Advancing the Study of Police Innovation: Toward an Empirical Definition and Classification of Contemporary Police Innovations

Police innovation is frequently referenced in the policing literature, but it is less frequently defined, applied, or operationalized by scholars. This situation has led to definitional ambiguity and variation, which limits the development of innovation as a scientific construct. We present a conceptualization of innovation and classification of innovations through exploratory factor analysis with data collected from chiefs of police. Our findings suggest that chiefs weigh newness or novelty only partially when judging innovativeness. Chiefs also appear to classify innovativeness in terms of the utility that innovations provide to organizational operations. Our findings suggest a disconnect between prior literature and practitioners in how innovation is viewed, which hampers its conceptual development in the literature.

«Den sletteste, den nedrigste og uretfærdigste Embeds Mand» Om prosessen mot byfogd og politimester i Christiansand Mauritz Antonius Schweder

The first Norwegian Chiefs of Police were appointed in the four main cities during the latter part of the 1600s. The first office was established in Trondheim in 1686, then Bergen in 1692, Christiania in 1744, and finally Christiansand in 1767. This article deals with the establishment of the police in Christiansand, when Christian VII appointed Mauritz Antonius Schweder Chief of Police in the city. Schweder had already been appointed as a bailiff in Christiansand in 1764, and from 1767 he was both bailiff and Chief of Police. But Schweder’s time in office was a turbulent one, and the conflict surrounding his office escalated so much as to finally end in the retraction of his professional appointment by the Supreme Court in Copenhagen. This article focuses on the trial against Schweder: the many accusations against him, his defense, and the ruling of the Supreme Court, thereby shedding light on a lesser known part of the legal history of the early Norwegian Police.

Ambush Killings of the Police, 1970–2018: A Longitudinal Examination of the “War on Cops” Debate

Over the last few years, there has been a series of high-profile, premeditated ambush attacks on police, which has led some to conclude there is a “war on cops.” Unfortunately, prior research has not examined the prevalence of police ambushes over an extended period of time, and the most recent study only analyzed the phenomenon through 2013. Moreover, the “war on cops” thesis implies a very specific motivation for an ambush: hatred of police or desire to seek vengeance in response to police killings of citizens. Prior research has not sufficiently explored the motivations of ambush attacks, or whether recent trends in ambushes are linked to a “war on cops” motive. I investigate ambush killings of police from 1970 to 2018 using data from the Officer Down Memorial Page in an attempt to address these research gaps. I apply a temporal coding scheme of when the attack occurred to isolate killings of police that are consistent with the International Association of Chiefs of Police definition of an ambush. Results from linear regression show that the annual rates of ambush killings of police have declined by more than 90% since 1970. Although ambushes spiked in 2016 and 2018 to the highest rates in 20 years, interrupted time series analysis indicates no statistically significant increase post-2013. Spikes have also occurred in nonambush killings since 2014. Police leaders and researchers should monitor trends in ambush and nonambush killings of police, as the recent spikes may presage the emergence of a chronic problem.

To Protect and Serve Themselves

The police in the United States were once subject to control by political machines. The professionalization process freed police from this control, but it had an unexpected result. Professionalization meant that police answered primarily to themselves, which enabled them to become self-interested. This process transformed the police into a new type of authoritative political actor. This article examines the history and organizational sociology of the transformation of the police since the 1960s, investigating how, through groups like the International Association of Chiefs of Police, police have advocated on their own behalf and interacted with larger political and economic trends. Separate from their role in crime control, police have become entrepreneurial and resistant to fiscal austerity. This article offers a new characterization of the effects of the “war on crime” and “law and order” politics of the 1960s, while paying attention to the surprising Cold War roots of the political autonomy of police.

First to serve and protect, then to lead: Exploring servant leadership as a foundation for Canadian policing

Canadian police leadership is in the spotlight. In May 2017, three Canadian government studies concluded that the organizational culture inside Canada’s national police force was dysfunctional and appeared to lack a culture of leader­ship. Similar criticisms were levelled against other Canadian police agencies, and the new Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was specifically mandated to address workplace bullying, harassment, and abuse of authority. In August 2018, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police 2018 Executive Global Studies program called on police leaders to demonstrate “courageous leadership’” to address the predatory and exclusionary behaviours found inside their agencies. In this concept paper, an alternative view of leadership is put forward as a framework to address these chal­lenges. Servant leadership is a moral/ethical perspective that should intuitively resonate with police officers, particularly the next generation of police leaders. To explore the case for adopting this leadership approach in Canadian policing, its foundational concepts are presented. A description of the limited academic research on servant leadership in policing is described, and the article concludes with recommendations and questions to direct future research on exploring servant leadership in the context of Canadian policing.

Officer involved domestic violence

Very little is known about officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV). Although the International Association for Chiefs of Police has developed model policies about OIDV, the extent to which agencies adopted these policies across the United States remains unclear. Similarly, research on and attention to OIDV have diminished substantially since the 1990s. Officer training on OIDV is also rare, but pilot studies examining the use of new curriculum show promise. Yet, there is so much more to be done. This article reviews research and policy on OIDV and seeks to provide motivation for uniformity of policy implementation and officer response to OIDV, calling for transparency via research and reporting.

Re-integration: a new standard in first responder peer support

Since its inception, the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) Re-integration Program has grown in its capacity, impact, and service to members within EPS. It has also attracted increasing attention among—and emulation by—other first responder communities in the province of Alberta. Most recently, the program was the subject of a featured segment during the joint Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) and Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) international conference, “The Mental Health of Police Personnel: What We Know & What We Need to Know and Do”, held in February 2017. Based on the strong reception and interest generated among conference delegates, the Journal of CSWB invited the program’s architects to develop the following Practice Guideline article, with a view to bringing wider awareness to this unique peer-supported program. The EPS program connects conventional counselling and support resources with aspects of recovery and re-integration that are more closely tied to the equipment and operational realities of first responders.

The mental health of police personnel: what we know & what we need to know and do (CACP-MHCC Conference 13–15 February 2017)

The issue of mental health and wellness has gained greater attention in society as a whole in the past decade. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) has had this topic on its radar for even longer, and continued this sustained emphasis at the 13–15 February 2017 conference entitled “The Mental Health of Police Personnel: What We Know & What We Need to Know and Do”. The dynamic and fast-paced conference was organized by the CACP and moderated by Norman E. Taylor. It brought together 222 delegates and speakers representing the broad sectors of policing, mental health and research, with equal numbers of men and women, at the Hilton Lac-Leamy in Gatineau, Quebec. Collaborating in this initiative were the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC), Canadian Police Association (CPA), the Canadian Association of Police Governance (CAPG), the CACP Research Foundation (CACP-RF), the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment (CIPSRT), and Public Safety Canada (PSC). This paper provides a comprehensive report on the proceedings as submitted, and has been approved for publication in this Journal by the board of directors of the CACP.Some speakers provided the CACP with permission to post the visual aids they used for their presentations. These are available on the CACP website at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pfjkme79redafo/AADGWJPod7K2jOJzlmwnFIsEa?dl=0