Ecological Influences on State Police District Activity

Abstract

Ecological explanations for differences in aggregate-level officer activity across districts within a police agency have been tested within the context of municipal police agencies, but have yet to be tested at the state police level. Using data publicly available from the Indiana State Police Department and the US Census Bureau, district ecological factors such as crime rate, social disorganisation level, calls for service, supervisor span of control, perceived danger, and proportion of probationary officers were investigated for their relationship to several district-level outputs. Unlike similar studies involving municipal law enforcement agencies, the factors with the highest predictive value of district outputs were the level of calls for service, crime rate, and supervisor span of control. The potential research differences between municipal and state police agencies are also discussed.

A partial test of the ecological theory

“…These measures, however, were significantly related to an increase in the drug arrest rate in only one model. With respect to the drug arrest behaviour the findings here are consistent with other studies that examine the decision-making of a police officer when handling an incident (Johnson and Billings, 2010; Johnson and Olschansky, 2010; Sobol, 2010a). It should be recalled that this study used substantively smaller work areas than these scholars, yet the results are similar.…”

“…number of vehicle stops, average number of criminal arrests, percentage of vehicle stops resulting in a ticket, percentage of misdemeanour arrests). Higher levels of enforcement were related to higher levels of calls for service (Johnson and Billings 2010; Johnson and Olschansky 2010), which is contrary to the propositions of the ecological theory. It may be that Johnson’s ‘districts’ suffered an even greater spatial problem than Sobol’s (2010a) work, because the state police districts utilised were larger than 1000 square miles.…”