Police Perspective Research Articles

Organizational structure, police activity and crime

How does the organizational structure of law enforcement agencies affect police activity and crime? We examine the consequences of an organizational reform in Israel that transferred the responsibility for housing arrestees from the police to the prison authority. Using the staggered rollout of the reform in different regions of the country, we document strong evidence that this organizational change led to an increase of 11% in the number of arrests and to a decrease of 4% in the number of reported crimes, with these effects concentrated in more minor crimes. The reform also led to a decrease in the quality of arrests, measured by the likelihood of being charged following an arrest. These findings are consistent with the idea that the reform externalized the cost of housing arrestees from the police's perspective, and therefore led the police to increase its activity against crime. • We evaluate the impact of an organizational reform in jails. • We find it increased police activity and reduced crime. • The results are consistent with optimizing behavior by police. • Organizational structure matters in the fight against crime.

Organizational Structure, Police Activity and Crime

Abstract How does the organizational structure of law enforcement agencies affect police activity and crime? We examine the consequences of an organizational reform in Israel that transferred the responsibility for housing arrestees from the police to the prison authority. Using the staggered rollout of the reform in different regions of the country, we document strong evidence that this organizational change led to an increase of 11% in the number of arrests and to a decrease of 4% in the number of reported crimes, with these effects concentrated in more minor crimes. The reform also led to a decrease in the quality of arrests, measured by the likelihood of being charged following an arrest. These findings are consistent with the idea that the reform externalized the cost of housing arrestees from the police's perspective, and therefore led the police to increase its activity against crime.

Family Commitments, Economies of Emotions, and Negotiating Mental Illness in Late-Nineteenth to Mid-Twentieth-Century Natal, South Africa

Histories of the institutionalisation of the mentally ill in southern Africa have largely emphasised the power and perspectives of state officials, including psychiatrists, medical doctors, magistrates, and police. This article considers, however, the involvement of family members in determining when kin were in need of confinement by reason of madness. It argues that while police and state officials remained the major conduits through which patients were brought to mental hospitals, in many cases the initiative of family members in having a person committed can be discerned in a close reading of the official committal papers. Definitions of madness were, therefore, in some instances, dialectical and negotiated, rather than simply a form of ‘state social control from above’. Second, and as an early contribution to the emerging studies of ‘emotional communities’ or ‘emotional cultures’ and ‘the family’ in southern Africa, the paper suggests that by observing the expanding range of reasons being put forward by family members in initiating, supporting or challenging the certification of insanity we have an opportunity to glimpse aspects of the emotional worlds of families in South Africa in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.

The use of organic and inorganic impurities found in MDMA police seizures in a drug intelligence perspective

Traditional forensic drug profiling involves numerous analytical techniques, and the whole process is typically costly and may be time consuming. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of prioritising techniques utilised at the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for the chemical profiling of 3,4-methylenedioxymethylamphetamine (MDMA). The outcome would provide the AFP with the ability to obtain more timely and valuable results that could be used in an intelligence perspective. Correlation coefficients were used to obtain a similarity degree between a population of linked samples (within seizures) and a population of unlinked samples (between different seizures) and discrimination between the two populations was ultimately achieved. The results showed that gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was well suited as a single technique to detect links between seizures and could be used in priority for operational intelligence purposes. Furthermore, the method was applied to seizures known or suspected (through their case information) to be linked to each other to assess the chemical similarity between samples. It was found that half of the seizures previously linked by the case number were also linked by the chemical profile. This procedure was also able to highlight links between cases that were previously unsuspected and retrospectively confirmed by circumstantial information. The findings are finally discussed in the broader forensic intelligence context, with a focus on how they could be successfully incorporated into investigations and in an intelligence-led policing perspective in order to understand trafficking markets.

Public drinking, social connection and social capital: A qualitative study

Social isolation is a risk factor for morbidity and mortality which has resulted in calls for facilitating social connection to be a public health priority, especially in socioeconomically disadvantaged population groups. While previous research has explored the role that social connection played in diverse domains, including Skid Row drinkers from the 1950s to the 1970s, its role in the lives of public drinkers has been otherwise neglected. Laws prohibiting the public drinking of alcohol are widely implemented around the world but have been the subject of very little social analysis. A recent evaluation of public drinking laws in three urban districts of Melbourne, Australia, sought the perspectives of police, council officers, outreach workers, traders, community members and public drinkers in evaluating the impact and effectiveness of the laws; this article seeks to foreground the public drinkers’ voice. Qualitative interviews with public drinkers were analysed for relevance to the theme of “social connection”. Themes arising from the analysis indicated a strong sense of family or community amongst drinkers and frequent organisation of drinking groups along ethnic lines, as well as the provision of bonding social capital. The benefits of providing public drinkers with a legitimate and appropriate public space to promote existing social connections while undertaking a favoured activity, drinking alcohol, are discussed. At a time when fostering social connection is identified as a key public health strategic direction, the needs of public drinkers in this respect should be considered.

