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As a means for measuring scholarly influence, citation analysis has several limitations and shortcomings. We first review the main sources of citation data (Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, and information collected directly from reference lists) and discuss the shortcomings of each source. Next, we review five significant limitations of citation analysis as a methodology (academic over popular interest, various motivations for citing, manipulation potential, failure to account for author ordering, and citations only appearing in “indexed” journals). The issues we touch on set the stage for the remainder of the articles in this special issue.

Criminal justice and criminology (CCJ), like many academic disciplines, conducts its share of rankings. Citation-based ranks of individual scholars are particularly popular, and they tend to consistently identify the field’s supposedly “top” scholars and “academic stars.” Whether citations equate with “influence,” however, is up for debate. At the least, citation-based metrics are unidimensional and fail to capture attention outside academia. Accordingly, we drew on the work of Cohn et al. and re-ranked top-cited scholars using the Google Chrome “Altmetric it!” bookmarklet. As expected, the Altmetrics methodology fundamentally altered past rankings. The most influential scholars in our rankings, Terrie E. Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, received higher Altmetric scores than all the remaining ranked scholars combined.

Prior police decision-making research is limited by (1) its emphasis on individual and organizational predictors and (2) cross-sectional designs, which fail to account for the time-varying aspects of police activities and the factors explaining them. Using group-based trajectory modeling, this study tested the ability of social disorganization theory to explain arrest activity at the Census block group level in Dallas, Texas. Social disorganization variables helped predict certain arrest trajectories, but not all of them. Specifically, socio-economic status was significant in low and medium arrest trajectory groups. An interaction between racial heterogeneity and family disruption was also significant in the medium arrest trajectory group. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Consent decrees, authorized by Section 14141 of the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act, represent one of the most powerful governmental tools used to encourage—and possibly force—police reform. The consent decree process, however, carries a significant fiscal burden; in some cases, the cost of police reform inhibits agencies’ cooperation with the decrees. One possible solution to this problem calls for the creation of a public-supported police reform fund, whose monies are reserved strictly for consent decrees. Guided by focal concerns theory, this study reports on a factorial survey experiment used to assess variation across individuals’ willingness to pay for police reform. Results indicate that the seriousness of a police reform issue and the agency’s ability to pay for reform act as significant drivers of endorsement of a police reform fund.

A large body of research demonstrates the toll stress takes on police. However, with recent high-profile force incidents that have fueled distrust of police especially within minority communities, there is reason to expect that minority officers experience stress differently than their white counterparts. Within the context of Agnew’s (1992) General Strain Theory, this study examines the relationship between police stress and misconduct. As well, since a police stress/anger relationship has been found, we also analyze racial differences in the extent to which negative affect (anger) mediates the stress/outcome relationship. Using data from a survey of over 1,400 police officers working in three large cities in Texas, we find that stress is significantly related to officers’ acts of misconduct within both races. Moreover, there are noticeable differences in the role anger plays in the stress/misconduct relationship among white and minority officers.

The controversy surrounding recent high-profile police shootings (e.g., Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Laquan McDonald in Chicago) has prompted inquiry into the possible existence of bias in officers’ use-of-force decisions. Using a balanced mix of shoot/don’t shoot cases from a large municipal police department in the Southwestern United States, this study analyzed the effect of suspect race on officers’ decisions to shoot—while accounting for other theoretically relevant factors. Findings suggest that Black suspects were not disproportionately the target of police shootings; Black suspects were approximately one third as likely to be shot as other suspects. This finding challenges the current bias narrative and is consistent with the other race-related findings in recently published research.

We analyze a set of 207 Dallas Police Department officer-involved shooting incidents in reference to 1,702 instances in which officers from the same agency drew their firearms but did not shoot at the suspect. We find that situational factors of whether the suspect was armed and whether an officer was injured were the best predictors of the decision to shoot. We also find that African Americans are less likely than Whites to be shot. It is important to collect data on encounters in which weapons are and are not discharged. Analyses examining only shootings is fundamentally limited in assessing racial bias.

