International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Mar 1, 2009
This study analyzes the spatial distribution of crime outcomes at the county scale in Florida as ... more This study analyzes the spatial distribution of crime outcomes at the county scale in Florida as a function of natural disasters. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and conditional fixed effects negative binomial statistical techniques are used. Four crime outcomes are analyzed: index crimes, property crimes, violent crimes, and domestic violence crimes. Adjusting for socio-demographic and social order variables, we find that natural disasters significantly decrease levels of reported index, property, and violent crimes, but ...
ABSTRACT Crime related to energy extraction is an emerging area of interest among green and criti... more ABSTRACT Crime related to energy extraction is an emerging area of interest among green and critical criminologists. This paper contributes to that developing work by examining the political economy of harm and crime associated with the oil and natural gas industry in rural Colorado. Specifically, we examine problematic state regulatory response to citizens’ complaints regarding a range of harms caused by private industry (e.g., water pollution, adverse human health consequences, and domestic livestock death). In this paper, we draw on content analysis of formal complaints filed by citizens to the state, ethnographic work, and intensive interviews with citizens seeking relief from problematic or abusive industry practices. Our analysis illuminates how the state documents these practices, how citizens experience them, and how the state dilutes and deflects the externalities of energy extraction to produce additional harm.
Few studies examine the effect of media (particularly the Internet) on punitive attitudes of coll... more Few studies examine the effect of media (particularly the Internet) on punitive attitudes of college students and none examine the credibility of sources of news that students consume. This study employs survey research to examine the effect of media in multiple news formats (i.e., national and local television, national and local newspapers, and Internet news), the frequency of news media usage, and perceived news credibility on punitiveness among 373 college students enrolled in a state university in the Western region of the United States. Of those studies that examine punitive attitudes among college students, it is rare for researchers to consider the impact of media and media credibility despite the fact there is clear evidence that media effects are strong predictors of attitudes in the general population. The results of this study indicate that although no primary news source was related to punitiveness those respondents with a higher frequency of exposure to local TV news s...
International journal of mass emergencies and disasters
This study analyzes the spatial distribution of crime outcomes at the county scale in Florida as ... more This study analyzes the spatial distribution of crime outcomes at the county scale in Florida as a function of natural disasters. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and conditional fixed effects negative binomial statistical techniques are used. Four crime outcomes are analyzed: index crimes, property crimes, violent crimes, and domestic violence crimes. Adjusting for socio-demographic and social order variables, we find that natural disasters significantly decrease levels of reported index, property, and violent crimes, but significantly increase the expected count of reported domestic violence crimes.
Given the fact that women are less likely to experience crime victimization than males, researche... more Given the fact that women are less likely to experience crime victimization than males, researchers have been puzzled for decades as to why women experience higher levels of fear of victimization. Scholars such as Warr (1984) and Ferraro (1995, 1996) argue that the fear of rape that females experience shadows fear of other crime, as rape is viewed by females
Using anonymous surveys of 3,235 officers in 30 police agencies, we tested hypotheses derived fro... more Using anonymous surveys of 3,235 officers in 30 police agencies, we tested hypotheses derived from prior policing research, legitimacy theory, and disciplinary fairness literature on the intentions of police officers to report acts of misconduct perpetrated by fellow officers. We examined features of the normative order involving peer reporting of police misconduct at both the individual agency and aggregate police subculture levels. Consistent with previous research, the perceived seriousness of the offense and legitimacy (endorsement) are consistently strong predictors of officers' intentions to report misconduct. We also find that perceived fairness of discipline provides significant results, but the direction of the relationship depends on the perceived seriousness of the offense. It is clear that the majority of police officers participate in a shared normative culture of when to and when not to report misconduct. Finally, we note the importance of studying the reporting of police misconduct using a social psychological lens.
Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 2013
ABSTRACT Purpose ‐ Public opinion regarding the police is generally positive, although there are ... more ABSTRACT Purpose ‐ Public opinion regarding the police is generally positive, although there are number of individual and contextual variables that affect these views. Yet research examining public perceptions regarding state law enforcement agencies (particularly state patrols) is rare. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The paper utilizes a representative state-wide sample of state residents and examine their perceptions of the Colorado State Patrol (CSP). Findings ‐ The paper finds positive views of the CSP overall and place particular emphasis on how individual, contextual, and contact-related variables affect opinions. Research limitations/implications ‐ The study focusses on one state patrol and is not generalizable to all state patrols and to other forms of state law enforcement. Originality/value ‐ The paper fills a void in the research on public opinion regarding state law enforcement and discuss similarities and differences in how they are viewed when compared to municipal agencies.
Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 2004
Following the velvet revolution of 1989 and the adoption of a democratic form of government, Czec... more Following the velvet revolution of 1989 and the adoption of a democratic form of government, Czech policing has experienced a plethora of changes resulting in a new police force that has been understudied to date. This research seeks to address this void using an exploratory approach that utilizes survey research to gauge the attitudes of 70 Czech police officers regarding
This research extends the study of natural resource violations by examining the association betwe... more This research extends the study of natural resource violations by examining the association between conservation organizations and the enforcement of natural resource violations across 67 Florida counties in 2006. Specifically, the authors look at natural resource violations as an organizational outcome that is influenced by perceived community organization around environmental conservation. To do this, they examine the association between the number of conservation organizations and the level of enforcement for natural resource violations. The results suggest that even while controlling for organizational capacity (i.e., number of officers), offenders and targets, proportion rural population, and economic benefits from natural resource use, a positive association exits between conservation organizations and natural resource enfor cement levels. This relationship is not replicated in the case of animal rights and hunting and fishing organizations. Although issues related to environmental justice are always a concern in studies of environmental enforcement, the authors find no evidence of an association between social and economic disadvantage and community organizing. Finally, a post hoc examination of the data suggests that the association between conservation organizations and the level of natural resource enforcement is stronger for those counties where more officers enforce natural resource violations than for those counties where fewer officers enforce violations.
ABSTRACT Students majoring in criminology and criminal justice are assumed to have more detailed ... more ABSTRACT Students majoring in criminology and criminal justice are assumed to have more detailed and accurate knowledge about crime, criminal justice, and punishment practices than peers majoring in other disciplines. The purpose of this study was to examine if criminology/criminal justice majors were more or less punitive than students pursuing other majors at three universities using standard predictors of punitiveness that have not been consistently examined in previous research. The results indicate that criminology and criminal justice students are more punitive in the combined three‐campus sample and in two of the three‐campus samples considered separately.
Sense-making is a form of meaning-making that focuses on understanding loss which then contribute... more Sense-making is a form of meaning-making that focuses on understanding loss which then contributes to identity reconstruction. This qualitative study examines how perceived communication with the criminal justice system can inhibit sense-making among unsolved homicide co-victims. One-time intensive interviews were conducted with 37 co-victims about their interactions with police and prosecutors. A grounded theory approach suggest that co-victims held negative views of the police and prosecutors because they perceived them as inhibiting their ability to adequately locate information needed to understand the crime and achieve justice. Results also suggest that race and ethnicity play a role in reducing sense-making because constructions of meaning were based on perceptions of discrimination. In the end, the intense desire for information, resolution, and justice led several co-victims to investigate their loved one's murder. Policies that law enforcement should adopt to promote better communication with co-victims and facilitate sensemaking are examined.
ABSTRACT We study the integrity contours of two police in Eastern Europe that have experienced dr... more ABSTRACT We study the integrity contours of two police in Eastern Europe that have experienced dramatically different democratic transitions. The democratic transition and reform of the police in the Czech Republic was largely self-imposed and occurred with relatively low levels of violence. Conversely, the experience in Bosnia and Herzegovina involved a war resulting in outside intervention and reform efforts orchestrated by the international community. The goal of this article is not only to review reforms of the Czech and Bosnian police in the context of and Kutnjak Ivković's organizational theory of police integrity but also to empirically measure the extent of integrity among the police in both countries. We survey 604 Czech police officers and 451 Bosnian police officers regarding their opinions about the seriousness of police corruption, the appropriate punishment such misconduct deserves and would receive, and their willingness to report misconduct.
