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Fatigue associated with shift work is a well-established and pervasive problem in policing that affects officer performance, safety, and health. It is critical to understand the extent to which fatigue degrades officer driving performance. Drowsy driving among post-shift workers is a well-established risk factor yet no data are available about officer injuries and deaths due to drowsy driving. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of fatigue associated with work shift and prior sleep on officers’ non-operational driving using laboratory experiments to assess post-shift drowsy driving risks and the ability of a well-validated vigilance and reaction-time task to assess these risks.

Experienced police patrol officer volunteers (n=78) from all four shifts of a medium-sized city’s police department were tested using a within- and between-subjects design to assess the impact of fatigue on individual officers, as well as the impact of different work shifts, on post-shift driving performance. Controlled laboratory experiments were conducted during which participants drove high-fidelity driving training simulators on two occasions: immediately following five consecutive 10:40-hour patrol shifts (fatigued condition) and again 72 hours after completing the last shift in a work cycle (rested condition).

Generalized linear mixed-model analyses of driving performance showed that officers working night shifts had significantly greater lane deviation during post-shift, non-operational driving than those working day shifts (F=4.40, df=1, 150, p=0.038). The same method also showed that easy to measure psychomotor vigilance test scores for reaction time predicted both lane deviation (F=31.48, df=1, 151, p < 0.001) and collisions (F=14.10, df=1, 151, p < 0.001) during the simulated drives.

Simulated driving tasks done by participants were generally less challenging than patrol or off-duty driving and likely underestimate the impact of fatigue on police driving post-shift or during extended shifts.

This is the first experimental research to assess the impact of shiftwork, fatigue, and extended shifts on police post-shift drowsy driving, a known risk factor for shift workers in general.

The process of institutionalizing police reform has been relatively ignored in the policing literature. Owing to this, there is no established framework for institutionalizing police reform. This article seeks to add to the knowledge regarding the institutionalization of police reform by presenting the results from a study that examined the institutionalization of problem‐oriented policing (POP) in the CMPD.

The research was guided by the limited amount of organizational change in policing research and the limited amount of organizational development literature pertaining to institutionalization. The research utilized captain interviews and rank‐and‐file surveys to determine officer knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes towards POP in the CMPD. The CMPD's policies, procedures, and practices pertaining to POP were also outlined.

It was found that POP has become institutionalized in the CMPD. POP principles are evident in the captain's culture, rank‐and‐file's culture, and the policy and procedure of the CMPD.

The study puts forth a framework for assessing and institutionalizing police reform that other departments can test and utilize in their efforts to institutionalize police reform.

The paper is one of the first to examine the institutionalization process of police reform. A framework is put forth to assess and aid in other police departments' efforts to institutionalize police reforms.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and describe the implementation of a novel method for creating interval-level metrics for objectively assessing police officer behaviors during an encounter with the public. These behaviors constitute officer performance and affect the probability of desirable encounter outcomes. The metrics measure concrete, micro-level performance in the common types of complex, dynamic, and low-information police-public encounters that often require immediate action using “naturalistic” decision making. Difficulty metrics also were developed to control for situational variability. The utility of measuring what officers do vs probabilistic outcomes is explored with regard to informing policymaking, field practice, and training.

Metric sets were developed separately for three types of police-public encounters: deadly force judgment and decision making, cross-cultural tactical social interaction, and crisis intervention. In each, “reverse concept mapping” was used with a different diverse focus group of “true experts” to authoritatively deconstruct implicit concepts and derive important variables. Variables then were scaled with Thurstone’s method using 198 diverse expert trainers to create interval-level metrics for performance and situational difficulty. Metric utility was explored during two experimental laboratory studies and in response to a problematic police encounter.

Objective, interval-level metric sets were developed for measuring micro-level police performance and encounter difficulty. Validation and further refinement are required.

This novel method provides a practical way to rapidly develop metrics that measure micro-level performance during police-public encounters much more precisely than was previously possible.

The metrics developed provide a foundation for measuring officers’ performance as they exercise discretion, engage people, and affect perceptions of police legitimacy.

Police officer perceptions of their own legitimacy can be important in shaping aspects of their performance and other organizational outcomes. The current study uses person-environment fit theory to assess the effects of value congruence with top managers, immediate supervisors and coworkers on officers' perceptions of self-legitimacy.

The study used a cross-sectional survey of nearly 250 front-line police officers from seven municipal police departments in Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky to examine the effects of perceived value congruence on officers’ self-legitimacy. A hierarchical model of fit is assessed using structural equation modeling.

Findings demonstrate that value congruence positively relates to officers’ reported self-legitimacy, suggesting that officers who perceive greater similarity in values with others in the organization will express more confidence in their authority.

Our findings add to research on police officers’ self-legitimacy, and the use of a hierarchical model of person-environment fit might offer implications for future research on police culture.

This chapter seeks to illuminate the interconnectedness of procedural justice, use of force, and occupational culture in relation to police legitimacy.

The authors review the existing literature and offer an integrated methodological approach that would better assist researchers in their quest to enhance police legitimacy.

Using a systematic design that assesses police legitimacy from a variety of sources has the potential to help answer critical questions with regard to improving police practice.

