762) and Danish (n=3,943) adolescents. The representative data of continental Finland and its Finnish and Swedish speaking ninth graders as well as representative data of Danish ninth grade pupils were collected by the Police College of Finland and in Denmark by the National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark. The results show a clear dose-response effect between parental violent behaviour and the adolescent's problems. The more severe forms of parental violence were associated with higher levels of SDQ total difficulties and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. There was also a connection between parental violence and the deterioration of prosocial behaviour. The association was gender and nationality specific. The findings imply a high prevalence of parental violence and adverse mental health among the affected Finnish and Danish adolescents. Though the laws have been set in motion to prevent the use of parental physical violence the challenges remain in several domains of child protection, general health care, prevention and intervention.

About the Artist: Michel Tuffery

About the Artist: Michel Tuffery Jim Vivieaere Click for larger view View full resolution Nui Lichen Moth, by Michel Tuffery. 2009. Color reduction woodblock on embossed cream pescia paper, 760 x 560 mm. Limited edition of 20. [End Page viii] Michel Tuffery was born in 1966 in Wellington, New Zealand, of Samoan, Cook Islander, and Tahitian descent. His current practice as a multimedia artist may only hint at his training as a printmaker at the Dunedin School of Art at Otago Polytechnic (1986–1989). His first exhibition, a series of black and white and color reduction woodcuts on tapa and paper, was held at the Tautai Gallery / Maota Samoa in Auckland in 1988. Michel’s vision has been shaped by his research into the histories in Polynesia and his personal encounters with the Islands and their peoples. Silk screens and lithographs reveal his empathy with the indelible patterns and symbols of siapo (bark cloth) and tatau (tattoo). Painted canvases, real and imagined narratives, are rendered like storyboards of finely pitched scenarios and cleverly drawn caricatures. His adeptness in working tinplate into remote-controlled sea turtles and suspended shoals of tropical fish was preempted by his Povi (Bull) made from flattened and riveted corned beef cans for the “Bottled Ocean” exhibition at City Gallery Wellington (1993). For the opening of the Jean- Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea (1998) and the “Paradise Now?” exhibition at the Asia Society Museum in New York City (2004), Povi became mechanized, mobile, and animated by low-tech explosives—a trigger for group ritual and spontaneous performances. Michel’s current work is grounded in urban communities, local and international. He manages large-scale installations, premeditated and collaborative. He engages technicians and other art practitioners to realize his concepts, be they fields of stenciled color, walls of acoustic sound bites, or cinematic special effects. But his everyday concerns are simple, defined by his family, his home, and his environment. [End Page ix] In 2008 Michel was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the Queen’s Honours List for services to the arts. For more information, please view his Web site: http://www.micheltuffery.co.nz Jim Vivieaere Cook Islands artist and freelance curator Footnotes The art featured in this issue can be viewed in full color in the online version of The Contemporary Pacific via Project MUSE. [End Page x] Click for larger view View full resolution Cookie in the Cook Islands, by Michel Tuffery. 2008. Acrylic on canvas, 500 x 760 mm. Collection of the British Museum. [End Page 329] Click for larger view View full resolution Povi Christkeke, by Michel Tuffery. 1999. Pacific brand lithograph corned beef tins, Christmas tree lights, wooden frame, 1760 x 3110 x 1100 mm. Collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand. [End Page 397] Click for larger view View full resolution Ula Tivaevae, by Michel Tuffery. 2010. Color reduction multi-woodblock embossed print, 650 x 500 mm. Limited edition of 22. [End Page 415] Click for larger view View full resolution Bula Figure 13 Series Tasi, by Michel Tuffery. 2008. Cast aluminum, 265 × 140 × 60 mm. [End Page 477] Click for larger view View full resolution O le La, by Michel Tuffery. 1999. Upeti block (tapa printing block), carved mdf wood, acrylic paint, shellac, polyurethane, 1350 x 1200 x 80 mm. Collection of the Royal New Zealand Police College. [End Page 500] Copyright © 2010 University of Hawai‘i Press

Knowledge-led Policing and Security: Developments in Police Universities and Colleges in the EU

New models of policing in the European Union (EU) like community policing, problem-oriented policing, and intelligence-led policing are built upon recent developments within society and their impact on police tasks: the transformation from old industrial structures to service-oriented ones, deep social inequality, and diminishing community spirits. Social scientists are analyzing these trends (Tilley, 2002). Risk assessment and risk management have become a more important part of police work. The implementation of these modern imperatives is premised upon adequate education, training, and research. Knowledge management, alongside international cooperation with police and non-police bodies, is an indispensable skill. Police and education systems in the EU are in smooth transition from experience-based learning models in the police community to research-based institutions open to international networking, partly adopting models of the Bologna process. The Bologna Declaration from 1999 is a pledge by 29 countries in order to reform their higher education systems. It intends to harmonize study programmes and degrees at universities in the EU member states as far as possible. Thus, exchange of knowledge, students, and lecturers will be easier (CRE, 1999).

