- James Nolan, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University where h... moreJames Nolan, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University where he teaches courses related to institutional reform, structured inequality, and social control. His research focuses on police reform, hate crime, crime measurement, and institutional reform in higher education. He has received funding in recent years from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the American Statistical Association. In 2014 he was appointed to the National Academy of Science Panel on Modernizing the Nation’s Crime Statistics.
Dr. Nolan’s recent publications include three books: Policing in an Age of Reform: An Agenda for Research and Practice (Palgrave/MacMillan), The Violence of Hate: Understanding Harmful Forms of Bias and Bigotry, 4th edition (Rowman & Littlefield), and Engaging Faculty in Group-Level Change for Institutional Transformation: Disrupting Inequity and Building Inclusive Academic Departments (Routledge).
In addition, he has published nearly 70 book chapters and professional journal articles appearing in outlets such as Policing & Society, American Behavioral Scientist; British Journal of Criminology, Journal of Quantitative Criminology; Violence Against Women, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice; Justice, Information Sciences; The Scientific World Journal, Victims & Offenders, Criminal Justice Studies; Violence & Gender, Homicide Studies; Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, & Trauma, and The American Sociologist.
Dr. Nolan’s professional career began as a police officer in Wilmington, Delaware. In 13 years with that department, he rose to the rank of lieutenant and worked in a variety of divisions, including patrol, community policing, and drug, organized crime and vice. He is a 1992 graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Academy. Just prior to joining the faculty at West Virginia University, Dr. Nolan served as chief of the FBI’s Crime Analysis, Research and Development Unit that provided management oversight for the national crime data collection programs. Dr. Nolan earned a Ph.D. from Temple University. His graduate work focused on the study of group and social processes.
Links to papers, journal articles, books, book chapters, and public talks are available at this website under the research tab.edit
What happens to a society when the most sacred beliefs underlying its institutions become unbelievable? This was the question philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche asked at the end of the 19th century. This same question is relevant to an... more
What happens to a society when the most sacred beliefs underlying its institutions become unbelievable? This was the question philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche asked at the end of the 19th century. This same question is relevant to an unexpected subject: American policing.
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The ACLU of Delaware took important steps to stop aggressive and discriminatory police practices in Wilmington. However, the law enforcement mandate that makes these violent practices logical in the first place remains intact.
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A recent Wilmington City News release highlighted some of the successful reforms taking place at the city police department. As a former officer, and someone who now studies and writes about reform in American policing, I thought I might... more
A recent Wilmington City News release highlighted some of the successful reforms taking place at the city police department. As a former officer, and someone who now studies and writes about reform in American policing, I thought I might weigh in on these claims. In order to be brief but still helpful, I first need to describe three interrelated concepts that together provide a framework for this discussion. They are the game, the playbook and the scorecard.
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Current efforts to reform American policing seldom acknowledge the law enforcement mandate as the source of police violence and discrimination. Policing as law enforcement seems so natural that metrics such as the number of arrests,... more
Current efforts to reform American policing seldom acknowledge the law enforcement mandate as the source of police violence and discrimination. Policing as law enforcement seems so natural that metrics such as the number of arrests, indictments, and drug and gun seizures indicate that officers are doing the right things. The paradox of modern policing is that these things do not really work in the long term. Decades of heavy law enforcement in Wilmington aimed at poor and struggling neighborhoods has not resulted in safer communities and has actually made things worse for many.
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During my 13 years as a Wilmington police officer, I failed to recognize the distinction I now make between the police profession and the law enforcement approach. Like most people, I used the terms policing and law enforcement... more
During my 13 years as a Wilmington police officer, I failed to recognize the distinction I now make between the police profession and the law enforcement approach. Like most people, I used the terms policing and law enforcement incorrectly as synonyms. In the controversies today over police reform, this makes it incredibly difficult to reimagine policing with approaches other than law enforcement. This may be why it is so difficult for the police in Delaware to join forces with aggrieved communities, the Black Lives Matter movement, and those calling to amend the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights. These groups are demanding reforms that seem radical and very different from the norms of law enforcement.
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Violence and discrimination in American policing is bureaucratic
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A sociological view on the problems in contemporary American policing
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Many forensic units are housed within state and local police agencies.
Therefore, it is important to consider the current events in the feld of policing and how they bear on the efficacy and ethics of forensic investigators.
Therefore, it is important to consider the current events in the feld of policing and how they bear on the efficacy and ethics of forensic investigators.
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In this essay, James Nolan expounds upon research he and his colleagues are doing on situational policing, as mentioned in The Dominion Post's July 20 editorial, "Refocusing on 'to serve and protect.' " by James J. Nolan Most people today... more
In this essay, James Nolan expounds upon research he and his colleagues are doing on situational policing, as mentioned in The Dominion Post's July 20 editorial, "Refocusing on 'to serve and protect.' " by James J. Nolan Most people today recognize the serious problems in American policing, but there is little agreement on what to do about it. This is not surprising because social institutions, like the police, are very di cult to change. In their current forms, they appear natural and xed. When they become counterproductive and harmful, "bad apples" are blamed, not the institution itself. This is why any attempt at structural change to the police institution draws the familiar criticism, "that's not what the police are supposed to do"-as if the police are naturally supposed to do something. The good news is that institutions can change, and there is a good example of this in policing. Although the police have always been used to protect the interests of the privileged and powerful, about 100 years ago, a social movement sought to professionalize the American police. In doing so, it shifted the role of the police from helping communities keep the peace to providing coercive control over those deemed deviant, threatening or undesirable via law enforcement.
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This article presents crime survey data from the state of West Virginia in the United States showing that, controlling for structural conditions, community atmosphere is significantly related to crime, violence and many other social... more
This article presents crime survey data from the state of West Virginia in the United States showing that, controlling for structural conditions, community atmosphere is significantly related to crime, violence and many other social problems in rural places. These results help identify measurable and achievable progressive desired ends in rural policing, replacing law enforcement outputs (for example, arrests, gun and drug seizures) with safe, strong community outcomes as the summum bonum (i.e, ultimate outcome) of policing. Findings show that interdependent communities where police are partners with residents are the safest, while conflict communities where the police are viewed as adversaries are least safe. These results suggest a left realist consequentialist approach to police ethics to dismantle the hegemony of draconian policies and practices.
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In this chapter we illustrate how transformational police reform—i.e. changing the game—is possible. We draw on Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory to formulate the concepts of neighbourhood dynamics and neighbourhood atmosphere.... more
In this chapter we illustrate how transformational police reform—i.e. changing the game—is possible. We draw on Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory to formulate the concepts of neighbourhood dynamics and neighbourhood atmosphere. These are both latent dimensions of neighbourhoods and communities that have clear and profound implications for neighbourhood safety. This work extends the concept of neighbourhood collective efficacy by explicating the multifaceted nature of “low collective efficacy”. We do this by focusing on the psychodynamic processes that occur in small neighbourhood and community places and show how they related to collective efficacy. In turn, we show why psychodynamic processes are important for neighbourhood safety and police reform
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This first chapter provides an introduction to this book Policing in an Age of Reform, written by police practitioner-scholars from Europe and North America. We begin this chapter with a brief description of the calls for police reform in... more
This first chapter provides an introduction to this book Policing in an Age of Reform, written by police practitioner-scholars from Europe and North America. We begin this chapter with a brief description of the calls for police reform in the United Kingdom, United States, and France. The views of the editors and chapter authors coalesce and diverge in important ways, which is briefly described. Our views affect the way we think about police reform in a changing world, and so we introduce two primary focuses of reform, i.e. police methods and the police mandate. Depending on which one of these two types of reform is the primary aim of the reformer, four perspectives emerge, (1) maintaining, (2) retrofitting, (3) co-opting, and (4) transforming. These are explained as the chapter evolves.
