Research
The Relationship of Police Officers Age and Educational Level with their Perception of Bias-Based Policing
In a survey study of police officers in Alabama, this paper assesses how demographic factors of police officers, their reception of training on cultural diversity, and the awareness of their department’s written policy on bias-based policing are related to their perception of bias-based policing practices in their department. To achieve the goal of the present study, a survey of 400 officers was used to run multivariate logistic regression analyses. Three variables display significant association with a police officer’s perception regarding witnessing bias-based policing practices. Officers with younger age group, higher education, and longer work experience in the department are more likely to say that they have witnessed bias-based policing practices as compared with their counterparts with older age groups, lower education, and shorter work experience.
Bias-Based Policing: Voices from Within
The popularity of the terms racial profiling and bias-based policing over the past few decades has provoked a great interest and curiosity among researchers and practitioners. Initially, studies are conducted from subaltern perspective by analyzing disparity in traffic stops; recently scholars twisted towards police perspective and started striving to understand bias in broader aspects of police-public interactions. In our study on 411 police officers, 30% admitted the prevalence of bias in their department, 40 % acknowledged the prevalence in the greater state of Alabama and further analysis revealed a scarlet differences among black and white officers and officers holding non-management and management positions.
Governance, Deterrence, and National Homicide Rate
By extending the deterrence theory to national level, the current study tested the hypothesis that ineffective government is largely responsible for higher homicide rate in a nation. The homicide data required for the test were collected from the World Health Organization and the information on governance from the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators for 122 nations. The results from the regression models supported the deterrence theory. An ineffective and dysfunctional government was one of the primary sources for a nation’s high homicide rate. Also, other control variables, such as relative poverty and ethnic heterogeneity, were positively related to the homicide rate in a nation.