Reducing Firearm-Related Violence on College Campuses—Police Chiefs' Perceptions and Practices

Context: Firearms are used in the majority of college aged suicides and homicides. With recent efforts by various gun lobbying groups to have firearms more accessible to college students on campuses, there is the potential for more firearm-related morbidity and mortality. Objective: This study assessed university police chiefs’ perceptions and practices concerning selected issues of firearm violence and its reduction on college campuses. Participants: The Directory of the International Association for College Law Enforcement Administrators was used to identify a national random sample of campus police chiefs (n = 600). The respondents were predominantly males (89%), 40 to 59 years of age (71%), Caucasian (85%), and worked for 21or more years in law enforcement (75%). Methods: In the fall of 2008, a 2-wave mailing procedure was used to ensure an adequate response rate to a valid and reliable questionnaire. Results: A total of 417 (70%) questionnaires were returned. A firearm incident had occurred in the past year on 25% of campuses and on 35% of campuses within the past 5 years. The majority of campuses (57%) had a plan in place for longer than a year to deal with an “active shooter” on campus. Virtually all (97%) of the campuses had a policy in place that prohibited firearms on campus. The primary barrier (46%) to a highly visible campus plan for preventing firearms violence was the perception that firearms violence was not a problem on their campus. Conclusions: A greater awareness of the importance of a highly visible campus firearm policy and its potential for reducing firearm trauma on college campuses is needed.

Chinese police cadets' attitudes toward police role and work

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine Chinese police cadets' attitudes toward police roles and their work.Design/methodology/approachUsing survey data collected from 182 cadets in a Chinese police college, this paper assesses the influences of cadets' characteristics and training on their attitudes toward law enforcement, order maintenance, preventive patrol, and community building.FindingsCadets without family members or relatives serving as police officers and with stronger physical capability are more likely to support the law enforcement role, while cadets with greater physical capability are less likely to favor order maintenance. Younger cadets and those without a Bachelor's degree are more likely to view preventive patrol as an important goal for the police. Cadets with stronger attitudes toward law enforcement are more likely to regard community building as an important police goal.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research should continue to explore factors that influence officers' occupational attitudes and incorporate more attitudinal dimensions into the analysis. Future projects should also target local station officers from different departments.Originality/valueThis study represents one of the first attempts to empirically assess Chinese police cadets' work‐related attitudes. Findings of the study provide Chinese police administrators with useful references and directions to improve police training and enhance police‐community relations.

Job Stress and Performance: A Study of Police Officers in Central Taiwan

The relationship between job stress and job performance of police officers in Taiwan was explored. A survey was designed and distributed to 1,067 police officers in central Taiwan. The 787 valid responses to this questionnaire were quantitatively analyzed. Major findings were: (1) Officers perceived that their job stress came mainly from “tasks”, and perceived “contextual performance” as higher than other domains of job performance. (2) The group feeling most stress were officers aged between 31-40 with 11-20 years' service, employed as general police officers not holding a supervising position, and who had graduated from the police college. (3) There was a significant negative relationship between job stress and job performance. Higher job stress led to lower job performance and vice versa.

Personality of South African Police Trainees

There have been efforts to identify a "police personality" based on dispositional and socialization models. Personality traits of successful police applicants at the Police College in Pretoria, South Africa (N = 1,145 police trainees), with regard to sex, ethnic group, and English language reading skills, were described in terms of scores on the Temperament and Character Inventory. South African police trainees generally evaluated themselves as substantially lower in Novelty Seeking and Harm Avoidance combined with lower Cooperativeness, but they scored much higher on Self-Directedness, Persistence, and Self-Transcendence compared to South African university students from the same area. These are characteristics expected from future police officers, which supports the dispositional model.

