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PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine how direct-negative and indirect-negative contact experiences affect students' attitudes toward the police by race and test the mediation effect of social distance on the relationship.Design/methodology/approachUsing the data collected from two US 4-year public universities, this study employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the impacts of the key variables, direct-negative and indirect-negative contact experience, on the students' attitudes toward the police. This study also tests whether indirect negative contact with the police is a stronger factor than direct negative contacts among racial/ethnic minority people.FindingsResults show that both direct-negative and indirect-negative contacts are stronger predictors of the dependent variable. In particular, the indirect-negative contact has significant direct and indirect effects through social distance on the dependent variable in racial minorities. The study also shows that indirect contact more strongly affects racial minorities than direct-negative contact experiences do.Originality/valueThis study is the first sophisticatedly to examine students' negative contact experiences into two variables: direct-negative and indirect-negative contacts with the police.

Criminal justice around the world has prioritized the prevention and protection of bullying and its victims due to the rapid increases in peer violence. Nevertheless, relatively few studies have examined what treatments or assistance are effective for peer victims to reduce and recover from their social and psychological suffering, especially in cyberbullying cases. Using data derived from the National Crime Victimization Survey-School Crime Supplement data in 2011 and 2013 (N=823), the current study examined the impact of two emotional support groups (i.e., adult and peer groups) on cyberbullying victims' social and psychological harm. The findings indicated that both adult and peer support reduced social and psychological harm inflicted by cyberbullying victimization. Based on these findings, the study recommends developing or modifying existing adult and peer support groups to minimize victims' social and psychological distress.

Background There has been an insufficient in-depth analysis of the nature and prevalence of the typologies of child homicide in Asia, particularly in South Korea. Objective In the current study, we sought to determine the prevalence and identify the heterogeneity of the child homicide phenomenon in South Korea. Participant and settings All 341 original case files (i.e., hospital, police, and autopsy reports) of homicide incidents involving children aged 0–18 in 2016 were obtained from the forensic autopsy archives of the National Forensic Service (NFS), which handles 100 % of the medico-legal autopsies in South Korea. These were examined and reclassified based on our definition. Method A cluster analysis using Gower’s distance was applied, which has rarely been utilized in this field of research. By performing a qualitative analysis, we first extracted 70 (numerical, logical, categorical) crime, victim, perpetrator, and household relevant variables, which were later utilized in the cluster analysis. Results Among the 341 cases from 2016, 95 were judged to be at least suspicious child homicide cases. When applying the cluster analysis, eight sub-clusters were extracted: child torture, maternal filicide, neonaticide, death not related to previous abuse, paternal filicide, paternal infanticide, maternal infanticide, and psychotic killings. Conclusions The commonality and the unique aspect of the child homicide phenomenon in South Korea, in comparison with the results from previous research from other countries, are discussed.

This study examined if the police and citizen views of police misconduct are similar, different, or somewhere in between with the three sets of survey data: the Klockars (Police corruption in thirty agencies in the United States, 1997. ICPSR version. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1999) data, the data administered to police officers from 2009 to 2010 in Texas, and the student survey data collected from 2013 to 2017 at the three 4-year public universities located in Midwestern and Southern regions of the United States. Results showed that the views of police officers were similar but also different on certain misconduct by their rank. Middle- and high-rank officers seem to share some common ground on assessments of police misconduct, but their views were significantly different from the views of line officers. Interestingly, line officers’ perceptions of the seriousness of police misconduct were somewhat similar to the views of university students. However, their perceptions of police misconduct differed by their academic majors, CJ majors vs. non-CJ majors. The results demonstrated the existence of a significant gap in the assessments of police misconduct provided by students and police officers.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to partially replicate and extend the work of Klockars et al. and others on police integrity by examining how individual, organizational, and ecological factors affect police supervisors’ perceptions of police misconduct and willingness to report fellow officers’ misconduct. Design/methodology/approach – Surveys containing 17 scenarios developed by Klockars et al. (2000, 2004, 2006) were administered to 553 ranking officers attending training at the Bill Blackwood Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas from June 1, 2009 to March 1, 2010 and employed by municipal police departments, county sheriff’s departments, and constable agencies. Findings – Results suggest that individual and organizational factors affect supervisor willingness to blow the whistle on underling misconduct, although their effects varied by seriousness of the behavior. Originality/value – The current project partially replicates and extends prior studies of factors affecting police integrity by surveying supervisors, measuring their willingness to whistle blow, and including variables in statistical models that prior studies have not included.

