Matthew J. Hickman

Organizational, Administrative, and Environmental Correlates of Complaints About Police Use of Force Does Minority Representation Matter?

Minority representation among police personnel, relative to the communities they serve, has long been advanced as an explanatory factor for the prevalence of negative police—public interactions as well as police agency responsiveness to public concerns, particularly with regard to the use of force. But minority representation has rarely been studied empirically and on a large scale. The present study examined minority representation and additional organizational, administrative, and environmental correlates of citizen complaints about police use of force in 496 large municipal police departments. Data were drawn from the 2003 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Results indicate that (a) rates of force complaints were higher among agencies having greater spatial differentiation, internal affairs units, and higher violent crime rates; (b) the percentage of complaints sustained was higher among agencies characterized by greater formalization and lower where collective bargaining was authorized for officers; and (c) minority representation was unrelated to complaint rates nor to the percentage of complaints sustained. Implications for the policing literature as well as future refinements for the LEMAS survey are discussed.

Effect of forensic evidence on criminal justice case processing

This study examined the role and impact of forensic evidence on case‐processing outcomes in a sample of 4205 criminal cases drawn from five U.S. jurisdictions. Regression analyses demonstrated that forensic evidence played a consistent and robust role in case‐processing decisions. Still, the influence of forensic evidence is time‐ and examination‐dependent: the collection of crime scene evidence was predictive of arrest, and the examination of evidence was predictive of referral for charges, as well as of charges being filed, conviction at trial, and sentence length. The only decision outcome in which forensic evidence did not have a general effect was with regard to guilty plea arrangements. More studies are needed on the filtering of forensic evidence in different crime categories, from the crime scene to its use by investigators, prosecutors, and fact‐finders, and to identify factors that shape decisions to collect evidence, submit it to laboratories, and request examinations.

Mapping Police Stress

Research on police stress has developed out of several theoretical frameworks, but the knowledge base is limited by a common reliance on self-report stress measures. This article describes an innovative approach to studying police stress that attempts to overcome some of these limitations by using direct, real-time, and spatially anchored measurement of an officer’s stress response (via heart rate) during shift work. A pilot study was conducted using a single officer to determine whether this methodology is feasible for future studies. The pilot study demonstrated that continuous heart rate measurement over the course of the test officer’s shift was possible and that these data could be placed in space-time context for purposes of exploring potential stress “hot spots.” Overall, the results indicate that the methodology is both feasible and suitable for systematic studies of police stress, with the potential to advance our understanding of when, where, and why officers experience stress. Potential benefits, limitations, challenges of implementation, and future directions are discussed.

Reliability of the Force Factor Method in Police Use-of-Force Research

The force factor method has garnered much attention and application in police use-of-force research, but the reliability of the method has yet to be intensively studied. Using official reports from the Seattle Police Department during a two-and-a-quarter-year period (n = 1,240), officer–suspect interactions were coded from the content of report narratives. Static force factors compared the maximum force applied by the officer with the maximum level of suspect resistance. Dynamic force factors were also recorded, including up to 10 iterations of dyadic action/reaction coded using the same coding scheme. The coding of force factors was completed independently by two teams working at different institutions in a fully crossed design. Evidence on the interrater reliability and subsequent utility of force factors is presented and discussed. Results indicate acceptable levels of agreement across coding teams and support the use of force factors as a central tool for studying asymmetrical social encounters and the proportionality of force.

A descriptive evaluation of the Seattle Police Department's crisis response team officer/mental health professional partnership pilot program.

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) recently enhanced their response to individuals in behavioral crisis through a pilot Crisis Response Team (CRT) consisting of dedicated Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) officers (OFC) paired with a Mental Health Professional (MHP). This study presents results of an incident-based descriptive evaluation of the SPDs CRT pilot program, implemented from 2010 to 2012. The purpose of the evaluation was to determine the value-added by the MHP in cases involving individuals in behavioral crisis as well as the effectiveness of the CRT program with regard to resolution time, repeat contacts, and referral to services. Data were collected from SPD general offense and supplemental reports for a 12-month segment of the program. Key variables included incident location, case clearance, repeat contacts, linkages to services, and case disposition. Results of analyses of general offense and supplemental reports are presented and implications for future development of the OFC/MHP partnership are discussed.

