Presents data on the nature and characteristics of contacts between residents of the U.S. and the police over a 12-month period. More than 60,000 individuals age 16 or older participated in a nationally survey. Detailed findings on face-to-face contacts with police include the reason for and outcome of the contact, resident opinion on police behavior during the contact, and whether police used or threatened to use force during the contact. The document contains demographic characteristics of residents involved in traffic stops and use-of-force incidents and provides comparative analysis with prior survey findings. Overall, the study found that about 9 out of 10 people who had contact with police in 2005 felt that the police acted properly. Tables.

This book should be made a part of any college level library that features holdings in social sciences. . . . Americans View Crime and Justice presents a national public opinion survey and its results on the issues. These edited results of a survey conducted in 1995 examine such issues as gun control, capital punishment, and juvenile crime, offering public opinion along with the analyses of a panel of criminologists. --The Midwest Book Review Readable and carefully edited, Americans View Crime and Justice reports and analyzes results from the recent National Crime and Justice Survey (NCJS), the richest and most wide-ranging investigation of public opinion on crime and justice issues in more than a decade. Conducted in June 1995, the survey features responses from 1,000 adults in the United States on now-volatile issues such as fear of crime, gun control, capital punishment, juvenile crime, and additional related topics of national concern. A distinguished panel of criminologists analyzes the collected data in this volume to present a comprehensive report on the development and current status of public opinion on these timely issues. Divided into three sections—context and framework; findings; and opinion, policy, and science—this authoritative volume also analyzes the implications of the survey data. Providing interesting insights and timely quantification of Americans′ view of crime and justice, this volume offers a unique view of public opinion particularly important to the work of researchers, law enforcement personnel, policy makers, public officials, and students of criminology and criminal justice, law, and political science.

Contacts Between Police and Public

The New Police Officer During the past twenty years the tasks required of police officers have expanded and changed with dramatic rapidi ty. The tradi tional roles of the police had been those of law enforcement and the maintenance of public order. As a consequence police officers were typically large-bodied males, selected for their physical abilities and trained to accept orders and enforce the law. Over the past two decades, however, the industrialized nations have placed a variety of new demands on police officers. To traditional law enforcement and public order tasks have been added social work, mental health duties, and cORllluni ty relations work. For example, domestic disputes, violence between husbands and wives, lovers, relatives, etc. , have increased in frequency and severity (or at least there has been a dramatic increase in reporting the occurence of domestic violence). Our societies have no formal system to deal with domestic disputes and the responsibility to do so, in most countries, has fallen to the police. In fact, in some areas as many as 607. of calls for service to the police are related to domestic disputes (see the chapter in this text by Dutton). As a result the police officer has had to become a skilled social worker, able to intervene with sensi ti vi ty in domestic situations. Alternatively, in the case of West Germany, the officer has had to learn to work co-operatively with social workers (see the chapter by Steinhilper).