scholarly journals Police Officer on the Frontline or a Soldier? The Effect of Police Militarization on Crime

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Bove ◽  
Evelina Gavrilova
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Temporal Variations ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Local Police

Sparked by high-profile confrontations between police and citizens in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere, many commentators have criticized the excessive militarization of law enforcement. We investigate whether surplus military-grade equipment acquired by local police departments from the Pentagon has an effect on crime rates. We use temporal variations in US military expenditure and between-counties variation in the odds of receiving a positive amount of military aid to identify the causal effect of militarized policing on crime. We find that (i) military aid reduces street-level crime; (ii) the program is cost-effective; and (iii) there is evidence in favor of a deterrence mechanism. (JEL H56, H76, K42)

Do Body-Worn Cameras Change Law Enforcement Arrest Behavior? A National Study of Local Police Departments

2020 ◽  
pp. 027507402098268
Author(s):  
Sunyoung Pyo
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
National Study ◽  
Behavior Changes ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black And White ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Disparate Treatment ◽  
High Crime

Controlling police officers’ discretionary behavior during public encounters has been an important issue in U.S. policing, especially following several high-profile police-involved deaths of racial minorities. In response, body-worn cameras (BWCs) were introduced to enhance police accountability by providing police managers an opportunity to monitor police–public encounters. Although many U.S. local police departments have now implemented BWC programs, evidence of program effects on daily police behavior has been limited. This study therefore focuses on whether officers’ arrest behavior changes when they perceive that BWCs are recording their interactions with the public. By conducting a difference-in-differences analysis using 142 police departments, I found that BWCs have negative and small treatment effects on arrest rates and null effects on the racial disparity between numbers of Black and White arrests. These findings imply that officers may become slightly more cautious in the use of arrests after wearing BWCs, but BWCs do not change their overall disparate treatment of Black versus White suspects. The results further indicate that the effects of BWCs on arrests are prominent in municipalities with high crime rates or a high proportion of non-White residents, which suggests that BWC programs demonstrate different effects according to the characteristics of communities served.

Filmgoers’ Fingerprints

2021 ◽  
pp. 223-256
Author(s):  
Noah Tsika
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Police Power ◽  
Movie Theaters ◽  
Movie Theater ◽  
Crime Films ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Biometric Information

This chapter focuses on fingerprinting stations, which, from the early 1920s until the late 1950s, were often located in the lobbies of movie theaters and used both in conjunction with crime films and as part of a broader push to collect Americans’ personal biometric information. An increasingly popular component of efforts to normalize civil identification, fingerprinting stations routinely functioned to promote both crime films and local police departments. They also raised alarming questions about the scope of police power in the United States. Fingerprinting stations were naturalized aspects of a cinematic assemblage that served police power, smuggling law enforcement into the local movie theater and making the collection of patrons’ personal biometric information seem continuous both with screen representations and with the wider work of advertising and publicity departments.

scholarly journals The The Making of Crime Predictions: Sociotechnical Assemblages and the Controversies of Governing Future Crime

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-215
Author(s):  
Daniel Edler Duarte
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Risk Assessments ◽  
Risk Scores ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Gut Feelings

We are witnessing an upsurge in crime forecasting software, which supposedly draws predictive knowledge from data on past crime. Although prevention and anticipation are already embedded in the apparatuses of government, going beyond a mere abstract aspiration, the latest innovations hold out the promise of replacing police officers’ “gut feelings” and discretionary risk assessments with algorithmic-powered, quantified analyses of risk scores. While police departments and private companies praise such innovations for their cost-effective rationale, critics raise concerns regarding their potential for discriminating against poor, black, and migrant communities. In this article, I address such controversies by telling the story of the making of CrimeRadar, an app developed by a Rio de Janeiro-based think tank in partnership with private associates and local police authorities. Drawing mostly on Latour’s contributions to the emerging literature on security assemblages, I argue that we gain explanatory and critical leverage by looking into the mundane practices of making and unmaking sociotechnical arrangements. That is, I address the chain of translations through which crime data are collected, organized, and transformed into risk scores. In every step, new ways of seeing and presenting crime are produced, with a significant impact on how we experience and act upon (in)security.

De-Policing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rushin ◽  
Griffin Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Mandated Reform ◽  
External Regulation ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Growing Pains ◽  
Law Enforcement Leaders

102 Cornell Law Review 721 (2017)Critics have long claimed that when the law regulates police behavior it inadvertently reduces officer aggressiveness, thereby increasing crime. This hypothesis has taken on new significance in recent years as prominent politicians and law enforcement leaders have argued that increased oversight of police officers in the wake of the events in Ferguson, Missouri has led to an increase in national crime rates. Using a panel of American law enforcement agencies and difference-in-difference regression analyses, this Article tests whether the introduction of public scrutiny or external regulation is associated with changes in crime rates. To do this, this Article relies on an original dataset of all police departments that have been subject to federally mandated reform under 42 U.S.C. § 14141 — the most invasive form of modern American police regulation. This Article finds that the introduction of § 14141 regulation was associated with a statistically significant uptick in some crime rates, relative to unaffected municipalities. This uptick in crime was concentrated in the years immediately after federal intervention and diminished over time. This finding suggests that police departments may expe- rience growing pains when faced with external regulation.

