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The purpose of this paper is to provide some initial reflections on the complexities and challenges faced when conducting observations with police officers working in response and neighbourhood policing roles from the perspective of a young, female, researcher.

The research consisted of 200 hours spent with operational police officers in a medium sized UK police force, predominantly in 3 cities, to explore the realities of frontline policing and policy implementation. This paper offers a reflexive account of conducting the research, as opposed to a discussion of the findings which align to the original research aim.

Conducting this fieldwork highlighted a number of complexities arising as a result of conducting ethnographic research in policing. This paper is concerned with the constructing of a researcher identity and navigating moral dilemmas based on the culture and use of language observed.

Whilst this will be of interest to those engaged with similar policing research, such findings are also likely to apply to those conducting ethnography where there is conflict between their insider/outsider status, the potential for internalised moral debates and women conducting research in male-dominated settings.

This article provides an overview of the latest empirical research regarding police decision-making in Belgium from 2000 to 2021 in terms of methodology and general findings (e.g. types and year of publication, topics studied). Recommendations are given concerning police research and the development of a research agenda.

Fourteen separate and limited scoping reviews regarding police decision-making topics were carried out by students in criminology and law. All scoping reviews followed the same procedure.

Seventy-nine unique publications are included in the analyses. These show that police violence is most frequently studied, whereas violence against the police was only included in one publication. Empirical research on bodycams and (social) media was not found. Most of the studies followed a quantitative research design, mainly by means of secondary data analysis.

The scoping reviews are limited in scope and were carried out by different students, potentially leading to variable interpretations and selections. Additionally, the conclusions are partly the result of the developed review protocols (e.g. keywords, databases).

This article combines 14 different scoping reviews, following the same procedure, on subtopics regarding police decision-making and thus enabling comparison of the literature found in a consistent way.

This paper aims to investigate how evidence-based policing (EBP) is understood by police officers and citizens in Taiwan and the influence of police education on police recruit's receptivity to research evidence in policing.

The study uses a cross-sectional design that includes Taiwanese police officers (n = 671) and a control group of Taiwanese criminology undergraduate students (n = 85). A research instrument covering five themes is developed, and after a pilot test the final scale remains 14 items.

The analysis suggests that police officers in Taiwan generally hold a positive view towards the role of research and researchers in policing, more so than is often observed in similar studies conducted in Western countries. Receptivity to research was found to be significantly higher among the non-police sample compared to the police sample. Moreover, time spent in police education was significantly associated with lower levels of receptivity to research.

The paper makes two original contributions to the literature on police officer receptivity to research. It is the first paper to (1) empirically examine police officers' openness to, and use of research in an Asian setting and (2) to compare police officers' receptivity to research with those of a relevant non-police group.

This paper seeks to critique the Winfree and Taylor report on rural, small town, and metropolitan police in New Zealand.

Compares and contrasts the conclusions to some earlier findings of Jaeger in her research on increasing the diversity of the New Zealand police. The question asked is: “Can universal research methodology on classical policing and community policing be applied carte blanche to organizational studies in New Zealand without ‘local’ input?”.

Jaeger's research, through in‐depth interviews of twenty ethnic police officers, suggested possible alternative conclusions that were not apparent when Winfree and Taylor, reporting from a distance, applied detailed statistical analysis to a 1996 dataset. The paper suggests that a combination of the two approaches might lead to a more complete and truthful representation of the reality.

Critiques an earlier report on the police in New Zealand published in Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management.

Purpose – This chapter ruminates on a range of different ways that the author experiences being what the author calls a “lurker” in mainstream criminologies as a queer criminologist.

Methodology/approach – Drawing on the work of Jack Halberstam, Michel Foucault, Heather Love, Sarah Ahmed, and other queer theorists, the author explores their positionality as a lurker in mainstream criminologies, and policing particular, to better understand how “[d]isciplines qualify and disqualify, legitimate and delegitimate, reward and punish” (Halberstam, 2011, p. 10), and how leaders of these disciplines make calculated decisions about who qualifies as legitimate scholars of policing knowing.

Findings – The discussion steps through some significant moments of discomfort that have emerged in lurking around with/in these disciplines, and in doing the work of queer research with queer people about queer policing.

Originality/value – The author finishes by sharing strategies and learnings that have emerged out of these research and disciplinary contexts. The author suggests that it is most valuable to continue to lurk so their position of discomfort and potential failure persists as a more productive positionality than conforming with the mainstream.

This paper seeks to empirically describe the role of research and planning units within contemporary, local police organizations in the US.

