Issues in Criminal Justice

Question and instructions:

There is a long tradition of research about the police use of force. After reading the assigned documents, discuss the different definitions of police use of force; discuss the importance of police use of force from the police legitimacy perspective. Next, review the literature on the correlates of police use of force; identify similarities and differences in the sources of data and findings. Finally, discuss the issues regarding the use-of-force policy enforcement and training within police organizations. Here is a suggested structure for your paper while you can create your own:

1)    Introduction: Provide a map of your response (e.g., tell the reader what you will talk about in this paper)

2)    Definitions of police use of force and its relevance to police legitimacy

3)    Review of bivariate and multivariate studies on the correlates of police use of force

4)    Issues regarding internal policy enforcement and training regarding police use of force

5)    Conclusions

Note that the reading list below is by no means exclusive, so please feel free to seek additional resources or re-use the reading materials or textbook from the course. You can also read and cite optional readings or cite other studies reviewed in these readings. Avoid overciting one study unless there is a justification for doing so. Finally, remember to implement the strategies that you learned in 5 short assignments in this capstone course such as how to read a research article, how to create an annotated bibliography, and how to write a review of literature while writing your responses.

Use APA style, Times New Roman 12 pts font. It should be 7 to 10 pages long, double-spaced.

READING LIST
Required Readings

1) Garner, Maxwell, & Heraux (2002). Characteristics associated with the prevalence and severity of force used by the police. Justice Quarterly, 19(4), 705-746. –SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

2) Sherman, L. (1980). Causes of police behavior: The current state of quantitative research.
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 17(1), 69–100. –SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

3) Riksheim, E., & Chermak, S. (1993). Causes of police behavior revisited. Journal of Criminal
Justice, 21(4), 353–382. –SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

4) Klahm, C., & Tillyer, R. (2010). Understanding police use of force: A review of the evidence.
Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, 7, 214–239.—Definitions of Police use of Force

5) Fridell, L. A. (2010). Use-of-Force Policy, Policy Enforcement and Training. Critical Issues in Policing: Contemporary Readings, 513-531.—Policy paper

Optional Readings
1) National Research Council. (2004). Fairness and effectiveness in policing: The evidence.
Washington, D.C: The National Academies Press.
2) Bolger, P. C. (2015). Just following orders: A meta-analysis of the correlates of American
police officer use of force decisions. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 40(3), 466-492.

Another suggested outline:

Notes: You are not writing for Professors here. Make sure that you provide EVIDENCE (from research conducted with scientific methods). Remember that you are writing for the general audience. You might be right in your own arguments that are based on your personal experiences but those stories may not be generalizable to other populations. And they are not viewed/regarded as a scientific evidence, either. Before writing, look at the papers assigned and try to understand the connection between those papers. You need to make a meaningful dish from the ingredients (analogy). Under the required reading list, I highlighted the ingredients and hinted about their connection—see above.

Intro:

Why this paper is important? Example: The relationship between police use of force and emergence of community movements such as Black lives and similar movements.

Provide a map for your paper—you can rephrase my question here.

Correlates of Police use of Force

Provide a brief description of what you will write about here. I will provide several definitions and then you will review three systematic review papers.

Define police use of force—levels of force and different definitions. For reviewing systematic review papers, do not imply that authors conducted all research mentioned within each systematic review paper. For instance, Sherman is just reviewing papers published within certain time range. He is not the one who conducted all 30 studies. Are these studies done in the same state? Similar samples? Do not include irrelevant material such as findings about police service. Focus on use of force topic. Summarize the patterns of findings for each paper. Cite some papers as examples: 7 out of 33 studies found that …(e.g., Authors of paper 1; Authors of Paper 2). Talk about methodology of each systematic review paper. How did researchers measure police use of force (provide patterns)? What are the correlates (again, pattern and direction of relationship with the independent variable/correlate, positive relationship, negative relationship, no relationship etc) each author reviews police use of force for different time range. You can use this info in your summary in the conclusion.

Policy issues

Fridell –READ, REVIEW AND CITE

Conclusion

You can reiterate your goal here by rephrasing it—to make sure that the font end of the paper matches with the back end (conclusion) of the paper. Provide a summary of findings across systematic review—DIGEST– and make a connection with policy issues.