Effective third-party policing partnerships or missed opportunities?

In the last decade, in particular, policing organisations have increasingly been called upon to adapt to rising demands on their resources. These demands have required policing organisations to think more strategically about the way policing business is performed and the types of crime outcomes being achieved. More complex crime challenges particularly in the area of organised crime have influenced police to adopt more proactive methods. This paper examines an innovative policing partnerships response to a serious illicit drug crime problem in Australia. The key objective of the paper is to analyse police perspectives of the operations and functionality of the partnership with community pharmacists, at the state policy level and at the local level in two jurisdictions. This paper highlights the importance of developing a partnership model that alleviates the ‘disconnect’ experienced by police who are translating the partnership at the local level.

Jim Blair: A Police Perspective on Domestic Violence and the Proposed Residence Test

Jim Blair: A Police Perspective on Domestic Violence and the Proposed Residence Test

Policing the roads: traffic cops, ‘Boy Racers’ and anti-social behaviour

This article explores the policing and regulation of young motorists known in the United Kingdom as ‘boy racers’. It demonstrates how police officers' definitional decisions in relation to driving behaviours were influenced by a range of exogenous and endogenous factors, which subsequently shaped the landscape of enforcement and interactions with the community and drivers. A shift over time in the nature of the problem due to urban regeneration, innovations in the technology of the motor car and the availability of anti-social behaviour legislation impacted upon the policing of urban space. The strategies employed in order to police the culture and the related urban space were reminiscent of a deeper policing tradition wherein managing incivilities and local problems is part of the community policing perspective. Data is presented from semi-structured interviews with police, residents and ‘boy racers’, and ethnographic fieldwork with the drivers in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland.

The OxyContin crisis: Problematisation and responsibilisation strategies in addiction, pain, and general medicine journals

BackgroundOxyContin® (Purdue Pharma, L.P., Stamford, CT) is now widely regarded as a drug of abuse fueling a larger opioid health crisis. While coverage in the North American press about OxyContin overwhelmingly focused upon the problems of related crime and addiction/misuse and the perspectives of law enforcement officials and police, coverage in those fields of medicine most intimately concerned with OxyContin—pain medicine and addiction medicine—was more nuanced. MethodsIn this article, we draw upon the constructivist social problems tradition and Hunt's theory of moral regulation in a qualitative analysis of 24 medical journal articles. We compare and contrast pain medicine and addiction medicine representations of the OxyContin problem, the agents responsible for it, and proposed solutions. ResultsWhile there are some significant differences, particularly concerning the nature of the problem and the agents responsible for it, both pain medicine and addiction medicine authors ‘take responsibility’ in ways that attempt to mitigate the potential appropriation of the issue by law enforcement and regulatory agencies. ConclusionsThe responses of pain medicine and addiction medicine journal articles represent strategic moves to recapture lost credibility, to retain client populations and tools necessary to their jobs, and to claim a seat at the table in responding to the OxyContin crisis.

‘All it takes is one TV show to ruin it’: a police perspective on police-media relations in the era of expanding prime time crime markets

In this article, we draw on interviews conducted with Canadian police investigators for a study of mass media representations of police work to better understand their unique perspectives on the nature of police-media relations. In contrast to the orthodox position of the policing literature that holds that police are the dominant partner in the police-media relationship, investigators interviewed felt that they had lost control over representations of their work in media stories. This loss of control is attributed, in large part, to the pressure placed on reporters to feed an insatiable public appetite for crime-related stories. Particularly, worrying for investigators is the belief that they are no longer able to maintain secrecy over their investigative activities and techniques – a shift that they see as having a significant negative impact on their work. What is required, officers believe, is better collaborative means of working with news media outlets.

