Suchergebnisse

The criminalization hypothesis is based on the assumption that police inappropriately use arrest to resolve encounters with mentally disordered suspects. The current study uses data collected from two large‐scale, multisite field studies of police behavior‐the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN) conducted in 1996–1997 and the Police Services Study (PSS) conducted in 1977‐to examine the relationship between suspect mental health and use of arrest by police. Multivariate results show that police are not more likely to arrest mentally disordered suspects. Implications for future research on the criminalization hypothesis are discussed.

This paper examines the influence of officers' and supervisors' attitudes and priorities toward community policing and problem solving over the time officers spend conducting problem‐solving activities. Analyzing data collected for the Project on Policing Neighborhoods, a multi‐method study of police patrol in two police departments, results show that officers' perceptions of their supervisors' priorities for problem solving affect the amount of time they spend conducting these activities, although their own attitudes toward community policing are unrelated to their behavior. We also find that officers' attitudes regarding problem solving are weakly correlated with their supervisors' attitudes and, further, that officers' perceptions of their supervisors' attitudes are often inaccurate.