Previous tests of the maturity gap thesis incorporated one-dimensional autonomy-based measures of social maturity. We present the first test of the maturity gap thesis to incorporate psychosocial measures (i.e., temperance, responsibility, and perspective). Four delinquency and substance abuse variables from Wave 2 of the Add Health data were regressed on the following variables developed from Wave 1: relative pubertal development, relative psychosocial maturity, personal autonomy, and interactions among each ( n = 4,530 participants younger than 18 and 294 older than 18). Personal autonomy lost significance when psychosocial maturity, personal autonomy, and pubertal development were included in the same model. However, psychosocial maturity did not clearly interact with either personal autonomy or pubertal development. Psychosocial maturity was associated with deviant behaviors for both males and females, above and below age 18.

Past studies of crime clearance rates have largely ignored the role of investigators in the process. This omission is important because criminal investigation is essential to clearing crimes, particularly those in which offenders are not readily identifiable. Using data from 570 law enforcement agencies spanning a 13-year period from 2000 to 2012, this study developed group-based trajectories of violent and property crime clearance rates (an approach not taken in previous clearance rate research), then modeled group membership with two measures of investigative spending and one of the proportion of investigators in sampled agencies (“investigative resources”), while controlling for factors such as workload and crime type. Results from a series of multinomial regression models suggest investigative resources play only a marginal role in crime clearance trajectories. This finding is consistent with early detective research, including the classic RAND criminal investigative process study.

Grounded in both organizational- and individual-level theories, this study examined the relationship between police field training officers (FTOs) and their trainees’ subsequent allegations of misconduct. Trainees in the sample were each exposed to multiple FTOs, which presented a unique methodological problem. As such, multilevel models that permitted the nesting of individual trainees within multiple higher order groups of FTOs were estimated. Results revealed that approximately one quarter of the variation in trainees’ allegations of postsupervision misconduct was attributed to FTOs, suggesting the apple (trainee) indeed falls close to the tree (FTO). Implications for FTO selection and training are discussed.

This study extends research on recidivism by examining the phenomenon via a survival mixture modeling approach, a method that is analogous to mixture modeling approaches used in trajectory analyses. Using this approach, the authors discover that multiple recidivism profiles are identifiable within a random sample of inmates released from Florida prisons between January 1998 and June 2001. Findings revealed that certain covariates predicted class membership and operated differently across the groups in predicting the hazard of recidivism, suggesting that a unilateral approach to reducing recidivism risk is an ineffective strategy. The Discussion section presents the findings in the context of theory, research, and policy.

Theories of the criminal justice process continue to develop and mature, as do theories of crime; however, less need has been perceived for theory in evidence-based policy evaluations. The authors ...

Researchers have recently combined individual-level data with institutional measures to detect prison-level correlates of inmate misconduct. Although this body of literature has yielded insights into how the prison environment contributes to misconduct, we argue that it has ignored an important level of analysis, namely the custody level. As some inmates are placed in more restrictive confinement than others, custody levels may absorb some of the variation in individual-level and/or prison-level correlates of misconduct. Accordingly, we analyzed data from over 70,000 inmates who were housed in Texas prisons during 2008 and found that custody levels were strongly and positively associated with misconduct, even (a) after accounting for the endogeneity of custody levels and (b) once inmate- and prison-level measures were included. We draw on labeling theory in our efforts to explain the relationship between custody levels and misconduct.

A number of researchers have concluded that federal assistance to local law enforcement agencies reduces serious crime. This article critiques such studies, makes recommendations for improvement, and then implements the recommendations using data from a 12-year panel of approximately 5,000 cities, focusing in particular on the relationship between Local Law Enforcement Block Grants and serious crime. Results suggest researchers should be cautious in attributing crime reductions to grant funding programs.

Researchers have not yet devoted sufficient attention to the effect of prison architecture on inmate misconduct. Using data from the population of male prisoners in Texas, the authors explored the association between two prison architectural design types (as determined by satellite imagery) and inmate misconduct. The results from multilevel statistical analyses suggest that architectural design is associated with nonviolent misconduct but not violent misconduct. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.

This article tests social support theory with a focus on the relationship between general relief payments to the poor and homicide. General relief, a new and untapped measure of social support, represents an improvement on earlier measures of social support, such as welfare spending, because it (a) reflects local priorities, (b) includes both cash grants and in-kind services, and (c) is sufficiently variable at the local level to make it statistically useful. Data from Worrall (2005) were reanalyzed, revealing that general relief was inversely related to homicide, even in the face of various robustness checks.