A Study of Cadets' Motivation to Become Police Officers in China

While a substantial amount of research has examined the motivation for individuals to become police officers, very little is known about why Chinese citizens choose this profession. Using survey data collected from cadets in a Chinese police college, this study attempts to answer three questions: (1) who are the people that decide to become police cadets in China; (2) what are the factors that motivate cadets to choose the police profession, and (3) how do personal characteristics influence cadets' motivations to join the force? The results indicate that Chinese cadets in the sample are largely single, young males from middle-class families. They tended to have some college education while their parents were likely to have attained a lower educational level. Job security and benefits, the opportunity to help people, the desire to enforce the law, and parental influences were important factors that motivated police cadets at this institution to join the force. Cadets' background characteristics only weakly influenced the decision. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

Problem based learning: Does it provide appropriate levels of guidance and flexibility for use in police recruit education?

Education programs for police recruits have often been criticised for their over-reliance on teacher-centred approaches that are less than ideal for promoting functional knowledge and critical thinking skills. Problem-Based Learning (PBL), which is suggested as an alternative, has been criticised for not providing novice learners with appropriate levels of guidance. This paper, drawing on the author’s experiences of a ‘Police PBL’ course originating in North America, will discuss whether this PBL model provides appropriate levels of scaffolding for novice learners in police recruit education. It also discusses how guidance for learners can be utilized in a hybrid PBL model at the New South Wales (NSW) Police College. It is concluded that the Police PBL model provides flexible guidance to novice learners via a range of scaffolding strategies. A hybrid PBL curriculum is also proposed to seek a more effective balance of teacher and learner-centred approaches.

Armed with an Attitude: Validation of the Mental Health Attitude Survey for Police (MHASP)

Police officers are often concerned by the unpredictability of what they term “emotionally disturbed person” or “EDP” calls, and they can become frustrated by the amount of time it takes to resolve such calls and provide persons with mental illnesses access to treatment.1 Despite these frustrations, police officers do accept such encounters as part of their police role.2 In fact, our own university police were recently commended by a psychologist who observed two officers using verbal techniques to calm down an extremely agitated adolescent male in the emergency department. When asked by the psychologist, these officers noted that a recent crisis intervention and risk management training provided by the authors had helped them understand how to resolve such situations without the use of force or restraints.

Salutogenic Profile of Police Trainees on Entry into the Profession

The study aimed to determine the salutogenic (wellbeing) profile of South African police trainees on entry into the profession. Participants were police trainees with an average age of 26 years enrolled for basic training in a police college. Sample sizes ranged between 275 and 499 depending on the questionnaire. The participants completed six questionnaires, namely Orientation to Life Questionnaire (Antonovsky, 1987) Locus of Control Inventory (Schepers, 1999), Self Efficacy Scale (Bandura, 1997), Personal Views Survey (Kobasa, 1979), Potency Scale (Ben-Sira, 1985) and the Self-Control Schedule (Rosenbaum, 1990). The results indicated the trainees' abilities in logical reasoning, determination, independence, confidence, self control and influence that could be resources to support their wellbeing. The police trainees scored above average on most of the constructs, thereby suggesting their readiness to deal with the stressful occupation they were being trained for. Furthermore, the police trainees demonstrated a comparable or more positive salutogenic profile than those obtained in other South African studies.

BOMBINGS AT UC SANTA CRUZ

IN SEPARATE ATTACKS minutes apart in the early morning of Aug. 1, two University of California, Santa Cruz, biomedical science professors were victims of bombings at their homes, the apparent targets of animal-rights activists. In one incident, a bomb destroyed the car of a professor, whose identity has not been released, at the university’s faculty housing. In the other, a bomb destroyed the front of the off-campus house of David Feldheim, an assistant professor in the department of molecular, cell, and developmental biology who studies the roles of certain genes in the visual systems of mice. According to police, Feldheim, his wife, and their two small children were forced to leave their house out of a second-story window on a ladder. The attacks have prompted a full-scale investigation involving local and university police departments, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives. Investigators say the incendiary devices were more powerful than a ...

Provision of telehealth to the Scottish Police College

A telemedicine service was established for the Scottish Police College with medical advice provided from the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Use of the service from November 2004 to February 2006 was audited. A total of 192 patients presented to the service during the 16-month study period. There were 97 teleconsultations. The remaining 95 patients (49%) were not seen by telemedicine due to technical problems. The complaints dealt with were 68% injuries and 32% minor illness (n = 97). The outcome of the teleconsultation was: advice alone 76%; referral to a general practitioner 10%; and A&E referral 14% (n = 97). The treatment advised was: over-the-counter medicine 85%; prescription 5%; and nil 10% (n = 97). Even with a 24% connection rate, the service overall was perceived as beneficial and the Police College wished to continue to use the service, if the technology difficulties could be resolved.

