Shedding Light On Police Culture: An Examination Of Officers’ Occupational Attitudes

Research on police culture has generally fallen within one of two competing camps—one that depicts culture as an occupational phenomenon that encompasses all police officers and one that focuses on officer differences. The latter conceptualization of police culture suggests subcultures (or at least segmentation) that bound or delimit the occupational culture. Using survey data collected as part of the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN) in two municipal police departments, the research reported here examines the similarities and differences among contemporary police officer attitudes in an effort to locate some of the boundaries of the occupational culture of police. Seven analytically distinct groups of officers are identified, suggesting that officers are responding to and coping with aspects of their occupational world in different ways. The findings call into question some of the assumptions associated with a monolithic police culture. © 2004, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved

Taking Stock: Toward A Richer Understanding Of Police Culture

Police researchers have long speculated on the importance that culture plays in the everyday functioning of officers. Most characterizations of police culture focus on describing the various elements and facets of a single phenomenon among occupational members (e.g., group loyalty, crime fighter image, organizational tension with supervisors, etc.). Little work has been done in synthesizing what we know about this occupational culture, as textbook depictions highlight broad generalizations that tend to differ from text to text. A conceptual model of the police occupational culture is presented here that explains its causes, prescriptions, and outcomes. This monolithic model is then critiqued based on research that highlights the complexity of culture, noting variation across organizations and within by rank and style. The article also assesses the ways in which police culture thought is beginning to change, as departments diversify demographically and philosophically. The article concludes with recommendations for future studies of police culture. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Conducted Energy Devices (Ceds) And Citizen Injuries: The Shocking Empirical Reality

Embrittlement of ductile structural members, whether under the presence of static or cyclic loading, can occur when surrounded by a corrosive environment. Several examples of catastrophic failures due to a form of environmentally assisted cracking (EAC) are available, with the failures of Liberty Ship hulls most commonly referred. Liquid metal embrittlement (LME) is a subset of EAC that results in the embrittlement of structural materials when intimately contacted by specific liquid metals. Several theories exist with the goal of identifying the key microstructural failure mechanism; however, most cannot account for all solid-liquid couples and do not incorporate a form of load dependency. Static and dynamic mechanical testing of notched and cracked specimens, respectively, was implemented to identify the dominant microstructural failure mechanisms and incorporate a load dependency on the life expectation of components. Results reveal crack initiation life behavior that is dependent on the time and load that the structural component remains subjected to LME conditions. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd

Police Education, Experience, And The Use Of Force

Police researchers have devoted a considerable amount of empirical attention to testing the impact college education has on police performance. The counterargument to the education debate is that experience, in learning the police craft, is what contributes to differences in performance. The current study adds to both lines of research by examining the impact of education and experience on one of the core features of the police role: the use of coercion. The findings indicate that varying levels of education and experience are related to differences in the use of coercion in encounters with citizens. Encounters involving officers with any college education result in significantly less verbal force compared to those with a high school education. However, only those encounters involving officers with a 4-year degree result in significantly less physical force. Finally, encounters involving officers with greater experience result in less verbal and physical force. © 2007 American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

Police Use Of Less Lethal Force: Does Administrative Policy Matter?

Scholars have long theorized that constraining police officer discretion via organizational policy improves decision-making. Empirically, prior research shows that more restrictive lethal force policies result in a reduction in the number of police shootings and in racial disparity. Yet, researchers have never examined the impact of less lethal force policies in relation to the full spectrum of less lethal force tactics. In addressing this research void, we examine 3,340 use of force incidents from three US agencies, each varying in terms of policy direction and restrictiveness. The results consistently show that officers working within the most restrictive policy framework used force less readily than officers who operated within more permissive policy environments. Hence, police administrators wishing to reduce coercion should consider the potential effect that a more restrictive policy may have on such behavior

The Impact Of Police Culture On Traffic Stop Searches: An Analysis Of Attitudes And Behavior

Purpose - To examine the extent to which cultural fragmentation among police officers results in differences in searches of suspects and their surroundings during proactive traffic stops. Design/methodology/approach - Cluster and multivariate analyses are performed utilizing survey and observational data collected as part of the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN). Findings - Differences in search behavior among patrol officers are found as a result of variation in cultural alignments. That is, patrol officers that adhere to the culture (in varying degrees) from an attitudinal standpoint are more likely to engage in searches than those who most ardently resist cultural attitudes. Research limitations/implications - Although the classification scheme captured many of the core attitudes associated with police culture, it did not measure all of them. Also, the departments studied would compare to most American municipal police organizations, but would make poor comparisons to very large urban or small rural agencies, where culture might operate in different ways. Practical implications - Police administrators can use this information if they wished to alter the rate at which search behavior occurs. Originality/value - This study fills a research void in policing by examining whether attitudinal variation in cultural commitment results in different behavioral patterns. This work also adds to a larger body of social science research by finding an attitude-behavior relationship. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited