RT Article
T1 The Criminal Police Officer: understanding Factors That Predict Police Crime in the United States
JF Crime & delinquency
VO 69
IS 9
SP 1700
OP 1735
A1 Boateng, Francis D.
A2 Pryce, Daniel
A2 Hsieh, Ming-Li
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1869126904
AB Although police decision making and behavior always face intense public scrutiny, officers? criminal lifestyles have largely been ignored in national debates and discussions. The primary focus of this study was to understand factors that predicted police criminality. To achieve this objective, we analyzed a nationally representative dataset on officers who were arrested from 2005 to 2011 using advanced statistical approaches. Results obtained using multilevel modeling demonstrate the predictive effects of officer and agency characteristics in explaining police criminality. Specifically, findings reveal differences in types of crimes committed by the officers. For example, male officers engage in crimes that are entirely different from those committed by their female counterparts. Likewise, on-duty officers tend to criminally behave differently from their off-duty counterparts. Furthermore, agency-level factors such as type of agency, number of sworn officers, and location of the agency predict police crime. Current findings highlight the importance of policies that would directly address criminality in law enforcement.
K1 Agency
K1 Criminality
K1 police crime
K1 police deviance
K1 Police misconduct
DO 10.1177/00111287211054732