Laura Huey

‘I’ve seen this on CSI’: Criminal investigators' perceptions about the management of public expectations in the field

Police perceptions as to the influence of CSI and similar forensic and/or police procedural television programs on public expectations of the investigative process in the field is the focus of the present study. Through qualitative interviews with 31 members of Canadian police forces, I explore the question of whether police investigative personnel view media representations of their work as negatively influencing public expectations, thereby creating a source of occupational role strain for police officers. What is revealed is that the majority of investigative personnel interviewed have experienced citizen queries and demands attributed to consumption of unrealistic images of police work in television programs. Where a minority of investigators report feelings of frustration due to the role strain associated with having their expert knowledge and work methods questioned, the majority of those interviewed saw such queries as opportunities for educating the public about the realities of policing.

‘Uppity civilians’ and ‘cyber-vigilantes’: The role of the general public in policing cyber-crime:

The distributed nature of the Internet requires that security issues be addressed through collaborative efforts within and across various sets of public and private actors. Drawing on nodal governance theory, this article explores one aspect of the role that the general public can and does play in the field of cyber-security: civilian policing of the Internet. In particular, we examine the motives and actions of regular citizens, who use their computer skills to identify, track and collect information on the activities of suspected criminal offenders. Whereas some groups use such information to engage in vigilante acts, the groups that we study work cooperatively with police, collecting information to pass onto criminal justice agencies. We suggest that these collectives and their members are a potentially useful, if under-valued, component of cyber-security networks.

“If Something Happened, I Will Leave It, Let It Go and Move On”: Resiliency and Victimized Homeless Women’s Attitudes Toward Mental Health Counseling

In the present study, we draw on interviews conducted with 60 homeless women (N = 60) in Detroit and Chicago about their experiences of violent criminal victimization and their attitudes toward accessing various postvictimization assistance—in particular, mental health counseling. Contrary to the research literature, which tends to overemphasize pathological responses to victimization within this population, what our data reveals is the extent to which victimized homeless women exhibit signs of resiliency through both attitudes and coping behaviors. Further, their expressed attitudes demonstrate the existence of a complex set of relationships between trauma, resiliency, and the desire to access mental health services. These findings we suggest have implications for the delivery of mental health services to this group.

‘This isn’t what I signed up for’ When police officer role expectations conflict with the realities of general duty police work in remote communities

Although some insight into the sources and scope of occupational stress among rural police officers exists, historically, researchers have focused largely on their policing styles, rather than the relationship between what officers do and how they feel about their work as police in rural jurisdictions. To address this lacuna in knowledge and literature, we draw on data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 active police officers, each of whom is presently assigned to one of seven rural police detachments in a province in Eastern Canada and field observation of police working in a rural detachment in this same province. In adopting a role theory perspective, we first reveal how officers operationalize their roles as law enforcers, peacekeepers, social workers and/or knowledge workers. We then examine their experiences of role strain as a result of mismatches between their desired versus actual occupational role(s). The majority of officers aspired to hold either the law enforcement or social worker role, which they saw as being most closely associated with their perceptions of what it means to be a ‘police officer’. However, most felt they performed tasks related to less desirable roles, which was tied to role strain. Training recommendations are discussed for officers recruited for rural policing.

‘All it takes is one TV show to ruin it’: a police perspective on police-media relations in the era of expanding prime time crime markets

In this article, we draw on interviews conducted with Canadian police investigators for a study of mass media representations of police work to better understand their unique perspectives on the nature of police-media relations. In contrast to the orthodox position of the policing literature that holds that police are the dominant partner in the police-media relationship, investigators interviewed felt that they had lost control over representations of their work in media stories. This loss of control is attributed, in large part, to the pressure placed on reporters to feed an insatiable public appetite for crime-related stories. Particularly, worrying for investigators is the belief that they are no longer able to maintain secrecy over their investigative activities and techniques – a shift that they see as having a significant negative impact on their work. What is required, officers believe, is better collaborative means of working with news media outlets.

I Need Help and I Know I Need Help. Why Won’t Nobody Listen to Me?: Trauma and Homeless Women’s Experiences with Accessing and Consuming Mental Health Services

In the present study, we draw on interviews conducted with 79 homeless women in Detroit and Chicago to reveal the extent to which women in our sample have experienced multiple forms of trauma and other significant stressors over their life course, events that we show have had serious negative effects on their mental and emotional well-being. We then look at their ability to access counseling services and consider barriers to service use. For those women who have utilized counseling services, we examine their reported satisfaction with the services accessed and identify certain deficiencies. Based on our findings, we conclude that it could reasonably be argued that the ‘pathological homeless woman’ is a construct tied to women’s experiences with a health care system that frequently fails them.

‘Folks Should Have Access … How You Do it is the Difficult Thing’: exploring the importance of leadership to maintaining community policing programmes for the homeless

In the present paper we examine the operation of a community policing programme that facilitates reporting of victimisation by homeless victims of crime through the assistance of local community service providers. Using data from two sources – our original study of Homeless Remote Reporting in 2003 and a follow-up evaluation conducted in 2008 – we examine the extent to which this programme offers a viable model for policing outreach to homeless communities. Based on stakeholder feedback, we conclude that despite positive endorsements of the programme, this is a programme that is largely defunct because of a lack of leadership. The police have abdicated responsibility for its operation and community groups are unable to assume the responsibility. What we draw from the example that this programme provides is that innovative collaborative modes of governance must take into account ‘the unbearable lightness of community’ and thus the necessity of state actors maintaining active leadership roles.

There Is No Strength in Emotions: The Role of Street Enculturation in Influencing How Victimized Homeless Women Speak About Violence

This article is based on analysis of 76 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with homeless women in Los Angeles. What is revealed are three patterns of street enculturation—“low-,” “medium-,” and “high street”— which are linked to attitudes women professed to hold about violence. In essence, the degree to which a woman had adopted a “street orientation” is seen to influence how she spoke of violence during earlier portions of the interview. However, several “medium-street” and “high-street” women subsequently acknowledged (directly or indirectly) that they were “fronting” for the interviewer to preserve a tough façade. When they opened up about their real feelings, the extent to which they had internalized the trauma of violence was revealed. Implications of these findings are explored.

Explaining Odlin Road: Insecurity and Exclusivity

The multiple layers of inclusion and exclusion that exist within a community that prides itself on being tolerant are explored through a case study of protests against a local recovery home for addicts. The basing of exclusionary and coercive inclusionary demands in both culture and democratic rights, leads the author to argue that the identity politics fostered by multiculturalism is divisive, and ultimately runs counter to the wider aims of social justice. The author advocates instead for an emancipatory politics - multidimensionalism - that seeks to resolve and accommodate differences based in class, race, gender, sexuality and marginalized status through community building efforts, and at the level of the state.

To what extent do Canadian police professionals believe that their agencies are ‘Targeting, Testing, and Tracking’ new policing strategies and programs?

Abstract Some researchers suggest that police professionals see little value in adopting evidence based approaches to tackle policing challenges. To examine this issue, 586 Canadian police professionals were surveyed. We explore responses to one particular question, which caused 353 respondents to reflect on whether they think their agencies enact evidence based policing (EBP) principles in daily operations; specifically, the principles of targeting, testing, and tracking the implementation of new policing strategies. Mixed views were expressed by respondents in relation to their agency’s ability to target high priority policing problems and to test strategies for fixing these problems. However, views were overwhelmingly negative when respondents reflected on how well they thought their agencies track the effectiveness of strategies over time. If these views accurately describe how agencies target, test, and track the implementation of policing strategies, they underline potential challenges associated with the adoption of EBP in Canadian police organizations.