Police Support Research Articles

기동경찰관의 폭력피해경험이 이직의도에 미치는 영향

As the number of demonstrations mobilized by police is expected to increase after the COVID-19 complaint, the experience of riot police officers in the process of managing and responding to demonstrations is expected to increase. While previous studies have verified the impact of violent experiences on the intention of leaving work, the number of demonstrations and corresponding violent experiences of riot police officers is expected to increase. The mandatory police system was completely abolished in 2023, and police riot police are in the process of replacing it, but the number of mobile police officers who replace compulsory police is very short of 30 percent. In this situation, it will be difficult to effectively accomplish the task of establishing an advanced rally demonstration culture where law and principles are observed if existing or new police officers break away from their duties.
 Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of violent police experience on the intention to leave work, to analyze whether social support for mobile police has the effect of adjusting the relationship between violent police experience and intention to leave work. Accordingly, 829 people who said they had experienced violence in a survey of riot police officers belonging to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency in 2021 were used for analysis. The analysis revealed that the experience of riot police officers has a positive effect on their intention to leave the job, and that social support has the effect of controlling the relationship between the experience of riot police officers and intention to leave the job. Based on the results of these studies, they presented policy recommendations to prevent and manage the intention of mobile police officers to leave their jobs.

Policing divided societies. Requirements for the civic education of police officers

PurposeThe demands on the police to ensure security and order have increased in times of growing right-wing extremism, corona protests and widespread criticism of and dissatisfaction with democratic structures and processes. Protection, escort or even confrontation in the course of public demonstrations and protests as well as the protection, e.g. of politicians, synagogues or mosques requires additional deployment of the police and poses extended challenges. However, the police force itself also faces various problems with antidemocratic, violent or extremist police officers. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate why and how civic education of police officers can be a cornerstone to respond to the described challenges and improve democratic policing.Design/methodology/approachThis paper describes how civic education can be organized in police training and further education and how it can be designed in cooperation with civil society actors. It is based on a research and development project conducted between 2016 and 2021 under the title “Civic Education and Police.”FindingsCivic education can or could be an approach in sensitizing police officers to social conflicts and in better understanding the background and reasons for their deployment. Moreover, civic education can be helpful in preventing abuse of power and police violence, reducing negative aspects of esprit de corps and strengthening police legitimacy.Practical implicationsCivic education of police officers can help to understand conflicts and social tensions, strengthen the understanding of the society, improve police investigation, reduce misbehavior and support legitimacy in the democratic state.Originality/valueThe article uses findings from the project Civic Education and Police, which was funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education between 2016 and 2021. Project partners were the German Police University and the University of Applied Sciences for Police and Public Administration in North Rhine-Westphalia. The project conducted empirical studies on the supply and demand structure of civic education for and in the police. In addition, a database of educational concepts, a series of conferences and a new journal for conference documentation, research and special issues were launched.

“I’ve Seen More Dead People than I thought I Would”: Vicarious Trauma Exposure among Police Support Personnel

Civilian administrative assistants who work for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, known as Detachment Services Assistants (DSAs), are frequently exposed to materials and/or experiences that are potentially psychologically traumatic. Drawing from 49 semi-structured interviews with DSAs, we analyze how these civilian personnel experience exposure to potentially psychologically traumatic events, most notably, vicarious trauma. Specifically, we overview the types of exposure to potentially psychologically traumatic events and materials experienced by DSAs, including the impact of incidents involving children, and the occupational duties through which these exposures occur; we unpack the nuances and variability in DSAs’ occupational work, which informs such exposures; and we draw from DSAs’ experiences to offer recommendations for ameliorating the mental health toll of civilian police work. The study adds to the limited academic literature on the occupational and mental health experiences of civilian personnel, who serve a vital, but underrecognized, role in supporting police operations.

