• Building Community Trust and Confidence in Prince George's County, Maryland
  
  
• Elder Abuse: How Protective Behaviors and Risk Factors Affect the Course of Abuse
  
  
• Examining the Effects of Different Case Screening Practices Upon Domestic Violence Recidivism
  
  
• Eyewitness Identification Field Studies (EWID)
  
  
• The Impact of Law Enforcement Shift Practices and Extra-Duty Employment on Various Health, Safety, Performance, and Quality-of-Life Measures
  
  
• National Survey of Records Management Systems
  
  
• Smart Police Deployment: Evaluating the Use of Automated Vehicle Locator Technologies in Policing
  
  

Building Community Trust and Confidence in Prince George's County, Maryland

Building community confidence and trust enhances the flow of information between the principal parties responsible for crime control and public safety—the police and the public. Effective police-community partnerships improve public safety at the grassroots level, where it matters most. Yet in many communities, especially minority communities, a lack of trust remains between law enforcement and local residents.

Research on policing minority neighborhoods suggests a paradox in citizens' attitudes toward the police. While studies indicate that black and Latino residents often believe there is not enough police presence in their neighborhoods, other studies suggest that more police contact in minority neighborhoods can lead to a decline in trust and confidence in the police. This project will seek to answer the following questions: How does the type of police contact or role affect trust in the police? It may be that regular interaction with officers who have been assigned a service-oriented role reduces animosity toward the police, while contact with officers assigned to routine calls for service and specialized units increases animosity toward the police. How divided are white and black citizens regarding their opinions of police practices in high-crime neighborhoods? How do citizens of different racial groups differ in their perceptions of whether they have been unfairly targeted for traffic stops, field interrogations, and other police tactics? To what extent does the news media play a role in cultivating racially disparate attitudes toward the police? How much faith do citizens from different racial groups place in administrative policies and approaches for reducing abusive police practices?

This project seeks to identify community needs and expectations and determine how those align with the goals and available resources of the Prince George's County Police Department. Working with police and community leaders, the foundation will examine residents' perceptions as well as the culture and climate of the department.

Elder Abuse: How Protective Behaviors and Risk Factors Affect the Course of Abuse

A 2003 National Research Council report decried the lack of scientifically rigorous research in the field of elder abuse. The report called for more information on how interventions affect the course of abuse and studies that use prospective designs to minimize victim forgetting and other problems inherent in retrospective designs.

The Police Foundation and the National Center for Victims of Crime are conducting research designed to respond to these concerns. The study is being conducted by the Police Foundation, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the quality of public safety and the National Center for Victims of Crime, the nation’s leading resource and advocacy organization dedicated to serving individuals, families, and communities harmed by crime. Our study envisions a prospective longitudinal study of the course of abuse using both a community sample and a sample of persons who have used elder abuse services in Dane County, Wisconsin. We would conduct two sets of interviews with respondents six months apart to determine: (a) the proportion of cases in which abuse escalates, maintains, or desists; (b) which risk factors are associated with the onset of abuse and with its persistence over time; (c) which victims of elder abuse receive assistance from law enforcement and community service programs, which do not, and why; and (d) how reporting abuse to the police, criminal justice actions, and other protective measures taken by victims affect the course of abuse.

The results of the work will give police, criminal justice officials, and community service providers a better idea of which victims are at risk of continued abuse so they can better target services to those most in need. Results will also provide a better understanding of the reasons why elder abuse victims do not come forward to report abuse or seek help, and provide insights into how to reach these victims.

Examining the Effect of Different Case Screening Practices Upon Domestic Violence Recidivism

Widespread adoption of pro-arrest policies by police and adoption of tougher prosecutor stances in domestic violence cases have seriously taxed the resources of prosecutors in the last decade. One way in which many prosecutors have adapted to the strain is to decline to file arrests in which victims expressed unwillingness to cooperate with prosecutors. Today, there are widely divergent views among prosecutors about whether cases ought to be filed regardless of whether that is what victims seem to want.

Safe Horizon and the Police Foundation are conducting research in two sites in New York City where prosecutors have adopted different screening policies: Kings County (Brooklyn) and the County of the Bronx. Since the sites are comparable in many other ways (including police arrest policies, court rules and administration, and state laws and requirements), the project will have a strong quasi-experimental design. We plan to track a sample of cases that the prosecutor declined to prosecute in one borough (Bronx) and a sample of similar cases that were prosecuted in the other borough (Brooklyn). We will test for differences between the samples in recidivism, stalking behavior, women’s satisfaction with the justice system, utilization of victim services, and allocation of prosecutor and court resources.

Eyewitness Identification Field Studies (EWID)

Mistaken eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful conviction of innocent people in the United States.  Scientists have shown that there are system-based factors (i.e., factors within the control of the police) that empirically elevate the risk of identification error, and in response have proposed laboratory-tested procedures that can reduce drastically wrongful convictions based on erroneous or biased eyewitness identifications. These include double-blind administration, improved instructions, better lineup construction, and recording confidence statements from the eyewitnesses at the time of the identification.

