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The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors associated with management-level officers’ sensitivity to various manifestations of the “Ferguson effect.”

A survey was administered to police officers attending an advanced training institute in the Southeastern USA in the fall of 2015. Specifically, a series of items first inquired about negative attitudes attributable to deadly force incidents throughout the country, followed by items tapping into theoretically relevant concepts including self-legitimacy, audience legitimacy, and peer attachment.

Findings suggest that like line-level officers, police managers may also harbor various attitudes attributable to a Ferguson effect – including less willingness to be proactive, reduced motivation, less job enjoyment, and a belief that crime will ultimately rise as officers “de-police.” However, officers who believe their communities afford legitimacy to the police were less likely to report these sentiments. Study limitations and avenues for future research are also discussed.

This is the first study to consider how police managers have been impacted by highly publicized deadly force incidents in recent years. It underscores the importance of maintaining legitimacy in the public eye, particularly in the post-Ferguson era of American policing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of sheriff deputies’ perceived legitimacy of their agency’s citizen advisory council (CAC).

The authors obtained survey data from 567 sheriff deputies in a southeastern state. The authors first asked whether respondents knew their agency had a CAC, and then asked those who responded affirmatively a series of questions about the legitimacy of the council. The authors then ran an ordinary least squares regression that included organizational justice, self-legitimacy and public scrutiny as independent variables predicting perceived legitimacy of the CAC.

Deputies who perceived greater organizational justice from command staff were significantly more likely to perceive the CAC as legitimate.

In response to strained police/community relations, reform advocates have urged the police to embrace a more democratic style of policing, including allowing for more citizen oversight of agencies. The study sheds light on how line-level officers perceive such oversight.

The purpose of this paper is to (a) distinguish the structural designs, and (b) examine the relationship between structure and effectiveness in American sport organizations. Formalization, centralization, and specialization were examined to determine the structural designs. Senior level administrators from National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I (N = 86) departments completed an electronic questionnaire. Cluster analysis was used to group departments according to the three dimensions of structure. Results demonstrated the presence of two structural designs—the Simple Structure and the Enabling Structure. MANCOVA procedures showed differences between departments in athletic achievement, but not in the education of student athletes. Discussion of the findings and future directions are presented.

This study aims to evaluate a promising community-oriented policing strategy called “front porch roll call” (FPRC), which involves conducting roll calls in public forums.

A mixed methods approach was used by drawing on survey data, field observations and qualitative interviews to describe how FPRCs were implemented in Saginaw, MI from 2019 to 2022, and how they can be successfully implemented to operate in accordance with the theoretical foundations of community-oriented policing.

Survey data from FPRC attendees reported improvements in their perceptions of police legitimacy, trust in the police and procedural fairness—each of which are vital pathways to developing collaborative crime prevention initiatives in community-oriented policing. Qualitative interviews and field observations provided unique insights into areas of improvement and ways to enhance sustainability for future use.

Community-oriented policing offers a philosophical approach to addressing crime problems through the formation of localized, collaborative solutions that come from police-community partnerships. A key implementation challenge is that such programs can fail to align their initiatives with the theoretical principles of community policing. FPRCs offer an innovative solution that operates closely with the spirit of community-oriented policing. Data from a mixed-methods evaluation provide further insights into their challenges with implementation and ways to improve upon them.

Little is known regarding the impact of organizational policies and practices on police officers’ driving behaviors. To address an important gap in the empirical literature, this study examined how perceived likelihood of discipline for violations of agency driving policies impacted officer-involved vehicle collisions.

Surveys were distributed to patrol officers and their supervisors in eight California law enforcement agencies. The surveys elicited information regarding the perceived likelihood of discipline for violations of agency driving policies regarding cell phone use, text messaging, seatbelt use, speeding, and vehicle operations during emergency and pursuit situations.

The findings demonstrated a significant impact of perceived likelihood of enforcement for some but not all agency driving policies on officer-involved vehicle collisions.

This study was limited to self-reported data from patrol officers and their supervisors in eight California agencies.

Findings suggest that agencies may reduce officer injuries and other costs by increasing supervision and enforcement of agency driving policies.

This study contributes to the extant body of literature on officer-involved vehicle collisions by considering the impact of agency policy and supervision on officer behavior.

The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the gap in the literature by investigating the identity theft behaviors of adolescents under the age of 18 and the predictors of these behaviors. To better understand the predictors of hacking behaviors in young people, two criminological theories, general theory of crime and social learning theory, are utilized.

