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Internationally publicized cases of police violence against unarmed black men have led to calls for accountability in policing. Increased footage of police–public interactions, specifically through the form of police body-worn cameras (BWCs), is encouraged and considered an innovation that can improve the policing profession. However, BWC adoption is likely more feasible in big city departments than in small and rural departments, who respond to many of the same issues as their larger counterparts. The purpose of this study is to explore perceptions of BWC among leaders of small and rural police departments.

Using a mixed methods approach, the authors surveyed 349 chiefs of small and rural Pennsylvania police departments and conducted qualitative follow-up interviews with 53 chiefs.

The results indicate that both adopters and non-adopters esteem BWC in a positive light, particularly toward the ability to improve professionalism and police–community relations. Other findings and implications of these results will be discussed.

This study focuses on small and rural police departments, which make up the majority of police departments but are often understudied.

The authors evaluated the impact of an anti-bias training intervention for improving police behavior during interactions with community members and public perceptions of discrimination.

Fifty patrol officers from a diverse municipal agency were randomly selected to participate in an anti-bias intervention. Before and after the intervention, a random selection of Body Worn Camera (BWC) videos from the intervention group as well as from a control group of officers was coded using a validated tool for coding police “performance” during interactions with the public. Discrimination-based community member complaints were also collected before and after the intervention for treatment and control group officers.

The treatment group had a small but significant increase in performance scores compared to control group officers, F = 4.736, p = 0.009, R2ß < 0.01. They also had a small but significantly reduced number of discrimination-based complaints compared to control group officers, F = 3.042, p = 0.049, p2 = 0.015. These results suggest that anti-bias training could have an impact on officer behaviors during interactions with public and perceptions of discrimination.

Although these results are from a single municipal police department, this is the first study to suggest that anti-bias trainings may have a positive behavioral impact on police officers as well as the first to illustrate the potential for their impact on community members' perceptions of biased treatment by officers.

The proliferation of recording technologies has increased the prevalence of police intervention videos in news media. Although previous research has explored the influence of such coverage on public opinion, the mechanisms underlying this impact have received limited attention. This study investigates the role of information credibility in the assessment of police interventions portrayed in news media videos.

A total of 634 participants were shown a mock-up TV news report that included a description and a brief clip of a police use-of-force event. A survey was conducted before and after the presentation of the report.

Camera perspective, anchor tone, viewer gender and pre-existing perceived TV news credibility were found to influence how credible the mock-up news report was perceived. Participants who judged the news report as complete and credible tended to have a more favourable opinion of the police intervention. Perceived credibility also acted as a moderator in the relationship between video and receiver characteristics and the assessment of the police intervention.

These findings offer valuable insights for law enforcement agencies and their public affairs units to develop effective strategies for managing public opinion.

This research highlights how important perceived credibility is in influencing public opinion and how different factors such as video and receiver characteristics can impact credibility assessment.

Viral videos of police violence create demands for new police narratives about using force. Public reactions to videos lead spokespeople to provide justifications that support narrative structures of the necessity and inevitability of police violence. Ultimately, video is presented as lacking context and credibility when it is viewed unaccompanied by police explanations.

Community-police relations have gained increasing public attention during the past decade. The purpose of the present study was to better understand the relationship between perceived community support and police officer burnout and engagement.

Data were gathered via online survey from 117 officers from a city police department in the Southeastern United States.

Community support was negatively correlated with burnout and positively correlated with engagement. Moreover, multiple regression analyses showed that community support explained significant incremental variance in most dimensions of burnout and engagement, above and beyond demographic factors and community stressors. Qualitative results showed that police officers had mixed perceptions of how they were viewed by the general public, with more negative than positive responses. However, officers felt more positively perceived in their own communities, but concerns were raised that national events affected the perceptions of officers even in positive relationships with their communities. Finally, officers felt that public perceptions impacted their job satisfaction, job performance and personal lives.

The results have practical implications for how to encourage positive interactions between officers and their community, with recommendations for both law enforcement leaders and civilians.

This study is one of the few that highlights the officers' perspective on how public perceptions affect their work. This is important in understanding how to maximize quality community interactions while minimizing conditions that would increase burnout.

The economic theory of crime states that crime can be prevented by either increasing the probability of being detected or increasing penalties. However, individual responses to fines and imprisonment may vary, and corruption can reduce both the probability of being detected and punishment costs. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of corruption on crime prevention.

This study used an experiment to investigate the effects of criminalisation and corruption. This study tested whether individuals respond differently to variables on the probability of being detected and punishment costs and whether corruption affects these variables.

The results of this study demonstrated that increasing the probability of being detected initially reduces crime rates more efficiently than increasing penalties, then the efficiency gradually reduces, and that corruption reduces the effectiveness of detection and punishment.

Ineffective corruption prevention is not solely attributed to corrupt police, as illicit payments and personal connections also contribute to corruption.

Policymakers and law enforcement agencies should focus on preventive measures by increasing the chance of being detected, creating transparency and encouraging public participation to address corruption problems thoroughly.

This research conducted in Thailand investigates the effectiveness of crime-prevention mechanisms and considers the impact of corruption. This study offers insights into how criminals perceive detection and punishment costs under different social-political environments.

This research study evaluates an innovative community-oriented policing program, designed to enhance officer accountability, thereby informing the scholarly community and agency decision-makers.

A multi-method approach was employed, leveraging pre- and post-implementation data collection phases. Data were collected via surveys of officers and focus groups with officers, as well as interviews with agency decision-makers.

While officers were originally resistant to the STOP Card program, postimplementation perceptions, evinced through both survey and focus group data, were supportive. Agency administrators were consistently supportive of the initiative.

This is a novel program, implemented by a university police agency set in an urban area. The utility of this and similar efforts may influence agency initiatives.

The purpose of this study is to explore the ideological gaps across a range of policing interactions with the public.

In a survey distributed via Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (n = 979), the authors explore the role that respondents' political ideology plays in the agreement of 13 aspects of policing services, their demeanor and decorum.

Attitudes toward policing interactions are slightly positive. Conservatives steadfastly hold positive attitudes about police. Liberals vacillate from negative to positive attitudes across the 13 policing interaction statements.

Although small, there is an ideological consensus that police adequately protect citizens and are knowledgeable about the law.

Even at record lows of public confidence in the police, some subsections of the sample, such as conservatives, firmly hold positive attitudes about police. The unwavering support for police by conservatives continues across the multi-item measure of policing interactions, whereas liberals illustrated less uniformity in their attitudes.

This study explores how police culture is experienced by women officers serving in positions where they are significantly underrepresented (i.e. leadership and elite specialty units) and the environmental factors that shape these experiences.

A qualitative analysis of transcripts from interviews with 71 women serving in male-dominated roles was conducted (N = 39 ranking women; N = 32 women on elite units).

Participants described five occupational, organizational and assignment-level factors that shaped their workplace experiences. While some contextual forces at play are similar for women working patrol (e.g. traditional police culture, the underrepresentation of women in law enforcement) unique position-level factors were also identified (e.g. the high-risk and consequential nature of the work).

While the cultural environment for women patrol officers has improved in the past few decades, the same cannot be said for women working in positions that are still dominated by men. More attention to this area of policing is needed to ensure gender diversity is achieved throughout organizations and not only in positions deemed suitable for women.

The study extends research on women in policing beyond the focus on patrol. Further, it explores the assignment- and rank-based perspectives of police culture, which are largely absent from the literature.