This is a novel study approach, which has yet to be implemented but which may offer great insight with respect to improving police legitimacy.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the relationship between police use of force and citizen complaints alleging improper use of force.

The current study utilizes official use of force and citizen complaint data, as well as surveys of patrol officers, from the Assessing Police Use of Force Policy and Outcomes Project, a multimethod National Institute of Justice funded study.

Bivariate and multivariate analyses revealed that the number of use of force incidents that officers were involved in, as well as the types and levels of resistance they encountered from citizens, was related to use of force complaints from citizens. That is, those officers that were involved in more use of force situations were engaged in force encounters where the highest level of citizen resistance was “failure to comply,” and faced higher cumulative levels of citizen resistance, received more complaints alleging improper use of force.

Studies of citizen complaints against police officers, especially those alleging improper use of force, should consider the number of force incidents officers are involved in, as well as other theoretically relevant force correlates.

Administrators, concerned with citizen allegations for improper use of force against their officers, should work to encourage their personnel to minimize the number of use of force applications, or at least less cumulative force, to resolve encounters with citizens.

While prior studies have examined police use of force and citizen complaints independently, the current study examines the empirical connection between use of force behavior and the generation of complaints from citizens.

The purpose of this paper is to examine individual-level factors related to police body-worn camera (BWC) acceptance.

Surveys were completed by 119 officers from one northwestern police agency a year after BWC deployment. Relationships between demographics, job characteristics, cultural attitudes, organizational justice perceptions and BWC acceptance were examined.

Supervisors, as well as officers who had worn BWCs longer, worked the most active patrol shifts, and viewed their supervisors as critical, reported more BWC acceptance. Other indicators of culture and organizational justice were not significant.

BWCs offer many benefits, but to realize these outcomes officers must accept and use the technology. Research shows wide variations in officer acceptance of BWCs. These findings suggest some officers view BWCs as helpful in dealing with job stressors, including supervisory responsibilities, high volumes of calls and critical supervisors, and tend to grow more accepting of them over time.

As tensions between the police and community grow, one often called upon solution is a more diverse police force. However, building diversity presents many challenges, especially if there are barriers for choosing a career as a police officer. The present study explores motivations and barriers to becoming a police officer to help reduce the disparity between the community and police.

An online survey of 344 persons in the US asked respondents to identify the motivations and barriers to choosing a career as a police officer. Survey questions centered on issues related to trust, police culture, practices of the police and lack of awareness of career opportunities.

Results indicated that higher trust of the police, positive perceptions of police fairness and knowledge of potential police career opportunities increased an individual's interest in pursuing a career as a police officer. At the same time, negative views in these areas were barriers to interest in policing. These results give insight into where efforts can be focused to increase interest in becoming a police officer.

There is a lack of research on factors leading to an interest in a policing career. This study provides insight into the reasons for and barriers to entering a career in policing and provides a starting point for future research and practical implications for police departments seeking to increase interest in a policing career.

The purpose of this paper is to assess if in viewing tense, potentially stigmatizing, police-civilian interactions, people bring their own gendered and racial biases, as they form perceptions of officers' use of identity management (IM) strategies, as they relate to officers' competence, warmth and appropriateness of actions.

In two experimental studies, the authors investigate how the IM strategies used by female and racial minority officers impact officers' ratings of competence, warmth and appropriateness of actions. Utilizing a 2x2x4 design, the authors manipulate officer gender (race), civilian gender (race) and IM strategy used by the officer in a news article describing a police-civilian interaction.

Not all IM strategies established positive perceptions of officers. Gender and race effects were observed in how officers were seen when they were involved in a tense interaction with a civilian. Female officers were perceived as more appropriate in their actions than male officers. However, Black, female officers were rated as both less warm and appropriate in their actions than White, female officers.

Although policing is seen as a tainted profession, officers' use of IM strategies is understudied. By taking a novel lens of stigmatization and IM strategies as they relate to policing, the authors contribute to how officers may manage their identities as they cope with the stigmatized views of their occupation. Findings have implications for the diversification of law enforcement personnel, as well as building trust and legitimacy between officers and the communities they serve.

Using an online survey design and a primary data collection of police officers working in a large city in the southern United States, the current study finds evidence that officers perceptions of police legitimacy can be divided into two types: self-identification and perceived external legitimacy. The study investigates the role of perceived organizational support, leader–member exchange and demographic factors in predicting perceptions of self-identification and perceived external legitimacy.

The police legitimacy literature has focused primarily on the public's perceptions of the legitimacy of police. There is limited understanding of the components of officers' attitudes towards police legitimacy, or the predictors of those components.

Results of the Ordinary Least Squares regression models indicate perceived organizational support mediates the relationship between leader–member exchange and self-identification and perceived external legitimacy. Exploratory mediation analyses indicate perceived organizational support mediates both of those relationships.

The results provide further evidence that the two types of self-perceived legitimacy are analytically distinct. They differ from previous work in that demographic and organizational variables predict each type similarly, and that one predictor (POS) mediates the influence of another (LMX). The results have implications for future police self-legitimacy research.