Barbara Sims

Determinants of citizens’ attitudes toward police

The essence of community policing is a police‐community partnership for identifying, prioritizing and resolving citizen problems. The nature of community policing demands that attention be paid to public expectations of police, and implies listening to citizens and taking their problems seriously. A critical precursor to community policing is identifying citizens’ perceptions of police and their local neighborhoods. This paper presents findings from the Harrisburg Citizen Survey – 1999, in which citizens were asked a series of questions regarding their attitudes toward their local police, their fear of crime, and their perceptions of physical and social incivilities in their neighborhoods. The overall research question for the paper is “Can attitudes toward police be predicted by citizens’ perceptions of physical and social incivilities, their fear of crime, and contact with police, controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, household income, and level of education?”

Examining Public Opinion about Crime and Justice: A Statewide Study:

As noted by Flanagan (1996), public opinion polls about crime and justice can act as a social barometer providing important data to policy makers regarding what the public is willing, or is not willing, to accept when it comes to proposed legislation and/or intervention programming. This paper reports findings from the 2001 Penn State Poll, a random telephone survey of Pennsylvanians, 18 years of age or older, in which citizens were asked about their attitudes toward and perceptions of such issues as fear of crime, capital punishment, the most important goal of prison, and where they would most like to see their tax dollars spent (building more prisons vs. early intervention programs with troubled youth). Significant differences were found within certain demographic groups across these sets of questions, and in a predictive model, gender, race/ethnicity, and education had a greater impact on citizens’ support for capital punishment than did their fear of crime. Overall, findings suggest that the public is not as punitive as it is sometimes believed to be by legislators and policy makers.

The Relationship between Police Officers' Attitudes Toward Women and Perceptions of Police Models

This article argues for the nexus between more positive attitudes toward women and an acceptance by police officers of the characteristics and values associated with the community policing model. A survey including questions regarding attitudes toward women and toward both community and traditional policing models was administered to officers of the Little Rock, Arkansas, Police Department. Although some of the questions measuring attitudes toward women used in the present study were found to be predictors of attitudes toward community policing and traditional policing, others were not. The implications for these findings are discussed, and an argument is made for future inquiry into the effect of attitudes toward women on the acceptance of community policing.

Creating a Teaching and Learning Environment in Criminal Justice Courses that Promotes Higher Order Thinking

Active learning techniques have long been shown to increase the extent to which students are able to think critically about problems and solutions to them. The extant research suggests that efforts to engage students in higher order thinking should extend beyond the typical setting in which the more advanced students are introduced to active learning techniques. White and Frederiksen (2000) have found that most students, regardless of achievement levels, can reach a higher order thinking level when they are encouraged to do so. This paper explores several issues associated with active learning techniques in the general sense and then uses examples to demonstrate how such techniques can and are being used on the criminal justice classroom. The pros and cons of using active learning techniques are also discussed. *An earlier version of this paper was first presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology. The author would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on this paper. The paper is much improved because of their insights.

Crime, Punishment, and the American Dream: Toward a Marxist Integration

In their book Crime and the American Dream, Messner and Rosenfeld suggest that the American economy sets up a society conducive to conflict and crime. The authors argue throughout their work that social, educational, and political institutions take a backseat to the economy. When building the theoretical foundation for their argument, however, Messner and Rosenfeld fail to adequately address the contribution of Marxist criminology to their “sociological paradigm.” In the present article, the author attempts to supply that missing link by suggesting that Marxist criminology can explain how social and economic inequalities are a naturally occurring even in the American system of capitalism. Having done so, she then examines how the theoretical foundation constructed in the first part of the article could be applied to address the manner in which punishment is meted out in American society.

Considerations for Faculty Preparing to Develop and Teach Online Criminal Justice Courses at Traditional Institutions of Higher Learning

Criminal justice programs at traditional institutions of higher learning have been moving toward offering courses online and, in some cases, placing entire programs online for the better part of the past decade. In competition with for‐profit institutions, many traditional colleges and universities have expanded their distance education programming to include online courses and programs to attract students. As a result, the number of criminal justice students has increased, as have the profits for home institutions. With this growth in the online education market, the criminal justice faculty member has been thrust, willingly or unwillingly, into the world of online teaching—a method of instruction foreign to many instructors. From the authors’ experience at their current (and in the case of the lead author a second) institution, this paper addresses many issues that must be considered by faculty members before embarking on this type of time‐intensive initiative.

Technological Innovation and the Application of the Fourth Amendment Considering the Implications of Kyllo v. United States for Law Enforcement and Counterterrorism

In Kyllo vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of sensory-enhancing technology to see through traditional privacy barriers constituted an illegal search in violation of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections. This article examines the history of Fourth Amendment applications involving the use of technology by government officials. The authors discuss the implications of Kyllo in light of emerging technologies available to the government as a means of gathering incriminating evidence against persons either engaging or conspiring to engage in criminal behavior. Ultimately, they argue that the Kyllo standard for the application of sensory-enhancing technology has important implications for the future of law enforcement and the ongoing fight against international terrorism.

Victim restitution: A review of the literature

Victim restitution programs have become a major component of the American criminal justice system. As such, such programming follows the approach to justice that is restorative in nature, taking the country back to a time in its early history when the victim played a major role in bringing offenders to justice and when the offender was required to compensate both the victim and the community. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the literature on both adult and juvenile restitution, the purpose of which is to better illuminate some of the key issues associated with successful programs, primarily from the criminal justice perspective. To that end, the issues explored in the paper include: (1) the history of victim restitution in the United States; (2) problems that are associated with victim restitution programming; and (3) components of successful restitution programs. Conclusions are reached about whether victim restitution is meeting the goals it was intended to meet from the system perspective, and some concerns are expressed about whether victim restitution is satisfying the goals of a truly restorative model of justice.