Using archival police academy photographs, we use a two-phase experiment to evaluate the impact of facial traits on future promotional success. First, respondents (n=507) view randomly selected photographs of cadets (observations=15,669) and evaluate …
The police murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 and revived claims that public outcry over such high-profile police killings perpetuated a violent “war on cops.” Using data collected by the Gun Violence Archive …
A large municipal policing agency housing one of the oldest K9 programs in the USA suddenly terminated the program at the close of summer 2020. We exploit this change as a natural experiment to test three hypotheses related to rates of injuries …
We examine changes in help-seeking for domestic violence (DV) in seven U.S. cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Bayesian structural time series modeling with daily data to construct a synthetic counterfactual, we test whether calls to police …
Several of the largest U.S. police departments reported a sharp increase in officer resignations following massive public protests directed at policing in the summer of 2020. Yet, to date, no study has rigorously assessed the impact of the George …
Most use-of-force policies utilized by U.S. police agencies make fundamental ordinal assumptions about officers’ force responses to subject resistance. These policies consist of varying levels of force and resistance along an ordinally-ranked …
Job functions best explain activations of police BWCs. Officers with sharper levels of concern that BWCs reduce their professional discretion, or expose them to public hatred and outrage, are likely to activate BWCs less often. Nearly two-thirds of officers in this study's sample activated their cameras more often than predicted by the best performing model. This indicates that BWC policy effectively sets a 'floor' of minimum activation standards and that overall, officers will record more often than required.
The initial interaction between rape victims and police officers affects how cases progress through the criminal justice system. In one US state capitol, the police agency determined its initial response to rape victims was sub-par. Victim engagement …
Widespread vaccination eliminated new cases of COVID-19 within a large police agency. Communicating with personnel early and often about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on operations and vaccination efficacy is essential.
While mandatory SAK testing policies are often advocated for based on the belief that they will increase arrest rates for sexual assault (among other proposed benefits), we add to growing empirical evidence that policy interventions beyond mandatory SAK testing are needed to increase arrest rates for sexual assault.