There is growing demand for reforms to the U.S. criminal justice system. Nevertheless, there are significant questions and relatively few answers. This dissertation studies multiple U.S. criminal justice system issues using detailed administrative data from Cook County, Illinois: Does policing the police increase crime? Does the composition of a police officer's academy cohort influence their future outcomes? Is pretrial electronic monitoring an attractive alternative to pretrial release and detention? To answer these questions, I use administrative data from Chicago and Cook County, Illinois, on the Chicago Police Department, Cook County Jail, and Circuit Court of Cook County, and a range of econometric methods. In Chapter 1, I study the effect of pretrial electronic monitoring (EM) as an alternative to pretrial release and pretrial detention (jail) in Cook County, Illinois. EM often involves a defendant wearing an electronic ankle bracelet that tracks their movement and aims to deter pretrial misconduct. Using the quasi-random assignment of bond court judges, I estimate the effect of EM versus release and EM versus detention on pretrial misconduct, case outcomes, and future recidivism. I develop a novel method for the semiparametric estimation of marginal treatment effects in ordered choice environments, with which I construct relevant treatment effects. Relative to release, EM increases new cases pretrial due to bond violations while reducing new cases for low-level crimes and failures to appear in court. Relative to detention, EM increases low-level pretrial misconduct but improves defendant case outcomes and reduces cost-weighted future recidivism. Finally, I bound EM's pretrial crime reduction effect. I find that EM is likely an adequate substitute for pretrial detention. However, it is unclear that EM prevents enough high-cost crime to justify its use relative to release, particularly for defendants who are more likely to be released. Chapter 3, joint with Bocar Ba, studies and differentiates between the effects of oversight and outrage on policing. Previous studies estimating the impact of police oversight on crime rely on major policing scandals as shocks to examine the impact of oversight on crime. We argue that the simultaneous effect of public outrage on officer behavior and crime contaminates these results, and we provide a conceptual framework that distinguishes between oversight and outrage. We identify two events relating to unexpected court rulings in Chicago that increased oversight and caused a decline in reported misconduct but had virtually no public reaction. Despite the decrease in reported misconduct, crime and officer activity were unaffected. We contrast this with a major policing scandal, after which we find both a rise in crime rates without an equivalent increase in arrests and a decline in officer stops and use of force. Our results suggest that police oversight can reduce misconduct without increasing crime.

The primary objective of this research was to study and explain police criminality from a criminological point of view. Police criminality was addressed from a scientific perspective and this was achieved by using scientific measures and procedures including theoretical explanations and recognised research methodology. The secondary objectives included the undertaking of a comprehensive literature study on police criminality in addition to conducting interviews with specialists in order to gain expert information from knowledgeable sources in the field of police criminality. Interviews conducted with police offenders addressed police criminality from the viewpoint of the individual offender. The findings of the empirical study reflect significant individual and organisational factors. The individual factors highlighted characteristics such as power, greed, aggression, feelings of invincibility, gullibility, propensity to criminality and psychological factors including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which contributed to crimes committed by police members. Perhaps the most significant organisational contributors highlighted by this study related to managerial shortcomings. It is evident that police organisations with high levels of untrained, inexperienced and incompetent managers experience high levels of internal criminality. Poor supervision and the lack of corruption controls create an enabling environment for the perpetuation of police deviance. Additional organisational factors that encourage criminality include negative aspects of police culture such as the code of silence, where police members are more apt to protecting corrupt colleagues than reporting them. The lack of discipline gives rise to insubordination and familiarity, which encourages impunity. In the South African Police Service at present, the policy of Affirmative Action is causing widespread dissatisfaction and the lowering of morale amongst certain members. Inadequate recruitment and training do not prepare members adequately for their job and it literally allow the "worm into the apple." The researcher's contribution to this study is an interventionist model, which contains essential recommendations primarily for the benefit of the South African Police Service. These include the expeditious implementation of a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy and the creation of an independent investigation unit. Management shortcomings must be rectified and professionalism encouraged. Recruits need to be thoroughly vetted and ethics and integrity must be included in police training. / Criminology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Criminology)

In any society the police are organized with the responsibility of keeping peace and order, ensuring the rule of law, justice, prevention of crime as well as protection of human rights. Regardless of the circumstances in which the police find them, they should act towards every human being with a sense of duty and care for human rights; it is the responsibility of the police to conduct the process of arrest, search and seizure according to the law with no neglect of duties. The police are expected to comply with the arrest, search and seizure procedures designed to ensure the protection of human rights. Nevertheless, usually, the task of investigation is vulnerable to human right violation. This is particularly true in the case of the developing countries where the process of democratization is so infant that most of them not only lack the required level of awareness/understanding pertaining to the human right principles but also the necessary institutional mechanisms that contribute to the proper application of human right principles are missing. The report of the Ethiopian Federal Police Inspection Service conducted in the year 2003 indicated that there were some suspects arrested without court warrant and with the existence of reasonable doubt for their guiltiness. Moreover, findings of a research conducted in the same year on certain Addis Ababa sub-city police stations also clearly indicate this fact. The objective of the this research is to evaluate the extent to which crime investigator, who are duty bearers in the Addis Ababa city police, adhere to the human right principles pertaining to the rights of suspected, accused and arrested person that are recognized in pertinent international instruments and enshrined in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) constitution and other related laws of the country while fulfilling their duties and responsibilities throughout the crime investigation process. Specifically the study is also aimed at exploring the form and type of commonly violated human right, if any and the determinant factors behind the respective types of human right violation by crime investigation belong to the Addis Ababa police .Methodologically the study followed and is mainly relied on the qualitative empirical approach to social science research. / Police Practice / M. Tech. (Policing (Investigation))