ABSTRACT The international community has invested considerable resources in reforming the police ... more ABSTRACT The international community has invested considerable resources in reforming the police in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This paper develops a typology of integrity problems in the BiH and measures the level of integrity among the police in the Sarajevo canton. The typology consists of six forms of police misconduct; it suggests the presence of serious and pervasive integrity problems. In 2003, 451 police officers evaluated nine scenarios describing police corruption and one describing the use of excessive force. Police officers’ evaluations of the seriousness of the police misconduct illustrated by these scenarios were directly related to their opinions about appropriate discipline. The results also indicate that the code of silence provides stronger protection for the acceptance of gratuities and use of excessive force than for opportunistic thefts and shakedowns.
ABSTRACT Fish and wildlife crime is an understudied area of criminology and criminal justice and ... more ABSTRACT Fish and wildlife crime is an understudied area of criminology and criminal justice and when it is the focus of research, studies tend to be characterized by small samples and a lack of multivariate analyses. This study examines the nature and extent of cited fish and wildlife offenses and characteristics of offenders through quantitative analysis of 15,657 incidents of cited fish and wildlife offenses in Florida. The results indicate that a viable typology of wildlife crime is emergent and that there are important racial and ethnic differences across types of wildlife offenses.
Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice/La Revue canadienne de criminologie et de justice pénale, 2012
... While this strategy precludes us from definitively generalizing to all Canadian or American s... more ... While this strategy precludes us from definitively generalizing to all Canadian or American students, or to the general public, it is con-sistent with numerous other exploratory studies in criminology (eg Byers and Powers 1997; Farnworth, Longmire, and West 1998; Hensley ...
Little is known about law enforcement agencies with responsibility for fish, wildlife, and natura... more Little is known about law enforcement agencies with responsibility for fish, wildlife, and natural resource protection. Traditional conceptions of fish and wildlife police associate these officers almost entirely with fishing and hunting activities. The relative scarcity of academic literature regarding fish and wildlife police agencies results in a lack of understanding about their role in the criminal justice system in general. The current study seeks to contribute to the limited existing literature by examining conservation policing in Florida, a state not yet studied in this context, by analyzing some 2,910 field events. Findings indicate that officers devote a considerable portion of their attention to traditional law enforcement activities in addition to the type of enforcement customarily associated with fish and wildlife law enforcement.
International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Mar 1, 2009
This study analyzes the spatial distribution of crime outcomes at the county scale in Florida as ... more This study analyzes the spatial distribution of crime outcomes at the county scale in Florida as a function of natural disasters. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and conditional fixed effects negative binomial statistical techniques are used. Four crime outcomes are analyzed: index crimes, property crimes, violent crimes, and domestic violence crimes. Adjusting for socio-demographic and social order variables, we find that natural disasters significantly decrease levels of reported index, property, and violent crimes, but ...
ABSTRACT Crime related to energy extraction is an emerging area of interest among green and criti... more ABSTRACT Crime related to energy extraction is an emerging area of interest among green and critical criminologists. This paper contributes to that developing work by examining the political economy of harm and crime associated with the oil and natural gas industry in rural Colorado. Specifically, we examine problematic state regulatory response to citizens’ complaints regarding a range of harms caused by private industry (e.g., water pollution, adverse human health consequences, and domestic livestock death). In this paper, we draw on content analysis of formal complaints filed by citizens to the state, ethnographic work, and intensive interviews with citizens seeking relief from problematic or abusive industry practices. Our analysis illuminates how the state documents these practices, how citizens experience them, and how the state dilutes and deflects the externalities of energy extraction to produce additional harm.
Few studies examine the effect of media (particularly the Internet) on punitive attitudes of coll... more Few studies examine the effect of media (particularly the Internet) on punitive attitudes of college students and none examine the credibility of sources of news that students consume. This study employs survey research to examine the effect of media in multiple news formats (i.e., national and local television, national and local newspapers, and Internet news), the frequency of news media usage, and perceived news credibility on punitiveness among 373 college students enrolled in a state university in the Western region of the United States. Of those studies that examine punitive attitudes among college students, it is rare for researchers to consider the impact of media and media credibility despite the fact there is clear evidence that media effects are strong predictors of attitudes in the general population. The results of this study indicate that although no primary news source was related to punitiveness those respondents with a higher frequency of exposure to local TV news s...