Networked interactive video for group training*

AbstractThe National Computing Centre (NCC) has developed an interactive video training system for the Scottish Police College to help train police supervisory officers in crowd control at major spectator events, such as football matches. This approach involves technology‐enhanced training in a group‐learning environment, and may have significant impact on management training methods.

Building the capacity of police change agents: The nexus policing project1

This paper argues that police members from all ranks possess potential to challenge the beliefs and meanings that inform their daily practices, and are able to alter their routines when innovative practice and new ideas assist them in responding to new dilemmas. The paper suggests that both scholars and practitioners pay insufficient attention to nurturing rank-and-file police as change agents and to building their capacity as knowledge workers and ideas generators in forging change. In response to this gap, the paper discusses the Nexus Policing Project in Victoria, Australia, which is based on a police–university partnership aimed at realising new ways of seeing and doing in the field of policing. The participatory action research method is utilised as a way of overcoming the traditional gap between research and practice. The paper discusses some of the challenges associated with this kind of collaborative endeavour.

Photo identification: Facial metrical and morphological features in South African males

Personal identification of individuals is very important in forensic sciences. Facial identification is becoming even more relevant with increasing crime rates, problems with access control and terrorist attacks. To make facial identification more accurate, an in depth knowledge of the common and rare facial characteristics seen in various populations is needed. This will be advantageous when comparing facial photographs. Currently very little data is available on the facial variation of South Africans. Therefore the aim of this study was to analyse the facial features of a group of South African Bantu-speaking men, to determine the common and rare facial features seen in the group. Facial photographs were taken for 200 volunteers from the Pretoria Police College, in the norma frontalis position. The subjects were between 20 and 40 years of age, with no facial deformities. Thirteen measurements were taken directly from the photographs and used in 12 indices. Eight morphological features were also analysed on each face. Each feature was divided into different categories, which described variants of that feature. The metrical and morphological data were then used to create various combinations of facial characteristics that described different regions of the face. The frequency of occurrence of these combinations was calculated for the study population. The most common features were oval or inverted trapezoid facial shapes, intermediate size noses with a down-turned septum tilt and intermediate size mouths with a flat V-shaped upper lip notch (cupid's bow). The eyes were mostly situated closely together. Some of the rare or absent features included round or square facial shapes and narrow noses with an upturned septum tilt. Matching these rare features on facial photographs will be useful during cases of disputed identification.

A Cohort-Based Speaker Model Synthesis for Mismatched Channels in Speaker Verification

Mismatch between enrollment and test data is one of the top performance degrading factors in speaker recognition applications. This mismatch is particularly true over public telephone networks, where input speech data is collected over different handsets and transmitted over different channels from one trial to the next. In this paper, a cohort-based speaker model synthesis (SMS) algorithm, designed for synthesizing robust speaker models without requiring channel-specific enrollment data, is proposed. This algorithm utilizes a priori knowledge of channels extracted from speaker-specific cohort sets to synthesize such speaker models. The cohort selection in the proposed new SMS can be either speaker-specific or Gaussian component based. Results on the China Criminal Police College (CCPC) speaker recognition corpus, which contains utterances from both landline and mobile channel, show the new algorithms yield significant speaker verification performance improvement over Htnorm and universal background model (UBM)-based speaker model synthesis.

Crime and Culture: Breaking New Ground in Corruption Research

‘Crime and Culture’ is a Specific Targeted Research Project supported within the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Commission and co-ordinated at Konstanz University, Germany. It brings together 35 researchers across 10 institutions in 8 European countries. The research project aims to develop means to optimise corruption prevention in the EU. The urgency of such a project is reflected in the fact that corruption holds the potential to retard seriously the process of the Community’s enlargement and integration, even to the extent of threatening the very core of its concept of social order. The prevention policies that have been developed by the EU and implemented so far within individual member countries have in general been characterised by legislative, administrative and police force measures. These are based on a definition of corruption prevention developed in political and administrative institutions that, for its implementation, rely on a ‘top-down’ procedure. The research project purports to conduct not an inquiry into the nature of corruption ‘as such’, but rather into the perceptions of corruption held by political and administrative decision-makers in specific regions and cultures, those held by actors representing various institutions and authorities, and above all by the citizens and the media in European societies. The project proceeds from the assumption that the considerably varying perceptions of corruption, determined as they are by ‘cultural dispositions’, have significant influence on a country’s respective awareness of the problem and thereby on the success of any preventative measures. For this reason, the project investigates the ‘fit’ between ‘institutionalised’ prevention policies and how these are perceived in ‘daily practice’, as well as how EU-candidate and member countries as a result handle the issue of corruption. In a final step, the research project intends to make specific recommendations for readjusting this ‘fit’ in the frame of an interactive scholars-experts conference in Brussels. The members of the project consortium are: University of Konstanz (Germany-Co-ordinator), University of Tubingen (Germany), Police University (Federal German State of BadenWurttemberg-Affiliated), Centre for Liberal Strategies (Sofia, Bulgaria), Research Institute for Quality of Life-Romanian Academy (Bucharest, Romania), Galatasaray University (Istanbul, Turkey), University of Zagreb (Croatia), National School of Public Administration and Local Government (Athens, Greece), Panteion University (Athens, Greece), South East European Studies at Oxford (United Kingdom), Center for Research and Policy Making (FYR Macedonia-Affiliated).

