Police Foundation

This paper takes advantage of a natural experiment involving subway station closures to examine how subway ridership is associated with the impact of robbery victimization within spatial network buffers immediately surrounding subway stations in Bronx (County), New York. The New York City subway system is the busiest in the USA, with an annual ridership estimated at 1.8 billion people. Key findings of this research include noteworthy relationships between robbery hot spots and subway stations, as well as substantial reductions in robbery frequency during temporary subway station closures, with larger reductions occurring in closer proximities to the subway stations. There was also a significant robbery pattern “normalization process” that occurred after the closed subway stations were reopened where robbery frequency returned to historically “normal” pre-closure levels. These notable decreases of crime in and around subway stations during the station closure time periods, as well as the prominent increases in robbery when subway stations reopened, should be taken into consideration when planning transit maintenance, conducting crime prevention initiatives, and scheduling crime control strategies.

Objectives: Determine how victims respond to interactions with officers who wear body cameras.

Victim compensation programs seek to alleviate adverse effects of victimization and repay victim losses. A few studies have concluded that US compensation programs are under-utilized because victims are unaware of such programs and police officers overlook sharing the information. The present study sought to further explore this issue from the perspective of state compensation directors and police executives. Survey respondents were asked their opinions about police officers’ basic knowledge of victims’ compensation programs, reasons for under-utilization of the programs, and the most effective ways to inform victims of their right to compensation. Surveys were administered to 38 state compensation directors and 23 law enforcement executives from across the US. Survey results confirmed the belief that many eligible victims are not receiving compensation and that better training of patrol officers on compensation eligibility and benefits was needed. However, just one in 10 of the state directors implicated police failure to notify victims as a major reason for victims not filing claims. The consensus of both police administrators and state compensation directors was that, while patrol officers should be tasked with providing basic notification of compensation availability, it is important that victim advocates and police detectives follow up with more detailed information in the days following victimization. Policy implications and future directions for research are discussed in light of the findings.

Research Summary By drawing from psychology and economics, we present an experimental evaluation of a procedural justice training program designed to “slow down” police officers’ thought processes during citizen encounters. We find that officers who were randomly assigned to participate in training were as engaged in the community as similarly situated officers, but they were less likely to resolve incidents with an arrest or to be involved in incidents where force was used. These changes were most evident among officers who worked in areas with a modest level of risk. Policy Implications Police officers who are actively engaged with the public can reduce crime through general deterrence and by arresting criminals. Nevertheless, excessive discretionary arrests and the use of force by officers can reduce public trust in the police. To date, there is scant evidence as to how police departments can successfully train officers to balance enforcement and public trust in the field. Through our study, we demonstrate that a relatively minor supervisory intervention may cause substantive changes in how police and citizens interact with each other.

This study involved the evaluation of the Second Responders Program in Richmond, Virginia as well as a process evaluation of the researcher/practitioner partnership formed between the Police Foundation, the Richmond Police Department, and the Richmond Department of Social Services. Findings were based on two waves of victim interviews with women who received Second Responder intervention and women who received only police intervention. Field researchers contacted eligible subjects and attempted to interview them within 1 week of the domestic violence incident to which police were called. The second interview took place 6 months later. Interviews took place between April, 1999 and December, 2000. The Part 1 (Wave 1 Data) file contains 158 cases and 318 variables. The Part 2 (Wave 2 Data) file contains 120 cases and 691 variables.

Research Summary: Following reforms of the federal firearms licensing system, nearly 70% of the nation's retail gun dealers active in 1994 dropped out of business by 1998. Dropout dealers supplied one‐third of guns recovered and traced by police but were linked to fewer crime guns than were other dealers, most likely because dropouts tended to be lower volume dealers. It is not clear if guns sold by dropouts had a higher probability of being used in crime, but guns supplied by dropouts did not move into criminal channels more quickly.Policy Implications: If federal reforms have reduced the availability of guns to criminals, the effect has probably been more modest than suggested by the overall reduction in dealers. Producing further reductions in the flow of guns to criminals through oversight of gun dealers will require refinement in the identification of problematic gun dealers.

An attempt was made to study the response of religious organizations to spouse abuse in a suburban county in the state of Maryland. Clergy members representing a variety of denominations from 143 churches and synagogues were surveyed. The presence of an ongoing problem-oriented discussion group as part of clergy functions was positively related to the identification of spouse abuse. More than half of the responding clerics acknowledged the need to improve efforts in addressing spouse abuse. Victim reticence to seek help, and lack of information about state law, legal options, and programs for spouse abusers were identified as major factors hampering response. Recommendations are made to improve linkages between the clergy and other involved community groups.