As protectors and guardians of public safety, police should be trusted to respect human dignity and uphold the human rights of all people. Yet, all around the world, police too often evoke fear of violence and repression Á a far cry from their civic and social purpose. This trepidation is particularly common in communities living on the fringes of society, in the shadow of punitive laws and at ...

Past research has documented that non-behavioral variables (such as long work hours, exposure to police stressors) are associated with obesity risk in police officers, but limited research has examined behavioral variables that might be targeted by Employee Assistance Programs for police weight management. The present study compared non-obese and obese officers for behavioral variables found as...

In response to publicized shootings of minority civilians, several police agencies across the county have announced that they will hire more minority police officers. However, there is a dearth of quantitative research examining real-life consequences of police diversity. Between 1969 and 2000, a number of police departments were sued for racial and gender discrimination, and many responded by ...

Custody-related deaths have become a major human rights issue in South Africa since the 1994 democratic elections and led to the formation of the Independent Complaints Directorate who, in April 2000, had recorded 2174 custody-related deaths since their inception. A 3-year retrospective descriptive study on all custody-related death cases at a Durban Medico-legal mortuary from January 1998 to D...

Advancement of problem-oriented policing has been stymied by over-attention to police organizations and under-attention to police problems. This paper develops a research agenda for understanding police problems by addressing four fundamental questions: What are problems? What causes problems? How can we find effective solutions to problems? And how can we learn from problem solving? For each q...

We conducted 2 studies to investigate how cultural stereotypes that depict Blacks as criminals affect the way Blacks experience encounters with police officers, expecting that such encounters induce Blacks to feel stereotype threat (i.e., concern about being judged and treated unfairly by police because of the stereotype). In Study 1, we asked Black and White participants to report how they fee...

A recommended vision standard for police officers is presented. The visual capabilities needed to perform various police duties are described. A specific vision standard, along with criteria for screening referral or screening failure are given for each category of visual skills required for police work.

This article reviews the existing literature on differences in police response to IPV (intimate partner violence) based on officer gender and suggests policy changes that could address common issues identified in the research. Authors reviewed research on the effect of police officer gender on arrest rates of abusers, the criteria officers consider when making the arrest decision, and whether o...