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This chapter examines the sociological roots of the current problems in contemporary policing. Employing Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, capital, and doxa the chapter begins by highlighting the cultural mechanisms that... more
This chapter examines the sociological roots of the current problems in contemporary policing. Employing Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, capital, and doxa the chapter begins by highlighting the cultural mechanisms that maintain and reproduce ineffective policing practices. In an example from Wilmington, Delaware in the United States, the authors show how the ‘game’ on the field of policing focuses primarily on law enforcement outputs. This game shapes the worldview and dispositions of officers (habitus). Police officers are recognised and rewarded (capital) for acting in ways that align with the game’s logic. This process creates the condition doxa, in which the socially constructed and changeable field of policing is mistaken for the natural way it should be. This chapter also considers why perspectives on police reform diverge and what this means for the future of policing in an age of reform.
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Book Chapter: In this chapter, the authors explore the various perspectives on police reform. For some, police reform simply means meeting and maintaining established professional standards. For others, it means retrofitting new... more
Book Chapter: In this chapter, the authors explore the various perspectives on police reform. For some, police reform simply means meeting and maintaining established professional standards. For others, it means retrofitting new evidence-based strategies and tools to improve the effectiveness of the police in achieving its crime control mandate. Still others want to completely rethink the police mandate altogether, either coopting existing methods toward revised ends or completely transforming the institution with new methods for a revised mandate. The authors speculate why these perspectives occur and what they might mean for the policing in an age of reform.
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... We used the FBI's Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) data to test our hypothesis (FBI, 2000).3 ... Given the prob-lems with measuring gang activity in the LEOKA reports, we can-not directly test the effects... more
... We used the FBI's Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) data to test our hypothesis (FBI, 2000).3 ... Given the prob-lems with measuring gang activity in the LEOKA reports, we can-not directly test the effects of gang activity on juvenile killing of police officers. ...
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This study examines the social forces that affect law enforcement participation in hate crime data collection initiatives. Focused interviews were conducted in a stratified sample of police officers from various departments in 2 East... more
This study examines the social forces that affect law enforcement participation in hate crime data collection initiatives. Focused interviews were conducted in a stratified sample of police officers from various departments in 2 East Coast states. The findings from these interviews were used to create a survey instrument that was distributed to a sample of police officers and civilian employees in 4 police agencies, 1 from each region of the United States: Northeast, West, South, and Central. The survey findings reduced to 60 interrelated variables identified at the focus groups to 10 common factors (or constructs). These factors are: (a) organizational attitudes/beliefs; (b) utility in community relations; (c) organizational self-preservation; (d) efficacy of police involvement; (e) priority of resource allocations; (f) supportive organizational policies and practices; (g) individual attitudes/beliefs; (h) professional self-preservation; (i) work-related difficulties; and (j) organizational commitment. The results of this study provide valuable insight into ways to improve law enforcement participation in hate crime reporting.
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ABSTRACT
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This paper presents a new index of disagreement (or measure of consensus) for comparison of data collected using Likert items. This new index, which assesses the level of disagreement among group members, exploits the conditional... more
This paper presents a new index of disagreement (or measure of consensus) for comparison of data collected using Likert items. This new index, which assesses the level of disagreement among group members, exploits the conditional distribution of the variance for a given mean. The variance is often used as a measure of disagreement, with high variance seen as a high disagreement in a group. However, since the range of the variance is a function of the mean, this implies that for a mean close to the end points of the scale, the range of the variance is relatively small and for a mean at the center of the scale the range of the variance is larger. The index of disagreement introduced in this paper takes into account both the mean and the variance and provides a way to compare two groups that is more meaningful than just considering the variance or other measures of disagreement or consensus that only depend on the variance.
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Social scientific knowledge of the extent, distribution, causes, and consequences of various types of gendered interpersonal violence against North American college women has markedly advanced since the early 1980s. Nevertheless, major... more
Social scientific knowledge of the extent, distribution, causes, and consequences of various types of gendered interpersonal violence against North American college women has markedly advanced since the early 1980s. Nevertheless, major research gaps still exist, including a conspicuous absence of quantitative and qualitative data on racial/ethnic variations in female students' polyvictimization experiences. Using results of the Campus Quality of Life Survey conducted at a large doctoral institution in the South Atlantic region of the United States, this article shows that ethnic minority and White female students are equally at risk of experiencing multiple types of victimizations of different kinds, such as stalking, sexual harassment, physical violence, and sexual assault.
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The current study introduces a method to assess hate crime classification error in a state Incident-Based Reporting System. The study identifies and quantifies the “statistical accuracy” of aggregate hate crime data and provides insight... more
The current study introduces a method to assess hate crime classification error in a state Incident-Based Reporting System. The study identifies and quantifies the “statistical accuracy” of aggregate hate crime data and provides insight from frontline officers about thought processes involved with classifying bias offenses. Random samples of records from two city and two county agencies provided data for the study. A systematic review of official case narratives determined hate crime classification error using state and federal definitions. A focus group sought to inquire about officers’ handling of hate crimes. Undercounting of hate crimes in official data was evident. When error rates were extrapolated, National Incident-Based Reporting System Group A hate crimes were undercounted by 67%. Officers’ responses validated complications involved with classifying hate crimes, particularly, incidents motivated “in part” by bias. Classification errors in reporting hate crimes have an impact on the statistical accuracy of official hate crime statistics. Officers’ offense descriptions provided greater awareness to issues with accurately interpreting and classifying hate crimes. The results yield useful information for officer training, understanding the true magnitude of these crimes, and a precursor for adjusting crime statistics to better estimate the “true” number of hate crimes in the population.
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Research on violence against members of college lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities has rapidly grown in the past few years. Prevalence studies show that sexual minor...
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In this chapter we illustrate how transformational police reform—i.e. changing the game—is possible. We draw on Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory to formulate the concepts of neighbourhood dynamics and neighbourhood atmosphere.... more
In this chapter we illustrate how transformational police reform—i.e. changing the game—is possible. We draw on Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory to formulate the concepts of neighbourhood dynamics and neighbourhood atmosphere. These are both latent dimensions of neighbourhoods and communities that have clear and profound implications for neighbourhood safety. This work extends the concept of neighbourhood collective efficacy by explicating the multifaceted nature of “low collective efficacy”. We do this by focusing on the psychodynamic processes that occur in small neighbourhood and community places and show how they related to collective efficacy. In turn, we show why psychodynamic processes are important for neighbourhood safety and police reform
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Obtaining accurate survey data on the prevalence of woman abuse in institutions of higher education continues to be a major methodological challenge. Underreporting is difficult to overcome; yet, there may be effective ways of minimizing... more
Obtaining accurate survey data on the prevalence of woman abuse in institutions of higher education continues to be a major methodological challenge. Underreporting is difficult to overcome; yet, there may be effective ways of minimizing this problem. One is adding a supplementary open-ended question to a primarily quantitative questionnaire. Using data derived from the Campus Quality of Life Survey (CQLS), this article examines whether asking respondents to complete such a question increases the prevalence rates of four types of woman abuse and provides information on behaviors that are not included in widely used and validated measures of these harms.