The American Judicature Society and its Institute of Forensic Science and Public Policy have partnered with the Center for Modern Forensic Practice of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, the Innocence Project at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Yeshiva University), and the Police Foundation to implement an unprecedented and groundbreaking series of national eyewitness identification field studies. In addition to assisting with field studies, the Police Foundation is developing an outcomes assessment for the project. The project is funded by the JEHT Foundation.

In April 2006, the Chicago Police Department released a report documenting the results of a field study conducted in three Illinois police departments (Chicago, Joliet, and Evanston) concerning the most controversial “reform” to come out of eyewitness identification research: should photos or individuals in identification procedures be shown to witnesses one at a time (sequentially) or in a group (simultaneously)?  The Chicago field study raised doubts about the value of the sequential method. But, as many have persuasively opined, there was a scientific problem (a “confound”) comparing sequential double-blind lineups and photo arrays with non-blind simultaneous procedures. 

In 2007, a “blue ribbon” panel of eminent social scientists, including Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton, and Harvard professor and author Daniel Schachter, concluded that the Chicago study was “crippled by a design flaw that made the study’s conclusions a dangerous basis for shaping public policy.” As the panel observed, “The design guaranteed that most outcomes would be difficult or impossible to interpret,” and its fundamental flaw had “devastating consequences for assessing the real-world implications” of the study.

In September 2006, the American Judicature Society (AJS) Institute of Forensic Science and Public Policy convened a meeting of leading researchers in eyewitness identification in Greensboro, North Carolina, out of which emerged the Greensboro Protocols, calling for pilot studies using computer-based double-blind identification procedures.  The Greensboro protocol and field study proposal is designed to avoid the pitfalls of the Chicago study and answer the sequential/simultaneous question using a laptop computer.

With the assistance of a software development company, the EWID partnership created a Remote Lineup Application, a sophisticated computer-based identification program, which enables scientists to examine the sequential and simultaneous lineups while incorporating many of the reforms recommended by the Department of Justice and the American Bar Association.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina served as the first site to implement the Remote Lineup Application, and Tucson, Arizona is the site of the second field study. The EWID partnership is seeking two additional sites in which the field studies can be implemented, and the Police Foundation is assisting in recruiting two additional sites.  The criteria for site selection includes:

• An established bank of digital photos used for photo identifications;
• Completion of a large number of photo line-ups within a 2-3 month period to ensure a large sample size for data analyses;
• A strong interest in and enthusiasm about the issue of photo lineup procedures, and a willingness to participate fully in the project;
• Cooperation between the defense attorneys’ office and the police department to ensure optimal means for collecting all data.

But the other benefit of this field study, aside from answering the sequential versus simultaneous issue, is that each jurisdiction will be setting up a blinded method for doing identification procedures that follows all the best practices about which there is consensus.  The EWID partnership is implementing the Greensboro Protocols in collaboration with law enforcement, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, representing a unique opportunity to increase accountability, standards, and scientific methodology in criminal investigations.  The use of laptops will improve the accuracy of data collection as well as respond to concerns about extra personnel costs incurred in blind administration.  The use of computer-based lineups has a number of additional advantages for police, the community, and innocent suspects:

• It permits the eyewitness to self-administer the photo-lineup, thereby creating the functional equivalent of a blind administrator. This addresses the concern that a double-blind procedure is difficult to implement (e.g., manpower issues or problems in cases where all available officers know which person is the suspect).

• The computer-based method guarantees that the procedure consistently follows the prescribed protocol. Deviations from protocol, which are inherent in person-administered procedures, threaten the reliability of the lineup.

• The computer-based method simplifies and guarantees faithful recording of data (e.g., whether a filler was picked), and it permits additional facts (such as records of how long the eyewitness views each photo) to be collected accurately. Ideally, all computers will be equipped with video and audio recording devices to capture witnesses’ reactions throughout the line-up procedure.

• The computer-based method is designed to randomly assign the lineup to either simultaneous or sequential at the last second (when the eyewitness is ready to view the lineup), thereby allowing the police to employ either a simultaneous or a sequential lineup while keeping other conditions constant. The software will also randomly assign the position of the suspect. 

• The computer-based method helps guarantee that data on the eyewitness’s identification and certainty will be secured, regardless of whether the eyewitness picks a filler or the suspect.

• The police can arrange access to a statewide, or nationwide, databank of thousands of photographs, thereby increasing the range of fillers from which they can create a lineup (hence enhancing lineups’ fairness) and eliminating the possibility that the witnesses will recognize fillers.

• Since the software can be run on any laptop computer, the technology is mobile, allowing the police to take lineups into the field to witnesses’ homes, places of employment, etc.

