Police Tactics Research Articles

Perceptions of police use of force: the importance of trust

PurposeThe range of tactical force options available to police is increasing, while public debate about police use of force is never far from the headlines. This paper aims to examine what factors shape how people accept police use of force.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use two online experiments to test whether different force options affected judgments about the acceptability of police action and to explore the role of trust and legitimacy in people's judgments.FindingsThe authors found across both studies that respondents judged scenarios involving a weapon (baton, CS spray, Taser) as less acceptable compared to scenarios that did not (talking down, handcuffs), but they did not draw much distinction between the specific weapon used. In study 1, exposure to different police tactics had no effect on trust and legitimacy. In study 2, prior perceptions of trust were strong predictors of acceptability judgments.Originality/valueThere is a comparative paucity of British-based empirical research examining public attitudes toward different use of force resolutions by police. In this paper, the authors explore how use of force affects people's views of police at a time in which the nature and scope of force applications, how these are understood and indeed the basic enterprise of policing itself is being reconsidered and renegotiated.

'Cops Are Cops': American Campus Police and the Global Carceral Apparatus

ABSTRACT Campus police in the United States are often discussed in terms of their domestic impact on college grounds and the surrounding neighbourhoods, but they have a lesser-known global impact as well. This article reveals how campus forces have attempted to shed their reputation as 'rent-a-cops' by establishing themselves as the leading global experts on campus security and participating in a wide range of projects designed to protect state interests. In doing so, campus police have positioned themselves as their own specialised branch of policing (rather than as merely subsidiary to municipal policing) and contributed to the construction of a global carceral apparatus. Campus departments' quest for legitimacy has manifested in the exchange of policing tactics between city and campus forces around the world through training sessions, networking events, and other collaborative programmes. As historians continue to uncover the global effects of policing in the United States, it is important to include the contributions of often overlooked private and quasi-public campus police departments. This article argues that campus forces used their unique status to take part in police assistance efforts abroad while also reproducing them in their own profession to construct the global campus security network.

A Study on UK’s Protest Liaison Officers Approach

오늘날 시위 경찰활동은 동의, 상호 협력, 그리고 인권존중에 기초한 새로운시대로 들어가고 있다. 경찰청은 2018년 스웨덴의 특별경찰전술 조직의 핵심이라고 할 수 있는 대화경찰제도를 벤치마킹하여 도입·실시하였다. 영국 또한2009년 런던 G20 시위를 계기로 시위 연락관 제도(PLOs)를 도입·운용하고 있다. 이 연구의 목적은 대화 경찰관 제도의 한 유형인 영국 시위 연락관 제도(PLOs)의 도입 배경, 운용 현황 등을 살펴봄으로써 우리나라 대화경찰제도를위한 시사점을 제안하는 것이다. 시위 연락관 제도의 이론적 기초는 협의 관리모델(NMM)과 정교화 사회 정체성 모델(ESIM)로서, 정교화 사회 정체성 모델은 경찰로 하여금 역동적인 위기 평가와 균형 잡힌 전술의 중요성을 이해하도록 만든다. 그 외에 이 연구의 이론적 토대에서는 영국 공공질서 관리의 6가지원칙, 대화경찰활동의 5개 핵심 요소 등이 제시되어 있다. 영국의 시위 연락관제도(PLOs)의 운용 현황을 토대로 한국 대화경찰 제도가 더욱 발전하기 위해서 경찰청은 첫째, 대화 경찰관의 역할을 명확하게 정립하고, 둘째, 전문 대화경찰관을 채용할 뿐만 아니라 관련 전문 교육을 강화하고, 셋째, 맞춤식 업무매뉴얼을 개발하며, 넷째, 유관 기관과 적극적으로 협력할 필요가 있다.Today’s protest policing has entered a new era marked by consent, mutual cooperation, and respect for human rights. In 2018, the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) adopted the Swedish dialogue police approach, which makes up the core of the Swedish Special Police Tactics. The UK adopted the Protest Liaison Officers (PLOs) System since the 2009 G20 London Summit Protests. The purpose of this study is to examine the background of introduction and management status of the UK’s PLOs in order to provide some implications for the Korean dialogue police system. The theoretical underpinnings of the PLOs are the Negotiated Management Model (NMM) and the Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM), the latter of which helps police officers understand the importance of dynamic crisis assessment and balanced tactics. Other theoretical foundations of this study are the UK’s Six Principles of Public Order Management, the Five Core Elements of Dialogue Police Activity. Based on the operation system of the UK’s PLOs, the following suggestions are made for the Korean dialogue system’s improvement: (1) the role of the dialogue police should be established clearly; (2) specialized officers should be employed and specialized training should be conducted; (3) duty manual should be developed; and (4) cooperation with relevant organizations should be facilitated.

Body-worn cameras' effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review.

Body-worn cameras' effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review.