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Researchers have accumulated much social scientific knowledge about the scope, distribution, causes, and outcomes of the physical and sexual abuse of female students in North American institutions of higher learning. However, surveys of... more
Researchers have accumulated much social scientific knowledge about the scope, distribution, causes, and outcomes of the physical and sexual abuse of female students in North American institutions of higher learning. However, surveys of technology-facilitated stalking and the dissemination of unwanted sexual messages/images in college campus communities are in short supply. The few that have been conducted do not identify key sociological risk factors associated with these two electronic forms of victimization. This paper, then, has two objectives: (1) to examine the influence of two types of negative peer support and (2) to determine if being the target of technology-facilitated stalking and receiving unwanted sexual messages/images are associated with female students’ intimate partner violence and sexual assault experiences. The results confirm that the two variants of negative peer support examined in this study are significant predictors of digital victimization and that such ab...
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Recent empirical research has identified ambiguity in bias crime reporting as a source of confusion and frustration in law enforcement agencies and as a source of error in the national hate crime statistics. The authors develop a... more
Recent empirical research has identified ambiguity in bias crime reporting as a source of confusion and frustration in law enforcement agencies and as a source of error in the national hate crime statistics. The authors develop a framework for understanding and clarifying these ambiguities based on John Dewey's conception of intension and extension and their own application of mathematical set theory to the issue. The authors discuss the implications of their model for helping law enforcement officials see bias crimes for varied purposes, including prevention, statistical reporting, and criminal prosecution.
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This article presents crime survey data from the state of West Virginia in the United States showing that, controlling for structural conditions, community atmosphere is significantly related to crime, violence and many other social... more
This article presents crime survey data from the state of West Virginia in the United States showing that, controlling for structural conditions, community atmosphere is significantly related to crime, violence and many other social problems in rural places. These results help identify measurable and achievable progressive desired ends in rural policing, replacing law enforcement outputs (for example, arrests, gun and drug seizures) with safe, strong community outcomes as the summum bonum (i.e, ultimate outcome) of policing. Findings show that interdependent communities where police are partners with residents are the safest, while conflict communities where the police are viewed as adversaries are least safe. These results suggest a left realist consequentialist approach to police ethics to dismantle the hegemony of draconian policies and practices.
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The fact that the volume of crime is related to the size of a jurisdiction's population has been well established. The relationship between crime rate and population size, however, is less clear. Crime rate presents crime on a per capita... more
The fact that the volume of crime is related to the size of a jurisdiction's population has been well established. The relationship between crime rate and population size, however, is less clear. Crime rate presents crime on a per capita basis, and is intended to adjust for population size so that comparisons can be made. In this article, the author first establishes the statistical relationship between crime rate and population size. Once established, he conducted an analysis of crime rates in jurisdictions of various sizes and in a variety of population-based strata using data obtained from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Based on his findings, the author discusses implications for research and analysis, database management, and making jurisdictional comparisons of crime rates.
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Book Chapter: We often think that social problems like crime, violence, homelessness, and drug abuse originate with the person committing the act. Therefore, policies and practices often involve preventing “bad choices” through education... more
Book Chapter: We often think that social problems like crime, violence, homelessness, and drug abuse originate with the person committing the act. Therefore, policies and practices often involve preventing “bad choices” through education or deterrence. Instead, the allegory presents a sociological perspective on these problems, which are depicted as traffic accidents at a dangerous intersection. The allegory challenges the reader to see the structured nature of chronic social problems and to envision new ways to address them.
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A personal reflection on the transition from a police detective in a vice unit to sociology professor
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Advances in social scientific understandings of female racial/ethnic minority college students’ experiences of woman abuse have not kept pace with the amount of theoretical and empirical work on the plight of their White counterparts.... more
Advances in social scientific understandings of female racial/ethnic minority college students’ experiences of woman abuse have not kept pace with the amount of theoretical and empirical work on the plight of their White counterparts. What is especially needed is a study that examines racial/ethnic variations in negative peer support for various types of victimization in institutions of higher learning. Using the Campus Quality of Life Survey, results show (1) no significant differences between White and racial/ethnic minority women students in polyvictimization within types of abuse (i.e., stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence), but some differences in overall rates of victimization and polyvictimization, and (2) negative peer support is strongly related to woman abuse and polyvictimization. Implications are discussed.
Studies of violent victimization in rural and remote parts of the U.S. are in short supply and the bulk of those done so far focus mainly on man-to-woman violence in intimate relationships among people without disabilities. There is,... more
Studies of violent victimization in rural and remote parts of the U.S. are in short supply and the bulk of those done so far focus mainly on man-to-woman violence in intimate relationships among people without disabilities. There is, indeed, a major need to broaden the focus of rural victimological research to include violence against people with disabilities, which is the main objective of this article. Relying on original exploratory data generated by the first phase of the West Virginia Community Quality of Life Survey (WVCQLS), population estimates of four types of violent victimization are presented: stalking, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and hate and bias assaults. The results show that a large number of rural West Virginia residents with disabilities experience these forms of victimization. Directions for further empirical and theoretical work are discussed.
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This paper offers a methodological approach for estimating classification error in police records then determining the statistical accuracy of official crime statistics reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Classification... more
This paper offers a methodological approach for estimating classification error in police records then determining the statistical accuracy of official crime statistics reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Classification error refers to the mistakes in UCR statistics caused by the misclassification of criminal offenses, for example recording a crime as aggravated assault when it should have been simple assault. Statistical accuracy refers to the estimated true total of each crime type based on cancelling effect of undercounting and overcounting crime due to misclassifications. The population for the study consists of the 12 largest municipal police agencies in a mostly rural southeastern state. Based on a sample of 2,663 records, the authors illustrate the impact of classification error on the total population of reported offenses. Misclassifications result in overcounting and undercounting certain crimes. The true number of each crime type, as well as the aggregate Index Crime, Violent Crime, and Property Crime totals, is estimated based the evaluation of offsetting misclassifications. The findings show that certain UCR crime categories are greatly undercounted while others are overcounted. The index crime and violent crime totals are also significantly undercounted; however, when simple assault is added to the index and violent crime categories, the error in these aggregate numbers is reduced to less than 1%. The results provide a benchmark for assessing the statistical accuracy of the UCR data.