International journal of mass emergencies and disasters
This study analyzes the spatial distribution of crime outcomes at the county scale in Florida as ... more This study analyzes the spatial distribution of crime outcomes at the county scale in Florida as a function of natural disasters. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and conditional fixed effects negative binomial statistical techniques are used. Four crime outcomes are analyzed: index crimes, property crimes, violent crimes, and domestic violence crimes. Adjusting for socio-demographic and social order variables, we find that natural disasters significantly decrease levels of reported index, property, and violent crimes, but significantly increase the expected count of reported domestic violence crimes.
Given the fact that women are less likely to experience crime victimization than males, researche... more Given the fact that women are less likely to experience crime victimization than males, researchers have been puzzled for decades as to why women experience higher levels of fear of victimization. Scholars such as Warr (1984) and Ferraro (1995, 1996) argue that the fear of rape that females experience shadows fear of other crime, as rape is viewed by females
Using anonymous surveys of 3,235 officers in 30 police agencies, we tested hypotheses derived fro... more Using anonymous surveys of 3,235 officers in 30 police agencies, we tested hypotheses derived from prior policing research, legitimacy theory, and disciplinary fairness literature on the intentions of police officers to report acts of misconduct perpetrated by fellow officers. We examined features of the normative order involving peer reporting of police misconduct at both the individual agency and aggregate police subculture levels. Consistent with previous research, the perceived seriousness of the offense and legitimacy (endorsement) are consistently strong predictors of officers' intentions to report misconduct. We also find that perceived fairness of discipline provides significant results, but the direction of the relationship depends on the perceived seriousness of the offense. It is clear that the majority of police officers participate in a shared normative culture of when to and when not to report misconduct. Finally, we note the importance of studying the reporting of police misconduct using a social psychological lens.
Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 2013
ABSTRACT Purpose ‐ Public opinion regarding the police is generally positive, although there are ... more ABSTRACT Purpose ‐ Public opinion regarding the police is generally positive, although there are number of individual and contextual variables that affect these views. Yet research examining public perceptions regarding state law enforcement agencies (particularly state patrols) is rare. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The paper utilizes a representative state-wide sample of state residents and examine their perceptions of the Colorado State Patrol (CSP). Findings ‐ The paper finds positive views of the CSP overall and place particular emphasis on how individual, contextual, and contact-related variables affect opinions. Research limitations/implications ‐ The study focusses on one state patrol and is not generalizable to all state patrols and to other forms of state law enforcement. Originality/value ‐ The paper fills a void in the research on public opinion regarding state law enforcement and discuss similarities and differences in how they are viewed when compared to municipal agencies.
Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 2004
Following the velvet revolution of 1989 and the adoption of a democratic form of government, Czec... more Following the velvet revolution of 1989 and the adoption of a democratic form of government, Czech policing has experienced a plethora of changes resulting in a new police force that has been understudied to date. This research seeks to address this void using an exploratory approach that utilizes survey research to gauge the attitudes of 70 Czech police officers regarding
This research extends the study of natural resource violations by examining the association betwe... more This research extends the study of natural resource violations by examining the association between conservation organizations and the enforcement of natural resource violations across 67 Florida counties in 2006. Specifically, the authors look at natural resource violations as an organizational outcome that is influenced by perceived community organization around environmental conservation. To do this, they examine the association between the number of conservation organizations and the level of enforcement for natural resource violations. The results suggest that even while controlling for organizational capacity (i.e., number of officers), offenders and targets, proportion rural population, and economic benefits from natural resource use, a positive association exits between conservation organizations and natural resource enfor cement levels. This relationship is not replicated in the case of animal rights and hunting and fishing organizations. Although issues related to environmental justice are always a concern in studies of environmental enforcement, the authors find no evidence of an association between social and economic disadvantage and community organizing. Finally, a post hoc examination of the data suggests that the association between conservation organizations and the level of natural resource enforcement is stronger for those counties where more officers enforce natural resource violations than for those counties where fewer officers enforce violations.
ABSTRACT Students majoring in criminology and criminal justice are assumed to have more detailed ... more ABSTRACT Students majoring in criminology and criminal justice are assumed to have more detailed and accurate knowledge about crime, criminal justice, and punishment practices than peers majoring in other disciplines. The purpose of this study was to examine if criminology/criminal justice majors were more or less punitive than students pursuing other majors at three universities using standard predictors of punitiveness that have not been consistently examined in previous research. The results indicate that criminology and criminal justice students are more punitive in the combined three‐campus sample and in two of the three‐campus samples considered separately.