The primary objective of this research was to study and explain police criminality from a criminological point of view. Police criminality was addressed from a scientific perspective and this was achieved by using scientific measures and procedures including theoretical explanations and recognised research methodology. The secondary objectives included the undertaking of a comprehensive literature study on police criminality in addition to conducting interviews with specialists in order to gain expert information from knowledgeable sources in the field of police criminality. Interviews conducted with police offenders addressed police criminality from the viewpoint of the individual offender. The findings of the empirical study reflect significant individual and organisational factors. The individual factors highlighted characteristics such as power, greed, aggression, feelings of invincibility, gullibility, propensity to criminality and psychological factors including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which contributed to crimes committed by police members. Perhaps the most significant organisational contributors highlighted by this study related to managerial shortcomings. It is evident that police organisations with high levels of untrained, inexperienced and incompetent managers experience high levels of internal criminality. Poor supervision and the lack of corruption controls create an enabling environment for the perpetuation of police deviance. Additional organisational factors that encourage criminality include negative aspects of police culture such as the code of silence, where police members are more apt to protecting corrupt colleagues than reporting them. The lack of discipline gives rise to insubordination and familiarity, which encourages impunity. In the South African Police Service at present, the policy of Affirmative Action is causing widespread dissatisfaction and the lowering of morale amongst certain members. Inadequate recruitment and training do not prepare members adequately for their job and it literally allow the "worm into the apple." The researcher's contribution to this study is an interventionist model, which contains essential recommendations primarily for the benefit of the South African Police Service. These include the expeditious implementation of a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy and the creation of an independent investigation unit. Management shortcomings must be rectified and professionalism encouraged. Recruits need to be thoroughly vetted and ethics and integrity must be included in police training. / Criminology and Security Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Criminology)

In any society the police are organized with the responsibility of keeping peace and order, ensuring the rule of law, justice, prevention of crime as well as protection of human rights. Regardless of the circumstances in which the police find them, they should act towards every human being with a sense of duty and care for human rights; it is the responsibility of the police to conduct the process of arrest, search and seizure according to the law with no neglect of duties. The police are expected to comply with the arrest, search and seizure procedures designed to ensure the protection of human rights. Nevertheless, usually, the task of investigation is vulnerable to human right violation. This is particularly true in the case of the developing countries where the process of democratization is so infant that most of them not only lack the required level of awareness/understanding pertaining to the human right principles but also the necessary institutional mechanisms that contribute to the proper application of human right principles are missing. The report of the Ethiopian Federal Police Inspection Service conducted in the year 2003 indicated that there were some suspects arrested without court warrant and with the existence of reasonable doubt for their guiltiness. Moreover, findings of a research conducted in the same year on certain Addis Ababa sub-city police stations also clearly indicate this fact. The objective of the this research is to evaluate the extent to which crime investigator, who are duty bearers in the Addis Ababa city police, adhere to the human right principles pertaining to the rights of suspected, accused and arrested person that are recognized in pertinent international instruments and enshrined in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) constitution and other related laws of the country while fulfilling their duties and responsibilities throughout the crime investigation process. Specifically the study is also aimed at exploring the form and type of commonly violated human right, if any and the determinant factors behind the respective types of human right violation by crime investigation belong to the Addis Ababa police .Methodologically the study followed and is mainly relied on the qualitative empirical approach to social science research. / Police Practice / M. Tech. (Policing (Investigation))

The research addresses secondary victimization of women reporting abuse at the Lenasia Police Station and reasons why it occurs. In addition, the research also determines if the expectations of the survivors of abuse about the police when reporting abuse are in line with what the Domestic Violence Act stipulates as their duties. To determine this, a sample of survivors reporting abuse was used. A qualitative and quantitative approach to the research was used. Two questionnaires were used for the sample of survivors and for service provides, with an opinion survey with knowledgeable people and a focus group discussion with police. It was found that some women were experiencing victimization by the police and that the survivors' expectations of the police were as stipulated in the Domestic Violence Act. Services provided by service providers were outlined and obstacles preventing police to provide a good service were identified. Recommendations were made. / Social work / MA(SS) (SOCIAL WORK)

The research addresses secondary victimization of women reporting abuse at the Lenasia Police Station and reasons why it occurs. In addition, the research also determines if the expectations of the survivors of abuse about the police when reporting abuse are in line with what the Domestic Violence Act stipulates as their duties. To determine this, a sample of survivors reporting abuse was used. A qualitative and quantitative approach to the research was used. Two questionnaires were used for the sample of survivors and for service provides, with an opinion survey with knowledgeable people and a focus group discussion with police. It was found that some women were experiencing victimization by the police and that the survivors' expectations of the police were as stipulated in the Domestic Violence Act. Services provided by service providers were outlined and obstacles preventing police to provide a good service were identified. Recommendations were made. / Social work / MA(SS) (SOCIAL WORK)