The Physical Hazards of Police Work Revisited

This study examines the extent to which injuries to police officers have changed from 1996-1998 to 2006-2008. Data were obtained from injury reports filed by sworn officers of the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Police Department. Results indicated that the frequency and rate (injury incidents per officer) of officer assaults, other suspect-related injuries, and accidents declined during the study period. While the specification of the reasons for these changes remains a topic for future research, the decline in assaults and suspect-related injuries may well be a function of the increased availability and more routine use of less lethal technology, enhanced training, and the more common use of protective equipment

The Role of Officer Attributes, Job Characteristics, and Arrest Activity in Explaining Police Use of Force

While numerous studies have examined the causes, correlates, and control of police use of force, many questions remain. This study contributes to the literature on police use of force by examining the role of officers’ background characteristics, job characteristics (patrol area and shift assignment), and arrest activity in explaining variation in the frequency with which officers use force. Analyses were conducted on 1,084 police officers employed in a large municipal police department. Use of force data were obtained from 477 official departmental reports from 2010. Results suggest that a small proportion of officers are responsible for a large proportion of force incidents, and that officers who frequently use force differ in important and significant ways from officers who use force less often (or not at all). Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed

Salmonella Biofilm Formation on Aspergillus niger Involves Cellulose – Chitin Interactions

Salmonella cycles between host and nonhost environments, where it can become an active member of complex microbial communities. The role of fungi in the environmental adaptation of enteric pathogens remains relatively unexplored. We have discovered that S. enterica Typhimurium rapidly attaches to and forms biofilms on the hyphae of the common fungus, Aspergillus niger. Several Salmonella enterica serovars displayed a similar interaction, whereas other bacterial species were unable to bind to the fungus. Bacterial attachment to chitin, a major constituent of fungal cell walls, mirrored this specificity. Pre-incubation of S. Typhimurium with N-acetylglucosamine, the monomeric component of chitin, reduced binding to chitin beads by as much as 727-fold and inhibited attachment to A. niger hyphae considerably. A cellulose-deficient mutant of S. Typhimurium failed to attach to chitin beads and to the fungus. Complementation of this mutant with the cellulose operon restored binding to chitin beads to 79% of that of the parental strain and allowed for attachment and biofilm formation on A. niger, indicating that cellulose is involved in bacterial attachment to the fungus via the chitin component of its cell wall. In contrast to cellulose, S. Typhimurium curli fimbriae were not required for attachment and biofilm development on the hyphae but were critical for its stability. Our results suggest that cellulose–chitin interactions are required for the production of mixed Salmonella-A. niger biofilms, and support the hypothesis that encounters with chitinaceous alternate hosts may contribute to the ecological success of human pathogens

The Mid-infrared Instrument for JWST and Its In-flight Performance

The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) extends the reach of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to 28.5 μm. It provides subarcsecond-resolution imaging, high sensitivity coronagraphy, and spectroscopy at resolutions of λ/Δλ ∼ 100-3500, with the high-resolution mode employing an integral field unit to provide spatial data cubes. The resulting broad suite of capabilities will enable huge advances in studies over this wavelength range. This overview describes the history of acquiring this capability for JWST. It discusses the basic attributes of the instrument optics, the detector arrays, and the cryocooler that keeps everything at approximately 7 K. It gives a short description of the data pipeline and of the instrument performance demonstrated during JWST commissioning. The bottom line is that the telescope and MIRI are both operating to the standards set by pre-launch predictions, and all of the MIRI capabilities are operating at, or even a bit better than, the level that had been expected. The paper is also designed to act as a roadmap to more detailed papers on different aspects of MIRI

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Relationship Between Gun and Gun Buyer Characteristics and Firearm Time-to-Crime

Gun violence continues to be a major crime control problem in many metropolitan cities in America. To comprehend this problem more completely, this study seeks to develop an understanding of the dynamics of illegal firearm markets in one particular city: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In particular, the characteristics of guns and gun buyers that are related to fast firearm time-to-crime are identified. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) trace data and Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Police Department (MPD) records associated with guns purchased at federally licensed gun dealers and subsequently confiscated by the MPD in 2005 (N = 1,563) are used. The results of the analyses revealed both the characteristics of the fast time-to-crime guns (large caliber, semiautomatic, sold at a particular Milwaukee gun dealer) and their buyers (minority females). The results highlight problematic gun sales and purchasing patterns that are suggestive of statutory changes, stronger regulatory measures, and supply-side gun market disruption efforts

Toward an Understanding of the Physical Hazards of Police Work

Most of the existing research on the hazards of police work concludes that policing is a dangerous occupation. The operationalization of dangerousness used by most researchers, however, fails to account for injuries and deaths that occur as a result of accidents, relying instead on the analysis of assaults and homicides. Defining dangerousness in this manner not only provides an incomplete picture of the dangers associated with the job but also precludes the comparison of policing to other occupations. Using injury report data from a police department and fire department in a large Midwestern city, this study contributes to knowledge in this area by (a) expanding the conceptualization of dangerousness to include injuries that occur as a result of accidents, (b) comparing accidental injuries to those that result from felonious acts, and (c) comparing injury incidents of varying natures and causes across occupations

Race, Gender, and Tokenism in Policing: An Empirical Elaboration

According to tokenism theory, “tokens” (those who comprise less than 15% of a group’s total) are expected to experience a variety of hardships in the workplace, such as feelings of heightened visibility, isolation, and limited opportunities for advancement. In the policing literature, most previous studies have defined tokenism narrowly in terms of gender. The current research extends prior research by examining tokenism as a function of gender and race, with an examination of racial/ethnic subgroups. Particular attention is paid to Latino officers as this study represents the first known study of tokenism and Latino police officers. Quantitative analyses reveal that, for the most part, token police officers do experience the effects of tokenism as predicted by tokenism theory. Although all minorities experienced some level of tokenism, Black males and Black females experienced greater levels of tokenism than Latino officers, suggesting that race is a stronger predictor of tokenism than gender