Institutionalizing problem‐oriented policing: An evaluation of the EMUN reform in Israel

Research SummaryIn 1979 Herman Goldstein proposed a radical reform—problem‐oriented policing (POP)—which has had tremendous impact on scholars and practitioners. Even though his paper and subsequent work led to a large body of literature on how to carry out problem‐oriented policing tactics, scholars have often ignored the question of how POP can be institutionalized in police agencies. In this article, we evaluate a reform in Israel—EMUN— that attempted to institutionalize problem‐oriented policing on a national scale. Focusing on property crime, we compare three treatment stations (with high, moderate, and low crime) with control stations chosen through a systematic matching procedure. We find that there are large and significant reductions in the targeted areas (termed “polygons”) for high‐ and moderate‐property‐ crime stations as compared with the control stations. We also do not find evidence of displacement but instead evidence of significant diffusions of crime control benefits. Importantly, property crime declines occurred in these stations overall. Significant benefits were not found for the low‐crime treatment station. We attribute this to the low base rate of crimes and low resource allocation in this station.Policy ImplicationsThese findings suggest that the EMUN reform provides a potential model for institutionalizing problem‐oriented policing as an organizational reform. EMUN attempted to support and reinforce each of the main steps of the problem‐oriented policing model. It also developed sophisticated computer tools to aid in this process that not only supported problem‐solving efforts but also allowed for wide‐scale supervision of each stage of the POP model.

Terrorism Prosecutions, Material Support, and Islamophobia

Abstract With Islamophobia rife and the government list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) telling us who is a threat, marginalized populations are being targeted and can expect a hostile and negative prosecutorial outcome. The large majority of terrorism prosecutions center on material support charges, which by their very structure concentrate on FTOs that are largely Islamist in ideology. Attaching a terrorist taint to a population based on its religious affiliation generates a kind of self-perpetuating law enforcement bias and prosecutorial outcome. Such police state tactics and assumptions only assure the adverse results of insisting that an exceptional status applies to those accused of terrorist activity or support for it. That, in the government's eyes, those individuals stem from one of the major monotheistic faiths in large part, seems to be a foregone conclusion that continues to affect the law's development in largely negative ways.

Policing Work: Emotions and Violence in Institutional Work

We merge research on institutional policing with the growing interest in violence in organization studies to explore how citizen enforcement of regulations can evoke emotion and even, under certain circumstances, turn violent. We draw on long interviews to explore how fly fishing guides enforce catch-and-release fishing regulations in the absence of the state. Our primary theoretical contribution is the development of the policing work construct, including a typology of different policing tactics. Therein, we unpack how emotional thresholds explain shifts away from peaceful enforcement tactics fostered by everyday emotions and towards violent tactics reinforced by extraordinary emotions and a desire for vengeance. We also reflect on the constitutive role of violence in policing work, shedding light on vigilantes as a veiled yet crucial line of defense for enforcing institutions. Finally, we show that institutional custodianship can be claimed by ordinary citizens, motivated by their deep connection to and guardianship of an institution’s integrity.

Stop and Question Campus Policing

Purpose Stopping and questioning citizens is an important policing tactic. Prior research explores citizens’ perceptions of stop and question policing, or “SQP”, by municipal police, yet campus police also use this tactic. The purpose of this paper is to understand whether and why college students believe campus police should have the right to engage in SQP. Design/methodology/approach Data come from 73 in-depth interviews with students attending a university in metropolitan Atlanta, GA. The sample was obtained through convenience and purposive sampling methods. Data were analyzed using the ethnographic perspective. Findings Most participants said campus police should practice SQP for three reasons: it is their job; SQP is an effective crime fighting tactic; and SQP is useful given the features and functions of college campuses. Among participants who said campus police should not practice SQP, they were concerned that officers would use it in unwarranted situations. Practical implications Findings suggest that the police might be able to reduce resistance to SQP by clearly explaining to suspects why they are being stopped and also clarifying to the public the legal thresholds for stopping and questioning citizens. Originality/value This is the first study to consider perceptions of SQP by campus police. The findings also shed light on how campus and municipal police are (dis)similar in perceptions of their SQP practices.

Community oriented policing theory and practice: global policy diffusion or local appropriation?

ABSTRACT Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have now had 20 years of experience with community policing programmes (COP), yet high rates of public crime and violence, police violence and corruption, as well as public distrust of the police continue. The introduction to this special issue frames a set of contributions that, together, tell the story of COP’s problems and promise in the region. It argues that, in Latin America and the Caribbean, COP is often locally and regionally (mis)appropriated in ways that challenge common assumptions both of what COP is and of what it can be in contemporary highly unequal politico-economic systems. Indeed, regional and local specificities mean that COP has been used as much to legitimise harsh policing tactics, as it has been used to undertake serious reforms. At the same time, there are directions for general improvements that have the potential of a wide impact.

To Facilitate and Protect: State Obligations and the Right of Peaceful Assembly in International Human Rights Law

This article distinguishes the obligation of States to ‘facilitate’ and ‘protect’ the right of peaceful assembly under Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (iccpr) from State practices that rather seek to ‘manage’ or ‘control’ its exercise. Focusing on the protection of public assemblies in the Asia-Pacific region and drawing principally on the UN Human Rights Committee’s assembly jurisprudence and its Concluding Observations on State reports, it emphasises the critical importance of the language in which State obligations are framed and understood. Many domestic laws over-regulate the right of assembly by creating broad discretionary powers, impermissible grounds of restriction, bureaucratic procedures and onerous liabilities. Such laws reinforce a police ego-image premised on the pernicious logic of ‘management’ and encourage preventive policing tactics that fundamentally undermine the right of peaceful assembly.

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.

Gondolatok az intézkedéstaktikáról

Az intézkedéstaktika egy igen jelentős, mégis nagyon elhanyagolt téma. Kevés róla az írásos anyag, a felgyülemlett tudásmennyiséget nem foglalja össze tankönyv, így az oktatása is gyenge lábakon áll. Ezzel feltehetően szoros összefüggésben van, hogy a rendőrök intézkedéstaktikai tudása – véleményem szerint – nem kielégítő. Szükség lenne a rendelkezésre álló tudásanyag összegyűjtésére, aktualizálására, új információk beszerzésére, majd megfelelő szinten történő oktatására. Kezdetnek az intézkedéstaktika fogalmának meghatározását tűztem ki célul.

Beyond Common Sense and Human Experience: Lay Perceptions of Witness Coercion

Perceptions of the use of coercive tactics in witness interviews were examined. Canadian community members ( N = 293) were asked to read a transcript of a witness interview that included either (a) threats/overt coercion, (b) minimization/covert coercion, or (c) no coercion, and answer questions about the interview. Participants rated the threat transcript as being the most coercive, containing the most pressure, involving the most serious consequences for withholding information, and eliciting the most negative feelings from witnesses. Conversely, the minimization transcript tended to be rated less negatively than the threat transcript and was also rated as being the most effective for gathering information. Results indicate that laypeople recognize the issues with explicitly coercive police tactics, but are less clear on the problems with subtler forms of coercion. The implications for the truth-seeking function of the justice system and the role of expert testimony in the courtroom are discussed.

Novel policing techniques decrease gun-violence and the cost to the healthcare system

The objective was to investigate the effects of novel policing techniques on hospital-observed incidence, healthcare utilization, mortality and costs associated with gun violence, from the perspective of a level-1 trauma center. An eight-year retrospective review evaluating the clinical and financial effects of gunshot wound (GSW) encounters between January 1st, 2010 and December 31st, 2017. Individuals who presented to the emergency department (Level-1 trauma center in Camden, NJ) between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2017 with GSW (995 encounters) were included; however, patients with incomplete financial or medical record data were excluded (55 encounters). Patients were subdivided into two cohorts: before and after changes in policing tactics (May 1st, 2013). 940 total firearm-related encounters were included in the study. Following the policing changes, the hospital-observed quarterly incidence of GSW encounters decreased by 22% post-policing changes, 44.3 to 34.6 (p = 0.038). Average quarterly days spent in-house for GSW treatment decreased 220.7 to 151.3 (31%) days. Hospital observed mortality increased from 13.5% of presentations to 17.3% of presentations (p = 0.106). Total cost savings associated with the policing change was roughly $254,000 per quarter (p = 0.023). In areas susceptible to high rates of gun violence, similar novel policing tactics could significantly decrease hospital-observed incidence, costs and healthcare utilization demanded by firearm-related injury.

How law shapes policing: the regulation of alcohol in the U.S., 1750–1860

ABSTRACT Scholars have been skeptical about the capacity of law to shape what police do, but that skepticism results from a myopic view of the relationship between legal systems and policing practices. This paper develops a more holistic view of that relationship by exploring the legal standards, social understandings, and policing practices that played a role in the regulation of alcohol and drunkenness from roughly 1750–1860 in the United States. From the late colonial period through the 1830s, alcohol regulation did not aim to reduce drinking but to prevent public disorder – a task that was well-suited to the character of the early American legal system. From the 1830s through 1860, however, the temperance movement successfully pressed legislators to enact more explicitly moralistic liquor laws, demanding that police ferret out private alcohol sales rather than merely regulating their impact on public order. That new mandate quickly unravelled, for it proved incompatible with a wide range of legal restraints, including traditional protections against searches of private homes, skepticism about the testimony by criminal accomplices, and liability rules related to official enforcement actions. No single restriction on policing tactics undermined antebellum prohibition, but the basic orientation of criminal procedure and the social understandings and practices through which it operated informed a wide range of specific restrictions on morals policing that collectively made prohibition unworkable. To understand that story, we need to take a broader view of the relationship between law and policing than most policing research has taken.

