Departmental Professionalism and Its Impact on Indicators of Violence in Police–Citizen Encounters

Abstract

Citizens' beliefs that officers are employing unnecessary or excessive levels of force can quickly erode police legitimacy and can lead to severe consequences including loss of life, civil disorder, criminal prosecution, and large civil judgments. Although scholars have devoted more than four decades of research to identifying the correlates of police-citizen violence, relatively little study has focused on the relationship between departmental measures of police professionalism and violent outcomes between citizens and officers. The current study uses data from the 2003 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey to examine the impact of five measures of departmental professionalism-(a) agency commitment to education (associate's degree requirement); (b) the number of hiring or screening standards; (c) the total number of training hours (academy, field training, and inservice); (d) female representation; and (e) agency commitment to community policing-on two indicators of police-citizen violence-(a) citizen complaints alleging excessive use of force and (b) reported assaults on officers-across 526 large municipal law enforcement agencies. Results from ordinary least squares regression analyses show that only departmental commitment to education was related to the police-citizen violence indicators, as agencies that require an associate's degree experienced fewer citizen complaints of use of force and fewer assaults on

A Systematic Social Observation Study of Police De-Escalation Tactics

“…Research also finds racial and ethnic minorities (Nix, Campbell, Byers, & Alpert, 2017;Paoline, Gau, & Terrill, 2017, but see Worrall, Bishopp, Zinser, Wheeler, & Phillips, 2018 and members of the lower class are more likely subjected to police force (Alpert, Dunham, & MacDonald, 2004;Terrill & Mastrofski, 2002). Organizational assessments have found agency structure, policies, training programs, and supervisory styles impact officer use of force (Alpert & MacDonald, 2001;Fyfe, 1979;Geller & Scott, 1992;Klinger, 2010;Riksheim & Chermak, 1993;Shjarback & White, 2016), while ecological approaches show how officer behavior may be shaped by the external environment (Jacobs & O'Brien, 1998;D. A. Smith, 1986;Terrill & Reisig, 2003;White, 2003).…”

National Police Reform Commissions: Evidence-Based Practices or Unfulfilled Promises?

“…Furthermore, higher proportions of women on the police force are correlated with increased sexual assault reporting and arrests (Meier & Nicholson-Crotty, 2006) and the reporting and clearance of rape cases (Schuck, 2018), whereas the presence of a woman chief of police is correlated with higher domestic violence arrests (Andrews & Miller, 2013). Nevertheless, other research has found no statistically significant differences when examining the link between the representation of women and civilian complaints, assaults against officers, or domestic violence arrests (Eitle, 2005; Shjarback & White, 2015; B. W. Smith & Holmes, 2003; S.…”

“…Doing so would utilize community input and support to mutually design custom-tailored policing strategies and approaches to community problems (Cordner, 2014; Gill et al, 2014). However, while viewed as an organizational philosophy or approach, scholars have empirically evaluated community policing as it pertains to specific programs or features of the COP philosophy such as the utilization or presence of foot patrols, community policing units, community policing plans, among others (see, for example, Barrick, Hickman, & Strom, 2014; Shjarback & White, 2015; B. W. Smith & Holmes, 2014).…”

“…Alternatively, some studies have shown no impact for college education on other policing outcomes, such as the likelihood of arrests and civilian searches (Rydberg & Terrill, 2010), police use of deadly force (Sherman & Blumberg, 1981), and civilian complaint rates (Cao & Huang, 2000). At the macro-level, when comparing departmental requirements, scholars have found police departments that require at least an associate degree had lower rates of civilian complaints about use of force (Shjarback & White, 2015) as well as lower civilian assaults against police officers (Ozkan, Worrall, & Piquero, 2016). However, other studies found no relationship exhibited between educational requirements and police use of force rates (B.…”

A typological approach to studying policing

“…For example, Fridell and colleagues (2009) evaluated the impact of a variety of policies and practices, including training hours, dispatch policies, and use of force reviews (among others), on violence against the police. Shjarback and White (2016) also assessed the effects of departmental professionalism, measured via education, hiring standards, and training hours (among others), on violence and complaints against the police (Cao and Huang (2000) used similar measures to predict citizen complaints as well). Other research has also examined the effects of collective bargaining policies on supplemental pay benefits (e.g., hazardous duty, shift differential, education incentive, and merit pay; Briggs et al 2008) and innovation practices (Morabito 2014).…”