Police Science

ARSON AND ITS INVESTIGATION (police)

  Magnitude of the Problem According to the 2002 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), as compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 12,454 law enforcement agencies reported 74,921 arson offenses. In 1991, 11,845 law enforcement agencies reported 99,784 arson offenses. Since 1993, arson arrests have declined 20.5%. Average damage per arson offense in 2002 was $11,253, […]

ARREST POWERS OF THE POLICE

  The word arrest is derived from the French arreter, ”to stop, to obtain, to hinder, to obstruct.” Arrest is ”an ordinary English word” (Lord Eilhorne in Spicer v. Holt, 1976, 71), but it has acquired multiple meanings and measures for various criminal justice agencies, particularly the police. Arrest is legally defined as ”the apprehending […]

AMERICAN POLICING: EARLY YEARS

  Early American Policing (1600-1860) Police departments as we know them— organized, salaried bureaucracies, most of whose members wear uniforms—began in the United States in the generation before 1860. From the outset, the police department has been a multipurpose agency of municipal government, not just a component of the criminal justice system. New York police […]

ALCOHOL, DRUGS, AND CRIME (police)

  Overview The association between drug use and crime is complex. Little research support can be found for a single, specific, or direct cause-and-effect relationship between drug use and criminal activity, which is neither an inevitable consequence of illicit drug use (apart from the illegal nature of drug use itself), nor a necessary or sufficient […]

AUSTRALIAN POLICING

  Background: The Historical Context The centralized, state-based nature of policing in Australia is historically grounded in the colonial history of Australia, which was settled by England in 1788 as a convict colony. The first colonies in Australia were in New South Wales (NSW) and what is now called “Tasmania” (formerly Van Die-man’s Land). Most […]

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE POLICE: OVERVIEW

  There is a rich tradition of research on attitudes toward the police (ATP) in American police scholarship. The principal focus has been on the attitudes of adult citizens, but a smaller body of ATP research has been conducted with juveniles. Researchers in this area commonly use community surveys as their main strategy for data […]

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE POLICE: MEASUREMENT ISSUES

  The use of surveys as a tool to assess police-citizen interactions dates back to the 1970s in the United States and the United Kingdom. Although early surveys established that most people are supportive of the police and satisfied with the way they perform their duties, they also identified segments of the population (especially blacks, […]

ATLANTA POLICE DEPARTMENT

  Ranking as the largest law enforcement agency in the state of Georgia, the Atlanta Police Department (APD) of 1,732 sworn officers serves the resident population of approximately 425,000 Atlanta citizens as well as the thousands of commuters who travel to the city to work. Its mission is simple: Reduce crime and promote the quality […]

ASSESSMENT CENTERS, PERSONNEL (police)

  Employee selection is an important human resources decision, especially in policing where employees are protected by civil service regulations and union contracts once they have served a probationary appointment. If an agency makes the wrong selection decision, it may have to retain a mediocre employee. Thus, the selection process is the most critical of […]

BOSTON COMMUNITY POLICING

  Development of Neighborhood Policing Community policing in Boston, known as neighborhood policing, developed from a high level of community dissatisfaction with the policing strategies and tactics engaged in by the Boston Police Department. Like many American cities during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the city of Boston suffered an epidemic of youth violence […]

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