Policing space in the overdose crisis: A rapid ethnographic study of the impact of law enforcement practices on the effectiveness of overdose prevention sites

North America is in the midst of an overdose crisis. In some of the hardest hit areas of Canada, local responses have included the implementation of low-threshold drug consumption facilities, termed Overdose Prevention Sites (OPS). In Vancouver, Canada the crisis and response occur in an urban terrain that is simultaneously impacted by a housing crisis in which formerly ‘undesirable’ areas are rapidly gentrifying, leading to demands to more closely police areas at the epicenter of the overdose crisis. We examined the intersection of street-level policing and gentrification and how these practices re/made space in and around OPS in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighborhood. Between December 2016 and October 2017, qualitative interviews were conducted with 72 people who use drugs (PWUD) and over 200 h of ethnographic fieldwork were undertaken at OPS and surrounding areas. Data were analyzed thematically and interpreted by drawing on structural vulnerability and elements of social geography. While OPS were established within existing social-spatial practices of PWUD, gentrification strategies and associated police tactics created barriers to OPS services. Participants highlighted how fear of arrest and police engagement necessitated responding to overdoses alone, rather than engaging emergency services. Routine policing near OPS and the enforcement of area restrictions and warrant searches, often deterred participants from accessing particular sites. Further documented was an increase in the number of police present in the neighborhood the week of, and the week proceeding, the disbursement of income assistance cheques. Our findings demonstrate how some law enforcement practices, driven in part by ongoing gentrification efforts and buttressed by multiple forms of criminalization present in the lives of PWUD, limited access to needed overdose-related services. Moving away from place-based policing practices, including those driven by gentrification, will be necessary so as to not undermine the effectiveness of life-saving public health interventions amid an overdose crisis.

Targeted: The Mobilizing Effect of Perceptions of Unfair Policing Practices

Criminal justice contact is increasingly routine for Americans, and preemptive policing tactics render contact a feature of everyday life for minorities and the poor. Scholars interested in the imp...

Renegotiating police legitimacy through amateur video and social media: lessons from the police excessive force at the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade

ABSTRACTThis article examines the impact of digital media technologies on police-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) community relations in Sydney through a viral video of police excessive force filmed after the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. Critical media analysis, and 15 in-depth interviews with police and non-police respondents directly affected by the video, make an in-depth, qualitative contribution to legitimacy and procedural justice studies on the impact of digital technologies on LGBTIQ community trust in police. The findings emphasise the capacity of amateur video of police excessive force publicised directly through social media to pressure the police to account, to catalyse LGBTIQ community responses and to negotiate through online fora legitimate boundaries of police practice. Exposure through social media can pressure the police to justify police transgression in real time; a form of ‘dynamic’ legitimacy requiring continuous and detailed justification of police practice that can exhaust standard police responses through a potentially infinite claim-response dialogue. Despite revision of policing practices at Mardi Gras since 2013, ongoing discrepancies between police understanding and public perceptions of a range of police tactics, including use of force, emphasise the continued importance of dialogue between police and LGBTIQ communities.

Examining Police Presence, Tactics, and Engagement as Facilitators of Informal Social Control in High-Crime Areas

The systemic model of social disorganization advocates that communities can help regulate disorder and crime by exerting informal social control. This paper examines the avenues through which police might contribute to that social process. Building upon past research, we compare the amount of police presence observed by residents versus residents’ awareness of and satisfaction with police–community engagement and tactics used as mechanisms for promoting safety, confidence in police, and social cohesion, and ultimately informal social control. Results of a structural equation model using data from a panel community survey in 71 high-crime areas suggest that simply seeing the police is not enough. The results suggest that tactics police use in neighborhoods and most notably, how those strategies are interpreted by residents living there can be a conduit to facilitate social cohesion and informal social control. The results have implications for police resource allocation and best practices in crime hot spots.

Resident Assistance, Police Chief Learning, and the Persistence of Aggressive Policing Tactics in Black Neighborhoods

While scholars have identified ways that racial conservatives exerted outsized influence on criminal justice policies, little attention has been paid to whether police departments have incentives to learn about and adopt reforms that reduce racial disparity. I present a game of imperfect information between residents and a municipal police chief to show that a chief’s inability to prevent officer behavior that residents perceive to be abusive, coupled with resident unwillingness to assist police in the aftermath of this behavior, creates an incentive for the chief to choose and learn about new policing strategies that rely less on resident assistance. This induces a bias in favor of aggressive over collaborative tactics in the police chief’s policy selection and learning decisions. Segregation and discrimination ensured that many black Americans lived in conditions that produced this result in the later twentieth century; thus, the model shows structural racism in local police policy making.