Police-community Relations Research Articles

Protest policing by black police officers: double marginality and collateral consequences

PurposeDrawing from representative bureaucracy theory, hiring minority police officers has been a perpetual reform recommendation for improving tense police-community relationships with minority communities since the 1960s. The expectation is that minority officers will provide active/symbolic representation, but little is known about minority officers' experiences during racially tense situations. This paper examines whether black officers experienced double marginality in the context of prolonged protests against police in Ferguson, MO in 2014 and compares black vs. nonblack officers' self-assessments about their preparedness to handle the crisis, procedural justice during the crisis and mental and emotional effects on officers following protest policing.Design/methodology/approachIn-depth interviews with 45 police personnel who policed the Ferguson protests provide a rich description of the context and experiences through the lens of police officers. Surveys of 218 officers who conducted protest policing in Ferguson are used to compare the impact on black vs. non-black officers.FindingsThe results provide a detailed portrayal of the double marginality experienced by black officers while policing the Ferguson protests, but also demonstrate that black officers were resilient to the effects of that experience, showing significantly more favorable outcomes than their nonblack peers.Originality/valueThis is the only study to utilize a mixed methods approach with police officers who conducted protest policing to understand officers' experiences in the midst of a racially inflamed context. The findings provide support for policymakers interested in advocating and supporting hiring more minorities in policing.

When Police Behave-A Transformation Program That Reshapes Police-Community Relationships Based on Problem Solving and Values

The escalation of the global events that followed the death of George Floyd in USA Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25th of 2020, and what followed from demonstrations in all over the world; despite the presence of a global pandemic, shows the importance and the complications of an event that started with police miss-behaviour. ‘I can’t breathe’ a slogan carried by Floyd and many others earlier, carries within it, lots of meaning, however, one of the most important of meanings is the police brutality and the way they behave in certain times. This paper reviews the modern policing and specifically the values expected to be embedded in the police culture and the way they behave even in challenging times.The literature review goes into exploiting the importance of police and community engagement through problem-solving programs and the accumulative collective impact on ‘empathetic policing’ that lead to ‘social dialogue’. The case study in this paper focuses on the ‘police inspiration labs’ and how it gave a chance for more police with community engagement towards solving essential society problems. Besides, the paper shows the difference between (systems-driven vs behaviours-driven) police development programs. The paper carries important implication for developing further the role of the police in the ‘quality of life’ and support the government to transform the budget of policing into grey areas, i.e. area where the police are encouraged to execute more efforts towards preventing and developing instead of correcting and reacting towards community incidences and challenges.

The Potential Impacts of Pandemic Policing on Police Legitimacy: Planning Past the COVID-19 Crisis

One of the biggest challenges facing modern policing in recent years has been the lack of police legitimacy. The tipping point of this phenomenon is often attributed to the Rodney King incident in Los Angeles in 1991, where Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers were videoed assaulting a lone black male. They were arrested and charged but eventually all were acquitted, thereby etching deep distrust between communities and police. Now the Rodney King example is an extreme and criminal act by police but it was the beginning of communities and media focusing on what the police were doing and how they were doing it. This lack of legitimacy coupled with what is referred to as the militarization of policing have lasting consequences and impacts on police–community relations and how interactions between police and community shape society today. In the wake of pandemic policing due to COVID-19, there are tales of two eventualities for police legitimacy that will be explored in this article: (1) The police response to the pandemic results in further militarization and draws deeper divides between police and communities or (2) the police response is compassionate and build on procedurally just operations resulting in the rebuilding of police legitimacy post-pandemic.

Democratic Policing and Officer Well-Being.