Worried Sick: Perceptions of Low Public Support, Stress, and Somatic Health Problems in Law Enforcement

AbstractRecent surveys suggest that confidence in police reached its lowest level on record in the wake of controversial police custody deaths and associated protests in recent years. Meanwhile, research has found links between perceptions of low public support for police and a variety of negative outcomes among police officers, including stress and withdrawal. The consequences of psychological stress, according to much other research, include a variety of physical health problems. The present study synthesizes these bodies of research by examining whether perceptions of low public support are associated with physical, somatic symptoms in police officers, including headaches, gastrointestinal problems, sleep disturbances, and upper respiratory infections. Structural equation modelling of 4,221 officer surveys from a Southeastern U.S. state collected in January of 2022 suggests that officers are quite literally worried sick about poor police–public relations, and that stress mediates this relationship. We discuss the implications of these findings for officer wellness and the relationship between mental and physical well being among officers. Furthermore, we discuss practical recommendations for police leaders who may be struggling to promote officer wellness during a period of intense public scrutiny.

Board Member Editorial: Increasing Educational Opportunities for Incarcerated Persons

Board Member Editorial:Increasing Educational Opportunities for Incarcerated Persons Heidi Coleman The United States has been grappling with mass incarceration for decades, and more intensely in the last few years as explicit and implicit police support of white supremacy and structural racism have become more visible. The United States (U.S.) has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with state prison populations often out-ranking entire countries (Prison Policy, 2021). And people of color are disproportionally represented in this population (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2022). Beckett and Francis (2020) argue that incarceration cannot be separated from racial politics in the U.S. I would argue that incarceration also cannot be separated from education, given that students of color have the lowest cohort graduation rates and highest high school dropout rates (NCES, 2020). The United States crafted the "American Dream" by holding dear to the myth that if you work hard, you can achieve anything—that meritocracy works. But it simply isn't true. Marginalized groups have been structurally and systematically shut out of opportunities, including education, and subsequently a living wage, since our earliest colonial times. Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous males have the highest high school dropout rates across the country (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020). Of those who graduate, about 50% of Black students, 60% of Hispanic students, and 20% of Indigenous students go on to college compared with nearly 70% of white students (Education Data Initiative, 2021). Given that nearly three-quarters of all jobs require some sort of college credential, this creates an opportunity gap for employment which is compounded by the systemic racism of hiring practices. The result is the school-to-prison pipeline experienced in secondary education across the nation. When we fail to educate those most vulnerable in high school, we facilitate situations in which people have limited choices to support themselves and their loved ones. This pipeline helps explain a report from The Pew Charitable Trusts in 2010 which shows that the U.S. inmate population is higher than the top 35 European countries combined (Collateral Costs, 2010). And the incarceration rate for Black people is 5x higher, the rate for Latinx is 2x higher, and the Native American rate is 3x higher than White, non-Latinx Americans. Over 90% of currently incarcerated individuals will be released. Consider the opportunity gap now created for a marginalized person with a criminal record and no education (high school or college) when they are released from prison. Is it any wonder that nearly 80% of previously incarcerated people will be re-arrested within 9 years of release (BJS, 2018)? This is particularly concerning given the low number of college courses/programs offered in carceral environments. In a national survey of postsecondary education in state prisons, Gorgol and Sponsler (2011) found that only 35% of state prisons offered [End Page 87] college courses and that these programs serve only 6% of the total state prison population nation-wide. This is partly due to funding, but also partly due to structural barriers inside of prisons. Most facilities have few rooms dedicated to education. Gatekeeping actions like placement tests and time served also restrict participation. For example, a school that requires incarcerated students to have less than ten years and more than one year on their sentence to participate. This alone removes options for those who are serving long sentences. Another barrier is state law barring incarcerated students from earning a degree in some states. They can take courses, and may be able to get some level of certification, but cannot earn bachelor's degrees. And these barriers don't consider the interaction of individual bias and power originating from the administrators making decisions about who can participate. In 1994, President Clinton signed the Violent Crimes Act which prohibited incarcerated people from obtaining Pell Grants. Up until that time, higher education programs in prisons were gaining traction and finding that recidivism rates for those who participated in higher education programs in prison were 43% lower than those who did not. A recent study funded by the RAND corporation (Bozick, et al., 2018) found that education programs in prisons saved $5 for every dollar spent due to...

