Optimising the length of random breath tests: Results from the Queensland Community Engagement Trial

Abstract

Research suggests that the length and quality of police-citizen encounters affect policing outcomes. The Koper Curve, for example, shows that the optimal length for police presence in hot spots is between 14 and 15 minutes, with diminishing returns observed thereafter. Our study, using data from the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET), examines the impact of encounter length on citizen perceptions of police performance. QCET involved a randomised field trial, where 60 random breath test (RBT) traffic stop operations were randomly allocated to an experimental condition involving a procedurally just encounter or a business-as-usual control condition. Our results show that the optimal length of time for procedurally just encounters during RBT traffic stops is just less than 2 minutes. We show, therefore, that it is important to encourage and facilitate positive police-citizen encounters during RBT at traffic stops, while ensuring that the length of these interactions does not pass a point of diminishing returns.

Obeying the Rules of the Road: Procedural Justice, Social Identity and Normative Compliance

“…Funded by the Scottish Government to inform their Justice Strategy for Scotland, ScotCET aimed to replicate the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET) (see Mazerolle et al, 2011Mazerolle et al, , 2012, which tested whether the introduction of improved mechanisms for communicating procedural justice during routine encounters between police and members of the public could influence public opinion and promote legitimacy.…”

Overcoming cop culture? Organizational justice and police officers’ attitudes toward the public

“…Researchers have already begun to attempt to test empirically the impact on public perceptions of training officers in the principles of procedural justice (see e.g. Mazerolle et al, 2011). Future research could usefully examine more directly the potential impact of organizational justice on police officers' sub-cultural attitudes and behaviors.…”

“I'm Giving You a Lawful Order”: Dialogic Legitimacy in Sandra Bland's Traffic Stop

“…The extent to which officers attend to citizen questions and concerns has been used as a measure of citizen participation and police fairness in citizen surveys measuring procedural justice . Additionally, officer invitations for citizens to ask questions were an operationalization of citizen participation in sample scripts and approved key messages in the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (Mazerolle et al ) and in the Scotland Community Engagement Trial (MacQueen & Bradford ), two field trials of procedural justice. Questions therefore play an important role in procedural justice theory.…”

“… For example, “Police take time to listen to people” (Gau :195), “The police are responsive to the needs of citizens,” (Johnson et al :959) and “The police officer listened to me…” (Mazerolle et al :36).…”