Efforts to improve police–community relationships have increased initiatives that aim to build trust and mutual respect between officers and the communities they serve. Existing literature examines the impact of internal departmental dynamics and individual-level characteristics on officers’ endorsement of community-oriented policing strategies. Research has indicated that when officers feel fairly treated within their agencies and when they are less psychologically and emotionally distressed, they report stronger support for policing tactics that increase fairness in police processes and decision making. This mixed-method study is the first to examine the reciprocal relationship by asking: How do procedurally just and community-oriented policing strategies impact officer well-being and occupational stress? Sworn officers in a medium-sized California department completed a survey assessing their views on their agency, various police tactics, the communities they serve, and their physical and mental health. Results showed that officers’ increased support for community-oriented and procedurally just police strategies are significantly associated with decreased job stress, depression, anxiety, and negative affect, controlling for race, gender, perceived job dangerousness, cynicism, and how many years they had served as a police officer. In-depth interviews with officers in the department revealed three explanatory mechanisms for these statistical relationships. First, the tenets of procedural justice provided officers with tactics that reduce the threat and stress of intergroup interactions. Second, community-oriented policing activities increased opportunities for officers to have positive interactions with the communities they work in, mitigating the distrust, cynicism, and detachment fostered by enforcement activities. Last, procedural justice and community-oriented police strategies empowered officers to counter negative stereotypes about police and reaffirm their self-image. Taken together, these survey and interview findings highlight the mutuality of democratic policing and officer wellness.

Emerging Perspectives on Post-Conflict Police-Community Relations II

Emerging Perspectives on Post-Conflict Police-Community Relations II

Reducing Police Brutality in African American Communities: Potential Roles for Social Workers in Congregations

In the last decade, there have been a shocking number of police killings of unarmed African Americans, and advancements in technology have made these incidents more visible to the general public. The increasing public awareness of police brutality in African American communities creates a critical and urgent need to understand and improve police-community relationships. Congregational social workers (and other social workers who are part of religious congregations) have a potentially significant role in addressing the problem of police brutality. This manuscript explores and describes possible contributions by social workers, with differential consideration for those in predominantly Black or White congregations.

Community perceptions: procedural justice, legitimacy and body-worn cameras

PurposeThis paper explores community members' perceptions of the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD)'s body-worn camera (BWC) program, examining knowledge and support of the program and its impact on views of procedural justice and legitimacy.Design/methodology/approachA two-wave, online survey was administered to Milwaukee-area residents in the fall of 2017 and summer of 2018, yielding 1,527 respondents. Multivariate regression analyses focus on overall relationships between sociodemographic characteristics, community member knowledge of the program, procedural justice and legitimacy and support for BWCs.FindingsCommunity members are supportive of BWCs and view officers as procedurally just and legitimate; however, perceptions were significantly lower among Black respondents. Respondents with knowledge of the BWC program were more likely to view officers as procedurally just, but program knowledge did not increase support for it.Research limitations/implicationsPolice agencies may benefit from improving community awareness of their BWC program as knowledge of the program is positively linked to the views of departmental procedural justice and legitimacy. However, education efforts alone are not sufficient in improving police–community relations. Future research should examine how policing stakeholders can engage the community to build views of legitimacy associated with BWC policies.Originality/valueFindings provide insight into community member perceptions of a large BWC program in a major US city. Results demonstrate the relationship between knowledge of a department's BWC program and views of procedural justice and legitimacy and support for BWCs.

Exploring the Duration of Police–Citizen Encounters

Abstract Modern policing policy and practices emphasize the philosophy of community-oriented policing and the principles of procedural justice to improve police–community relations. Using this theoretical framework, this study examines the duration of police–citizen encounters involving domestic and non-domestic conflicts. A sample of 262 encounters from the systematic social observations in Cincinnati was analysed. The multivariate models show that officers spent less time interacting with the citizens in the lower social class and spent more time on the encounters involving assaults. Community policing specialists spent more time interacting with citizens. Considering citizens’ voice is also associated with longer duration. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Officers' perceptions regarding the unexpected effects of body-worn cameras

PurposeThroughout the last decade, a number of empirical studies have assessed the effectiveness of body-worn cameras (BWCs) among law enforcement agencies across the United States. The purpose of this paper is to examine officers' perceptions regarding the impact this technology has had on police-community relations, as well as the working relationship between police and other actors in the criminal justice system (e.g. prosecutors, jurors).Design/methodology/approachThe author conducted focus groups with officers (n = 89) from two local law enforcement agencies in California that had adopted BWCs in recent years. Participating officers discussed advantages and disadvantages they associated with BWCs, as well as how BWCs have impacted their relationship with the public and justice system personnel.FindingsOfficers recognized advantages to using BWCs, including the potential for positive changes in police behavior and the ability to protect officers against false citizen complaints. Officers also identified a number of disadvantages (or consequences) they associate with BWCs, such as the depreciation of credibility behind an officer's word and the impact of video footage on prosecutorial decision-making.Originality/valuePrior studies have gathered officers' perceptions regarding BWCs, but very few have assessed whether and how the use of this technology by law enforcement influences other actors within the criminal justice system. The findings from this study may prompt further empirical consideration regarding BWCs, especially with regard to whether police use of this technology significantly impacts citizens' trust in the police and how their use may impact prosecutorial and juror decision-making.