“Dickheads” and “Cool Cops”: The Impact of Officers’ Perceived Cultural and Contextual Competence on Black Men's Appraisals of Police

Public support for police reached a record low during the summer of 2020. To ameliorate police-community relations, research has sought to identify how community attitudes towards police are built. Studies often find that Black individuals are less likely to trust and be satisfied with police than their non-Black counterparts largely due to negative direct and vicarious experiences. This finding has led to an empirical focus on how officers engage, with limited research on why officers engage in certain ways. Without analyzing motives for conduct, the critical gaze remains blind to broader social and cultural issues that may inform and motivate some officers’ harmful and discriminatory actions. The current study highlights how Black men implicate segregation, media-induced miseducation, cultural and contextual incompetence, and hostile police culture for mutual distrust and officers’ misconduct. These findings promote harm reductionist policy to enhance officers’ cultural and contextual competence and encourage researchers and practitioners to consider an abolitionist agenda that a) focuses on the implementation and evaluation of novel and existing trauma-informed, community-based means of addressing harm in order to ultimately dissolve police power, and b) promotes cultural shifts by increasing diverse learning opportunities and critical curriculum in educational spaces.

How International Organizations Change National Media Coverage of Human Rights

AbstractHow do international organizations change the discussion of human rights violations, and how does their message reach the broader public? I show that national media is a key conduit. I analyze media coverage from the Philippines to show that the content of media coverage of the “war on drugs” changed after a major decision by the International Criminal Court. The ICC increased the proportion of media coverage focusing on human rights by triggering contestation between pro- and anti-human-rights actors. Original survey experimental evidence shows that this coverage shift blunts the effect of ICC actions on support for the war on drugs. This highlights an indirect role for international organizations in shaping media coverage and helps explain why they have struggled to win public opinion battles. Though their actions amplify the voices of human rights supporters, media coverage concurrently amplifies the voices of their opponents, which can crowd out coverage that might otherwise have decreased support for problematic polices.

Police officers’ support for corruption: examining the impact of police culture

PurposeThis study examines the relationship between police culture and support for corruption among Ghanaian police officers.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on data from a survey of 616 police officers across three regions in Ghana. The research questions and hypotheses are addressed through a hierarchical regression analysis.FindingsThe results show that perception of corruption prevalence, lack of deterrence (i.e. perceived oversight measures) and the Upper East Region significantly predicted officers’ support for corruption. Particularly, lack of deterrence was a consistent predictor of support for corruption across different models compared to corruption prevalence. Contrary to previous studies, code of silence was found not to predict officers’ support for corruption.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the police culture and corruption debate an African perspective, where little research has explored the relationship between police culture and corruption. The code of silence not predicting support for corruption contradicts previous studies and contributes to the debate, literature and theory development.

“Giving the Highest Chance of a Good Outcome”: Exploring the Missing Persons Act in British Columbia and Ontario from the Policing Perspective

British Columbia and Ontario are two of the Canadian provinces and territories that have enacted a Missing Persons Act, legislation aimed at improving the police investigation of missing person cases. Understanding the Acts in these regions from the policing perspective presents an opportunity to assess their efficacy and utility. Therefore, the purposes of this study are to examine police perceptions of and experiences with the Missing Persons Act in each region. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with police officers from over 20 services across these regions, this article explores police insights into the impacts, challenges, and benefits of the Acts related to missing persons work. Additionally, police support for and perceptions of this legislation are uncovered. Results show that police view the Acts in these regions as enhancing missing persons work through standardization and strengthening abilities to obtain information and records, follow various leads, and use technologies that assist in successfully locating missing people. However, a paradox emerged: Police are reluctant to make use of this legislation. Explanations for this and the implications of these findings are discussed.

