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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the relation between police transformational leadership and organizational commitment is mediated by organizational culture. Drawing on the competing values framework (Quinn, 1988), four types of cultural orientations (group, developmental, hierarchical, and rational) are analyzed. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 358 South Korean police officers are surveyed. Using competing values as multiple mediators, a parallel four mediator model is estimated. Bias-corrected bootstrapping methods are employed to consider the small sample size, as well as the possible non-normal distribution of specific indirect effects. Findings – The linkage between transformational leadership and commitment appears to be fully mediated by group culture. Interestingly, multiple individual officer characteristics, duty type, and departmental size do not impact respective constructs overall. Research limitations/implications – The use of cross-sectional data hinders causal ordering among constructs included. Practical implications – Given the full mediation relationships among the three constructs, it is advisable to develop more nuanced leadership training programs optimized for fostering “considerate and supportive leaders” who have been known to impact group culture. Originality/value – Including two understudied police organizational correlates (i.e. transformational leadership and organizational culture), this study accounts for the mediating role of organizational culture in the transformational leadership-commitment link with multiple variables frequently used in previous research being controlled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Police factor in extra-legal as well as legal context in their decision to arrest a suspect. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of extra-legal factors at both situational and neighborhood levels. Design/methodology/approach – Using hierarchical generalized linear modeling, over 9,000 domestic violence cases across 421 census tracts in Houston, Texas were examined. Situational information was derived from police reports, and neighborhood factors were measured by population characteristics drawn from the US Census Bureau. The model also controls for spatial autocorrelation of arrest rates between census tracts in the estimation of officer's arrest decision. Findings – At the neighborhood level, concentrated disadvantage and immigration concentration had positive effect on the odds of arrest. At the situational level, the time of day, day of the week, premise type, and gender and racial relations between suspect and complainant, along with offense type and weapons use, had significant impact. Originality/value – The scant literature has not yet provided an affirmative set of extra-legal factors affecting police arrest decision. The paper's findings may contribute to the literature and suggest the need for guidelines concerning officer discretion exercised in the line of duty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The majority of the previous research on hot spots policing focuses on a single set of relatively small selected experimental areas. However, given limited resources, most law enforcement agencies dispatch hot spots intervention units to several areas on a rotation basis. The purpose of this paper is to examine policing activities in hot spots to determine if the various types of crimes were affected when deployment was applied on a rotation basis. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses data from the Dallas Police Department. The differential influence of police activities, including stops, citations, and arrests, are observed against a number of aggregate crime measures (i.e. violent, property, nuisance offenses, and total index crimes). The impact of police activities have been observed for their immediate and lagged effects during the following week to measure residual deterrence effects. Findings – It was found that the DPD's Disruption Unit's hot spots policing immediately affected violent crimes, nuisance offenses, and total index crimes, while there were no residual effects of hot spots policing. The Disruption Unit was engaged in policing activities that include motor vehicle and pedestrian stops, issuing citations, and making arrests. Among these activities, the number of police stops was the most significant factor for the reduction in violent crime and nuisance offenses. Research limitations/implications – The researchers use a patrol sector as a unit of analysis in order to compare the influence of various types of police activities on crime across a broader area. Future research should consider using an intermediate geographic unit of analysis (e.g. patrol beat). Originality/Value – The paper examines the differential influence of policing activities on different types of crime around hot spots when deployment was applied on a rotation basis. Both immediate and lagged effects were investigated to find residual deterrence effects of hot spots policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]