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Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are quickly becoming standardized police equipment. Axon Enterprise, a United States company based in Scottsdale, Arizona, is currently the worldwide purveyor of BWCs having near-complete control over the police body camera market. In 2012, the company launched their Axon Flex body camera alongside claims about the efficacy of these devices. While the research is expanding, scholarship has yet to explore the role that stakeholders like Axon may play in the implementation of body cameras across police services. This empirical chapter examines claims made by Axon in media in relation to the efficacy of their body cameras over a six-year period (2012–2018). Three themes relative to our analysis of Axon claims emerged: officer and community safety; cost and officer efficiency; and accountability and transparency. A basic finding that cut across all three themes is that most of Axon's claims appear to be shaped by beliefs and assumptions. We also found that Axon's claims were mostly predicated on the market (i.e., financial considerations), rather than say scientifically or legally grounded. Some suggestions for future research are noted.

Recent highly publicized acts of violence and shootings on campus have prompted numerous crime prevention suggestions including having an armed presence in the schools. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of protective measures, policies, and school/neighborhood characteristics on school violence.

The data used in this study were part of the School Survey on Crime and Safety collected in 2006. The dependent measures of school violence include reports of violence, threatened attack with a weapon, attack with weapon, and gun possession. The sample was divided into high schools and all other grades to consider differences in levels of school violence among grade levels in relation to various law enforcement security measures, school security measures, and school characteristics.

Findings revealed mixed and often counterproductive results for law enforcement and school security efforts to control school violence. School characteristics, such as reports of bullying, location, and gang activity yielded numerous statistically significant findings. Policy recommendations and suggestions for future research are provided.

This study differs from much of the previous literature, which typically examines student and administrator attitudes about victimization and crime prevention. The current study examines detailed information on the actual effects of school violence prevention efforts. Furthermore, this study moves beyond most other works (that typically focus on high schools) as it considers school safety approaches by different grade levels.

The purpose of this paper is to use data from the Longitudinal Study of Violent Criminal Behavior in the USA to examine case configurations of violent behavior using a biopsychosocial framework. Specifically, the theory posits that arguably all behavior is the result of specific combinations of biopsychological (individual) and sociocultural (environmental) characteristics that are interacting within the individual. With regard to criminal and violent behavior, the theoretical assumption is that this maladaptive behavior is the result of a negative interaction between the biopsychological and sociocultural factors.

The study design consists of secondary data analysis. A conjunctive analysis of case configurations was performed using data from the Longitudinal Survey of Violent Criminal Behavior to formally explore the tenets of Cortés and Gatti’s (1972) biopsychosocial theory.

The results suggest that there are main effects for ego strength, family problems, family incohesiveness and underachievement as they relate to offending. A possible six-way interaction was also identified within the case configurations that provides empirical support for Cortés and Gatti’s (1972) biopsychosocial theory of deviance.

The present study contributes to the existing biopsychosocial literature by providing insight on the contextual variability in pathways to violent offending. Specifically, the evidence provided indicates that Cortés and Gatti’s (1972) biopsychosocial theory of deviance can be extended to comparing violent and non-violent offenders. Implications for policy and practice are also discussed.

A robust literature exists documenting the association between child maltreatment and later life adverse outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between sexual abuse victimization and later life intimate partner violence (IPV) outcomes among male and female college students, which has been less frequently evaluated despite this wealth of evidence.

Relying on data from 4,162 male and female college students, the current study provides a multivariate analysis of the linkage between sexual abuse victimization and intimate partner victimization, perpetration, and being an IPV victim-offender.

Results reveal a statistically significant association between sexual abuse victimization and being an IPV victim, offender, or victim-offender in young adulthood. In addition, these findings are still observed once a host of risk and the demographic factors are incorporated into the model for females, but not for males.

This study highlights the importance of sexual violence and IPV prevention and intervention strategies for college-aged youth.

The purpose of this paper is to review the extant of the published literature on body-worn cameras (BWCs) in policing, specifically in the context of how BWCs affect both citizens and officers.

The current study is a narrative review of the impact of BWCs on police and citizens generated through a search of four repositories (Google Scholar, Criminal Justice Abstracts, EBSCO Host, PsychInfo).