The research reported here sought to determine whether there is a connection between arrests for minor offenses and subsequent reductions in serious crime, using county-level data collected from the state of California between the years 1989 and 2000. Results from a series of fixed effects regression models suggest that arrests for disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, and public drunkenness can reduce certain crimes, notably felonious assault and burglary. Moreover, the results suggest that assault appears to decline immediately, whereas burglary declines with a delay.

The authors analyzed police records to explore why suspects resist arrest. The analysis was based on a sample of 400 police reports from a mid-size urban police department in Southern California. Two hundred cases involved suspects who were charged with resisting arrest. The remaining 200 cases involved arrested suspects who did not resist. The authors used logistic regression to explore the association between several demographic factors and a binary outcome measuring suspect resistance. They found that suspects arrested in police beats characterized by a disproportionate number of calls for service were more likely to resist. They further found that Black suspects were more likely to resist relative to their White and Hispanic counterparts. The authors also explored interaction effects.

In Kyllo v. United States, the Supreme Court handed down an apparently bright-line rule stating that government use of devices not in “general public use” (e.g., thermal imagers), which can be used to view the “details of a home,” constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. This article argues that the Court’s decision is flawed for several reasons: (a) There is no agreement over the “general public use” standard, (b) there is no agreement over what can be considered “details of the home,” (c) the Court failed to exercise judicial restraint, (d) the Court restricted law enforcement officials’ ability to draw “inferences” about criminal activity, and perhaps most important, (e) the decision does not place restrictions on the use of thermal imagers for other law enforcement purposes besides the direct procurement of criminal evidence.

This study tests the hypothesis that when law enforcement agencies make improvements in their citizen complaint review procedures, a likely consequence is more complaints. Findings from a survey of 700 law enforcement agencies suggest that improvements in citizen complaint procedures result in a higher incidence of complaints. Additionally, certain combinations of citizen complaint review procedures are highly associated with the incidence of complaints. Two recommendations are made: (a) researchers and policy makers need to be attuned to the fact that more complaints will be filed when complaint procedures are reformed, and (b) law enforcement agencies need to be “careful what they ask for;” a higher complaint rate, although a desirable consequence of improved complaint review procedures, could result in unanticipated consequences.

Title 42, Section 1983 of the U.S. Code provides a remedy in federal court for individuals who suffer constitutional rights violations at the hands of criminal justice officials. To succeed in a Section 1983 lawsuit, a plaintiff must demonstrate a constitutional violation by an official acting under color of state law. Recently, however, courts have begun to require that constitutional rights violations be committed with a certain level of culpability for a finding of liability, a development that has received little attention in the criminal justice literature. Accordingly, this article seeks to (1) sort out the important culpability issues associated with Section 1983 litigation, with particular reference to theories of liability, and (2) discuss the relevance of this inquiry for both academics and practitioners, calling attention to the problems the current multitude of culpability standards pose.

This paper explores the impact of domestic terrorism on the public agenda. Specifically, it examines the extent to which the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing required assistance, or "accompaniment," to capture the attention of lawmakers. Accompaniment was defined in terms of governmental and popular concerns for an issue prior to a focusing event. Content analyses of The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, the New York Times Index, the Washington Post Index, and Congressional Quarterly, as measures of prior congressional, presidential, and public interest, suggested that domestic terrorism did not require accompaniment to achieve agenda status. Instead, unique focusing event characteristics—the intendedly violent, sudden, novel, and criminal nature of the explosion—were responsible.

Most contributions to the police civil liability literature have described trends in the incidence of suits, the outcomes of actual cases, or the impact litigation has on police departments. This article outlines a predictive model of administrative determinants of civil litigation against police. Specifically, it asks: Do police administrators influence trends in litigation? Data drawn from the 1993 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey and from a 1996 survey of 248 police departments suggest that interest in minority recruitment, method of civilian review, and commitment to community-oriented policing affect the incidence of suits. Potential problems with research in this area are discussed.