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When prejudice-related data are combined and analyzed over time, critical information is uncovered about overall trends, related intermittent spikes, and less common sharp inflectional shifts in aggression. These shifts impact social... more
When prejudice-related data are combined and analyzed over time,
critical information is uncovered about overall trends, related intermittent
spikes, and less common sharp inflectional shifts in aggression. These shifts impact social cohesion and grievously harm specific sub-groups when aggression escalates and is redirected or mainstreamed. These data, so critical to public policy formation, show that we are in such a historic inflection period now. Moreover, analysis of the latest, though partial Federal Bureau of Investigation hate crime data release, when overlaid with available data from excluded large jurisdictions, reveals hate crimes hit a record high in 2021 in the United States that previously went unreported. This Essay analyzes the most recent national data as well as various numerical and policy milestones that accompanied the historic, yet incomplete, implementation of hate crime data collection and related statutes over recent decades. This analysis of emerging trends in the United States is undertaken in the context of bigoted aggression broken down over time.
critical information is uncovered about overall trends, related intermittent
spikes, and less common sharp inflectional shifts in aggression. These shifts impact social cohesion and grievously harm specific sub-groups when aggression escalates and is redirected or mainstreamed. These data, so critical to public policy formation, show that we are in such a historic inflection period now. Moreover, analysis of the latest, though partial Federal Bureau of Investigation hate crime data release, when overlaid with available data from excluded large jurisdictions, reveals hate crimes hit a record high in 2021 in the United States that previously went unreported. This Essay analyzes the most recent national data as well as various numerical and policy milestones that accompanied the historic, yet incomplete, implementation of hate crime data collection and related statutes over recent decades. This analysis of emerging trends in the United States is undertaken in the context of bigoted aggression broken down over time.
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Over the past two decades, the Broken Windows version of social disorganization theory has had a significant impact on law enforcement practices in the United States. Contemporary sociologists, however, have demonstrated that... more
Over the past two decades, the Broken Windows version of social disorganization theory has had a significant impact on law enforcement practices in the United States. Contemporary sociologists, however, have demonstrated that neighbourhood-level collective efficacy (or a lack thereof) is a more significant predictor of violent crime than are physical and social disorder (i.e., broken windows). Collective efficacy is viewed as an evolving neighbourhood-level property. We posit that neighbourhoods pass through, regress to, or get stuck in identifiable stages of development as they move toward (or away from) higher levels of collective efficacy. Giving consideration to both stage of neighbourhood development and level of neighbourhood crime and disorder, we construct four neighbourhood types: Strong, Vulnerable, Anomic and Responsive. The concept of " situational policing " , then, is introduced as a way to address effectively both the development of collective efficacy, and the occurrence of crime and disorder in each neighbourhood type.
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This article seeks to understand the form, content and broader implications of police academy ethics training. We begin by detailing the mechanisms borrowed from (near) total/greedy institutions that are key elements in the academy... more
This article seeks to understand the form, content and broader implications of police academy ethics training. We begin by detailing the mechanisms borrowed from (near) total/greedy institutions that are key elements in the academy training structure. These are noted in an ethnographic account that points out the importance of obedience to authority, and the resultant shame and honour, which function as the core of police socialization. We conclude by explicating the theoretical foundation of the police function and then move on to question how ethics training supports, or resists, this structure. Findings suggest that, even at its best, ethics training is likely to serve in restraining the professional vision of incoming police officers. Despite what can only be assumed to be the best of intentions, a traditional model of police as law enforcers is (re)generated within a recruit cohort while more progressive notions of the police role (i.e., working toward neighbourhood efficacy) are ignored. With this, truly ethical behaviour is structurally inhibited by theatrical efforts at maintaining the collective fiction of the police mandate. We're not trying to change you. We're trying to get you to think differently.
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Book Chapter: In this chapter we illustrate how transformational police reform—i.e., changing the game—is possible. We draw on Bandura's (2001) social cognitive theory to formulate the concepts of neighbourhood dynamics and neighborhood... more
Book Chapter: In this chapter we illustrate how transformational police reform—i.e., changing the game—is possible. We draw on Bandura's (2001) social cognitive theory to formulate the concepts of neighbourhood dynamics and neighborhood atmosphere. These are both latent dimensions of neighborhoods and communities that have clear and profound implications for neighbourhood safety. This work extends the concept of neighbourhood collective efficacy by explicating the multifaceted nature of ‘low collective efficacy.’ We do this by focusing on the psychodynamic processes that occur in small neighbourhood and community places and show how they related to collective efficacy. In turn, we show why psychodynamic processes are important for neighborhood safety and police reform.
Research Interests:
Book Chapter: This chapter examines the sociological roots of the current problems in contemporary policing. Employing Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, capital, and doxa the chapter begins by highlighting the cultural... more
Book Chapter: This chapter examines the sociological roots of the current problems in contemporary policing. Employing Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, capital, and doxa the chapter begins by highlighting the cultural mechanisms that maintain and reproduce ineffective policing practices. In an example from Wilmington, Delaware in the United States, the authors show how the ‘game’ on the field of policing focusses primarily on law enforcement outputs. This game shapes the worldview and dispositions of officers (habitus). Police officers are recognised and rewarded (capital) for acting in ways that align with the game’s logic. This process creates the condition doxa, in which the socially constructed and changeable field of policing is mistaken for natural way it should be. This chapter also considers why perspectives on police reform diverge and what this means for the future of policing in an age of reform.
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Book Chapter in Edited Edition
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Over the past two decades, significant efforts have established categories of crimes motivated by bias and so enhanced the quality of information about the prevalence of such crimes in the United States. As part of a national reporting... more
Over the past two decades, significant efforts have established categories of crimes motivated by bias and so enhanced the quality of information about the prevalence of such crimes in the United States. As part of a national reporting system established by the Hate Crime Statistics Act, local police agencies collect information about the prevalence and characteristics of bias-crime incidents. Although the quality of this program has improved since its inception, local police face several challenges to identifying and accurately classifying bias crimes, including the ambiguity of applying legal definitions to cases, uncertainty regarding bias motivation, and infrequency of reported events to law enforcement. Drawing on information from eight case studies, the article examines how local police identify and record bias crimes through various kinds of reporting procedures and organizational structures. The article concludes with best practice recommendations for bias-crime tracking and reporting of incidents of bias crime within local police agencies.