Sense-making is a form of meaning-making that focuses on understanding loss which then contribute... more Sense-making is a form of meaning-making that focuses on understanding loss which then contributes to identity reconstruction. This qualitative study examines how perceived communication with the criminal justice system can inhibit sense-making among unsolved homicide co-victims. One-time intensive interviews were conducted with 37 co-victims about their interactions with police and prosecutors. A grounded theory approach suggest that co-victims held negative views of the police and prosecutors because they perceived them as inhibiting their ability to adequately locate information needed to understand the crime and achieve justice. Results also suggest that race and ethnicity play a role in reducing sense-making because constructions of meaning were based on perceptions of discrimination. In the end, the intense desire for information, resolution, and justice led several co-victims to investigate their loved one's murder. Policies that law enforcement should adopt to promote better communication with co-victims and facilitate sensemaking are examined.
ABSTRACT We study the integrity contours of two police in Eastern Europe that have experienced dr... more ABSTRACT We study the integrity contours of two police in Eastern Europe that have experienced dramatically different democratic transitions. The democratic transition and reform of the police in the Czech Republic was largely self-imposed and occurred with relatively low levels of violence. Conversely, the experience in Bosnia and Herzegovina involved a war resulting in outside intervention and reform efforts orchestrated by the international community. The goal of this article is not only to review reforms of the Czech and Bosnian police in the context of and Kutnjak Ivković's organizational theory of police integrity but also to empirically measure the extent of integrity among the police in both countries. We survey 604 Czech police officers and 451 Bosnian police officers regarding their opinions about the seriousness of police corruption, the appropriate punishment such misconduct deserves and would receive, and their willingness to report misconduct.
ABSTRACT The international community has invested considerable resources in reforming the police ... more ABSTRACT The international community has invested considerable resources in reforming the police in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This paper develops a typology of integrity problems in the BiH and measures the level of integrity among the police in the Sarajevo canton. The typology consists of six forms of police misconduct; it suggests the presence of serious and pervasive integrity problems. In 2003, 451 police officers evaluated nine scenarios describing police corruption and one describing the use of excessive force. Police officers’ evaluations of the seriousness of the police misconduct illustrated by these scenarios were directly related to their opinions about appropriate discipline. The results also indicate that the code of silence provides stronger protection for the acceptance of gratuities and use of excessive force than for opportunistic thefts and shakedowns.
ABSTRACT Fish and wildlife crime is an understudied area of criminology and criminal justice and ... more ABSTRACT Fish and wildlife crime is an understudied area of criminology and criminal justice and when it is the focus of research, studies tend to be characterized by small samples and a lack of multivariate analyses. This study examines the nature and extent of cited fish and wildlife offenses and characteristics of offenders through quantitative analysis of 15,657 incidents of cited fish and wildlife offenses in Florida. The results indicate that a viable typology of wildlife crime is emergent and that there are important racial and ethnic differences across types of wildlife offenses.
Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice/La Revue canadienne de criminologie et de justice pénale, 2012
... While this strategy precludes us from definitively generalizing to all Canadian or American s... more ... While this strategy precludes us from definitively generalizing to all Canadian or American students, or to the general public, it is con-sistent with numerous other exploratory studies in criminology (eg Byers and Powers 1997; Farnworth, Longmire, and West 1998; Hensley ...
Little is known about law enforcement agencies with responsibility for fish, wildlife, and natura... more Little is known about law enforcement agencies with responsibility for fish, wildlife, and natural resource protection. Traditional conceptions of fish and wildlife police associate these officers almost entirely with fishing and hunting activities. The relative scarcity of academic literature regarding fish and wildlife police agencies results in a lack of understanding about their role in the criminal justice system in general. The current study seeks to contribute to the limited existing literature by examining conservation policing in Florida, a state not yet studied in this context, by analyzing some 2,910 field events. Findings indicate that officers devote a considerable portion of their attention to traditional law enforcement activities in addition to the type of enforcement customarily associated with fish and wildlife law enforcement.
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Papers by Tara Shelley