Richard R. Bennett

Determinants of fear of crime: The effect of cultural setting

During the past 10 years, a body of literature has emerged to identify determinants of fear of crime such as neighborhood conditions, victimization experiences, and demographic characteristics. Few conceptual models have been developed, however, which explore simultaneously the relative explanatory value of these determinants, and no research to date has examined the effects of these models across divergent cultural settings. This research extends the fear of crime literature in two ways: by investigating the simultaneous relationships among the aforementioned factors and by estimating the effects of cultural setting on fear of crime. Using survey data based on interviews with citizens in cities in the United States and in Belize, we estimate the model and make comparisons within and across models. Although the relative effects of the variables in the model are different in magnitude, the findings show that similar factors predict fear of crime in both cultural settings.

Police in a Time of Change

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Comparative criminology and criminal justice research: The state of our knowledge

The events of September 11, 2001 fueled interest in cross-national and especially transnational crime. What had been relegated to isolated interest sections in scholarly organizations suddenly became front page copy in the news media. Is this heightened interest in comparative research only a fleeting reaction to the immediacy of the terrorist attacks or will interest and research continue to grow and expand the comparative field in criminology and criminal justice? This presidential address attempts to help formalize the field of cross- and multinational research by presenting a typology of comparative studies. The benefits of comparative research as well as the impediments to the comparative approach are then explored. Finally, the future of comparative criminology and criminal justice is addressed through an examination of the role of professional organizations, university curricula, funding agencies and individual scholars in advancing the field.

Economic Assistance and Crime: A Cross-National Investigation

Many countries struggle with the question of appropriate social welfare spending. Here we test several hypotheses about the dynamics between social welfare spending and crime. We do so using pooled, cross-national time-series data. Our findings suggest that per capita social welfare spending is associated with lower rates of both theft and homicide. Time lagged analysis suggests that the current level of social welfare spending, not that of recent years, accounts for any possible suppression of crime. The data also suggest that, whereas high homicide rates do not appear to inspire increased social welfare generosity, lagged measures of theft rates are associated with subsequent increases in social welfare spending among high theft countries.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES: A PROFILE

Various commissions from the Wickersham (1931) to the National Advisory Commission on Higher Education for Police (1978) have calledfor the upgrading of police educational levels. Junior colleges, colleges and universities have responded by creating a plethora of educational programs. However, currently, little is known about the nature, form, or practice of criminal justice education in the United States. In attempting to fill this void, data from the Law Enforcement Education Program (LEEP) are presented concerning the number of students, criminal justice majors, and degrees awarded as well as institutional control, location, and type. These previously unpublished data are presented in a primary form Cfrequency distributions and cross-tabulations) to allow the reader to draw conclusions about the nature and scope of criminal justice education. Brief interpretations, however, are provided.

Development, gender, and crime: The scope of the routine activities approach

In the past 15 years, the routine activities approach has gained considerable popularity in explaining crime rates. Its explanations are offered, however, without considering the approachs theoretical scope. Recent research suggests that the explanatory power of the perspective might differ across level of economic development and mens and womens arrest rates. To address the issue of theoretical applicability, separate regression equations are estimated for the scope conditions of development and gender, using cross-national time-series analyses. The findings suggest that the explanatory power differs when the scope conditions of development and gender are applied. The routine activities approach appears to explain minor theft arrest rates most accurately for men in developed nations. In less developed nations, none of the four routine activities indicators showed a relationship with mens theft arrest rates. Two indicators, motivation and guardianship, evidenced a relationship with womens minor theft...

Testing the Effects of Procedural Justice and Overaccommodation in Traffic Stops: A Randomized Experiment

Research shows that perceptions of procedural justice influence people’s trust, confidence, and obligation to obey law and legal authorities as well as their willingness to cooperate with and support legal authorities. Interpersonal interaction styles that are central to procedural justice theory also play a key role in communication accommodation theory (CAT). Based on video clips depicting a police traffic stop, we use a randomized experiment to test the effects of procedural justice and overaccommodation on trust in police, willingness to cooperate with police, and obligation to obey police and the law. The results demonstrate that procedural justice has more powerful effects than overaccommodation on reported trust and confidence in the officer, as well as respondents’ obligation to obey and willingness to cooperate with the officer. Moreover, although procedural justice generated strong effects on encounter-specific attitudes, it did not exert any effect on more general attitudes toward police.

Excessive force: A comparative study of police in the Caribbean

Police scholars attribute police use of excessive force to various factors including individual characteristics, situational contingencies, organizational determinants and leadership styles. Most research investigating the determinants of excessive use of force concerns deadly force among urban police agencies in developed nations, primarily the United States. Only recently has research attention focused on excessive force that is less than lethal. This research reports the findings of a study on police perceptions regarding the use of less-than-lethal excessive force in three Caribbean nations. A model is developed based on current literature from developed nations that specifies the relationships among situational, individual, and organizational factors and the use of excessive force as measured by observations, interviews, and surveys. A questionnaire collected data from 672 street-level constables and their immediate supervisors. Observations of constables, interviews with their supervisors, and inter...

Police work in the Caribbean – The influence of gender and nation

Over the past two decades, the growing number of women entering the police profession has challenged the historic male dominance of the occupation. Research from the USA and the UK has examined whether men and women police differ in their assessments of working conditions, occupational opportunities, and other aspects of police work. To date, however, no attempt has been made to conduct a quantitative study of gender across socio‐political contexts or to assess the applicability of models constructed in those two countries to Caribbean nations. This study employs survey data from a sample of police constables and their immediate supervisors in three Caribbean nations. The survey queried 1,237 constables and supervisors. A total of 11 per cent of the respondents were women. Constables were asked about various aspects of policing, working conditions, and the nature of their duties. The questions were based on 24 constructs evaluated in the US and UK literatures. Few differences between genders emerged from comparisons within nations, although such differences have been documented in the USA and UK. These findings suggest that gender models used in developed nations do not necessarily explain differences in developing nations. Differences were observed across the three nations, however. Implications for future research on gender and policing are discussed.

The Effect of Police Personnel Levels on Crime Clearance Rates: A Cross-National Analysis

A recent upsurge in governmental concern about police efficiency has produced a plethora of evaluative studies. Most of these studies have assumed a relationship between police activity and crime that has been, during the past eight years, seriously questioned. The present study investigates this relationship by employing a cross-national sample to resolve past methodological problems. Based on previous literature, the social conflict, economic, and political factors that confound the relationship between police personnel levels and crime clearance effects are identified and then controlled through regression analysis. The findings indicate that the number of police has a negative effect on clearance rates. However, its effect is minimal. In addition, the social structural characteristics of nations explain more variance in clearance rates than do the levels of police, as well as attenuate the observed relationship between the police personnel and crimes cleared by arrest. Of special interest is the findi...