A rural county in western North Carolina was chosen to participate in the study. Principals of four high schools in this county agreed to participate. All 9th through 12th graders were recruited for the study. Those who were given parental permission to participate and gave their own assent were given a survey.

Results indicated that low self-control and deviant peer association were in fact associated with identity theft behaviors of juveniles.

The literature is scant, if even existent, on research that investigates the identity theft offending behaviors of juveniles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the situational and individual officer characteristics of officer-involved vehicle collisions that result in fatality, injury, and non-injury outcomes.

Data on 35,840 vehicle collisions involving law enforcement officers in California occurring between January 2000 and December 2009 are examined. A descriptive analysis of collision characteristics is presented.

There were 39 officers killed by collisions over this study period and 7,684 officers who received some type injury. Incidents involving officers on motorcycles represented 39 percent of officer fatalities and 39 percent of severe injuries. In the case of fatalities, 33 percent of officers were reported as wearing seatbelts, 38 percent were not wearing a seatbelt, and seatbelt use was not stated in 29 percent of car fatalities.

The findings only represent one state and the analysis is based on an estimated 86 percent of collisions that occurred during the study period due to missing data. Nonetheless, the results are based on a robust sample and address key limitations in the existing literature.

During the study period in California the estimated financial impact of collisions reached into the hundreds of millions of dollars when considering related fatality, injury, and vehicle damage costs combined. These impacts highlight the need for the law enforcement community to give greater attention to this issue.

At the time of this writing there was no published independent research that compares the situational and officer characteristics across fatality, injury, and non-injury outcomes in these events. The findings reported here will help inform emerging interest in this issue within the law enforcement, academic, and policy-making communities.

Identity theft is an emerging form of criminal behavior, with complaints about the behavior rising. However, little research has explored the correlates of these complaints, especially state‐level correlates. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state‐level characteristics correlated with identity theft complaints.

The present study uses data collected from the 2000 US census and the Federal Trade Commission's 2002 through 2005 reports on identity theft. Regression is used to determine explain identity theft complaints through state‐level characteristics from social disorganization to routine activities theory.

The results indicate that states with more males, higher residential mobility, and more entertainment establishments are likely to have more identity theft complaints. States with more populations that are age 15 and below are less likely to have as many identity theft complaints.

The present study only examines state‐level, macro data and does not take into account individual, micro‐level factors that are associated with identity‐theft. This study provides an important advance in understanding identity theft complaint reports. This will aid policy makers in implementing strategies to reduce incidences of identity theft.

This paper is valuable to sociologists, criminologists, politicians, policy makers, and the general public. It contributes to the current understanding of identity theft by examining state‐level correlates.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the perspectives of law enforcement executives and public school principals regarding school resource officers (SROs), armed teachers, and armed school administrators in order to inform the policy discussion surrounding school safety issues.

This study utilizes data collected from two surveys that were sent to law enforcement executives and public school principals in South Carolina. Respondents were asked about their experience with SROs and their perspectives on these officers’ ability to maintain school safety. Both groups of respondents were also asked about their attitudes regarding arming school employees.

There is a large amount of support for SROs from both law enforcement executives and principals. However, in general, both groups of respondents do not believe armed administrators or armed teachers to be an effective school safety strategy.

SROs have been the primary strategy adopted by schools to maintain safety, but in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, public outcry and political debate has spawned a number of proposed alternatives. Among these alternative security measures has been the idea of arming school teachers and/or administrators. However, there appears to have been little effort to empirically consider the perspectives of those directly impacted by school safety policy decisions. In particular, a gap in the literature remains regarding the perceptions of police executives and school principals concerning school safety policies and how the attitudes of these key actors compare. Thus, the current study addresses this gap by exploring the perspectives of key school safety stakeholders.

Much of the research on intimate partner violence focuses on adults, and little of it emanates from the Global-South. The study reported upon in this chapter is aimed at addressing these gaps. Adopting a Southern Feminist Framework, it discusses findings from interviews with Brasilian and Australian advocates working on prevention of youth IPV. Participants from both countries noted disturbing instances of digital coercive control among the youth with whom they work, as well as underlying factors such as gender-based discrimination that simultaneously contribute to the prevalence of such behaviors, as well as their normalization among young people. However, they also emphasized the positive role that technology can play in distributing educational programming that reaches young people where they are and circumvents conservative agendas that in some cases keep education about gender discrimination and healthy relationships out of schools.