Good Cop, Bad Cop: Race-Based Differences in Mental Representations of Police.

The current work investigates race-based biases in conceptualization of the facial appearance of police. We employ a reverse correlation procedure to demonstrate that Black Americans, relative to White Americans, conceptualize police officers' faces as more negative, less positive, and more dominant. We further find that these differential representations have implications for interactions with police. When naïve participants (of various races) viewed images of police officers generated by Black Americans (relative to those generated by White Americans), they responded with greater anticipated anxiety and reported more fight-or-flight behavioral intentions. Across four studies, findings suggest Black and White Americans conceptualize police and police-citizen interactions fundamentally differently. These findings have important theoretical (e.g., using reverse correlation to document the mental representations held by minority group members) and practical implications (e.g., identifying race-based differences in representations of police that may affect community-police relations).

Examining the Empirical Realities of Proactive Policing Through Systematic Observations and Computer-Aided Dispatch Data

The 2017 National Academies of Sciences (NAS) Committee and Report on Proactive Policing highlighted what we know about the effects of proactive policing practices on crime prevention and police–community relations. However, the evaluation evidence reviewed by the NAS, which largely comes from case studies of carefully managed proactive initiatives, does not provide a basis for estimating how extensively these practices are used or whether they are used in the most effective ways. Accordingly, it is unclear whether police proactivity as practiced on an everyday basis reflects optimal strategies and implementation methods as recommended by the NAS. This study addresses this knowledge gap by analyzing almost 2 million computer-aided dispatch records from four agencies and systematically observing 84 officers for more than 180 hours to better understand the empirical realities of police proactivity. The findings indicate a major difference between the types of proactive interventions supported by research and the practice of everyday police proactivity. Specifically, proactive policing practices are limited in scope and are often implemented in less than optimal ways. A large proportion of proactive activities are also not recorded, rewarded, or supervised, indicating that patrol commanders may have little control over, or awareness of, proactive deployment. From an evidence-based policing perspective, much more effort is needed to record and track proactivity to measure its impacts (both positive and negative) and align it with what we now know about effective proactive activity from research.

“Habermasville”: Police–Community Intersections and Communicative Rationality

Police–community relations in the United States are seeing a crisis of trust and legitimacy. Minorities disproportionally experience police contact, and recent shootings of unarmed persons raise concerns about whether minority communities have equal protection of the law. This paper uses Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative rationality to examine this distrust. The argument is that Habermas’s theory positively informs understanding of police–community relations in that distrust is caused by lack of communicative acts in favor of strategic acts emphasizing crime control that maintains unjust systems.

The effects of body-worn cameras on police-citizen encounters and police activity: evaluation of a pilot implementation in Philadelphia, PA

Examine changes in officer behavior, when wearing body-worn cameras, as revealed by pedestrian stops, vehicle stops, arrests, use of force, and citizen complaints during a pilot implementation in a racially diverse jurisdiction in the Northeast region of the USA. A quasi-experimental approach was used to examine the initial implementation of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in one district. This provided the opportunity for a natural experiment comparing officers in the district that deployed cameras with officers in three similar districts where no BWCs were deployed. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to match BWC officers with non-BWC officers. BWC officers had about 38.3% fewer use of force incidents than non-BWC officers with similar numbers of use of force incidents in the previous year. On average, BWC officers made 46.4% fewer pedestrian stops and 39.2% fewer arrests than non-BWC officers. Vehicle stops and citizen complaints had nonsignificant declines for BWC officers. The reductions in proactive policing by officers are consistent with a deterrence-based view that officers respond to the increased scrutiny by curtailing interactions with citizens, which in turn, limits the potential for conflict and for police supervisors to identify behavior worthy of disciplinary action. The lack of a significant reduction in citizen complaints supports the view that the effect of BWCs on negative officer behavior is contingent upon other factors in the settings in which cameras are deployed. Future research should examine the impacts of cameras on the narrowing of police discretion because of the important implications for police–community relations.