A Victim-Based Framework for Telecom Fraud Analysis: A Bayesian Network Model.

The increasingly rampant telecom network fraud crime will cause serious harm to people's property safety. The way to reduce telecom fraud has shifted from passive combat to active prevention. This paper proposes a victim analysis and prediction method based on Bayesian network (BN), which models victims from age, gender, occupation, marriage, knowledge level, etc. We describe the fraud process in terms of whether to report to the police, property loss, and realizing the reasoning of the whole process of telecom fraud. This paper uses expert experience to obtain a Bayesian network structure. 533 real telecom fraud cases are used to learn Bayesian network parameters. The model is capable of quantifying uncertainty and dealing with nonlinear complex relationships among multiple factors, analyzing the factors most sensitive to property damage. According to the characteristics of victims, we conduct situational reasoning in the Bayesian network to evaluate property damage and alarm situations in different scenarios and provide decision support for police and community prevention and control. The experimental results show that male staff in government agencies are the most vulnerable to shopping fraud and women in schools are the most vulnerable to phishing and virus fraud and have the greatest property loss after being deceived; victim characteristics have very limited influence on whether to report to the police.

Experiences of dog theft and spatial practices of search/ing

AbstractPublic responses to an ‘upward trend’ in recorded dog theft offences in England and Wales led to the creation of the Pet Theft Taskforce in May 2021, followed by a policy paper recommending the development of a new ‘pet abduction’ offence. Despite this, the experiential nature of dog theft, what impact this has on victims, and how they go about searching for their stolen dogs have been overlooked. Building on interdisciplinary research on dog theft, and wider literature on the impact of absence and loss on human victims, this paper explores the experiential dimension of this crime and the spatial and temporal practices of search/ing. Drawing on 15 semi‐structured interviews with victims of dog theft (10) and community resolution groups (5), key themes emerged from our analyses: (i) more‐than‐human families and (ii) spatial and temporal practices of search/ing. The dogs in this study occupy an absent presence, their bodies not visibly present but occupying a space in the minds and words of their humans. From the realisation of loss through to ongoing searches to possible reunite, participant experiences are filled with emotions that reflect a traumatic experience and ‘ambiguous absence’. With expectations of police support rarely met, victims started physically searching themselves, moving from the local to regional and national, while connecting with animal professionals and community resolution groups. Virtual space was seen as vital, with social media amplifying the virtual presence of specific stolen dogs. Conceived as a more‐human‐focused animal geography, the research brings together an empirical example at the potential intersection of animal geographies and policing. The experiential evidence in this paper suggests changes to organisational practices (standardised police approach; centralised microchip database; mandatory microchip‐scanning by animal professionals) and national government policy interventions (‘pet abduction’ offence) might have a positive impact on victim experiences.

Policing futures: transforming the evidence-based policing paradigm through interdisciplinarity and epistemological anarchism

ABSTRACT Evidence-based policing (EBP) has gained prominence in jurisdictions across the core anglosphere. Its paradigmatic approach to knowledge production, and the assessment and validation criteria for research designs and their outputs remains in contention. Concurrently, interdisciplinarity (ID) has proliferated in other areas of research and practice, yet EBP remains untouched by these global developments and it appears a neglected area of academic debate. In combination with limited uptake at institutional and practice levels, a troubled landscape, and predictions of an uncertain and extraordinarily complex future operating environment (FOE): the question arises whether the present EBP paradigm is sufficient to meet the challenges and implications for policing and police research. This conceptual paper makes an epistemic assessment of the paradigm and drawing on ID and epistemological anarchism (EA) it contributes a perspective on its theoretical and methodological innovation as a futures-focused endeavour. It concludes that if EBP is to be maximised as a knowledge enterprise in support of policing in the FOE, a broader epistemology is necessary, that embraces methodological pluralism, eschews epistemic monolithism and proactively applies ID and EA to research, policy and practice.