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Most studies of peer support for intimate partner violence (IPV) at U.S. institutions of higher learning focused solely on male assaults on heterosexual women. As well, the bulk of this work only examined how all-male social networks... more
Most studies of peer support for intimate partner violence
(IPV) at U.S. institutions of higher learning focused solely
on male assaults on heterosexual women. As well, the bulk
of this work only examined how all-male social networks
perpetuate and legitimate this behavior. Using recent data
from a survey administered at a large U.S. residential university,
the main objective of this paper is to help fill
a research gap by presenting findings on (1) how having
peers who have perpetrated dating abuse and (2) peers’
encouragement to be abusive to dates contributes to IPV
victimization in a campus lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB)
community. The results show that LGB students report
a higher rate of such victimization than heterosexual students
and the two aforementioned types of pro-abuse peer
support significantly predict victimization among both sexual
orientation groups.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 22 August 2018
Revised 5 November 2018
Accepted 9 November 2018
KEYWORDS
Intimate partner violence;
peer support; college;
lesbian sexuality issues; gay
sexuality issues; bisexual
sexuality issues
Recently,
(IPV) at U.S. institutions of higher learning focused solely
on male assaults on heterosexual women. As well, the bulk
of this work only examined how all-male social networks
perpetuate and legitimate this behavior. Using recent data
from a survey administered at a large U.S. residential university,
the main objective of this paper is to help fill
a research gap by presenting findings on (1) how having
peers who have perpetrated dating abuse and (2) peers’
encouragement to be abusive to dates contributes to IPV
victimization in a campus lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB)
community. The results show that LGB students report
a higher rate of such victimization than heterosexual students
and the two aforementioned types of pro-abuse peer
support significantly predict victimization among both sexual
orientation groups.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 22 August 2018
Revised 5 November 2018
Accepted 9 November 2018
KEYWORDS
Intimate partner violence;
peer support; college;
lesbian sexuality issues; gay
sexuality issues; bisexual
sexuality issues
Recently,
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Researchers have accumulated much social scientific knowledge about the scope, distribution, causes, and outcomes of the physical and sexual abuse of female students in North American institutions of higher learning. However, surveys of... more
Researchers have accumulated much social scientific knowledge about the scope, distribution, causes, and outcomes of the physical and sexual abuse of female students in North American institutions of higher learning. However, surveys of technology-facilitated stalking and the dissemination of unwanted sexual messages/images in college campus communities are in short supply. The few that have been conducted do not identify key sociological risk factors associated with these two electronic forms of victimization. This paper, then, has two objectives: (1) to examine the influence of two types of negative peer support and (2) to determine if being the target of technology-facilitated stalking and receiving unwanted sexual messages/images are associated with female students’ intimate partner violence and sexual assault experiences. The results confirm that the two variants of negative peer support examined in this study are significant predictors of digital victimization and that such abuse is strongly associated with intimate partner violence and sexual assault.
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Research on violence against members of college lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities has rapidly grown in the past few years. Prevalence studies show that sexual minorities enrolled at institutions of higher... more
Research on violence against members of college lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities has rapidly grown in the past few years. Prevalence studies show that sexual minorities enrolled at institutions of higher learning are at higher risk of being victimized by sexual assault, stalking, and intimate partner violence (IPV) than their heterosexual counterparts. However, it is unclear how widespread multiple victimizations of the same type, or multiple victimizations of different types (polyvictimization), is among LGBTQ college students. The study also looked at negative peer support (NPS), which is closely related to the male peer support variable shown many times to be related to college student victimization Although NPS has been found to contribute to this problem among broader groups of students, there has not been specific evidence that LGBTQ students are multiple or polyvictimized. Using data from a survey conducted at a large residential school in the South Atlantic region of the United States, this article documents the breadth of LGBTQ polyvictimization at this research site covering more than 25 forms of sexual harassment, sexual assault, IPV, and stalking. This study is the first to document that the presence of NPS increases the amount of polyvictimization among LGBTQ students. Probit analysis shows that attachment to abusive peers is strongly related to polyvictimization across all variables; receiving NPS increases the probability of multiple forms of victimization.
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Obtaining accurate survey data on the prevalence of woman abuse in institutions of higher education continues to be a major methodological challenge. Underreporting is difficult to overcome; yet, there may be effective ways of minimizing... more
Obtaining accurate survey data on the prevalence of woman abuse in institutions of higher education continues to be a major methodological challenge. Underreporting is difficult to overcome; yet, there may be effective ways of minimizing this problem. One is adding a supplementary open-ended question to a primarily quantitative questionnaire. Using data derived from the Campus Quality of Life Survey (CQLS), this article examines whether asking respondents to complete such a question increases the prevalence rates of four types of woman abuse and provides information on behaviors that are not included in widely used and validated measures of these harms.
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The study of crime, law, and social control is now much less urban-biased than it was at the start of this millennium, and there is an ongoing significant increase in international qualitative and quantitative rural criminological... more
The study of crime, law, and social control is now much less urban-biased than it was at the start of this millennium, and there is an ongoing significant increase in international qualitative and quantitative rural criminological research. Nonetheless, a conspicuous absence of reliable estimates of crime victimization in rural parts of the United States continues to exist. This article helps fill a major research gap by presenting the results of the first phase of the West Virginia Community Quality of Life Survey.
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The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an incident-basedcrime reporting program for local, state, and federal law enforcementagencies. Within each criminal incident, NIBRS captures information onoffenses, victims,... more
The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an incident-basedcrime reporting program for local, state, and federal law enforcementagencies. Within each criminal incident, NIBRS captures information onoffenses, victims, offenders, property, and persons arrested, as well asinformation about the incident itself. The ability to link and analyze thisdetailed information is a significant improvement to the existing UniformCrime Reporting (UCR) summary reporting system. As one might expect,however, this increase in crime data significantly complicates the life ofthe data analyst, particularly when cross tabulating the NIBRS data. To dealwith the complexity of NIBRS data, one must understand its structure. Thisarticle provides an overview of the NIBRS structure and methods formaneuvering within it to present and interpret correctly cross tabulationsof the NIBRS data.
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The current study introduces a method to assess hate crime classification error in a state Incident-Based Reporting System. The study identifies and quantifies the " statistical accuracy " of aggregate hate crime data and provides insight... more
The current study introduces a method to assess hate crime classification error in a state Incident-Based Reporting System. The study identifies and quantifies the " statistical accuracy " of aggregate hate crime data and provides insight from frontline officers about thought processes involved with classifying bias offenses. Random samples of records from two city and two county agencies provided data for the study. A systematic review of official case narratives determined hate crime classification error using state and federal definitions. A focus group sought to inquire about officers' handling of hate crimes. Undercounting of hate crimes in official data was evident. When error rates were extrapolated, National Incident-Based Reporting System Group A hate crimes were undercounted by 67%. Officers' responses validated complications involved with classifying hate crimes, particularly, incidents motivated " in part " by bias. Classification errors in reporting hate crimes have an impact on the statistical accuracy of official hate crime statistics. Officers' offense descriptions provided greater awareness to issues with accurately interpreting and classifying hate crimes. The results yield useful information for officer training, understanding the true magnitude of these crimes, and a precursor for adjusting crime statistics to better estimate the " true " number of hate crimes in the population.
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This article explores the conditions and assumptions under which it is possible to use National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in lifetime crime computations, particularly for nonfatal violent crimes. We describe methods for... more
This article explores the conditions and assumptions under which it is possible to use National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in lifetime crime computations, particularly for nonfatal violent crimes. We describe methods for using NIBRS to study lifetime risk for a variety of crimes and show how researchers and policy makers can apply these methods using readily available software such as Microsoft Excel. Finally, we demonstrate in two different studies how NIBRS can be used to estimate lifetime risk at the state and national levels. In doing so, we introduce the concept of the ‘‘average person’’ in each age–sex–race grouping to calculate the risk of victimization for this hypothetical person only.
