"In one sample, respondents correctly identified an average of 5.90 of 8 statements, whereas in the other, 5.17 of 8 statements were correctly identified."
Buuuuuut, some groups knew more of their rights than others: [ #YouGov sample in figures]
Check out the preprint for more findings!
Does the public know their #rights in #police encounters?
🚨New Pre-print w/ @clerojonson.bsky.social 🚨
osf.io/preprints/so...
In 2 national samples, we ask whether people can legally do 8 things in police encounters.
#AcademicSky
"...more serious drug use, mental illnesses, and prior criminal behavior receive overwhelming support to be treated as automatic disqualifiers."
"Most of the public also believes that applicants should have at least some college education to be eligible to work as a police officer."
"...the public is more lenient towards certain types of prior drug use (e.g., marijuana and steroids), treated mental illnesses (e.g., anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD), and criminal offenses (e.g., misdemeanors, DUIs)."
🚨Fresh Pub🚨
What does the public think should disqualify people from being #police officers?
rdcu.be/eYOwW
With a national survey, we look at #drug use, #mentalillness, #education, and criminal #offending
What impacted their likelihood of ever considering the career?
- nature of the job
- #physical/force elements of the job
- perceptions of #procedural justice
- personal characteristics
For agencies, this highlights the importance of transparency about the realities of policing in #recruitment
#TLDR:
Attractive elements:
- opportunity to #help others
- #benefits
- job #security
- pay/salary
- early retirement
Unattractive elements:
- having to use physical #force
- difficult #work-life balance
- physical requirements of the job
- public scrutiny
- carrying a #firearm
🚨Fresh Pub🚨
What motivates people to become #police officers? And what increases/decreases the likelihood of ever considering the career? tinyurl.com/43avsbmv
We use a national sample of Americans to help identify the un/attractive elements of #policing during this #recruitment crisis
Perceptions of procedural justice temper both fear of police and avoidance of police, suggesting a possible avenue to remedy this problem.
Our study challenges the legal assumptions about avoidance of police; rather, avoidance may be an automatic defensive reaction resulting from a fear of police.
And, this fear of police holds serious implications for the underreporting of crime and, more broadly, social control in communities.
However, these racial differences in avoidance (voluntary AND involuntary) are a function of prior mistreatment and fearing police.
In short, Black Americans engage in more avoidance of voluntary and involuntary contact with the police because they tend to be more afraid of the police.
Along with Justin Pickett and Frank Cullen, we find that Black Americans report avoiding voluntary AND involuntary contact with the police more than White Americans
🚨Fresh Preprint!🚨 osf.io/preprints/so...
What can be made of people avoiding contact with the #police?
Is it #fear of the police? Is it past #mistreatment? Are there #racial differences?
Our study explores why people avoid #voluntary and #involuntary police contacts with a national sample.
Redemption was a dynamic factor associated with signaling reformation by completing #rehabilitation, receiving a positive recommendation from the warden, and receiving support from the victim/their family.
Universal Second Look for sentencing may be a viable strategy to reduce mass incarceration
Building on prior work about the Second Look Act (doi.org/10.1111/1745...), we examine whether there is support for a universal second look.
We find the majority of Americans support a universal policy, with only 1 in 5 opposing it.
@sentencingproject.bsky.social
Are you the same person you were 15 or even 20 years ago?
Probably no.
But, does the public support giving all people who have served 15-20 years incarcerated a Second Look at their sentence, regardless of what age they were when they committed their crime?
doi.org/10.1111/1745...
Also, this is available for FREE download for the next two weeks here: www.cambridge.org/core/element...
More broadly, this endeavor provides a template for engaging in Criminometrics--psychometrics in the context of criminology and criminal justice
As a field, we can do better, and we should do better.
"As such, we now open the gates for criminologists to engage in criminometrics"
Compared to other scales used to measure procedural justice, the Graham et al. scale performs better.
But, to be clear, we are not arguing that this is "the" scale to be used. There may be better scales. And, they should be constructed. Still, this scale can serve as a benchmark to measure against
Graham et al. (2025) scale for procedural justice in policing. "The police in my community ..." Are usually courteous Are usually hones Would treat you with respect if you had contact with them for any reason Respect your basic rights Usually treat people with respect Take people's needs into consideration Give people opportunities to explain their situation Try to be fair Make decisions about what to do in fair ways Can be trusted
We present the Graham et al. (2025) scale for procedural justice (to be used in the context of policing as a global measure of perceived procedural justice)
How varied is the measure of procedural justice? Let me count the ways:
In 176 manuscripts, 769 unique items were used to measure procedural justice
Using a series of surveys, theory, classical test theory, and item response theory methods, we narrow this to a 10-item measure
Our #Element describes the heterogeneity of measurement accepted in our field, which obscures and limits our accumulation of evidence about crime and #criminology
But a critique without action is a complaint
We provide a case study in how we might address this crisis using #ProceduralJustice
Criminology faces a hidden crisis: measurement.
Science is built on rigorous measurement. Yet, our field accepts various unsystematically derived measures of constructs, so long as they have high alphas and strong factor loadings
We call for a new subfield: #Criminometrics
doi.org/10.1017/9781...
Abstract of article titled "The partisanship of mayors has no detectable effect on police spending, police employment, crime, or arrests"
Are Democratic leaders making cities more dangerous than Republicans? Trump + others have repeatedly made claims like this. New paper in Science Advances w/ @chriswarshaw.bsky.social, Dan Jones & Matt Harvey shows that, in short, the answer is no.
Tabby cat dressed up for Christmas with a bow
And a huge thank you to Police Practice and Research and Editor-in-chief @drlaurahuey.bsky.social for making this #openaccess!
doi.org/10.1080/1561...
#Academicsky #policing #police #K9 #criminology #crimsky
#Criminology and #policing scholars, we need more research in this area to reduce #K9 #deaths
Do handler characteristics or training play a role?
Do department policies prevent these deaths?
Is it something about an agency?
Much more original data collection needed
Logistic regression analysis (N = 292) of heat stroke deaths (relative to other causes), depicting increased odds of police K9 deaths in summer months. Age, gender, breed, southern climate region are not significant.
Regression analysis finds increased odds of heatstroke deaths (relative to other causes) in #summer months.
Age, Breed, Climate region were not significant.
#K9Officers, have you reviewed your #K9 #policies and #procedures to prevent these kinds of deaths in summer 2025?
Now is the time!
Bar chart presenting the leading circumstances of K9 heatstroke deaths, with being left unattended and mechanical failures as the top two leadings causes, comprising more than 70% of cases
Of these #K9 #heatstroke deaths, 70.6% of circumstances were either being left unattended (often in a vehicle) or mechanical failures within a vehicle (e.g., sensors, a/c units, alarms).
These findings suggest that at least some may deaths may be preventable
What factors are associated?
Bar chart depicting the frequency of cases of death of K9s (2000-2023), with top three causes being gunfire, heatstroke, and being struck by a vehicle
Leading causes of these #K9 deaths were #gunfire #heatstroke and being #struck by a vehicle.
Moore et al (2001) argue that heatstroke (in military dogs) is a "potentially preventable" death.
In #police #K9s, are these preventable?