From Guns to Roses: Understanding Community-Oriented Policing in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, police reform is an important focus of international efforts. After over a decade of assistance, however, there are still daunting challenges of public trust and police effectiveness. From a civilian perspective, the role of the police is a crucial one—and very different from that of the military. Communities, being at the very heart of security challenges, are well positioned to understand the intricacies of security and development. A police service able to work closely with communities plays an important role in managing conflict in the long run. Recognizing this, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior Affairs (MoIA) has steadily increased its efforts in community-oriented policing (COP), despite a deteriorating security situation since the withdrawal of US troops in 2014. This paper explores how COP in Afghanistan links with local communities and institutions to ensure both peoples’ security and trust. It begins by considering police-community relations through a broad lens of human security, which comprises the social, economic, political, cultural and legal aspects of their everyday lives. We then examine international assistance to police reform, how the Afghan police have developed their COP philosophy, and how this has played out in re-defining police-community relations. Using field data from Nimruz Province, we then look at the role of local institutions of chowkidari and shura in addressing people’s insecurities, and opportunities for linking these with COP efforts of the police. We conclude that there is a real potential for COP in Afghanistan that his locally owned and sustainable, if enough attention is given to inclusive processes and developing creative and flexible trust-building relationships with local institutions and organizations.

The Influence of Police Training Programmes on Police Officers Participation in Good Police – Community Relations in Uganda

This study sought to investigate the influence of police training programmes on police officers participation in good police- community relations in Uganda. The investigation was provoked by the reportedly deteriorating performance of police officers in areas of good police - community relations despite of government’s effort to transform Uganda to a middle income country by 2040.The specific areas studied were the influence of police training on their participation in provision of services to the community, community communal activities and provision of customer care. The study took an interpretive philosophical paradigm and was under pined by the Social learning theory and the Expectancy theory of Motivation. Data was collected using questionnaires, interviews, Focused Group Discussions, participant observation and documentary analysis. A total of 412 police officers and 80 non police officers participated in the study. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS by use of descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, Regression analysis and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) while qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis by use of transcription, coding and themes development. The study findings showed a strong positive relationship between training programmes and participation in good police community relations, (r = 0.654, p = 0.000, n = 412). It further showed that police training programmes are predictors of police officers participation in good police community relations promotions, pv < 0.050 (= 0.000). The relationship is statistically significant at 95 % confidence level. The researcher concluded that police training programmes influence police officers participation in good police- community relations in Uganda. Thus it was recommended that police management promote good police- community relations by allocating enough funds to standardize training and other activities related to good police – community relations promotions in Uganda. Keywords: Police Training Programmes Good Police Community Relations Promotion. DOI : 10.7176/PPAR/9-10-04 Publication date :October 31 st 2019

Стресс в работе сотрудников правоохранительных органов в наши дни: влияние меняющейся социально-политической обстановки

Objective: to study stress in the work of law enforcement agencies under the changing socio-political environment. Methods: dialectic approach to the cognition of social phenomena, allowing to analyze them in the historical development and functioning in the context of a set of objective and subjective factors, which determined the choice of the following research methods: formal-logical, comparative-legal, sociological.Results: interviews with representatives from 110 law enforcement agencies showed how occupational stressors have changed in recent years. The most frequently cited stressors involved day-to-day enforcement activities that put officers in potentially dangerous situations, the administrative burden and shift work associated with the profession, family and relationship challenges that accompany the job, and the state of police community relations and negative portrayal of the police by the media. Respondents reported that officers experience increased fear and stress due to recent changes in the socio-political environment, which is characterized by strained police-community relations, increased scrutiny associated with the 24-hr news cycle, and the ubiquity of personal recording devices and sharing videos on social media.Scientific novelty: for the first time, the work presents an analysis of the impact of stress in the law enforcement agencies under the changing socio-political environment. The new positive factors which have changed the landscape of police stress for the better are: 1) the current socio-political environment; 2) generational shifts in the workforce and; 3) efforts to destigmatize mental health care.Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific, pedagogical and law enforcement activity when viewing and studying the issues related to stress in the work of police officers under the changing socio-political environment.

