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Purpose The purpose of the study was to identify factors associated with officer firearm and conducted energy weapon displays. Our specific concern was whether black subjects were more likely to have firearms drawn against them relative to other subjects. Methods Officer- and incident-level “response to resistance” data from the New Orleans Police Department were analyzed. Logistic regression models controlling for officer, subject, and situational factors were estimated to predict officer weapon draws. Results When analyzing all officer-level actions, black subjects were more likely to have firearms drawn against them than other subjects, but subject race was insignificant in incident-level analyses. Additionally, situational characteristics explained more variance in the data than officer or subject characteristics alone. Conclusions We found no consistent evidence of racial bias in firearm draws. Results hinged to an extent on the samples analyzed and statistical models estimated. In addition, our findings apply solely to one city and highlight the complexity of use-of-force research and the need for further replication.

Purpose Gang membership has been linked in a number of prior studies with inmate misconduct; known gang members are more prone than non-gang members to act violently behind bars. Theories of intergroup conflict suggest, however, there is reason to expect that broader within-prison gang dynamics, not just gang membership alone, are associated with the incidence of violence. Methods We collected data on inmates from a large southern state and estimated multilevel models of inmate-on-inmate violence. Included in our models were a variety of common individual-level correlates of violent misconduct, among them gang membership. Substantive prison-level correlates included the percentage of gang members and “gang integration,” the latter being a measure of gang heterogeneity. Results We found a modest association between both gang variables and inmate-on-inmate violence, with gang integration being the most significant of the two. Conclusions Gang membership is an important correlate of inmate violence, but attention to broader prison gang dynamics is clearly necessary. We discuss the implications of this finding for theories of inmate violence.

Purpose Tests of social support theory have relied on aggregate crime rates as the outcome of interest, but such a focus ignores the potentially important macro-level processes and effects on individual-level behavior We thus perform the first multi-level investigation of social support theory. Methods Multilevel modeling is used to explore whether the two varieties of county-level social support – the presence of charitable organizations and AFDC expenditures – are associated with recidivism in a sample of Florida prison releasees. Results Results show that while social support explains little variation in individual-level recidivism, a combination of private and public social support may reduce the likelihood of reconviction for drug offenses. Conclusion Findings provide mixed evidence for the prospect that social support—whether governmental or nongovernmental—is associated with recidivism among recently-released inmates.

A number of American police agencies appear to have gone “green” by adopting a range of environmental sustainability initiatives. This article situates their efforts within a similar movement afoot throughout urban government and then explores potential theoretical explanations for them. Problems and benefits associated with environmentally-conscious police reforms are also discussed. Along the way, the author lays out a research agenda for scholars interested in further study of the apparent greening of policing.

The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA), implemented statewide in California in July 2001, mandates drug treatment rather than incarceration for certain nonviolent drug offenders. Critics of the legislation suggest that crime increased as a result of the legislation, but researchers have largely ignored this issue. Utilizing time series methodology applied across several independent data sets from Orange County, California, the effects of SACPA on crime were assessed. Results indicate that significant increases in commercial burglaries and paraphernalia arrests may have been attributed to SACPA, but the overall pattern does not support a conclusion that crime increased markedly.

San Bernardino's Operation Nightlight Program paired police officers with probation officers to conduct enhanced supervision of juvenile probationers. The authors conducted an interrupted time series analysis of juvenile arrests in San Bernardino and surrounding cities before and after the implementation of Nightlight. They also explored displacement and diffusion effects using Bowers and Johnson's (2003) weighted displacement quotient. Results showed (1) city-wide reductions in assault, burglary, and theft arrests; and (2) that burglary reductions in San Bernardino may have been offset by increases in contiguous cities.

Using county-level data from California for the years 1989–2000, this study explored the effect of three-strikes legislation on serious crime. It improved on most previous research in this area by controlling for how often prosecutors charged offenders under the three-strikes statute. Preliminary findings suggested that larceny was reduced by way of deterrence resulting from three-strikes and that all index crimes were reduced by way of incapacitation. Once county-specific trends were controlled for, however, the deterrent and incapacitative effects of three-strikes legislation disappeared altogether.

Each year more offenders are sentenced to probation than to any other sanction in the criminal justice system. In spite of the saliency of probation programs, the evidence is mixed concerning their effectiveness. In order to address this important gap in the research, the authors sought to determine if probation was effective in achieving one of its stated goals: protecting public safety. In doing so, they conducted a macro-level analysis, exploring the relationship between probation caseloads and property crime rates in each county in California over a nine-year period. Results from a two-way fixed effects regression model suggested that as probation loads increased, so did crime. While additional research into the effectiveness of probation is clearly needed, the results of the analysis nevertheless indicated that improvements in public safety could be expected if probation caseloads were reduced.

Civil asset forfeiture is no stranger to criticism, in part because law enforcement agencies can share in the proceeds obtained from forfeitures. Critics claim that this potential for “profit” in law enforcement is the driving force behind civil asset forfeiture; that the noble goals of controlling crime and curbing illicit drug use are not high priorities. The research reported in this article partially substantiates critics' claims that pecuniary concerns guide civil asset forfeiture activities. Results from a survey of 1400 municipal and county law enforcement executives revealed that a substantial proportion of law enforcement agencies are dependent on civil asset forfeiture as a necessary budgetary supplement. In an attempt to explain the “addiction,” evidence is offered that dependence on civil asset forfeiture is positively associated with revenues generated from past forfeiture activities and inversely related to fiscal expenditures. The primary implication tied to these findings is that a conflict of interest between effective crime control and creative fiscal management will persist so long as law enforcement agencies remain dependent on civil asset forfeiture.

Criminal justice is an academic discipline in practice but not yet in theory. An analysis of intellectual resources used in recent criminal justice books shows that theory development is still tied to established disciplines, does not accurately reflect and incorporate the multiple intellectual traditions from which the discipline of criminal justice arose, and has failed to achieve a genuine multidisciplinary and multitheoretical stance or project. Some reasons for this state of affairs and some suggestions for training and practice in the new discipline of criminal justice are advanced.