• This procedure will be extremely persuasive to juries: it is blind, retrievable, audiotaped, and has widespread approval as the best way to conduct an identification procedure. It also greatly minimizes attacks by defense counsel. As the most reliable method, it protects the innocent, victims, and enhances the capability of law enforcement to apprehend criminals.

• The use of laptops will improve the accuracy of lineups while increasing the ease and efficiency with which the police administer them, and allows for easy and organized data collection.

The Police Foundation was asked to support the EWID Field Studies by coming up with a methodology for evaluating the accuracy of eyewitness IDs by evaluating the case outcomes.  Because judicial outcomes are not always a reflection of the strength of the case, our role will be to develop, validate, and administer an assessment process for evaluating case strength. This extensive evaluation of case strength will be conducted in order to assess differences in witness identifications in the sequential and simultaneous conditions (i.e., correct and incorrect suspect picks, correct and incorrect filler picks, or no identification). The Police Foundation has worked diligently with the EWID partners to develop and validate a reliable instrument for evaluating case strength.  During the coming months, we will work with a panel of experts to generate the complete content for evaluating criminal cases, as well as a scoring method.  Subsequently, this process will be validated and teams in each of the field sites will evaluate a sub-set of cases as they proceed to a disposition, and conducting the case strength evaluations. 

The Impact of Law Enforcement Shift Practices and Extra-Duty Employment on Various Health, Safety, Performance, and Quality-of-Life Measures

The 24/7 operational demands of a police officer's job can have serious consequences. A significant body of scientific and operational literature clearly establishes that around-the-clock operations can degrade safety, performance, health, mood, and alertness.

According to Vila (1996), fatigue and associated decrements in alertness, performance, and mood could be manipulated administratively by controlling the working hours of police, as is done in other occupations. This experimental study is designed to do just that.

Utilizing a randomized experimental design in three sites, this project seeks to evaluate the risks and benefits of current scheduling practices to more effectively manage shift work and non-standard schedules in police operations. Recognizing that other factors, such as overtime and off-duty employment, may influence the extent of the effects of shift length and schedule, we will collect data on and examine these factors as well.

As part of this study, the Police Foundation conducted a random phone survey of police agencies in November 2005.  The purpose of this phone survey was to determine the proportion of agencies having various shift schedules (e.g., 8, 10, or 12 hours in length) for their field patrol officers and the extent to which agencies still employed rotating shifts.  See the survey results at Law Enforcement Shift Schedules: Results of a Random Nationwide Survey of Police Agencies

National Survey of Records Management Systems

Records Management Systems (RMS) are central to all record keeping and analysis in that they allow law enforcement agencies to capture, track, and assess incident-related data. An RMS is one of the most costly investments a law enforcement agency can make. Yet to date, there is no known data on the actual costs associated with these systems, the extent to which agencies have fully functioning RMS or are benefiting from these systems, or any other practical information that could help to inform the field. The implementation of RMS is complex, so knowing what an agency should expect, and/or how an agency could better plan for the acquisition and implementation of RMS would be highly beneficial.

This applied research project will enhance local law enforcement community policing efforts by surveying the field about their experiences with Records Management Systems (RMS), if any, and conducting several in-depth site visits. The results of this process will be: (1) the development of a monograph on the state of affairs nationally with regard to RMS based on the survey results; (2) an RMS Technology Guide for use by all law enforcement agencies; and (3) a best practices report on RMS acquisition and implementation practices with lessons learned from those who have been through the process.

Smart Police Deployment: Evaluating the Use of Automated Vehicle Locator Technologies in Policing

The finding of the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment (KCPPE) (Kelling, Pate, Dieckman, & Brown, 1974) that routine patrol did not affect crime has had ramifications on policing that continue today. 

Currently, police agencies have little ability to assess the effectiveness of their deployment strategies in relationship to their goals.  Developments in technology, such as the Automated Vehicle Locator (AVL) – a global positioning device that can be placed in a vehicle for monitoring its location across real time/space – promise to provide an invaluable tool to inform CompStat and other directed patrol strategies (e.g., hot spots policing) in police agencies through measurement of police presence at all places and at all times.

Although GIS are in use in 63 percent of larger police agencies, we still know little about where the police actually are when not responding to calls for service.  Do the police simply “chase crime” across a city, or does concentrated police presence have long term crime prevention benefits with little displacement of crime? Is there a “diffusion of crime control benefits” when police presence is high at certain locations? 

Our study will examine the reliability and utility of the use of AVL technology to quantify police presence.  If the data are reliable, the study would next examine the impact of police presence on crime in specific geographic areas in Dallas, Texas and, more important, test whether AVL can be an effective tool for deploying officers. The Dallas Police Department has AVL technology in almost all of its patrol vehicles and has implemented a Compstat program that focuses on directing patrol to specific problem areas.