Predictors of public support for police accreditation

PurposeThis study aims to identify the predictors of public support for police accreditation under four different scenarios that vary based upon whether or not accreditation requires a property tax increase and whether or not local police support accreditation.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws upon survey data from 998 US adults. Four binary logistic models are employed to assess support for accreditation under four different scenarios.FindingsIndividual-level factors, including age, education, race, region, generalized trust, political ideology, and volunteer experience, are important predictors of support for police accreditation depending on the scenario presented. Community-level factors including perceptions of police performance and perceptions of property taxes are also important predictors of support for police accreditation depending on the scenario presented. Support for police accreditation is highest when police accreditation does not require a property tax increase and when local police support accreditation. Sixty-six percent of respondents support police accreditation under this scenario.Originality/valueThis article represents the first published study on the predictors of support for police accreditation. The findings from this study have important implications for implementing police reform given recent calls by activists to both reform the police and to defund them.

Direct and Indirect Victims of Urban Crime in the Historic Centre of Porto (Portugal): Prevalence, Dynamics and Associated Variables

Abstract This study aims to quantify and characterize direct and indirect victimization and to analyse the associations between victimization and sociodemographic, criminal and environmental, social control and community variables in the urban area of the Historic Centre of Porto (hcp), Portugal. A total of 554 participants answered the “Diagnosis of Local Security Questionnaire” through face-to-face inquiry. The overall prevalence of victimization was 38.11%, with 17.7% being direct victims and 29.0% indirect victims. The most reported crimes were robbery, theft and offenses to physical integrity, which occurred mainly at night, on the street. The majority of victims sought police support, but satisfaction level with the authorities was low. Sociodemographic, criminal and environmental variables were associated with (in)direct victimization.

Empowering the police during COVID-19: How do normative and instrumental factors impact public willingness to support expanded police powers?

This article seeks to test the police ‘empowerment hypothesis’ to better understand public support for police powers during the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, we draw on Australian survey data to compare the efficacy of the instrumental and normative models of police empowerment to enforce social distancing regulations. We find that instrumental concerns about risk dominate participants’ willingness to empower the police during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, when it comes to what police can do to encourage police empowerment, procedural justice appears to be more important than police effectiveness, supporting the normative model. Our article adds to the limited but growing body of research that examines the correlates of police empowerment and the conditions under which members of the public are willing to grant police expanded powers.

Understanding the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Crisis: An Analysis of the NamUs Database

Within the United States, there is an epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Using data from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) repositories on missing and unidentified women, we examined how demographic and regional differences affected case status. Within the NamUs database, we found that American Indian/Alaska Native women are 135% more likely to be listed within the “unidentified remains” cases than women of other races. The results also showed that in states with relatively high urban population densities, women of all races were 250% more likely to be found dead and remain unidentified than women in places with a low urban population. We conclude by discussing three areas in which policy can help bring Indigenous women’s plight back to the fore: (a) in data collection efforts, (b) in increased support for Tribal police, and (c) via the media’s purposeful focus on Indigenous issues.

Legal System Disclosure Experiences of Young Adult Children Exposed to Domestic Violence.