A Preliminary Assessment of Small World Scholarship Networks in Criminology and Criminal Justice

The present study applies small world network analysis to 727 articles from Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency to assess scholarship collaboration trends within criminology and criminal justice (CCJ). Findings indicate that CCJ scholars tend to collaborate (versus sole author) on a great number of peer‐reviewed efforts, with several scholars collaborating with well over 10, and as many as 40, unique (non‐redundant) co‐authors. Consistent with the structure of scientific collaboration networks where scientists are separated by short paths of intermediates, Alex R. Piquero is found to be the most collaborative scholar in this sample and also the best center (central vertex) in the collaboration graph by linking to other scholars, on average, by only 3.6 degrees of separation. To further illustrate combinatorial patterns among CCJ scholars, this study also offers a descriptive and graphical analogue to the “Erdös number” from mathematics (here, the “Piquero number”), focusing on co‐authorship branching from first‐tier collaborators. In our view, small world analysis holds promise in better understanding far‐reaching collaboration patterns by the CCJ professoriate.

Crime Laboratory Personnel as Criminal Justice Decision Makers: A Study of Controlled Substance Case Processing in Ten Jurisdictions

Abstract The crime laboratory has not typically been thought of as a decision stage within the criminal justice process. However, increasing reliance on forensic evidence has led to necessary discretion about what types of cases to accept, what evidence to analyze, and how to prioritize workload. This article reports the results of semi-structured interviews conducted with state and local police agencies, prosecutors, and crime laboratory personnel in ten U.S. jurisdictions. The focus is on controlled substances cases, which represent a substantial proportion of the case workload for crime laboratories, as well as for the police and prosecutors. Results demonstrate that communication between crime laboratories, the police, and prosecutors is essential to maximizing the efficient use of limited laboratory resources. Poor communication can contribute to overflowing police evidence rooms, confusion about evidence retention policies, rushed and unnecessary laboratory requests, and the generation of “artificial backlogs” in crime laboratories. A key for improving coordination was the presence of effective laboratory submission guidelines and case tracking systems. These factors were associated with reductions in both the number of controlled substance cases pending analysis and the analysis turnaround time. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Expanding the measurement of police integrity

Purpose – Klockars et al. use scenario methodology to measure perceived seriousness, level of discipline warranted, and willingness to report fellow officers engaged in various negative behaviors. These data are used to characterize the occupational culture of integrity in a given agency, relative to other agencies. What remains unclear is whether these agency-level findings mask important meso- and micro-level variation in the data (i.e. at the precinct/district and officer levels) that may contribute to a more complete understanding of an agency’s culture of integrity. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This study replicates and extends Klockars et al.’s work using data from a survey administered to 499 Philadelphia police officers, with the goal of both validating their methodological approach and exploring the need for multi-level theory in the study of police integrity. In addition to comparing the results from Philadelphia to those obtained by Klockars et al., the ...

Validity of Officer Self-Reported Citizen Complaints: A Research Note

This research note explores the use of self-report surveys in police samples to study citizen complaints. Officer self-reported citizen complaints are compared with official departmental complaints data among a sample of 440 officers in a large municipal police department. Findings reflect moderate correspondence between self-reported and official data for ever having been the subject of a complaint (data correspond for 77% of respondents; phi = .54). Validity appears stronger for dichotomous measures of complaints, compared with frequency measures, though correspondence was high among those officers self-reporting the frequency of complaints (data were within ±1 complaint for 78.5% of these respondents; r = .81 after removing outliers). Demographic correlates are similar for both official and self-report data. Results generally support the use of self-report surveys in police samples to study citizen complaints.

National Data on Citizen Complaints About Police Use of Force Data Quality Concerns and the Potential (Mis)Use of Statistical Evidence to Address Police Agency Conduct

National data on citizen complaints about police use of force were collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 2003 and 2007. These data are a critical component of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) overall response to 42 USC 14142, which requires the Attorney General to “acquire data about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.” The BJS data have the potential to help support democratic policing, provide baseline data on use of force for comparative statistical reporting and research purposes, and enable strong local checks on police abuses, provided their validity and reliability can be demonstrated. This study sought to assess the validity and reliability of the BJS data. Findings indicate that the BJS data suffer from serious measurement flaws, do not provide a valid and reliable basis for comparative statistical reporting and research purposes, and should not be relied on for purposes of litigation.