Data were collected from a national survey of police organizations, municipal police agencies and sheriffs' offices in the US and analyzed using univariate statistics.

The findings demonstrate that the task scope of research and planning units (RPU) within local law enforcement organizations is heterogeneous. RPUs perform a range of tasks and these tasks differ from one agency to another. When separate tasks are aggregated into broader categories, the data reveal that, overall, RPUs focus primarily on administrative tasks.

These findings suggest that RPUs primarily focus on administrative support tasks rather than research and planning projects. Thus, RPUs may be underutilized by law enforcement organizations. These findings suggest that administrators consider how the task scope of RPUs can be refocused to help law enforcement agencies achieve their goals.

This paper empirically updates the understanding of the tasks and functions of contemporary police research and planning units.

The purpose of this paper is to review the “state of the art” in research on police legitimacy. The authors consider two bodies of theory and empirical research on police legitimacy: one rooted in social psychology and concerned with individual attitudes, and the other based on organizational institutionalism. The authors contrast the theories, discuss the methods with which propositions have been examined, and take stock of the empirical evidence. The authors then turn to a direct comparison of the theories and their predictions.

Critical review and comparison of two bodies of literature.

Police legitimacy is a phenomenon that can be properly understood only when it is addressed at both individual and organizational levels. A large body of social psychological research on police legitimacy has been conducted at the individual level, though it has dwelled mainly on attitudes, and the empirical evidence on the relationships of attitudes to behavior is weak. A much smaller body of research on organizational legitimacy in policing has accumulated, and it appears to have promise for advancing our understanding of police legitimacy.

The understanding of police legitimacy can be deepened by the juxtaposition of these two bodies of theory and research.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the systematic review on the topic of plural policing. The authors aim to discuss the general characteristics of empirical research into plural policing and describe the way in which police literature deals with the questions related to plural policing.

A systematic review, including qualitative research, focused on empirical research results.

First of all, plural policing has been subject of study in a diversity of contexts, using multiple methods and treating very diverse research questions. Although the dangers of blurring boundaries between policing actors is a focal issue in contemplative papers, empirical research on plural policing does not focus on this issue but mentions it in the margins of the research results.

Limitations are that the authors had to set a timeframe for the systematic review and that not all research was accessible. Furthermore, the authors had to limit the studies that could be included in this systematic review.

One of the main research questions relates to the dangers of blurring boundaries between multiple policing actors. This has important implications for citizens in their relations and contacts with police actors (in terms of transparency, equality of rights and so on).

The paper gives a first insight into a domain that is written on extensively, but less empirically studied and sheds light on the studies that have taken the topic of plural policing as the focal point.

Purpose – This chapter explores how select “evidence-based” police scholars act as gatekeepers to research opportunities, in Canada, thus impeding critical research that pertains to Black communities.

Methodology/Approach – Using the critical race method of counter-storytelling, the following narrative demonstrates how race and racism may play a role in the collection and dissemination of research that examines racial bias in Canadian policing. This methodology aims to refute the notion of critical objectivity, which is often used to promote the principles of evidence-based policing (EBP).

Findings – Findings suggest that through various powers and levels within both the policing and academic community, a select number of scholars have influence over Canadian policing research that explores racial bias and discrimination. As such, research that may help to develop effective and efficient policing programs to address racial bias, is thwarted.

Originality – No Canadian study explores anti-racist training programs or evaluates their effectiveness. This chapter demonstrates that this may be the result of gatekeeping. The following chapter provides insight into how this is done within EBP circles.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that police research has reached a level of acceptance such that executive management has an ethical obligation to their communities to use evidence-based practices.

Using an Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) framework the authors apply an ethical-based decision-making model to policing decisions. EBM does not allow physicians to ignore research when giving guidance to patients. The authors compare the two professional approaches to decision making and argue policing has reached a level of research that if ignored, just like medicine, should be considered unethical. Police interventions can potentially be harmful. Rather than do no harm, the authors argue that police managers should implement practices that are the least harmful based on the current research.

The authors found policing has a substantial amount of research showing what works, what does not, and what looks promising to allow police executives to make decisions based on evidence rather than tradition, culture, or best practice. There is a deep enough fund of knowledge to enable law enforcement leadership to evaluate policies on how well the policies and procedures they enforce prevent crime with a minimum of harm to the communities they are sworn to protect and serve.

Policing has yet to view community interventions as potentially harmful. Realigning police ethics from a lying, cheating, stealing, lens to a “doing the least harm” lens can alter the practitioner’s view of why evidence-based policing is important. Viewing executive decision from an evidence-based ethical platform is the future of evaluating police executive decisions.