Search results

Looks at policing in small to medium departments in nonmetropolitan areas. Describes the level and sources of support for traditional and community policing activities. Finds that highly educated and long‐serving officers had lower levels of police solidarity (social cohesiveness); conversely the higher the police solidarity, the lower the level of police professionalism. Traditional policing and CP were seen as separate but related aspects and higher expenditure on the former aspect was supported. Suggests that officers are not in favor of funding CP at the expense of traditional policing. Finds that well‐educated officers are less supportive of police solidarity and of CP. Points out that although the officers surveyed were based in relatively isolated communities they did not unequivocally support CP.

Aims to responds to Goddard and Jaeger (Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management (PIJPSM), Vol. 28 No. 4) who offered a thorough critique of an article previously published in PIJPSM.

Welcoming the insights Goddard and Jaeger provide, attempts to address their expressed concerns and elaborate on the rationale behind the various definitions and methods. Additionally, seeks to expand the general discourse about policing in a comparative context.

Goddard and Jaeger raise concerns about several conceptual and methodological approaches used in the study. While the present authors do not agree with all of Goddard and Jaeger's critique, they do agree on one of the most important points: employing multiple methodologies whenever possible is essential to the advancement of any science.

Provides a response to a thorough critique of an article previously published in PIJPSM.

Explorations of the police work world in the USA typically involve non‐random, unrepresentative samples of widely dispersed law enforcement agencies. Questions about officer selection, training and performance standards make comparisons of agency‐based studies – especially among large city, small town, and rural law enforcers – difficult. In the present study, unique region‐specific comparisons (i.e. metropolitan vs small‐town vs rural duty stations) of the New Zealand Police (NZP) add to this body of knowledge for several reasons. First, the sample includes both sworn and non‐sworn personnel, a rarity in US policing studies. Second, the “police agency” under study is a unified, national policing organization. This fact minimizes the vagaries of recruitment, selection and training found in the USA. Third, the data represents a random stratified sample of all official personnel who provide a wide range of police‐related services in New Zealand, achieving a level of representativeness that is rare in police studies. Fourth, the shared common law tradition and more recent focus on community‐oriented policing provide a unique opportunity to examine topics relevant to both New Zealand and the USA. The policy and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Police in New Zealand have a well established community‐policing tradition. The current research is based on a survey of 440 officers, or roughly 6 per cent of the New Zealand Police’s sworn personnel. We focused on the personal values, interpersonal relationships, and work situations of the officers as a way of understanding their respective levels of satisfaction with their jobs and assessment of their superiors. The goal was to determine the extent to which job satisfaction and perceptions of supervisory support varied within a national police force officially committed to community policing. The findings suggest that, even in a national police with an avowed community‐policing orientation, not all police officers perceived the work world in the same terms. We further address the policy implications of these findings.

This review integrates and builds linkages among existing theoretical and empirical literature from across disciplines to further broaden our understanding of the relationship between inequality, imprisonment, and health for black men. The review examines the health impact of prisons through an ecological theoretical perspective to understand how factors at multiple levels of the social ecology interact with prisons to potentially contribute to deleterious health effects and the exacerbation of race/ethnic health disparities.

This review finds that there are documented health disparities between inmates and non-inmates, but the casual mechanisms explaining this relationship are not well-understood. Prisons may interact with other societal systems – such as the family (microsystem), education, and healthcare systems (meso/exosystems), and systems of racial oppression (macrosystem) – to influence individual and population health.

The review also finds that research needs to move the discussion of the race effects in health and crime/justice disparities beyond the mere documentation of such differences toward a better understanding of their causes and effects at the level of individuals, communities, and other social ecologies.

Since the creation of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in 1968 there has been a tremendous amount of research on policing, police officers and police departments in the USA. Most of the studies have focussed on the large municipal police agencies that have large numbers of officers and, presumably, face the greatest problems. This means that small and medium‐sized policing largely has been ignored, or it surfaces as a research topic only periodically. Remedies this by looking at the officers serving in four small city police departments. Considers a single research question: is it who the officers are, or what they do that explains their perceptions of the workplace? Based on 162 questionnaires received from certified police officers in four New Mexico police departments, examines the effects of service, gender and work activities on officers’ perceptions of the workplace and their general work world. Finds that officer perceptions of the work world are related more closely to what they do than who they are. Addresses the practical and policy implications of these findings.

Germany has become the most important destination country for young refugees in Europe (Destatis, 2021). Vocational education and training can make an important contribution to overcome educational barriers and gain participation in society (Will & Hohmut, 2020). Since 2015, rural regions have faced new challenges in establishing effective support systems for young apprentices with forced migration experience (Ohliger et al., 2017). The participatory LaeneAs research project seeks to identify educational barriers and to promote successful educational pathways for young refugees in vocational training. In four distinct rural areas in Germany, stakeholders in formal, non-formal, and informal learning environments and young refugees will be brought together in real-world laboratories. The authors aim to open space for a co-constructive knowledge production process between scientific and political stakeholders, educational practitioners, and refugee youth. Real-world laboratories are a socio-spatial methodology that combines research and a sustainable capacity building process. The lifeworld expertise will be used for a contextual condition analysis of structural, societal, and individual barriers to education as well as for practice transfer. Building on the discussion of the current state of research and the identification of significant gaps in the practice and research landscape, this essay will focus on the critical discussion of the methodological implementation of the study.

Undertakes research in Omaha, Nebraska on factors found to be predictors of attitudes toward the police (ATP). Addresses the question of whether ATP are primarily a function of police‐citizen interaction or if they derive from the transmission of cultural values. If the former, strategies to modify police and citizen behavior are required; if the latter, an impact on socialization may be needed to improve ATP. Summarizes the nature and measurement of ATP. Finds, in common with earlier research, that although age, gender and police contact have significant effects, race variables have the greatest effect. In contrast with other research, finds that social class has some influence on ATP. Compares Hispanic, black and white respondents’ ATP. Suggests that neighborhood is an important influence on ATP. Recommends further studies on the development of ATP in youth.

During its 230 year prison history, the United States has advocated various – and sometimes conflicting – purposes for incarceration. Each justification has rested on the tenets of some prevailing theory of human behavior (Akers & Sellers, 2008; Jones, 2008), which attempts to answer two recurring themes: why do some people commit crimes while others do not, and how should the criminal justice system, including the correctional system, respond to such behavior (Siegel, 2003; Winfree & Abadisky, 2010; Vito, Maahs, & Holmes, 2011). This chapter offers an overview of the general tenets of what is considered morally imperative when determining “right” from “wrong”; the four key criminological perspectives of crime, as well as the ontological assumptions, either explicit or implicit, within each hypothesis. Next, the authors discuss how these assumptions dictate society's response to crime and, more specifically, the type of punishment, rehabilitative efforts, or educational opportunities offered to those who violate society's laws (Bohn & Vogel, 2011). The chapter concludes with a discussion of the types of educational programs and therapies that have demonstrated the most promise at reducing crime and recidivism, as well as suggestions for improving current correctional practices.