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Gender has been hypothesized to affect how violent offenders are treated within the criminal justice system, but studies have tended to ignore the role of the victim in decision making. This study explores the interactive effects of... more
Gender has been hypothesized to affect how violent offenders are treated within the criminal justice system, but studies have tended to ignore the role of the victim in decision making. This study explores the interactive effects of offender and victim sex (i.e., the sex dyad) on reporting and arrest of one-on-one assaultive crime. Using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey and National Incident-Based Reporting System, findings show that male-on-female offenses are reported to police more often than other dyads, but female-on-male offenses result in more arrests. Meanwhile, female-on-female offenses result in fewer arrests, despite nonsignificant differences in
reporting. Implications of findings for theory and future research on gender discretion are discussed.
reporting. Implications of findings for theory and future research on gender discretion are discussed.
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The passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 resulted in the creation of a new crime category within law enforcement. Linking the collection of national hate crime data to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program required... more
The passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 resulted in the creation of a new crime category within law enforcement. Linking the collection of national hate crime data to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program required changes in policy and action within thousands of police organizations throughout the United States. The commitment to make these changes and the speed to which one might expect them to occur are a function of the forces, both internal and external, that affect attitudes and behaviors relative to this change. A survey instrument was developed to examine these forces and the extent to which they exist in four police jurisidictions from different regions of the country. Two of these organizations collect hate crime data and two do not. We found that each of the four agencies had its own unique "field of forces" affecting attitudes and behaviors regarding hate crime. The study provides both a method of inquiry and important direction to justice professionals who seek to facilitate organizational change within law enforcement toward more active involvement in hate crime data collection.
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In order to assess the impact of the different policies and procedures instituted by state UCR programs on law enforcement participation in the national Hate Crime Data Collection Program (Hate Crime Program), the authors developed a... more
In order to assess the impact of the different policies and procedures instituted by state UCR programs on law enforcement participation in the national Hate Crime Data Collection Program (Hate Crime Program), the authors developed a survey instrument to send to all state UCR managers or similarly designated representatives. The survey was designed to assess the extent to which certain policies and procedures exist in each state relating to the reporting of bias crime statistics. This article provides an analysis of this survey's results and a discussion of the impact of state policies and practices on successful participation in the Hate Crime Program.
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Current research has affirmed that black women are most at risk for rape, assault, and intimate partner violence in the United States. These findings are often based on statistics from surveys like the National Crime Victimization Survey... more
Current research has affirmed that black women are most at risk for rape, assault, and intimate partner violence in the United States. These findings are often based on statistics from surveys like the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The NCVS collects data from a stratified sample of households in the United States fromwhichonecanestablishvictimizationriskandratesatthenationallevel.Weknow very little about a person’s risk of violent crime victimization from police records at the local and state level because until recently the data were not available. This study, therefore, adds to current victimization research by utilizing state-level police data to examine violent crime victimization patterns. Specifically, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and West Virginia Incident-Based Reporting System (WVIBRS), we construct a model to examine the risk of nonsexual and sexual victimization over a lifetime by sex and race. Our findings indicate that black females in West Virginia have the highest probability of experiencing a nonsexual and sexual victimization over their lifetime. They also have the highest risk of multiple victimizations for these crimes
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Previous studies of peer support for various types of violence against college students are heteronormative, being primarily concerned with the abuse of heterosexual women by heterosexual males. Using recent data from the Campus Quality... more
Previous studies of peer support for various types of violence against college students are heteronormative, being primarily concerned with the abuse of heterosexual women by heterosexual males. Using recent data from the Campus Quality of Life Survey conducted at a large residential college in the South Atlantic part of the US, the main objective of this paper is to help fill a major research gap by presenting data on two ways in which negative peer support contribute to sexual violence and stalking in a campus LGBTQ community. The results show that LGBTQ students are more likely to receive such support than heterosexual ones and that negative peer support predicts sexual assault and stalking among both types of students. Implications for further empirical and theoretical work are discussed, as well as some key policy issues. key words sexual assault • stalking • LGBTQ • peer support • college key messages • LGBTQ students report higher rates of sexual assault and stalking than heterosexual students. • LGBTQ students are more likely to receive negative peer support than are their heterosexual counterparts.
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This article explores the conditions and assumptions under which it is possible to use National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in lifetime crime computations, particularly for nonfatal violent crimes. We describe methods for... more
This article explores the conditions and assumptions under which it is possible to use National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in lifetime crime computations, particularly for nonfatal violent crimes. We describe methods for using NIBRS to study lifetime risk for a variety of crimes and show how researchers and policy makers can apply these methods using readily available software such as Microsoft Excel. Finally, we demonstrate in two different studies how NIBRS can be used to estimate lifetime risk at the state and national levels. In doing so, we introduce the concept of the “average person” in each age–sex–race grouping to calculate the risk of victimization for this hypothetical person only.
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The Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) of 1990 set into motion the structure and mechanisms for identifying and collecting data on the occurrence of hate crimes in this country. In this article, the authors briefly describe the... more
The Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) of 1990 set into motion the structure and mechanisms for identifying and collecting data on the occurrence of hate crimes in this country. In this article, the authors briefly describe the data-collection program that was developed by the FBI and others in response to the HCSA. The authors also examine the FBI's progress in implementing this program as an adjunct to the widely known Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Trends in law enforcement participation in the national program, along with steps being taken to improve this participation, are also examined. Also, the authors explore the future benefits that are anticipated as the UCR program shifts from a summary-based program to one that collects data on each criminal incident. Finally, the authors make general observations about hate crime in the United States based on the data currently held by the FBI.
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Although there is now a large literature on physical and sexual assaults at institutions of higher education, this article expands that knowledge by looking at Kelly's continuum of sexual violence and the concept of polyvictimization. On... more
Although there is now a large literature on physical and sexual assaults at institutions of higher education, this article expands that knowledge by looking at Kelly's continuum of sexual violence and the concept of polyvictimization. On a campus where 44.9 per cent of the women reported stalking , and 61.4 per cent reported sexual harassment, this article looks at women who were the victims of repeated or diverse types of abuse, ranging from obscene phone calls to stalking to harassment to penetrative sexual assault. Women who suffered multiple abuses are studied using data from the Campus Quality of Life Survey conducted at a large residential college in the South Atlantic part of the US. Negative peer support, and especially having friends that are abusive was found to increase the likelihood of multiple victimization.
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This paper suggests a novel clustering method for analyzing the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data, which include the determination of correlation of different crime types, the development of a likelihood index for... more
This paper suggests a novel clustering method for analyzing the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data, which include the determination of correlation of different crime types, the development of a likelihood index for crimes to occur in a jurisdiction, and the clustering of jurisdictions based on crime type. The method was tested by using the 2005 assault data from 121 jurisdictions in Virginia as a test case. The analyses of these data show that some different crime types are correlated and some different crime parameters are correlated with different crime types. The analyses also show that certain jurisdictions within Virginia share certain crime patterns. This information assists with constructing a pattern for a specific crime type and can be used to determine whether a jurisdiction may be more likely to see this type of crime occur in their area.
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There has been a recent surge in the number of campus climate surveys conducted across the United States; however, little research has examined response rates. Using data from 5,524 students who participated in a Web-based survey at a... more
There has been a recent surge in the number of campus climate surveys conducted across the United States; however, little research has examined response rates. Using data from 5,524 students who participated in a Web-based survey at a large university in a South Atlantic part of the United States, four waves of data corresponding with participation rates after reminder e-mails were analyzed. These waves are first compared across a number of demographic variables. Next, the data on rates of stalking, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and stranger sexual harassment for each wave are examined. The results show few significant differences in the characteristics of the students participating in each wave, and the victimization rates remained relatively constant across the 4 weeks of data collection.