Meios de comunicação impressos, representações sociais e violência contra idosos

Objetivou-se apreender as representações sociais da violência e dos maus-tratos contra os idosos divulgadas pela mídia impressa paulista e paraibana. Foi realizada uma pesquisa documental com 126 notícias dos jornais Folha de S. Paulo e O Norte (Paraíba), cujos textos foram analisados pelas classificações hierárquicas descendente e ascendente processadas pelo software Alceste. As representações sociais sobre a violência contra os idosos apresentaram-se polarizadas entre os dois jornais: no paraibano destacaram-se as temáticas dos direitos e das políticas públicas, e no paulista, emergiu a concepção de violência, em relação aos idosos, como vítimas, e em relação aos seus agressores, como uma questão policial. Infere-se que a produção e difusão de conhecimentos por intermédio dos jornais desvelam nas representações sociais hegemônicas da sociedade certa pressão sobre os sujeitos sociais, demandando intervenções psicossociais em diversos segmentos desta sociedade, principalmente em se tratando de um fenômeno extremamente complexo como o é a violência contra idosos.

Police Use of Force and Officer Injuries

The widespread adoption of conducted energy devices (CEDs) across American police departments over the last decade has been mired in public controversy. It is generally accepted, from a police perspective, that CEDs are safer for officers who can use the weapon at a greater distance, avoiding much of the harm associated with close physical struggles with citizens. Research has generally supported the notion that aggregate levels of officer injuries are reduced following the implementation of CEDs. Unfortunately, multivariate examinations that, in varying degrees, have attempted to compare CED applications to other forms of force (while controlling for rival causal factors) have yet to produce the same consistent results as the pre- and post-CED adoption studies. The current research adds to recent multivariate inquiries by using data collected as part of a national multiagency use of force project to assess the independent effect of CEDs on officer injuries. Based on a series of multivariate models, our results generally find evidence of increased benefits (i.e., lower probability of officer injury) of CEDs when used by themselves. By contrast, in some instances when CEDs were used in combination with other forms of force, there was an increased probability of officer injury. The implications of these findings for police researchers and practitioners are considered.

Stop and search in London: counter-terrorist or counter-productive?

The principle of ‘reasonable suspicion’ aims to prevent the abuse of the police power to stop, search and arrest and to increase accountability. The lack of a ‘reasonable suspicion’ requirement in stop and search under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 generated controversy and demands for legislative reform. Questions were raised about whether counter-terrorist policing efforts under s44 were effective of merely compromising civil liberties and sanctioning ‘ethnic profiling’. Drawing on observations of stop and search operations, interviews with police and people in London, this paper examines the implementation, experience and perception of s44 from the perspective of police and policed. The paper contends that the spectre of terrorism has legitimated unfair policing – both conceptually and practically – and ethnic minority communities have become suspect and potential intelligence sources. This is inherently problematic, generating a binary framework of expectations which are intangible and contradictory in pursuing human security. Ethnic minority communities have been criminalised, reified in reference to their religious backgrounds, and intra-ethnic tensions and ambiguities have deepened.

Preventive Justice: The Search for Principles

In this essay, I sketch a critical analysis of doctrines and practices commonly identified as instances of “preventive justice.” In Part I, after rehearsing briefly the distinction between law and police as alternative modes of governance best viewed in contradistinction to one another, I argue that preventive justice is neither new, nor different, being instead a long familiar instance of penal police. Part II moves from analysis to critique, considering briefly various criticisms of “preventive justice” raised, or implied, and concluding that they miss the mark, either because they are inapposite (from the perspective of police) or unfounded (from the perspective of law).

In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression (review)

