Elizabeth L. Grossi

SURVIVING “THE JOINT”: MITIGATING FACTORS OF CORRECTIONAL OFFICER STRESS

ABSTRACT Many studies have focused upon the effect of stress upon police and correctional officers. This study investigates the relationship between stressors, coping mechanisms, and three types of stress (job dissatisfaction, work stress, and life stress) encountered by correctional officers. Factors such as danger, education, and supervisory support, experience and court decisions are considered in the multivariate model.

The Impact of Race on the Police Decision to Search During a Traffic Stop A Focal Concerns Theory Perspective

Racial profiling is an important issue in contemporary policing. Research in this area, especially in the decision to search, has relied on an outcomes test and correlates that are largely devoid of theory. Thus, the research is unable to provide a clear understanding of police decision making during a traffic stop. The purpose of the present study was to examine this process. Using data from more than 36,000 traffic stops from Louisville, KY, the present study applies the focal concerns theory to this decision-making process. The research results indicate that blameworthiness is the primary reason that searches are performed for the entire sample of traffic stops as well as those for the Black and White subsamples.

Searches and Traffic Stops: Racial Profiling and Capriciousness

The purpose of the present study is to examine traffic stop data—in particular data on searches—to better understand racial profiling. We use a measure of capriciousness to understand whether the decision to search occurs at random. Using data from more than 40,000 traffic stops from Louisville, Kentucky, the present study finds that race is one of many factors that are used in the determination of a search. For the overall, White, and Black samples, we find that the decision to search occurs at random, suggesting that racial profiling is not occurring in these data.

Intermediate Sanctions and the Halfway Back Program in Kentucky

Intermediate sanctions are more cost-effective means of responding to crime, both at the initial point of sanctioning, and as a means of responding to noncompliant offenders already under supervision. However, if intermediate sanction programs are to provide a viable option for avoiding further over-crowding in our prisons, and limiting spending on corrections, the operations of such programs, and the ways in which offenders are selected for participation must be efficient and effective. The key to success, then, for intermediate sanctions for offenders who violate conditions of community supervision is to establish a viable set of criteria for screening potential program participants. In our study of Kentuckys Halfway Back Program we found that traditional demographic and offender criminal history screening criteria were not accurate predictors of successful program completion. The failure of these factors to successfully predict program completion point to the need to refine the policies governing the criteria used to select offenders for placement in intermediate sanction programs.

Analyzing racial profiling from traffic searches: Using focal concerns theory and propensity score matching

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of racial profiling when the traffic stop outcome is a search using focal concerns theory as a theoretical explanation for police officer decision making and propensity score matching (PSM) as a better analysis to understand the race of the driver.,The data for this study come from traffic stops conducted by the Louisville Police Department between January 1 and December 31, 2002.,The results show that the elements of focal concerns theory matter most when it comes to if a traffic stop that resulted in a search even though racial profiling was evident. The use of PSM provides evidence that it is a better statistical technique when studying racial profiling. The gender of the driver was significant for male drivers but not for female drivers.,The data for this study are cross-sectional and are self-report data from the police officer.,This paper serves as a theoretical explanation that other researchers could use when studying racial profiling along with a better type of statistical analysis being PSM.,The findings based on focal concerns theory could provide an explanation for police officer decision making that police departments could use to help citizens understand why a traffic stop search took place.,This is the first study of its kind to the researcher’s knowledge to apply focal concerns theory with PSM to understand traffic stop searches.

The Issue of Racial Profiling in Traffic Stop Citations

This study addresses racial profiling when the traffic stop outcome is a citation. This study uses focal concerns theory as a theoretical explanation for police officer decision-making while using propensity score matching to provide similarly situated drivers based on race and/or gender. This study uses traffic stop data (N = 48,586) collected by the Louisville Police Department between January 1 and December 31, 2002. The statistical results show that focal concerns theory components matter the most for traffic stop data even though racial profiling is still an issue. Propensity score matching is a statistical technique that provides a better way to determine whether racial profiling was evident. Gender was not significant for female drivers. This study advances our understanding of race and traffic stop citations using a theoretical explanation.