John D. McCluskey and Michael Reisig
The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a series of hypotheses regarding the use of procedurally just policing during suspect encounters.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a series of hypotheses regarding the use of procedurally just policing during suspect encounters.
Design/methodology/approach
Systematic social observation data from police encounters with suspects are used (N=939). Ordinary least-squares regression models are estimated to evaluate the effects of four variable clusters (i.e. suspect self-presentation, situational factors, suspect social characteristics, and officer characteristics) on procedurally just policing practices.
Findings
Results from the regression models show that the most salient predictors of police officers exercising authority in a procedurally just manner include the level of self-control displayed by suspects, the number of citizen onlookers, whether the encounter involved a traffic problem, the race/ethnicity of suspects, and suspects’ social status.
Research limitations/implications
This study focused only on police-suspects encounters where compliance requests were made. While the size of the sample is relatively large, the results from this study do not generalize to all types of police encounters with members of the public.
Originality/value
This research adds to an emerging body of research focused on predicting procedurally just practices in police encounters. The findings support increased attention to theories that explain police-citizens interactions, and also indicate that further consideration to the measurement of police behavior is warranted.
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John D. McCluskey and William Terrill
This paper seeks to examine a variety of measures of complaints and their relationship to police officers' use of coercion in encounters with suspects.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to examine a variety of measures of complaints and their relationship to police officers' use of coercion in encounters with suspects.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from the Project on Policing Neighborhoods, involving the systematic social observation of police, were combined with complaint data from the St Petersburg Police Department to examine the influence of complaints on use of coercion in everyday encounters. Hierarchical models, which included theoretically relevant control variables, were used to test multiple measures of departmental and citizen complaints as predictors of officers' use of coercion.
Findings
The analyses indicate that, net of other important predictors, officer complaint rate for force and verbal discourtesy is associated with higher levels of coercion in encounters with suspects. The analyses also indicate that officers' verbal discourtesy complaint rate is associated with higher levels of coercion, but complaint rates for physical force are not related to higher levels of coercion.
Research limitations/implications
The current results do not necessarily generalize to all police departments, since the department, at that time, was a leader in community policing.
Practical implications
The influence of complaints for force and discourtesy on coercion suggests that police departments could benefit from greater attention toward officers who generate complaints for discourtesy from the public.
Originality/value
This paper examines the utility of official complaint data as a determinant of officers' coercive behavior in encounters with suspects. The research would be of interest to police executives concerned with creating “early warning systems” as well as police scholars concerned with the determinants of officer coercion.
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J. Pete Blair, Timothy R. Levine, Torsten O. Reimer and John D. McCluskey
The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the deception detection literature that arrives at a different conclusion from the one presented by King and Dunn…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the deception detection literature that arrives at a different conclusion from the one presented by King and Dunn. Specifically, the authors’ review shows that people can detect deception at significantly above chance accuracy in policing environments. A new paradigm for deception detection is also discussed.
Design/methodology/approach
An extensive literature review was conducted.
Findings
People can detect deception at levels that exceed chance in a variety of police‐related environments when an ecological approach to detecting deception is adopted.
Practical implications
The authors’ review suggests that it is time for deception detection training and manuals to move away from the demeanor‐based systems that are currently dominant and toward coherence and correspondence‐based systems.
Originality/value
The paper presents a perspective that is different from the one advanced by King and Dunn. It also introduces the ecological detection of deception paradigm to the policing literature.
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Thomas McCluskey, Bruce Burton and David Power
This study aims to provide a modern perspective on the role of dividends in smaller developed countries such as Ireland by examining views regarding the determinants of payout…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide a modern perspective on the role of dividends in smaller developed countries such as Ireland by examining views regarding the determinants of payout levels, the role of taxation and the relevance of conventional signalling theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs semi‐structured interviews with the financial directors of 20 leading Irish companies.
Findings
The results suggest support for the notion that dividend policy affects share valuations. However, views regarding this issue – and the role of taxation and signalling theory – vary markedly between quoted and unquoted firms as well as depending on firms' dividend histories.
Research limitations/implications
The study suffers from the problem that in interview‐based research the participants are necessarily a self‐selecting group. Notwithstanding this point, the evidence suggests that the views of managers in a nation with a small, but highly developed, stock market are in line with those in countries with much larger exchanges. Further research could usefully extend the analysis and establish whether similar views exist in other countries with relatively small stock markets, but where the exchange is in an “emerging” rather than “developed” state.
Originality/value
The contribution of the paper comes from the uniqueness of the Irish setting: the Irish market is relatively small but, unlike many similarly sized markets, it is highly‐developed, with long‐term historical links to the London Stock Exchange. The results, therefore, provide evidence about the extent to which earlier findings based on the world's largest developed markets also prevail in those that are more modestly sized.
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Aimee La France, Rosemary Batt and Eileen Appelbaum
The long-term financial stability of hospital systems represents a “grand challenge” in health care. New ownership forms, such as private equity (PE), promise to achieve better…
Abstract
The long-term financial stability of hospital systems represents a “grand challenge” in health care. New ownership forms, such as private equity (PE), promise to achieve better financial performance than nonprofit or for-profit systems. In this study, we compare two systems with many similarities, but radically different ownership structures, missions, governance, and merger and acquisition (M&A) strategies. Both were nonprofit, religious systems serving low-income communities – Montefiore Health System and Caritas Christi Health Care.