Testing a Theoretical Model of Perceived Audience Legitimacy: The Neglected Linkage in the Dialogic Model of Police–community Relations

Objectives: Democratic policing involves an ongoing dialogue between officers and citizens about what it means to wield legitimate authority. Most of the criminological literature on police legitimacy has focused on citizens’ perceptions of this dialogue—that is, audience legitimacy. Consequently, we know little about how officers perceive their legitimacy in the eyes of the public and the antecedents of such perceptions. Pulling together separate strands of literature pertaining to citizen demeanor, hostile media perceptions, and danger perception theory, we propose and test a theoretical model of perceived audience legitimacy. Method: We conducted two separate studies: the first a survey of 546 officers working at a southern U.S. agency and the second a survey of a national probability sample of 665 executives and high-ranking officers. Results: Local violent crime rates, but not minority group size or growth, are associated with lower perceived audience legitimacy. Additionally, recent experiences with citizen disrespect and global perceptions of citizen animus are both inversely associated with perceived audience legitimacy. The perceived hostility of local, but not national, media coverage is also associated with lower perceived audience legitimacy. Conclusions: Our results suggest a need for additional research that explores whether the antecedents of audience legitimacy indirectly affect police behaviors, like the use of force.

Police Use of Body-Worn Cameras: Challenges of Visibility, Procedural Justice, and Legitimacy

Recent controversies over police use of force in the United States of America have placed a spotlight on police in Western nations. Concerns that police conduct is racist and procedurally unjust have generated public sentiments that accountability must be externally imposed on police. One such accountability mechanism is body-worn cameras (BWCs). Optimistic accounts of BWCs suggest that the technology will contribute to the improvement of community–police relations. However, BWCs address consequences, not causes, of poor community–police relations. We argue that the evolving visibility of police associated with BWCs is double-edged, and suggest that the adoption of surveillance technologies such as BWCs in the quest to improve community–police relations will fail without a simultaneous commitment to inclusionary policing practices (such as community policing strategies, community and social development, and local democracy). We outline two initiatives that optimize BWCs by promoting these simultaneous commitments.

National Police Reform Commissions: Evidence-Based Practices or Unfulfilled Promises?

The Kerner Commission devoted significant attention to the issue of policing and its impact on communities of color in particular. In light of the 50th anniversary of the Kerner Commission, the focus of this article is twofold. First, this article provides a literature review on police commissions across time, both pre- and post-Kerner, to identify similarities. There are three key areas of focus that most of the police commissions have touched on: excessive police use of force, police–community relations, and personnel standards. Second, this article assesses the empirical evidence behind these three identified areas of concern and asks the following: What does the research show on the efficacy of police organizational reforms for reducing excessive police use of force, building police–community relations, and improving personnel standards? This article concludes by identifying areas for further research in each of these three subcategories. Specifically, this article highlights the need for further research to empirically delineate what strategies are effective for reducing police–community tensions.

Examining the community consequences of arrests for low-level criminal activity.

This study was designed to examine the effects of arrests for low-level criminal activity on key features of police-community relations and the capacity of the neighborhood to regulate behavior of residents. Multilevel mixed-effects modeling was used with residents (N = 826) living in police beats (N = 51) in Chicago to test the hypotheses that higher arrest rates were associated with less police legitimacy, less willingness to work with the police and less neighborhood informal social control. The results indicated that more aggressive enforcement was associated with less capacity for informal social control. The findings also suggested that higher arrest rates were directly related to more legitimacy and indirectly related to less legitimacy through residents' negative experiences with police. For residents affected by crime and disorder but not burdened by aggressive enforcement, the use of arrests to reduce incivilities may be viewed positively and related to stronger beliefs about legitimacy. In contrast, trust and confidence in police may be reduced for those residents who experience the costs associated with low-level arrests. Regardless of the short-term effects, if aggressive low-level policing undermines the effectiveness of social control systems in the neighborhood, communities will be less safe in the long term.