scholarly journals The Effects of DNA Databases on Crime

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Doleac
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Rigorous Analysis ◽  
Dna Databases ◽  
Dna Database ◽  
The Media ◽  
Aggregate Effects ◽  
Dna Profiles

Every US state has a database of criminal offenders' DNA profiles. These databases receive widespread attention in the media and popular culture, but there has been no rigorous analysis of their impact on crime. This paper intends to fill that gap. I exploit the details and timing of state DNA database expansions in two ways, first to address the effects of DNA profiling on individuals' subsequent criminal behavior and then to address the aggregate effects on crime rates. I show that DNA databases deter crime by profiled offenders, reduce crime rates, and are more cost-effective than traditional law enforcement tools. (JEL H76, K42)

scholarly journals Exploitative Revenues, Law Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Service

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Goldstein ◽  
Michael W. Sances ◽  
Hye Young You
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Municipal Government ◽  
Criminal Investigation ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Government Service ◽  
Revenue Collection ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Commuting Time

A growing body of evidence indicates that local police departments are being used to provide revenue for municipalities by imposing and collecting fees, fines, and asset forfeitures. We examine whether revenue collection activities compromise the criminal investigation functions of local police departments. We find that police departments in cities that collect a greater share of their revenue from fees solve violent and property crimes at significantly lower rates. The effect on violent crime clearance is more salient in smaller cities where police officers’ assignments tend not to be highly specialized. We find that this relationship is robust to a variety of empirical strategies, including instrumenting for fines revenue using commuting time. Our results suggest that institutional changes—such as decreasing municipal government reliance on fines and fees for revenue—are important for changing police behavior and improving the provision of public safety.

Assessing (In)Equality in the Structural Covariates of Drug-Specific Arrest Counts

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun A. Thomas ◽  
Rick Dierenfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Composite Measures ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Specific Mortality ◽  
Drug Arrests

Prior research assessing the structural covariates of drug arrests has focused on composite measures of arrests. Prior studies have also neglected to simultaneously consider the influence of characteristics of communities, law enforcement agencies, police officers, and drug-specific mortality rates on drug-specific arrests. As such, the extant literature offers an incomplete understanding of the structural correlates of drug arrests. The current study addresses these limitations by assessing the structural covariates of drug-specific measures of arrests for cocaine, crack, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine. Results highlight substantive distinctions in the structural covariates of drug-specific arrests across places, particularly related to racial diversity within the community and local police departments, and drug-specific mortality (i.e., overdose) rates findings that have important implications for future research.

The Al-Qaeda Revival in Pakistan: Challenges and Prospects

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhan Zahid
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Terrorist Group ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Vital Importance ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Terrorist Organization ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Tribal Areas

Pakistan remains a country of vital importance for Al-Qaeda. It is primarily because of Al-Qaeda’s advent, rise and shelter and not to mention the support the terrorist organization found at the landscape of Pakistan during the last two decades. The emergence of in Pakistan can be traced back to the Afghan War (1979-89), with a brief sabbatical in Sudan the Islamist terrorist group rose to gain prominence after shifting back to Afghanistan. It then became a global ‘Islamist’ terrorist entity while based in neighboring Afghanistan and found safe havens in the erstwhile tribal areas of Pakistan in the aftermath of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Prior to its formation in 1988 in Peshawar (Pakistan), it had worked as Maktab al-Khidmat (Services Bureau) during the Afghan War.2 It had its roots in Pakistan, which had become a transit point of extremists en route to Afghanistan during the War. All high profile Al-Qaeda leaders, later becoming high-value targets, and members of its central Shura had lived in Pakistan at one point in their lives. That is the very reason the Al-Qaeda in Pakistan is termed as Al-Qaeda Core or Central among law enforcement practitioners and intelligence communities. Without going into details of Al-Qaeda’s past in Pakistan the aim of this article is to focus on its current state of affairs and what future lies ahead of it in Pakistan.

Women and Policing: An Assessment of Factors Related to the Likelihood of Pursuing a Career as a Police Officer

2021 ◽  
pp. 109861112110090
Author(s):  
Vanessa M. Diaz ◽  
Lidia E. Nuño
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officer ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Underrepresentation Of Women ◽  
Limited Generalizability

Law enforcement is still considered a male dominated occupation resulting in the underrepresentation of women in sworn personnel positions. While it is critical for police departments to have a more representative police force, there is a lack of research on the factors that affect the likelihood of women entering policing. Past studies suggest that men and women have similar reasons for joining policing. However, research on the factors that deter potential candidates from pursuing this career path is limited. This paper examines factors that may affect the likelihood of women pursuing a career in policing. We rely on data collected from a sample of undergraduate students enrolled in criminal justice courses (n = 421). Our results show that, relative to men, women are less likely to be interested in pursuing a career as a police officer. However, more than half of the women in our sample reported interest in pursuing a career in policing. We find that for men and women, the likelihood for pursuing a career in policing was affected by a number of personal characteristics and the current socio-political climate. While a notable limitation of our study is its limited generalizability, overall, our findings offer some promise for the potential of representative policing.

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