Montefiore's M&A strategy was to invest in local hospitals and create an integrated regional system, increasing revenues by adding primary doctors and community hospitals as feeders into the system and achieving efficiencies through effective resource allocation across specialized units. Slow and steady timing of acquisitions allowed for organizational learning and balancing of debt and equity. By 2019, it owned 11 hospitals with 40,000 employees and had strong positive financials and low reliance on debt.
By contrast, in 2010, PE firm Cerberus Capital bought out Caritas (renamed Steward Health Care System) and took control of the Board of Directors, who set the system's strategic direction. Cerberus used Steward as a platform for a massive debt-driven acquisition strategy. In 2016, it sold off most of its hospitals’ property for $1.25 billion, leaving hospitals saddled with long-term inflated leases; paid itself almost $500 million in dividends; and used the rest for leveraged buyouts of 27 hospitals in 9 states in 3 years. The rapid, scattershot M&A strategy was designed to create a large corporation that could be sold off in five years for financial gain – not for health care integration. Its debt load exploded, and by 2019, its financials were deeply in the red. Its Massachusetts hospitals were the worst financial performers of any system in the state. Cerberus exited Steward in 2020 in a deal that left its physicians, the new owners, holding the debt.
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John M. Sausi, Erick J. Kitali and Joel S. Mtebe
This study aims to adapt the updated DeLone and McLean model to evaluate the success of the local government revenue collection and information system (IS) implemented in Tanzania.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to adapt the updated DeLone and McLean model to evaluate the success of the local government revenue collection and information system (IS) implemented in Tanzania.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a concurrent mixed research design integrating quantitative and qualitative data within a single investigation. A total of 296 users from local government authorities (LGAs) in 5 regions in Tanzania participated in the study.
Findings
The study found that the system quality and information quality had a significant positive impact whilst service quality and trust in the system had a significant negative effect. In contrast, facilitating conditions did not have an effect whatsoever. The findings from the open-ended questions and implications of the findings are discussed.
Originality/value
The findings from this study will help LGAs understand the factors that affect the success of the ISs in developing countries. The results indicate that in addition to information technology attributes, building trust in the system is crucial to foster user satisfaction and increase the public value of the systems.
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Peadar Davis, Michael J. McCord, William McCluskey, Erin Montgomery, Martin Haran and John McCord
Buildings contribute significantly to CO2 production. They are also subject to considerable taxation based on value. Analysis shows that while similar attributes contribute to…
Abstract
Purpose
Buildings contribute significantly to CO2 production. They are also subject to considerable taxation based on value. Analysis shows that while similar attributes contribute to both value and CO2 production, there is only a loose relationship between the two. If we wish to use taxation to affect policy change (drive energy efficiency behaviour), we are unlikely to achieve this using only the current tax base (value), or by increasing the tax take off this current tax base (unlike extra taxation of cigarettes to discourage smoking, for example). Taxation of buildings on the basis of energy efficiency is hampered by the lack of current evidence of performance. This paper aims to model the now-obligatory (at sale or letting) energy performance certificate (EPC) data to derive an acceptable appraisal model (marked to market, being the EPC scores) and deploys this to the entire population of properties. This provides an alternative tax base with which to model the effects of a tax base switch to energy efficiency and to understand the tax incidence effects of such a policy.
Design/methodology/approach
The research uses a multiplicative hedonic approach to model energy efficiency utilising EPC holding properties in a UK jurisdiction [Northern Ireland (NI)] as the sample. This model is then used to estimate discrete energy assessments for each property in the wider population, using attributes held in the domestic rating (property tax) database for NI (700,000+ properties). This produces a robust estimate of the EPC for every property in its current condition and its cost-effective improved condition. This energy assessment based tax base is further used to estimate a new millage rate and property tax bill (green property tax) which is compared against the existing property tax based on value to allow tax incidence changes to be analysed.
Findings
The findings show that such a policy would significantly redistribute the tax burden and would have a variety of expected and some unexpected effects. The results indicate that while assessing the energy performance of houses can be a complex process involving many parameters, much of the explanatory power can be achieved via a relatively small number of input variables, often already held by property tax jurisdictions. This offers the opportunity for useful housing stock modelling – such as the savings possible from power switching. The research also identifies that whilst urban areas display the expected “heat island” effect in terms of energy consumption, urban properties are on average more efficient than suburban/rural properties. This facilitates spatial targeting of policy messages and initiatives.
Research limitations/implications
Analogous with other studies, data deficiencies introduce the risk of omitted variable bias. Modelling of the energy efficiency in the sample is limited to property attributes that are available for the wider population of properties. While this limits the modelling exercise, it is a perennial issue facing mass appraisal worldwide (where knowledge of the transacted sample attributes generally exceeds knowledge of the unsold properties). That said, the research demonstrates the benefits of sharing data and improving knowledge of the housing stock, as taxation databases would be stronger, augmented with EPC-derived property attributes for example.
Originality/value
The EPC lead in time for wide residential coverage is likely to be considerable. The paper contributes to emerging literature and policy debate surrounding the effect, performance measurement and implementation of energy efficiency certification, through a greater understanding of the sectorial and geographical dispersion of energy efficiency. It provides high level research to help guide policy and decision-making, identifying key locales where there is more of a physical problem and locations where there is more to gain in terms of targeting energy improvement and/or encouraging behavioural change. The paper also allows a glimpse of the implications of a change towards a taxation regime based on energy efficiency, which contributes to the debate surrounding the “greening” of property based taxes.