Children exposed to domestic violence (DV) disclose their experiences to a variety of people, including informal (e.g., peers), formal (e.g., doctors), and legal (e.g., police) support systems. Legal system disclosure is more common than formal system disclosure yet remains understudied leaving unanswered questions about the nature of those who choose to disclose and factors that influence their disclosure decision. Guided by communication privacy management theory and Johnson's typology of domestic violence (DV), this study addressed gaps in the CEDV literature through a theoretical thematic analysis of the DV exposure and legal system disclosure experiences of 25 young adults exposed to father-mother-perpetrated DV during their childhood. Findings from this study show that half of the participants had no legal system disclosure (n = 12; nondisclosers) and half had at least some legal system disclosure (n = 13; disclosers). Varying types of violence exposure and levels of exposure were factors that impacted youths' decisions to disclose to legal systems. Escalation of violence was a key factor that drove legal system disclosure, but other factors including how the young adults and their communities perceived their fathers, the match between the youth's goals for disclosure and the outcomes upon disclosing, along with family privacy norms and family boundaries were influential in guiding decision making over time. This study has implications for practitioners working with DV-exposed youth, as our findings unpack the conditions under which youth choose to (not) disclose, the factors influencing these decisions, and how the responses and reactions from legal support systems inform future disclosure decisions.

“They Say We’re Violent”: The Multidimensionality of Race in Perceptions of Police Brutality and BLM

A growing literature demonstrates the importance of both race and skin color in one’s lived experiences, including interactions with police. Media discourse and anti-police brutality movements consistently emphasize race while little, if any, attention is given to skin color. This paper seeks to examine how Black Americans navigate the multidimensionality of race with respect to organizing efforts against institutionalized racism. Do Black Americans perceive skin color as informing police interactions or support incorporating skin color into anti-brutality movement messaging? Is self-identified skin color associated with these views? A combination of sixty-seven in-depth interviews and two national surveys of Black Americans reveals widespread recognition that darker-skinned Black people are more likely to be brutalized by police and feelings that Black Lives Matter organizing is implicitly associated with skin color. Yet there is general hesitancy for movement messaging to explicitly engage with subgroup disparities based on characteristics like skin color or gender. Among self-identified darker-skinned individuals, skin color is perceived as even more tightly interwoven with policing and there is more openness to discussing skin color alongside race. Overall, this mixed-methods project highlights how Black Americans perceive the multidimensionality of racialized interactions and, in search of justice, strategize responses through social movement organizing.

Australian police perceptions of women’s police stations

ABSTRACT Women’s police stations that are designed to receive victims of gender-based violence first emerged in Latin America in the 1980s. In Argentina, these stations have unique aspects like multidisciplinary staffing that could guide responses elsewhere. Police responses to domestic and family violence (DFV) in Australia have continually failed victims and require much improvement. Responses combining police and other services are not completely alien to Australia, and are not too dissimilar from women’s police stations. We undertook a survey of Australian police (n = 78) to assess which aspects of Argentina’s stations could inform new approaches to DFV policing. Our survey finds that Australian police support some aspects of this approach to policing DFV, such as multidisciplinary stations (74%). There was significantly less support for stations staffed predominantly by women (19%). Combined with review of evaluations of Australian co-locational responses, research implications for practice suggest a broader trial of co-locational responses in Australia.

Attitudes towards police use of consumer/private DNA databases in investigations

Consumer DNA products, such as databases that allow the public to explore familial relationships, have recently been used by police to assist in investigations. This has moved the collection of DNA used in criminal investigations away from the limitations of criminal databases and has opened up ethical concerns regarding privacy and consent. This study explored public attitudes and support towards police use of consumer DNA databases in investigations to assess whether different crime types or moral and attitude alignments influenced the level of public support of police using these consumer products. An international survey of 438 adults, using theory and scales pertaining specifically to retributive punishment and attitudes towards law, courts and police, found that moral alignment and attitudes did influence the level of public acceptability towards police usage of these techniques and that support did vary based on crime type. This research found that higher levels of public support was given for the most serious case types explored (sexual assault and homicide). Participant support for police access to private DNA databases by case type was as follows; 83.5% for sexual assault, 83.2% for homicide, 85.2% for identifying unidentified human remains, 62.8% for robbery and 58.9% for illicit drug related cases. Small to medium effects sizes were observed for these results. Although these findings provided context towards public attitudes, further research specific to international attitude differences and variance between serious crime types and public acceptability could further develop these findings.