In this Element we build on our previous work conceptualizing a craft learning model for governing police discretion. We envision a model for harnessing patrol officers' craft knowledge and skills, learned through experience handling similar street-level encounters over time, to the development of standards for evaluating the quality of their decision-making. To clarify the logic of this model and its potential for police reform, we situate it within the context of other systems of discretion control, including law, bureaucracy, science, and the community. We also consider obstacles. We conclude that police organizations need to balance the different strategies for channeling and controlling discretion toward the goal of advancing more transparent and principled decision-making. The challenge is finding a balance that helps prevent arbitrary, pernicious, or uncompromising uses of police authority, but that also empowers and rewards officers for using the skills of perception and resourcefulness that contribute to wise judgment.

This Element reviews and augments research on changes over time in U.S. crime rates during the past several decades. Major topics include the data sources for studying crime trends; the relationship between homicide rates and rates of property crime, imprisonment, and firearm availability; trends in crime by sex, race, and age; the relationship between crime trends and economic conditions; crime trends and social institutions; abrupt changes in crime rates and exogenous shocks; forecasting crime rates; and the future of crime trends theory and research. The study of crime trends is as intellectually rewarding and practically important as any topic in criminology. But attracting scholars to this field of study of crime trends will require significant advancements in theory, methods, and policy application.

Race and Policing in America is about relations between police and citizens, with a focus on racial differences. It utilizes both the authors' own research and other studies to examine Americans' opinions, preferences, and personal experiences regarding the police. Guided by group-position theory and using both existing studies and the authors' own quantitative and qualitative data (from a nationally representative survey of whites, blacks, and Hispanics), this book examines the roles of personal experience, knowledge of others' experiences (vicarious experience), mass media reporting on the police, and neighborhood conditions (including crime and socioeconomic disadvantage) in structuring citizen views in four major areas: overall satisfaction with police in one's city and neighborhood, perceptions of several types of police misconduct, perceptions of police racial bias and discrimination, and evaluations of and support for a large number of reforms in policing.

"Decision making in the police environment must take advantage of the latest advances in business and military management, but at the same time remain aware of the challenges associated with maintaining and restoring order on a day-to-day basis. The framework proposed in this book has been elaborated form the diverse experiences of the authors as managers, police officers and crime analysts; and shows how to effectively use intelligence for making decisions, which rules to respect when deploying resources and how to assess and monitor the impact of measures taken."--Publisher.

The purpose of this book is to provide the first-line leader with practical, time-proven guidance for making decisions that range from the seemingly mundane to the life-critical. The text emphasizes the importance of common sense applied to sound decision-making, and provides the first-line leader with the insight, experience, talents, and skills to meet specific challenges. The following topics are featured: why decision-making is important; assessing your people; employee grievances and fair decisions; setting a good example; making decisions concerning employee performance; disciplinary decision-making; troubled employees and compassionate decision-making; identifying high-risk behavior; keeping your officers alive; tactical decision-making; decision-making in critical incidents; handling media encounters; how to fix communication breakdowns; surviving the difficult boss and what your supervisor expects; surviving an organization's politics; making decisions when unsure of yourself; and making career plans. The embodiment of the text lies in its ability to involve the reader in tasks that must be accomplished following the use of lethal force by an officer, the leader's key duties and responsibilities to citizenry and his organization, responding effectively to high-risk, on the street scenarios, while simultaneously maintaining true professional calm and even-handedness. This book will be useful as a learning tool for those interested in preparing themselves for law enforcement supervisory or management positions, policymakers, and police academies.

Much research on policing focuses on individual officer decision making in the field, but officers are positioned within organizations. Organizational characteristics, including structures, policies, management, training, culture, traditions, and the environmental context affect individual officer behavior and attitudes. Recent high-profile controversies surrounding policing have generated interest in examining what factors may have led to current crises. In this book, contributors discuss how police department priorities are made; how departments respond to sexual assault complaints; how forensic scientists deal with job stress and satisfaction; how police use gun crime incident reviews for problem solving and information sharing; how police officers view the use of body-worn cameras given their perceptions of organizational justice; and how officers view their work culture. The purpose of this book is to give policy makers and scholars some guidance on the interplay between the individual and the organization. By understanding this dynamic, police administrators should be able to better devise reform efforts. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Crime and Justice.

Completely revised to cover recent events and research, the Third Edition of The New World of Police Accountability provides an original and comprehensive analysis of some of the most important developments in police accountability and reform strategies. With a keen and incisive perspective, esteemed authors and policing researchers, Samuel Walker and Carol Archbold, address the most recent developments and provide an analysis of what works, what reforms are promising, and what has proven unsuccessful. The book’s analysis draws on current research, as well as the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing and the reforms embodied in Justice Department consent decrees. New to the Third Edition: The national crisis over police legitimacy and use of force is put into context through extensive discussions of recent police shootings and the response to this national crisis, providing readers a valuable perspective on the positive steps that have been taken and the limits of those steps. Coverage of the issues related to police officer uses of force is now the prevailing topic in Chapter 3 and includes detailed discussion of the topic, including de-escalation, tactical decision making, and the important changes in training related to these issues. An updated examination of the impact of technology on policing, including citizens’ use of recording devices, body-worn cameras, open data provided by police agencies, and use of social media, explores how technology contributes to police accountability in the United States. A complete, up-to-date discussion of citizen oversight of the police provides details on the work of selected oversight agencies, including the positive developments and their limitations, enabling readers to have an informed discussion of the subject. Detailed coverage of routine police activities that often generate public controversy now includes such topics as responding to mental health calls, domestic violence calls, and police "stop and frisk" practices. Issues related to policing and race relations are addressed head-on through a careful examination of the data, as well as the impact of recent reforms that have attempted to achieve professional, bias-free policing.