Charles F. Klahm

Do Good Recruits Make Good Cops? Problems Predicting and Measuring Academy and Street-Level Success

The purpose of this study is to extend White’s analysis predicting successful police recruit performance during academy training. Using police personnel data collected on 486 officers hired between 1996 and 2006 by a Midwestern police department, the authors examine characteristics related to academy success as well as active police service. The results show that most demographic and experience variables did not predict academy or active service success. However, White recruits and those scoring higher on the civil service exam consistently performed better on multiple academy outcome measures than their counterparts. In addition, those scoring higher on the overall academy success measure generally received better evaluations from their superiors. The results also show that higher education is not related to any of the measures of academy or on the job success used in these analyses.

Understanding police use of force: Rethinking the link between conceptualization and measurement

Purpose – The study of police use of force remains a primary concern of policing scholars; however, over the course of the last several decades, the focus has shifted from deadly and excessive force to a broader range of police behaviors that are coercive in nature, but not necessarily lethal, violent, or physical. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the critical disjuncture between the conceptualization of police use of force and operationalizations of the construct throughout policing literature. Design/methodology/approach – The current study provides a thorough, systematic review of 53 police use of force studies published in peer-reviewed outlets. These manuscripts were reviewed to determine whether authors cited a conceptualization of use of force and explained how the construct was operationalized, as well as the police behaviors captured in measures of force across studies, and how the data were collected. Findings – The findings suggest that police use of force is conceptually ambiguous, as...

The Discretion to Search: A Multilevel Examination of Driver Demographics and Officer Characteristics

Understanding police decision making has been a priority for policing scholars since the middle part of the 20th century. Recent emphasis has focused on examining the decision to search drivers and vehicles during pedestrian and traffic stops. The current study contributes to this body of literature by testing a series of hypotheses based on Skolnick’s notion of “symbolic assailants” and Smith and Alpert’s social conditioning model. Using data gathered from a large, Midwestern municipal jurisdiction over an 8-month period during 2005 and 2006, we estimate a series of hierarchical models to assess the relationship between discretionary searches and driver, vehicle, stop, and officer characteristics. Results indicate that specific driver groups including young, Black males are more likely to be searched for discretionary reasons. This relationship is further conditioned by officer assignment. Policy implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

The Association of Job Variables With Job Involvement, Job Satisfaction, and Organizational Commitment Among Indian Police Officers

Past empirical research has indicated that workplace factors affect the work attitudes of police officers. Police officers (N = 827) were surveyed in two districts (Sonipat and Rohtak) in the State of Haryana in the Republic of India. Ordinary least squares regression analysis was used to test the effects of job variables (i.e., job autonomy, job variety, training, and supervision) on job attitudes (i.e., job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment). Results indicate that variety, training, and supervision had positive associations with involvement, satisfaction, and commitment. Job autonomy had no association with job satisfaction or organizational commitment and had a negative association with job involvement.

From the Officer’s Perspective: A Multilevel Examination of Citizens’ Demeanor during Traffic Stops

Over the past 60 years, a substantial body of research has considered the influence of citizens’ demeanor on police behavior; and more recently, the correlates of citizens’ demeanor. This study advances our understanding of the demeanor construct by measuring officers’ perceptions of citizens’ disrespect, non‐compliance, and resistance during traffic stops. Using multilevel statistical models, we examine the correlates of citizens’ demeanor and assess the racial differences in these perceptions. The findings demonstrate that officers’ perceptions of citizens’ demeanor vary across racial/ethnic groups, after controlling for other relevant factors. Although White officers were significantly more likely than Black officers to classify drivers as disrespectful, Black and White officers were equally likely to report drivers as displaying behaviors that were non‐compliant and/or verbally resistant. Black drivers were significantly more likely to be reported as disrespectful, non‐compliant, and/or resistant, regardless of the officers’ race. The implications for future research and policy are discussed.

