IntroductionIn the City of Canton v. Harris (1989), the Supreme Court held that inadequate police training may result in the imposition of municipal liability when the failure to train could be construed as a deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of persons with whom the police come into contact (Alpert and Smith, 1991). With recent events such as the Rodney King beating and the O.J. Simpson investigation by Los Angeles police, law enforcement training has come under scrutiny from the public, police and academics, some of whom claim that the current police training does not address the needs of the profession (Ness, 1991). Overall assessment of the content of police training has concluded that "no matter what basic training standards are adopted, law enforcement agencies are still not meeting their educational and training objectives" (Edwards, 1993, p. 24; Champion, 1990). To date, there is disagreement over the appropriate curriculum, format and instructors that comprise effective police training. Various police academy formats have been suggested (Satterfield, 1985(Satterfield, , 1986, some of which are outlined in Tables I and II. This shows that California has 12 areas of required study and other police basic training curriculums include other topics as well (Bintliff, 1993;Berg, 1994). The exact content of police training programs is determined by each individual state (Trautman, 1986).Both practitioners and academics agree that the primary function of police training is to help an officer perform the job (Ness, 1991). The question remains, however, if the training for future police effectively prepares them for the job. In a study of police academy training, Ness (1991) finds that the police officers responding to questions on how well the academy trained them for the job rated their training "adequate". However, 48 percent rated it "somewhat inadequate". This suggests that, according to police themselves, the academy training does not completely prepare them to perform the tasks related to their required duties. Many of them suggest that the academy needed more "hands on" training. Other suggestions for improvement include improving the quality of instructors and instruction and improving the quantity and length of training.In a later study of police academy training, Brand and Peak (1995) ask a series of questions, including: "are we furnishing proper training to police recruits? How can we determine whether or not the academy curriculum is adequate for entry-level officers? How do we know if the curriculum is comprehensible and useful to new officers on the street?" (Brand and Peak, 1995, p. 45).

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Research in presidential agenda setting in domestic policy arenas is lacking, and this study seeks to address this inadequacy in the research. Presidential agendas in crime control from 1963-1990 are examined to trace patterns over time and to examine individual presidential behavior. Five hypotheses concerning patterns of agenda setting are tested, none of which are supported to any great extent in the analysis. The analysis demonstrates that domestic agenda setting follows different patterns from those of international agenda setting, at least in this one particular domestic arena.

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Past research on presidential rhetoric about crime shows that presidents use crime rhetoric in a specific manner. When talking about crime, they are most likely to use symbolic statements that are designed to make people feel satisfied about government action. To date, no research has analyzed how governors employ political language related to crime. The current study draws on hypotheses derived from research related to the federal executive and applies them to the 50 state executives. A content analysis of 7 years (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008) of governors' State of the State speeches was conducted to assess how governors employ the issue of crime in their political communication.Overall, the results show that governors rarely follow the same patterns as presidents when speaking to their constituents about crime.

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Calderia and Cowart published an article that theorized that presidents are responsive in their budgetary responsibilities to increases in official crime rates. The scope of their study was the years 1935 to 1975, and their findings supported their theory that presidents were engaged in substantive policy making. The current study replicates and updates the original research to determine if presidents continue this pattern of increasing budgets to fight increases in reported crime, as originally theorized. The authors theorize that in more recent years, criminal justice policy became more symbolic and is often a gesture used by presidents to gain political and popular support. This study finds that in the time frame after the original study, the same patterns do not hold true, and budgetary allocations are no longer responsive to the rise and fall in official crime rates, thus demonstrating support for the theory of symbolics.