The current narrative review identified 21 articles that matched the selection criteria. In general, this body of research demonstrates that: the police are supportive of BWC adoption; the evidence from BWC evaluations suggests that the use of BWCs can have benefits for police-public encounters.

The practical implications derived from this narrative review suggest police administrators that the adoption and effective implementation of BWCs are one mechanism that can strengthen police-community relationships and decrease police misconduct through enhanced legitimacy and accountability.

This study is useful for researchers who wish to further examine BWC issues in policing, for police managers/administrators who are currently utilizing BWC technology, and for those who are considering adopting BWC technology.

Purpose: For contemporary policing, the police–public communication process is one of the most essential elements of law enforcement management. The promotion of police–public relations, police integrity, and police accountability all depend upon effective communication. While ever a challenge for law enforcement agencies, the coming of the COVID-19 pandemic changed substantially the character of both mediated and interpersonal communication between the police and those policed as of 2020.

Methodology/Approach: Building upon the concept of electronic community-oriented policing (E-COP), this chapter proposes an expanded theoretical model of police–public online communication during a time in which in-person contacts are constrained and various forms of mediated communication assume major importance.

Findings: Using a sample of COVID-related police Facebook posts collected between February 1 and May 31, 2020, this chapter illustrates how the expanded E-COP model is helpful in orchestrating an effective police response to a major public health emergency. It also advances the argument that police–public online communication will be not only become widely used during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but will likely become routinized.

Originality/Value: The proposed model also provides practical suggestions for law enforcement agency leaders who endeavor to advance the goals of community-oriented and guardianship-directed policing. Some likely barriers to more effective use of social media are singled out for special attention.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, trust considerations have been amplified to levels not seen in most of our lifetimes. We have been asked to trust: epidemiologists, virologists and immunologists in terms of the nature of COVID-19 transmission and vaccinations; politicians, public health planners and policymakers in terms of the need for various responses such as lockdowns, school closures, border closures and economic recovery plans; media sources in terms of accurately reporting COVID-19 news; and members of our community in terms of doing their best to protect themselves and others from COVID-19 transmission, including mask wearing, hand washing, isolating and social/physical distancing. Within this chapter, we attempt to explore the emotional responses to this complex web of trust considerations from qualitative data in a study we conducted amidst the beginning of the pandemic. We then offer some interpretations about how trust considerations may have been altered as a result of living in and through the pandemic. We suggest that trust can be a primary emotion, or at least function that way during times of crises, and be (reflexively) deployed by citizens to manage emotional repertoires during crisis and to position themselves as responsible neoliberal citizens. We add understanding about the strains in horizontal/interpersonal trust relations during a pandemic – where the virus spreading between people necessitates social and relational distancing measures for containment – and inflames questions about whether or not we can trust each other.

THE influence of the surrounding atmospheric conditions on the power developed by an internal combustion engine has been the subject of a number of experimental investigations and theoretical discussions. The mass of experimental data dealt with and the rather involved arguments employed have, in some instances, tended to obscure the main issues of the problem.

Prior researchers have documented significant effects of family violence on adult children’s own risk for intimate partner violence (IPV). Yet, few studies have examined whether exposure to family violence while growing up as well as emerging adults’ reports of their current peers’ behaviors and attitudes influenced self-reports of intimate partner violence perpetration. The current study based on interviews with a large, heterogeneous sample of men and women assessed the degree to which current peers’ attitudes and behaviors contributed to risk of intimate partner violence perpetration, net of family violence.

Using data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) (n = 928), we examined associations between family violence indicators, peers’ behaviors and attitudes, and self-reports of intimate violence perpetration among adults ages 22–29. We used ordinary least squares regression and controlled for other known correlates of IPV.

For men and women, we found a significant relationship between witnessing parental violence during adolescence and IPV perpetration in emerging adulthood, and a positive relationship between current peers’ IPV experiences and attitudes and respondents’ perpetration. We also found that for respondents who reported higher, compared with lower, peer involvement in partner violence, the effects of parental violence were stronger.

We provided a more comprehensive assessment of peers’ IPV to this body of research, which tends to focus on family violence. Studies have examined peers’ attitudes and behavior during adolescence, but we extended this work by examining both peer and familial influences into emerging adulthood.