<p> Critical incidents in law enforcement often either lead to a great divide between police agencies and the communities they serve, or they exacerbate a volatile relationship that already exists. Critical incidents may cause outrage within the community due to: misconceptions about the incident, extreme distrust of police, allegations of police misconduct, or racial tension. In an effort to improve and enhance organizational police and community resilience following a critical incident, a case study comparison of four recent high-profile critical incidents seeks to answer the following question: What lessons can we learn from police critical incidents and how do the events surrounding them affect police and community resilience? Analysis of the cases identifies specific factors that affect resiliency among police agencies and communities during and after critical incidents. The analysis leads to recommendations for police agencies to enhance police-community relations and resilience. </p><p>

<p> Decisions made by street-level police officers during encounters with the public have an immediate and long-lasting effect. Bad choices can cause a loss of trust, respect, and legitimacy for the police in a community and lay a foundation for violent confrontations between officers and citizens. Layers of culture that shape human decisions consist of social and institutional culture, including interactions that shape an individual&rsquo;s culture and beliefs and demographics and technology that affect cultural development. Police culture (which includes these layers of culture and factors like rank, units, and history) shapes attitudes and opinions about communities and people in a police jurisdiction, leading to barriers to officers&rsquo; acceptance of training initiatives to implement new methods of dealing with the public. Understanding police culture is the first step in making positive changes in police decision-making and improving trust, respect, and legitimacy between officers and the community. Acker&rsquo;s theory of social structure social learning provided the theoretical framework for understanding police culture, which could lead to positive changes such as training programs that address police culture&rsquo;s influence on decision-making. A qualitative research method with a phenomenological approach for interviewing officers was used to investigate police culture and how it affects decision-making. Results indicated that officers think of culture as a family or brotherhood and not a culture. The most significant impact on decision-making is experience. These findings can lead to positive social change by making officers stakeholders in developing training in positive social relationships with the community. </p><p>

<p>Law enforcement is responding to an ever-increasing number of large-scale critical incidents involving an adversary who has killed or is attempting to kill innocent citizens. These incidents include active shooters, terrorist attacks, hostage situations, snipers, and other associated conflicts. The initial response phase of these incidents is an extreme challenge for law enforcement response organizations. Moreover, little academic research has been conducted concerning this phase and the issues occurring within it. This thesis intends to help address this gap in the research and provide important insight into the factors and dynamics at play during this time period with a focus on the major issues that are occurring. An analysis of 15 after- action reports from these large-scale events was conducted and used to formulate useful percentages on the primary errors occurring during these events. The results of the analysis were also utilized to create the framework for the timeline of the initial response phase. The ultimate goal of this research thesis is to provide useful information for these events by drawing attention to primary issues for future incident commanders and law enforcement first responder consideration.

<p> The response to civil disturbances has historically been the aggressive use of force or <i>escalation</i> with tactics such as the use of police dogs, armed federal troops during war protests, and police field forces. These types of tactics can escalate tensions between protestors and police and only add to the violence and destruction of the incident. To reduce the violence between protestors and the police and the destruction often associated with civil disturbances, it is necessary to examine the need to include de-escalation techniques in the responses. This study utilized 3 theoretical frameworks, the chaos theory, the behavioral decision theory and the strain theory, all which complement each other in interpreting the opinions and experiences of participants and civil disturbance responses. The research questions were used to determine the influence of experience, training, personal biases or external influences on decision making and elicit the opinions of respondents in how they would respond to a civil disturbance. Twenty-five respondents responsible for policy or response decisions regarding civil disturbances from southern U.S. state emergency management and law enforcement agencies took part in the survey. The results of a cross-tabulation analysis determined that there is a need for the inclusion of de-escalation techniques and that they would be effective in civil disturbances. The results also showed that an aggressive response was the preferred method to restoring or maintaining order, but there was a need to examine changes in response tactics. This study may be beneficial and provide a social impact through policy changes, which may lead to a lessening of the severity and scope of an incident.</p><p>

<p> This project examines correctional officer misconduct in the United States and how to detect and prevent it from occurring. The author did a content analysis of available literature regarding misconduct incidents in attempt to narrow the causation factor(s) to its existence. With the lack of empirical data regarding misconduct, the author was able to reference other criminal justice entities to provide educational knowledge on prevention, detection and to determine the causation factor(s). The author provides several examples of prevention and detection techniques. With prevention and detection techniques at the fore front of this project, the author was able to determine that ineffective supervision is the causation factor to correctional officer misconduct in United States jails and prisons.</p><p>

<p> In 1994 Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which in part gave the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division (DOJCRD) the power to investigate local law enforcement agencies for Constitutional and civil rights violations. Researchers have found these investigations are expensive, time consuming, and highly intrusive to a law enforcement agency. To understand how these investigations are impacting communities, data were gathered on cities with local law enforcement agencies that have experienced an investigation by the DOJCRD. Using a quasi-experimental, multiple time-series research design with a paired samples <i>t</i>-test, the dependent variables (violent crime and arrest rates) were analyzed for any differences before and after the introduction of the independent variable (the commencement of a DOJCRD investigation). With an established <i> a</i> = .05, adjusting for non-reported crime, and comparing to a non-equivalent control variable (national crime rate), the research findings indicate increased violent crime with the commencement of these investigations. The results also show that arrest rates significantly decreased indicating the possibility of de-policing. The negative impact to communities with increased violent crime rates and decreased arrest rates calls into question the efficacy of DOJCRD investigations. By supporting the recommendation for Congress to repeal this power given to the DOJCRD, this research can lead to positive social change by preventing federal government intrusion into local government that is negatively impacting communities.</p><p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2001. / Title from title page screen, viewed April 4, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Edward R. Hines (chair), Mohamed A. Nur-Awaleh, David A. Strand, Kenneth H. Strand. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-115) and abstract. Also available in print.