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Police Sexual Misconduct: Policy Implications

Police work is condusive to sexual misconduct. The job affords unique opportunities for rogue police officers to engage in acts of sexual deviance and crimes against citizens they encounter. In this episode of the Police Integrity Lost podcast Bowling Green State University professors Phil Stinson and John Liederbach discuss the policy implications of their research findings regarding police sexual misconduct arrests.

Research Performance Progress Report for January thru June 2013

All federally funded research project grantees are required to file semi annual Research Performance Progress Reports with the funding agency. In this episode of the Police Integrity Lost podcast, BGSU professor Phil Stinson discusses the Research Performance Progress Report his NIJ-funded police integrity research project recently filed with the National Institute of Justice for the reporting period January through June 2013.

Police Sexual Misconduct Arrests

Police sexual misconduct remains an understudied area and little is known about the sexual crimes of police officers. In this episode of the Police Integrity Lost podcast, Bowling Green State University professors Phil Stinson and John Liederbach discuss the findings of their recent study on sex-related police crime. The study analyzes a subset of data collected as part of the Stinson larger study on police crime.

Using a Content Management System: Police Crime Research Methods Part 3

Professor Phil Stinson at Bowling Green State University has developed an innovative enhanced relational database to support his federally funded police integrity research. Using the university’s enterprise level content management system, he has structured a relational, digital imaging, and video database to support his quantitative content analysis research on police crime in the United States. Recently, Dr. Stinson has integrated a customized PC based coding instrument that draws data from the relational database and creates data files for later quantitative analyses. He discusses his research application of the content management system in this episode of the Police Integrity Lost podcast.

Drunk Driving Cops

Little is known about how often police officers drive drunk. It is generally assumed that most police officers are generally exempt from law enforcement. When an off-duty officer is stopped for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, in many instances the impaired officer is extended a professional courtesy, not arrested, and given a ride home. In this episode of the Police Integrity Lost podcast, Phil Stinson, Steve Brewer, and John Liederbach discuss their recent research study that provides empirical data on cases of police officers who have been arrested for DUI. The study identifies events that may have influenced the decision to arrest, including associated traffic accidents, fatalities, officer resistance, the refusal of field sobriety tests, and the refusal of blood alcohol content tests. Data are analyzed on 782 DUI arrest cases of officers employed by 511 nonfederal law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The study is the only study known to describe police officer DUI arrests at many police agencies across the United States.

Using Google News for Data Collection: Police Crime Research Methods Part 2

In this episode of the Police Integrity Lost podcast John Liederbach and Steve Brewer question Stinson on his use of the Google News search engine and Google Alerts as part of his research methodology to collect data for research studies on police crime in the United States.

Decision Tree Analysis: Police Crime Research Methods Part 1

Research methods used in social science research studies often include multivariate statistics. In this episode of the Police Integrity Lost Podcast, Phil Stinson and Steve Brewer discuss their use of decision tree analysis as part of their predictive analytic statistical operations in police crime research studies. This episode is Part 1 of a multipart discussion on research methods in the study of police crime.

Late-Stage Police Crime

In this episode of the Police Integrity Lost Podcast, Phil Stinson and John Liederbach discuss late-stage police crime. Stinson and Liederbach are both professors in the Criminal Justice Program at Bowling Green State University. Their study on late-stage police crime, entitled EXIT STRATEGY: AN EXPLORATION OF LATE-STAGE POLICE CRIME, was published in 2010 in the refereed journal Police Quarterly. The purpose of the study was to examine the character of police arrests known to the media. Cases were identified through a content analysis of news coverage using the internet-based Google News TM search engine and its Google News Alerts TM email update service search tool. The study is important because there were previously no exhaustive statistics available on the crimes committed by law enforcement officers, and only a small number of studies provide specific data on police crimes. The study focuses on the crimes committed by experienced officers who are approaching retirement. The occurrence of these late-stage crimes presents a challenge to existing assumptions regarding the relationship between experience and various forms of police misconduct, and also provides an opportunity to examine a stage of the police career that has not been the subject of much research. In this podcast episode Stinson and Liederbach discuss the research and policy implications, as well as how their data should be interpreted within the context of existing studies on police socialization and the production of misconduct.

Crime by Policewomen: Is it Different than Crime by Policemen?

In this episode of the Police Integrity Lost podcast, Phil Stinson and Natalie Todak discuss their recent research study that explored criminal conduct by policewomen at various nonfederal law enforcement agencies across the United States. The information is increasingly relevant as departments hire more female officers, especially if their crimes are different than crimes by male officers. Using the Google News search engine and Google Alerts, the research team identified 105 cases depicting arrests of policewomen and a content analysis was performed. Findings reveal that female police crime is most often profit-motivated. Compared to arrested male officers, policewomen had fewer years of service and lower ranks, committed less violent crimes, and were more likely to receive suspensions for off-duty crimes. The findings suggest that differences exist between crimes committed by male and female officers. Phil Stinson is on the faculty at Bowling Green State University, and Natalie Todak is a doctoral student at Arizona State University.

Police Criminal Misuse of TASERs

Conductive energy devices (CEDs), including the TASER (an acronym for Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle) have been adopted by thousands of law enforcement agencies because they offer a less-than-lethal method for gaining control of suspects. In this podcast episode, Professors Phil Stinson and John Liederbach of Bowling Green State University discuss their recent research study on the criminal misuse of TASER stun guns by police officers. The purpose of the research is to explore and describe the nature and character of arrest cases that involve the criminal misuse of TASERS by police officers through a content analysis of news articles. The research specifically focuses on factors that were common among the arrest events involving CEDs, especially with regard to the actions and motivations of the arrested officers and how the situational context appeared to influence the criminal misconduct of police officers. Research has shown that CEDs can be effective tools to subdue and control dangerous persons and reduce injuries to law enforcement officers and suspects. Similar to firearms, side-handled batons, and metal flashlights, CEDs can be used excessively and/or inappropriately. These devices offer a less-than-lethal alternative to firearms by allowing police officers to temporarily incapacitate dangerous suspects with an electrical shock. The most popular CEDs are the TASER M26 and X26 models. Both are shaped like a handgun and use nitrogen cartridges to fire two barbed projectiles into the target, delivering an electrical current that temporarily overrides the motor and sensory functions of the suspect, & thereby temporarily incapacitating the target individual. Both TASER models can incapacitate targets up to 35 feet away and penetrate up to one inch of clothing when used in the probe mode. TASERS can also be used at close range in drive-stun mode by pressing the bards directly against the body of the target suspect.

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