Description
TitlePolice officer networks and use of force behaviors
Date Created2021
Other Date2021-05 (degree)
Extent1 online resource (x, 211 pages)
DescriptionThe legal authority of law enforcement to use force is a defining part of policing, but one that comes with exceptional scrutiny and oversight. Discussions about policy reform and research on the determinants of police force are typically divided into three domains: situational contexts, organizational structure, and officer-level determinants. Noticeably absent from this area of research is the salience of networks in which officers engage and work in. These relationships are particularly meaningful given that police agencies do not teach misuses of power; rather, policing is known for its tight-knit culture, wherein officers are socialized through their interactions with one another.
The current study extends this line of inquiry. It uses administrative data obtained from the Force Report (i.e., formal use of force reports) to investigate the role of officer networks in facilitating use of force behaviors. First, it investigates the interplay between officer attributes and the social structure of force networks to predict co-involvement between officers in a use of force incident. Second, it employs a group-level approach to evaluate whether officers in a shared working environment engage in similar use of force patterns. Finally, it adopts a predictive approach to identify focal officers with high-risk profiles relative to their colleagues.
Findings indicate that, much like other forms of crime and deviant behaviors, police use of force is influenced by individual, dyadic, contextual, and network processes. While the grouped nature of force is confirmed in Study 1, with the use of force found to be concentrated on a subset of officers, there exists variation in officers' likelihood of using force together. Indeed, force is more likely to occur between officers similar in race and experience than those dissimilar. Despite an emphasis on the collective nature of force, with departments likely to specialize in the use of physical force, Study 2 finds that key organizational and environmental determinants are associated with versatility in types, and thus, degrees of force employed. Lastly, provided that a small proportion of officers are responsible for a disproportionate proportion of incidents, in Study 3, five groups (i.e., bad barrels) and 11% of officers (i.e., bad apples) in the largest connected component are identified as exhibiting high-risk behaviors. Relative to similarly situated peers, these officers use force more frequently and demonstrate the widest social reach, making them an efficient starting point for intervention and prevention purposes.
By focusing on relational patterns at the partnership, group, and department level, the current study builds on the interdependent nature of the police role to understand when and why force happens. Specifically, it demonstrates how police data can be leveraged to potentially mitigate behaviors that may lead to greater instances of police violence while outlining strategies that may improve police-community relations.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
LanguageEnglish
CollectionGraduate School - Newark Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.