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Objectives: Broken windows theory identifies community social control as a central mechanism for controlling crime. In turn, controlling disorder is seen as the primary method that police or other government agents can use to strengthen community social controls. Our study examined the antecedents of informal community social control, measured as collective efficacy, at street segments. Methods: This article leverages multi-wave primary data collection at 447 street segments in Baltimore, MD including official crime statistics, survey responses, physical observations, and systematic social observations. We used mixed-effects OLS regression models to examine antecedents of collective efficacy at the street-level. Results: We find that social disorder and crime, rather than physical disorder, are the primary antecedents of collective efficacy at the street-level. We also find that fear of crime does not have a direct impact on collective efficacy. Conclusions: Our study suggests that police and city government more generally should not look to controlling physical disorder as a means of increasing community controls. At the same time addressing social disorder is an important mechanism to bolster collective efficacy, though care is needed to avoid bias or backfire effects from aggressive order-maintenance policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the current study is to examine the influence tensions over high-profile officer-involved shootings have had on Atlanta police officers' ability to do their jobs and whether these impacts vary by officer race. Data was collected between August and October of 2016. A total of 241 police officers across six zones completed the self-administered survey. Findings indicate that while white officers, on average, felt the impacts of recent tensions surrounding officer-involved shootings more strongly, non-white officers were more likely to say they would leave policing if offered a better paying job in another field. This study provides insight into racial differences in the impacts of recent tensions and protests over fatal officer-involved shootings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: Although broken windows theory has had strong influence on policy and practice in policing, there are still many questions and debates about the nature of disorder itself and, particularly, how people perceive and define it. The current study aims to examine whether Black and White residents living on the same street segments in Baltimore City, Maryland perceive similar levels of social and physical disorder. We find strong and significant differences between Black and White residents after controlling for key sociodemographic variables and street‐level covariates. Policy Implications: Our findings suggest that police efforts to reduce disorder are less likely to be noticed by Black residents and that any benefits from targeting disorder may vary across places depending on the racial composition of streets. In this context, police must recognize racial differences in perceptions of disorder when developing disorder policing interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue that prosecutors ought to embrace deflection programs as an option for substance users who commit low-level offenses. Deflection programs provide services to substance users and other vulnerable populations before, or outside of the point of arrest. They offer participants voluntary admission and wrap-around services to help them get back on their feet-out from under the threat of incarceration if they relapse. Innovators have embraced the term "deflection" because the goal is to keep the substance user out of the legal system entirely and to provide a warm handoff to service providers instead of a cold transport to county jail. The benefits of prosecutor involvement are numerous. County-level prosecutors can, for example, positively influence police and community buy-in, coordinate programming across a much larger terrain than cities alone can handle, run interference for offenders in court, and open access to new funding streams. Moreover; their involvement in deflection partnerships would reflect a deep commitment to disentangling substance abuse treatment from criminal justice control, thereby enhancing perceptions of procedural justice in disadvantaged communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose that the causes of the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of police interventions can be better understood with an increased focus on the measurement of treatment implementation and outputs, as opposed to the more common “black box” conceptualizations of police interventions and outcome-only evaluations used in most experimental studies. We present findings from a randomized, experimental evaluation of broken windows policing at hotspots in three California cities. Our analysis suggests that variation in the treatment delivered to target street segments within and between cities limited the ability of the study to detect potential treatment impacts and was due in part to the failure of the police agencies to take ownership of the science of the intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]