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Recent events in the United States have challenged the law enforcement approach to policing. Some groups have called for the defunding of the police. Many claim the problems in policing are structural rather than simply the result of "bad... more
Recent events in the United States have challenged the law enforcement approach to policing. Some groups have called for the defunding of the police. Many claim the problems in policing are structural rather than simply the result of "bad apple" cops. This claim is somewhat ambiguous and so this chapter explores the law enforcement approach to social problems via an allegory of a dangerous intersection. The chapter highlights three levels of social structure that affect police outcomes: 1) structured inequality (wealthy and poor), 2) structured patterns of interactions shaped by inequality, and 3) the structured nature of the law enforcement approach to policing and the way this is internalized in officers as "common sense." The chapter ends with a few concluding observations and recommendations for police reform.
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In earlier chapters, police practitioner/scholars highlighted many of the issues relating to the practice of policing in an era of reform. They also examined innovative uses of technology for forensic investigations and intelligence.... more
In earlier chapters, police practitioner/scholars highlighted many of the issues relating to the practice of policing in an era of reform. They also examined innovative uses of technology for forensic investigations and intelligence. Further, they explore the benefits of community building and cooperation with civil society organizations. In this chapter, we take on the important philosophical question: What makes something right and other things wrong in the current era of policing and why? The chapter provides a theoretical grounding for the practical application of ethics in a new era of policing.
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This chapter examines the sociological roots of the current problems in contemporary policing. Employing Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus, capital, and doxa the chapter begins by highlighting the cultural mechanisms that... more
This chapter examines the sociological roots of the current problems in contemporary policing. Employing Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus, capital, and doxa the chapter begins by highlighting the cultural mechanisms that maintain and reproduce ineffective policing practices. In an example from Wilmington, Delaware in the United States, the authors show how the 'game' on the field of policing focusses primarily on law enforcement outputs. This game shapes the worldview and dispositions of officers (habitus). Police officers are recognised and rewarded (capital) for acting in ways that align with the game's logic. This process creates the condition doxa, in which the socially constructed and changeable field of policing is mistaken for natural way it should be. This chapter also considers why perspectives on police reform diverge and what this means for the future of policing in an age of reform.
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In this chapter we illustrate how transformational police reform-i.e., changing the game-is possible. We draw on Bandura's (2001) social cognitive theory to formulate the concepts of neighbourhood dynamics and neighborhood atmosphere.... more
In this chapter we illustrate how transformational police reform-i.e., changing the game-is possible. We draw on Bandura's (2001) social cognitive theory to formulate the concepts of neighbourhood dynamics and neighborhood atmosphere. These are both latent dimensions of neighborhoods and communities that have clear and profound implications for neighbourhood safety. This work extends the concept of neighbourhood collective efficacy by explicating the multifaceted nature of 'low collective efficacy.' We do this by focusing on the psychodynamic processes that occur in small neighbourhood and community places and show how they related to collective efficacy. In turn, we show why psychodynamic processes are important for neighborhood safety and police reform.
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This chapter builds on the ideas presented in chapters 2 and 5 by presenting a number of essential tools for a new situational policing. By envisioning strong, safe places as the ultimate goal of policing, these tools help the police and... more
This chapter builds on the ideas presented in chapters 2 and 5 by presenting a number of essential tools for a new situational policing. By envisioning strong, safe places as the ultimate goal of policing, these tools help the police and communities engage in dialogue, act together, and assess progress toward this desired end. The "strong neighbourhood" goal sets up a new game which requires the police to work with the community to create an atmosphere where residents are willing to intervene for the common good and the police are there to help. The new game requires new concepts, tools and strategies which are the focus of this chapter.
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This first chapter provides an introduction to this book Policing in an Age of Reform: An Agenda for Research and Practice. The book itself draws on both scholarly research and practical experiences as all chapters are authored or... more
This first chapter provides an introduction to this book Policing in an Age of Reform: An Agenda for Research and Practice. The book itself draws on both scholarly research and practical experiences as all chapters are authored or coauthored by policing scholars who have had careers in policing either in Europe, Australia, or North America. We begin this chapter with a brief description of the calls for police reform in the United Kingdom, United States, and France. The views of the editors and chapter authors coalesce and diverge in important ways, which are briefly described. They affect the way we think about police reform in a changing world, and so we introduce two primary focuses of reform, i.e., police methods and police mandate. Depending on which one of these two types of reform is the primary aim of the reformer, four perspectives emerge:1) maintaining, 2) retrofitting, 3) coopting, and 4) transforming. These are explained as the chapter evolves.
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Podcast E224 - New Game, New Playbook, New Scorecard (w/ James Nolan) Former Wilmington police lieutenant and current professor of sociology at WVU James Nolan joins Rob in the bunker to talk about his recent op-ed about police reform... more
Podcast E224 - New Game, New Playbook, New Scorecard (w/ James Nolan)
Former Wilmington police lieutenant and current professor of sociology at WVU James Nolan joins Rob in the bunker to talk about his recent op-ed about police reform in Wilmington and how we need to redefine the relationship between police, law enforcement, and public safety.
Former Wilmington police lieutenant and current professor of sociology at WVU James Nolan joins Rob in the bunker to talk about his recent op-ed about police reform in Wilmington and how we need to redefine the relationship between police, law enforcement, and public safety.
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Video presentation
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NPR interview
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Podcast: Former Wilmington police lieutenant and current professor of sociology at WVU James Nolan joins Rob in the bunker to talk about his recent op-ed about police reform in Wilmington and how we need to redefine the relationship... more
Podcast: Former Wilmington police lieutenant and current professor of sociology at WVU James Nolan joins Rob in the bunker to talk about his recent op-ed about police reform in Wilmington and how we need to redefine the relationship between police, law enforcement, and public safety.
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Diversifying the academic faculty remains an elusive goal marked by slow and uneven progress. This book describes an effective model for institutional transformation which is uniquely grounded in group-level processes. Efforts at... more
Diversifying the academic faculty remains an elusive goal marked by slow and uneven progress. This book describes an effective model for institutional transformation which is uniquely grounded in group-level processes.
Efforts at institutional transformation continue to center individual actors. This is evident in the proliferation of programs that train individuals on implicit bias, search strategies, and other diversity and inclusion-based content as solutions for inequities in academia. Acknowledging the value of these approaches, this book adds a new focus: group-level processes. It unifies research on gender and racial inequity with concepts from social psychological theories of group dynamics to present a model of change centered on professional adult learners, including faculty and academic staff. The book details the implementation of group-level processes based on insights from the learning sciences, higher education leadership, communication studies, and group facilitation to instill norms for a more equitable and inclusive institution. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data to illustrate the impact of group-level initiatives, the book offers recommendations to enable the application of this model in higher education contexts.
This book will be of interest to researchers and graduate students studying institutional transformation, academic social justice leadership, and faculty professional development and to those interested in integrating justice and equity into team science, translational research, and other trans-, inter-, and multi-disciplinary fields.