State Mental Health Policy: Statewide Implementation of the Crisis Intervention Team Program: The Ohio Model

State Mental Health Policy: Statewide Implementation of the Crisis Intervention Team Program: The Ohio Model

Storyteller : Leslie Marmon Silko's Reappropriation of Native American History and Identity

Storyteller:Leslie Marmon Silko’s Reappropriation of Native American History and Identity Cynthia Carsten (bio) "We live forever in stories, not manners," he teased a newspaper reporter last year. "So, tease the chance of conception, tease your mother, tease the privy councils of the great spirit, and always tease your own history." –Almost Gegaa Browne Gerald Vizenor's character Almost Browne, in Hotline Healers,1 reveals something of the quandary faced by the American Indian oral historian. Although his version of the truth is marginalized by the dominance of another language and the literary conventions of the bearer of that foreign language, he "has never been . . . a coach of victimry. The traces of his native ancestors are always tricky, but never tragic" (1). He challenges the purveyors of the discourses of Euro-American domination—the journalist, the anthropologist, the university professor, the judge—to "tease" their own history. Almost recognizes that, for the American Indian, the conventions of Euro-American genres dictate that the story can only be told one way, and that way is as oppressive to the Indian mind and spirit as social and political dominance. Almost recognizes that "tricky stories are the sovereignty of motion [End Page 105] and creation, never the dead letters of cultural inventions, or the classy causes, tragic closures, and motivations of discoverers" (5). The solution to the dilemma for Almost Gegaa Browne is to subvert the conventions of Euro-American letters with the blank page. He sells his Wiigwaas Trade Books, the brand name of his empty books, at the local university, and he never has enough of them for curious students, who are told by Almost that "the best stories were heard in the absence of printed words" (25). When he is arrested by the university police and charged with "consumer fraud, false advertising, and conducting a commercial business on state property without a license," Professor Monte Franzgomery, who had danced around Almost's bookmobile "to the sound of shaman drums," pays the fine. According to the professor, Almost's blank books "were a source of inspiration . . . a ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings'"(27). Professor Franzgomery, for all of his goodwill, is perhaps an all-too-familiar representative of the academic sphere, ever willing to romanticize and exoticize the Native presence, to "dance to the sound of shaman drums," and yet to celebrate the blank page of the Native voice in print. Vizenor, like other American Indian writers who draw upon the oral traditions of their communities to inscribe their histories and identities, is of course "teasing history," pointing to the ironies of Native Americans' limited access to the production of culture. Control over the discourses and images of the Native American has, from the historical moment of contact, been in the hands of European and Euro-American elites. Non-Indian anthropologists, folklorists, and historians have for many years been those who determine what is and isn't authentically American Indian and/or worthy of serious academic regard; the courts of the United States have determined how much (or rather, how little) of indigenous Americans' oral traditions can legitimately be recognized and protected as "religion"; American journalists have perpetually sensationalized the image of the Native American; and today, practitioners of New Age pseudo-Indian religions have appropriated and misconstrued Native traditions, romanticizing and trivializing the songs, prayers, and practices that American Indians have for centuries relied on for their very survival. What is perhaps even more troubling for American Indian writers and scholars, proficient in writing the English language, are the constraints imposed by Euro-American epistemological assumptions and the conventions of the literary genres that reflect and sustain them. Fredric Jameson points to the role of genre in "master narratives," which perpetuate ideologies through the chronologies and the predetermined endings of their plots. According to Jameson, "a genre is essentially a socio-symbolic message, or, in other terms that form is immanently and intrinsically an ideology in its own right."2 As Native American writers and academics have entered the spheres of cultural production in [End Page 106] American society, they have discovered that telling the story according to their own cultural aesthetic conventions has led them into contested territory...