Purpose The events in Ferguson in August 2014 reignited the longstanding national discussion of race and the police use of force. Recent theory and research from those who study human biases have produced contradictory predictions about how a subject's race might impact on officers' decisions to use force. The “implicit-bias perspective” claims that officer's biases should produce a greater tendency to use force against Black subjects; the “counter bias” perspective predicts lesser force against Blacks, due to officers' concerns about the consequences of using force against racial/ethnic minorities. The implicit-bias perspective also predicts a moderating impact of neighborhood context; specifically, this perspective predicts that the use of greater force against racial/ethnic minorities will disappear in high crime neighborhoods. Methods The current study examined 1846 use-of-force incidents to determine whether the racial aspects of force are consistent with the implicit-bias or counter-bias perspectives. Results Selected results were consistent with the implicit-bias perspective, including the predicted moderating impact of neighborhood crime on the relationship between subject race and force. Conclusions Additional research should assess whether actual uses of force are consistent with the implicit-bias or counter-bias perspectives but, it is argued, the implications for training are the same for both.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether indirect police contacts through observational learning models impact students’ trust in the police and their perceptions of police bias.Design/methodology/approach– The study is based on a survey at two public universities in the mid-western and southern regions of the USA (921 out of 1,089 responses were retained for this study). The empirical analysis relied on a principle component factor analysis and a multivariate regression analysis.Findings– Results show that three observational learning models (live, verbal, and symbolic) significantly influence perceptions of the police. In particular, the symbolic model is significant regardless of students’ direct and indirect contact experiences with the police.Originality/value– This study is the first to examine the modeling effects on attitudes toward the police applying the classic social learning theory developed by Albert Bandura. The results highlight the importance of indirect police contact experiences in shaping young citizens’ perceptions of the police.

Despite the emphasis on community relations in recent developments in policing, the importance of social distance between citizens and the police has not been explored. In the current study, we examine the effect of social distance on public attitudes toward the police using data from a sample of college students in a mid-sized State university. The findings from path analysis suggest that students’ familiarity with and interest in the police promote confidence in the police, even when controlling for variables such as negative contacts and exposure to media coverage of police misconduct. The findings are discussed in reference to recent policing initiatives that are designed to facilitate amicable citizen–police relationships.

Police corruption is one of the most significant law enforcement issues to citizens, practitioners, and researchers. Prior research on the impact of police organizational structure on corruption has remained mostly descriptive or comparative. This paper examines the direct effect of supervisors’ tolerance of line officers’ misconduct and departmental deviant subculture on the extent of police corruption. Using hierarchical linear modeling, the current study reports that line officers’ attitudes toward corruption are highly influenced by their supervisors in the chain of command and deviant subculture. Implications and limitations are discussed.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine police use of force using individual, contextual, and police training factors, expanding prior research by including multiple police agencies in the sample, thus producing research findings that can be more easily generalized.Design/methodology/approachThe data for the current study were derived from several primary sources: the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Census, Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and 1997 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS).FindingsAmong individual level variables, age and arrestee's resistance were significant explanatory factors. Violent crime rate and unemployment rate were significant factors as the neighborhood contextual variables. Finally, in‐service training was a significant organizational‐level explanatory factor for levels of police use of force.Originality/valueThe paper bridges the gap in research between contextual factors and police use of force. It also deepens our understandings of the association between organizational factors and use of force by incorporating police training into the analytical model.

This study uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescents (Add Health) data, a nationally representative sample of adolescents, to disentangle the relationship between child maltreatment and violent delinquency. Also examined are potential moderating effects of gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and religiosity on the association between child maltreatment and violent delinquency. Contrary to prior research findings, the current analyses reveal that physical abuse is not associated with future violent delinquency, whereas sexual abuse and neglect predict violent delinquency significantly. The current study also did not reveal any moderating effects of gender, SES, and religiosity on the association between maltreatment and violent delinquency. Interpretations of these findings are presented, drawing on the properties of the national probability sample compared to the findings of most prior studies that used localized samples.

Police supervisors play a critical role in preventing unreasonable use of force. Despite their importance, only a few studies have examined the influences of supervisors on their subordinates’ daily practices, especially on their uses of police force. To bridge this gap, the current study explored the relationship between supervisors’ education level and use of force training and subordinate officers’ use of force practices. Using police use of force reports from 2004 to 2007 in a single urban police department, the current study examined how supervisor education and training impact on police use-of-force and found both highly educated and trained supervisors moderate their subordinate officers’ uses of higher levels of force.