Reviewed by: In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression Jane Kamensky (bio) In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression. By Wendy Woloson. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Pp. 233. Cloth, $35.00.) We are all in hock now, Wendy Woloson points out in the final chapter of this deeply researched and lucidly written study of pawnbrokerage in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century America. Having feasted for decades on credit-card debt—"pawning's mirror opposite" (182)—many Americans now find themselves in famine, pawning consumer goods bought dear with plastic for a little cash loaned at equally high interest rates. Long on the downswing, pawning is making a comeback: The number of pawnshops in the United States has nearly doubled since 1988. Surely the time is ripe for Woloson's probing history of the pawnshop seen from both sides of the counter and many other angles of vision as well. Using an enormous variety of evidence, including business records, personal documents, trade cards, satiric prints, sheet music, dime novels, penny papers, and much more, In Hock redeems pawnbrokerage [End Page 549] from stereotypes that have haunted the trade since its inception. Woloson reveals instead a vibrant and complex facet of the emerging industrial economy in cities ranging from Boston to Birmingham to Leadville, Colorado. At its best, Woloson's study makes a worthy companion to Stephen Mihm's A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States (Cambridge, MA, 2007), Seth Rockman's Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore (Baltimore, 2010; reviewed earlier in this issue), and other recent books probing the murky interstices of early American capitalism. Woloson opens In Hock with a visit to her neighborhood pawnshop, the bright and cheerful McGarry's, a family business serving Philadelphians for two generations. "The place is neat and clean," she writes, "the atmosphere relaxed and friendly. The radio is tuned to NPR" (1). Pawnbrokers aren't who we think they are, in other words. Bankers, rescuers, and retailers by turns, they're a far cry from the seedy lowlifes of popular imagination. Primetime stereotypes don't get the pawners right, either, Woloson discovered. She herself pawned a gold necklace for $40.00—another $6.00 due in five months if she wants to redeem it—all in the service of explaining to her reader the basic terms of the strange trade that is her subject. The reductive stereotypes Woloson wants so badly to dispel are the subject of her second chapter. The caricature of the pawnbroker as a rapacious and marginal figure and his customers as impoverished victims is an old one, arriving in British North America in the mid eighteenth century, before pawnbrokerage itself took root. Stories and images printed in London and reprinted in the colonies beginning in the 1760s made pawnbrokers "anathema to the emerging capitalist system" (22). Cast as greedy, irrational foreigners (often Jews), pawnbrokers were merchants gone through the looking glass: They took goods and gave money with strings attached, doubly impeding their customers' pursuits of happiness. Woloson marshals mountains of evidence on this point, and her readings of these cultural texts are nuanced and persuasive. But starting the book with a lengthy explication of the stereotypes she wishes to dispel works against her agenda. She devotes nearly a quarter of In Hock to documenting what the pawnbroker was not. Far more revealing are the tour de force middle chapters of In Hock, which offer a painstaking social history of pawning from the perspectives of brokers, clients, and police. In America as in Europe, pawnbrokers followed immigrants to cities, where new kinds of lending arose to meet [End Page 550] the needs of newly arrived populations. The nation's first pawnshop opened in New York at the turn of the nineteenth century, providing short-term loans in exchange for the kinds of humble collateral working people could pledge. You couldn't apprentice to become a pawnbroker; the profession, "much like dogcatching," was increasingly necessary yet hardly an aspirational choice for self-making men (58). Using city directories, Woloson finds that pawnbrokers started life in a dizzying variety...

The Impact of Psychological Consequences of Rape on Rape Case Attrition: The Police Perspective

This paper examines whether the psychological sequelae of rape relate to rape case attrition by leading police to see the victim as less reliable. A mixed methods approach with two linked studies, one qualitative and one quantitative, was used. In Study 1, the qualitative study, interviews with 12 specialist police officers were analysed using Framework Analysis. In Study 2, the quantitative study, 76 specialist officers completed an online questionnaire to assess the generalisability of Study 1’s findings. In Study 1, officers’ perceptions of victims clustered into three stereotypes, which we label “the real victim”, “the mad discloser”, and “the bad discloser”. Victims who exhibited signs of shame, self-blame, and post-traumatic stress reactions which impeded their ability to give a coherent account of the rape were perceived as less reliable “mad” or “bad” victims. The findings of Study 2 supported these results. Although police interview strategies have improved in recent years, there is evidence that signs of trauma and shame in the victim are sometimes misinterpreted as signs of lying. This may affect attrition by impacting on victim-officer relationships. Further training on recognising trauma and understanding its consequences is recommended both for specialist officers and front-line staff.

Illicit Retail Methamphetamine Markets and Related Local Problems: A Police Perspective

In this paper we examine whether features of the operation of retail methamphetamine markets affects communities in three domain areas (public safety, health, and economy). We use data from a national survey of law enforcement agencies (n= 1,367) with narcotics officers to examine the operational characteristics of methamphetamine markets. We found that the operational features of a market (the source of methamphetamine and the most common location for selling methamphetamine) can have a significant impact on the types of public safety, health, and economic problems that communities are experiencing. In particular, jurisdictions distinguished by largely semi-private markets (strip clubs and bars) are more likely to be characterized as localities that have a large public safety and health problem. Jurisdictions that are supplied by multiple local and international sources (compared to a single source) were more likely to be characterized as jurisdictions that have problems in the three domains.