Table of Contents
Efforts at institutional transformation continue to center individual actors. This is evident in the proliferation of programs that train individuals on implicit bias, search strategies, and other diversity and inclusion-based content as solutions for inequities in academia. Acknowledging the value of these approaches, this book adds a new focus: group-level processes. It unifies research on gender and racial inequity with concepts from social psychological theories of group dynamics to present a model of change centered on professional adult learners, including faculty and academic staff. The book details the implementation of group-level processes based on insights from the learning sciences, higher education leadership, communication studies, and group facilitation to instill norms for a more equitable and inclusive institution. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data to illustrate the impact of group-level initiatives, the book offers recommendations to enable the application of this model in higher education contexts.
This book will be of interest to researchers and graduate students studying institutional transformation, academic social justice leadership, and faculty professional development and to those interested in integrating justice and equity into team science, translational research, and other trans-, inter-, and multi-disciplinary fields.
Table of Contents
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This book tackles the contentious issue of policing in an age of controversy and uncertainty. It is a timely book written by police scholars — predominantly former practitioners from Europe, Australia and North America — who draw from... more
This book tackles the contentious issue of policing in an age of controversy and uncertainty. It is a timely book written by police scholars — predominantly former practitioners from Europe, Australia and North America — who draw from their own research and operational experiences to illuminate key issues relating to police reform in the present day. While acknowledging some relevance of usual proposed models, such as problem-solving, evidence-based policing and procedural justice, the contributors provide an insider look at a variety of perspectives and approaches to police reform which have emerged in recent decades. It invites university students, criminologists, social scientists, police managers, forensic scientists to question and adapt their perspectives on a broad range of topics such as community policing, hate crime, Islamic radicalisation, neighborhood dynamics, situational policing, antidiscrimination and civil society, police ethics, performance measures, and advances in forensic science, technology, intelligence and more in an accessible and comprehensive manner.
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The Violence of Hate, Fourth Edition presents a systematic introduction to issues related to the sociology and social psychology of hate and violence as they target people who are different in socially significant ways. It offers an... more
The Violence of Hate, Fourth Edition presents a systematic introduction to issues related to the sociology and social psychology of hate and violence as they target people who are different in socially significant ways. It offers an integrated perspective on the causes and consequences of hate-motivated violence and the reasons we have not always been effective in stopping it. Not only do the authors address the experiences of racial, ethnic, and religious groups under attack, but also those who are victimized because of their sexual orientation, gender, gender-identity, age, or disability status. In addition, they include a chapter dedicated solely to the exploration of hate crimes, an evolving legal concept and public policy domain, as well as a chapter in which they suggest approaches that may be effectively applied collectively to the reduction of hate violence. As in earlier versions of The Violence of Hate, Levin and Nolan take the position that support for hate-motivated violence originates not in the ranting and raving of a few bigoted extremists at the margins of society but in the tacit approval of ordinary, even decent, people who are located squarely in the mainstream.
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The project will build on and adapt the Police and Community Engagement (PACE) program to study the conditions that build safe and strong communities. Through the cultivation of collaborative and sustained dialogues between the police,... more
The project will build on and adapt the Police and Community Engagement (PACE) program to study the conditions that build safe and strong communities. Through the cultivation of collaborative and sustained dialogues between the police, residents, and other community resources and stakeholders, the PACE model enables collective understanding, strengthens relationships, and coordinates actions that build strong and safe places. The PIs propose situational policing as a theoretical framework that shifts away from policing as law enforcement to policing as a means for creating safe places. The constructs (neighborhood atmosphere and latent psychodynamic processes) provide a way to reimagine policing with a strong-community end in mind. The situational policing framework provides officers and communities with a way to visualize and assess progress toward this desired end. The PIs seek to answer the question: What keeps communities safe and strong? Reimagining the police with measurable community-outcome goals—and with strategies to achieve them—has the potential to guide a larger cultural transformation in the field of policing well beyond this project.
This mixed-methods study uses a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, which is isomorphic to situational policing. PAR democratizes the research process by including the stakeholders (e.g., local residents, business people, police officers) as co-researchers. The sampling frame includes neighborhoods in four police districts. The PIs select two neighborhoods in each district based on high risk for crime and poor police-community relationships. In each police district, one neighborhood will be identified as a control and the other for the PACE treatment. Pre- and post-treatment surveys will be conducted by the PAR teams with graduate students. The four neighborhoods identified for the PACE treatment will participate in structured conversations designed to foster understanding about the challenges between and among the police and residents. The conversation will include a broad spectrum of stakeholder participants leading to informed and collaborative action. All eight neighborhoods will be surveyed at times pre and post treatment. In addition, semi-structured, open-ended focus groups will be conducted in the treatment neighborhoods by the PAR research team. The goal of both the quantitative and qualitative components of the study is to reveal latent psychodynamic processes that create a neighborhood atmosphere. The study measures the effect of the neighborhood atmosphere on crime, violence, drug abuse, and other social problems and the impact of PACE in a reimagined policing with a safe, strong community focus.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
This mixed-methods study uses a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, which is isomorphic to situational policing. PAR democratizes the research process by including the stakeholders (e.g., local residents, business people, police officers) as co-researchers. The sampling frame includes neighborhoods in four police districts. The PIs select two neighborhoods in each district based on high risk for crime and poor police-community relationships. In each police district, one neighborhood will be identified as a control and the other for the PACE treatment. Pre- and post-treatment surveys will be conducted by the PAR teams with graduate students. The four neighborhoods identified for the PACE treatment will participate in structured conversations designed to foster understanding about the challenges between and among the police and residents. The conversation will include a broad spectrum of stakeholder participants leading to informed and collaborative action. All eight neighborhoods will be surveyed at times pre and post treatment. In addition, semi-structured, open-ended focus groups will be conducted in the treatment neighborhoods by the PAR research team. The goal of both the quantitative and qualitative components of the study is to reveal latent psychodynamic processes that create a neighborhood atmosphere. The study measures the effect of the neighborhood atmosphere on crime, violence, drug abuse, and other social problems and the impact of PACE in a reimagined policing with a safe, strong community focus.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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This short video is intended to stimulate discussion among groups of people who think about social problems differently but want to come together to do the right things. The written version is available also.
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This short metaphorical meditation is intended to help find ways to do the right things in dealing with social problems even though we come from different perspectives.
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One day, Ocean awoke with a human mind. A gift, she thought, to know thy Self from Other. She saw Sun and Moon, out there, so beautiful a find. Blue Sky appeared as her twin brother.
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An apostate's creed
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Gathering together in the profession of policing is deeply spiritual. At the last supper, and in a state of God-consciousness, Jesus described the nature of his divinity. He said of the bread, "…this is my body…"; and of the wine, "…this... more
Gathering together in the profession of policing is deeply spiritual. At the last supper, and in a state of God-consciousness, Jesus described the nature of his divinity. He said of the bread, "…this is my body…"; and of the wine, "…this is my blood…" The multiplicity and diversity of all things in the universe come together in a moment of time to form bread and wine. It is the coming together of diverse parts into a unified form that is divine and, therefore, worthy of our reverence. Great police leaders strive to see the necessity of our diversity and the divine nature of our unity.