The Role of Entertainment Media in Perceptions of Police Use of Force

Scholars have long noted the importance of the media in shaping citizens’ attitudes about crime and justice. Most studies have focused on the impact of news and particularly local TV news, yet Americans spend far more time watching entertainment media. We examine the portrayal of police misconduct in crime dramas, and how exposure to these portrayals affects perceptions of the police. We find that viewers of crime dramas are more likely to believe the police are successful at lowering crime, use force only when necessary, and that misconduct does not typically lead to false confessions. In contrast, perceptions regarding the frequency of force are unaffected. Our results add to a growing literature demonstrating the importance of entertainment media for attitudes toward crime and the criminal justice system.

Searching for contraband: Assessing the use of discretion by police officers

Over the past 50 years, research on criminal justice decision making has consistently explored the use of discretion by police officers.The general theme of this research has been to argue for limiting officer discretion based on concerns that minority citizens receive unequal and unjustified treatment due to unbridled discretion. A contrasting position suggests that officer discretion may be helpful in achieving effective and efficient outcomes. We explore this debate by empirically assessing the contraband seizure rates generated from mandatory and discretionary searches during officer-initiated traffic stops within a municipal jurisdiction. The findings indicate that Black citizens are twice as likely as White citizens to be discovered with contraband during discretionary searches, but not during mandatory searches. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

Police use of force: tales from another city

Over the past 50 years the study of officer use of force has moved from qualitative assessments of officer behaviors to complex quantitative studies using advanced statistical techniques to parcel out the influence of a host of explanatory variables. Further, these studies have moved beyond examining simple force dichotomies (i.e., such as force, no force) to assessments of officer decisions to use both physical and non-physical forms of force and coercion. Most recent studies use data collected as part of the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN). We report findings using observational data collected as part of the Cincinnati Observation Study. This study makes two important contributions to the literature. First, whether certain variables were significant depends partially on the statistical technique used to estimate models. Second, a substantial number of explanatory variables were significant irrespective of the technique used and were consistent with the findings from POPN studies on the use of force. Confidence in the importance of these variables for explaining police use of force is discussed.

Discretionary Searches, the Impact of Passengers, and the Implications for Police–Minority Encounters

Purpose: The current study examines whether a police officer’s decision to initiate a discretionary search is impacted by the presence of passengers. It also explores whether groups of minority citizens experience more frequent discretionary searches compared with other groups. These hypotheses are built on the theoretical foundation of officer suspicion, the group hazard hypothesis, the principles of symbolic interactionism, and Black’s theory of law. Methods: Traffic stop data from a large, urban city are used to test these hypotheses. Multilevel, Bernoulli models are estimated to reflect the nested nature of the data. Data are analyzed in multiple ways to reflect the complex elements of police–citizen encounters. Results: Results indicate that discretionary searches of a citizen are more likely when a passenger is present. While some group effects are also documented, minority groups are not more likely to be searched such that the presence of passengers appears to supersede the impact of race/ethnicity. Conclusions: The presence of passengers during a police–citizen encounter has a substantial impact on the likelihood of a discretionary search. Race/ethnicity effects are limited to single-occupant drivers.

How Priming Innocence Influences Public Opinion on Police Misconduct and False Convictions: A Research Note

Issues of innocence have become more salient to the public in recent years, including the problem of police misconduct. However, citizens also tend to be supportive of the police, perceiving them as ethical, honest, and trustworthy. Using a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample, we explore the degree to which public opinion toward police misconduct is influenced by priming respondents on the issue of innocence. We find that reminding citizens of these issues increases their willingness to admit police misconduct that contributes to this problem by roughly 7 percentage points overall. Moreover, this effect is driven by conservatives and, to a lesser extent, moderates, presumably because liberals do not need priming. In contrast, the efficacy of the prime was not affected (i.e., moderated) by the race of the respondent. We place these results in the context of the current debate regarding police use of force as well as the ideological divide in rhetoric surrounding the recent string of high-profile police shootings.