Mantenimiento del orden público: teoría, práctica y educación del policiamiento de los campeonatos europeos de fútbol de 2000 y 2004

As forcas policiais diferenciam-se nos metodos de intervencao que utilizam para manter a lei e a ordem em grandes eventos que poem em perigo a ordem publica, a exemplo das partidas de futebol de alto risco e de certas manifestacoes publicas. Tradicionalmente, a enfase no treinamento e desempenho policiais se coloca nas taticas de controle antidisturbios e no uso de armas nao letais, incluindo desde o cassetete e os produtos quimicos ate os canhoes de agua e as balas de borracha. A maior parte dos estudos geralmente deixam de lado a perspectiva policial e ignoram o fato de que os acontecimentos da ordem publica sao processos intergrupais e uma consequencia de interacoes em desenvolvimento. Neste artigo, apresentam-se os resultados de algumas pesquisas empiricas sobre a atuacao da policia na manutencao da ordem publica, que colocam em questao as perspectivas tradicionais do comportamento das massas. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: ordem publica, policiamento de futebol jogos, taticas antimotim, a dinâmica das multidoes, controle de multidoes. MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC ORDER: theory, practice and teaching of the police for the European Football Championship in 2000 and 2004 Otto M.J. Adang Police forces differ in the methods of intervention used to maintain law and order in major events that endanger public order, like high risk soccer matches and certain public demonstrations. Traditionally, the emphasis on police performance and training is put on riot control tactics and use of nonlethal weapons, from batons and chemicals to water cannons and rubber bullets. Most studies generally fail to consider the perspective of the police and ignore the fact that the events of public order are intergroup processes and a consequence of interactions in development. In this paper, we present the results of some empirical research on the role of police in maintaining public order, which put into question the traditional perspectives of behavior of the masses. KEYWORDS: public order, policing of football matches, riot control tactics, dynamics of crowds, crowd control. MAINTIEN DE ‘L’ORDRE PUBLIC: theorie, pratique et formation de la police pour le Championnat Europeen de Football en 2000 et 2004 Otto M.J. Adang Les forces de police s’exercent de maniere differente en fonction des methodes d’intervention utilisees pour maintenir l’ordre et faire respecter la loi dans les grandes manifestations qui mettent en danger l’ordre public, tels les matchs de football a haut risque et certaines manifestations publiques. Traditionnellement, l’accent est mis sur la formation et les performances de la police quant aux tactiques de controle antiemeutes et l’utilisation d’armes non letales, y compris les bâtons et les produits chimiques, les canons a eau et les balles en caoutchouc. La plupart des etudes ne tient generalement pas compte du point de vue de la police et ignore le fait que les evenements dus a l’action de l’ordre public sont le resultat d’un processus intergroupes et la consequence d’interactions en developpement. Dans cet article, nous presentons les resultats d’une serie de recherches empiriques sur le role de la police pour le maintien de l’ordre public, qui remet en question l’approche traditionnelle du comportement des masses. MOTS-CLES: ordre public, surveillance policiere des matchs de football, tactiques antiemeutes, dynamique des foules, controle des foules. Publicacao Online do Caderno CRH: http://www.cadernocrh.ufba.br Publicacao Online do Caderno CRH no Scielo: http://www.scielo.br/ccrh

Where concerned citizens perceive police as more responsive to troublesome teen groups: theoretical implications for political economy, incivilities and policing

The current investigation extends previous work on citizens' perceptions of police performance. It examines origins of between-community differences in concerned citizens' judgements that police are responding sufficiently to a local social problem. The problem is local unsupervised teen groups, a key indicator for both the revised systemic social disorganisation perspective and the incivilities thesis. Four theoretical perspectives predict ecological determinants of these shared judgements. Less perceived police responsiveness is anticipated in: lower socioeconomic status (SES) police districts by both a political economy and a stratified incivilities perspective; more predominantly minority police districts by a racialised justice perspective; and in higher crime police districts by a proposed extension of Klinger's ecology of policing model. The current work improves upon earlier conflicting work in this area in several ways; most importantly it distinguishes between perceived need for police and perceived police responsiveness. Survey, census and crime data from Philadelphia were used. Results showed residents concerned about this problem and living in lower SES police districts or higher violent crime police districts judged police as less responsive. Results supported political economy and stratified incivilities models and to a lesser extent the proposed extension of Klinger's ecology of policing perspective. Implications for broader understandings of community variation in citizens' reactions to police, and for national programmes to improve police responsiveness, were noted.

The Triggers Protocol

Since the murder of Steven Hoskin, there have been considerable changes in the way that agencies in Cornwall operate. In order to prevent further tragedies on such a scale, a protocol was agreed by the agencies about when an alert should be triggered (Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Safeguarding Adults Board, 2008). This paper describes the process and implications of the protocol from the perspective of Devon and Cornwall Police, South Western Ambulance Service Trust and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust. The protocol has improved and encouraged information sharing within and between agencies, which will help to identify and reduce the risks to vulnerable adults.