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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the growing body of research literature on case clearance levels. Through a social artifact framework, the authors seek to understand the role that documentation of key solvability factors in investigative reports plays in shaping case clearance outcomes.

For this study, 166 non-fatal shooting investigative case files were obtained from a local mid-sized urban police department and coded to assess whether investigators identified key solvability characteristics for non-fatal shooting incidents. Using a logistic regression, the authors assessed the extent that investigative characteristics mentioned in case files were associated with the odds that the case was cleared by arrest.

The findings from this study indicate that investigative case files as a data source are exceedingly unreliable. Investigators do not consistently document investigative practices and intelligence. And those that are consistently documented are a part of institutionalized practices that are unique to their corresponding police department.

This study is original in that it uses a social artifact framework to sharpen the focus on the role that the effective documentation of critical evidence plays in leading to arrests in gun violence cases.

To present systematic social observation (SSO) data concerning the work routines and citizen interactions of suburban police officers, including a detailed breakdown of how these officers spent time on their shift and the nature in which they interacted with citizens.

This paper presents systematic social observation.

In some ways, suburban police officers behave much like other types of officers, especially the manner in which they spend time alone on shift. There appears to be some degree of variability in terms of the nature of police‐citizen encounters both within the observed group of suburban officers and between them and other types of police.

Researchers interested in describing variations in police behavior across agencies should strive to include suburban agencies in their samples, so that it can be investigated whether or not, and to what degree, suburban community structures impact police behavior on the street.

Of value to those involved with, or interested in, variations in police behavior across suburban communities.

In light of criticism against the Israel National Police in recent years for excessive use of physical force, the personal views of Israeli police officers were elicited regarding the illegal use of force. Personal questionnaires were administered to a sample of police officers who had been investigated for using illegal force against citizens between 1989 and 1997. Informal messages contrary to the organization’s formal messages regarding the use of force, and justifying it in certain circumstances and for certain types of offense, seemed highly prevalent, especially among middle‐rank police officers. The results obtained provide support for the existence of a deviant organizational subculture.

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the elements, developmental stages, and operational steps of an open‐air drug market intervention employed in two North Carolina communities in an effort to produce a model that can be duplicated by other law enforcement agencies.

A systematic and practitioner‐informed analysis of the steps and stages of the initiative is presented here. Law enforcement partners at the command and operational levels collectively contributed their voices to the synthesis of this model. Through purposive sampling, 13 key law enforcement stakeholders from the two police departments in North Carolina participated in semi‐structured interviews conducted by a member of the research team. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed to extract participants' perceptions and recommendations regarding the intervention.

Based on analyses of the interviews, the street‐drug elimination strategy has been synthesized into several major steps. This paper elucidates the elements, developmental stages, and operational steps of the intervention.

This paper underscores important ingredients of the intervention and presents a model for other police departments to implement. Further examination of the strategy is necessary including research on improving the intervention, clarifying the factors that moderate the strategy's effectiveness, explicating the roles and perceptions of non‐law enforcement partners and examining the continued impact of the initiative.

The paper illustrates that this intervention has shown promise in reducing drug and violent crime associated with open‐air drug markets and the research is of value to other police agencies that desire to implement this intervention.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of personality traits, namely the Big Five, as a means of selection in good police officers.

The current study examines a sample of 96 police officers from eight non‐urban police departments.

Age and attitude were found to be better predictors of job performance measures than were personality traits. A cynical work attitude was negatively related to ratings of job performance. Officer age was found to have a non‐linear relationship to job performance.

Difficulties in measuring police performance are discussed, as is the relative importance of individual officer personality versus organizational culture.

The study extends the research on police officer selection and issues of job performance and measurement.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy of good lives model (GLM) interventions on the recidivism outcomes of convicted offenders.

The review adhered to preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis and Cochrane guidelines. Digital databases were searched and articles reporting outcomes of the GLM amongst convicted offenders and outcomes including recidivism data and pre-post measures of dynamic risk were included in a narrative synthesis.

Of 1,791 articles screened, only six studies met the criteria for review. Key findings were: in half the reviewed studies, GLM did not increase recidivism risk; in half the reviewed studies, only when the correct treatment dosage was applied that some evidence of risk reduction was found; there was limited support for GLM increasing or sustaining motivation for resistance from reoffending. Research for the review was limited and support for the GLM in reducing recidivism rates was not established.

In this 2021 review, the authors examined the efficacy of the GLM in reducing recidivism. This addresses a gap in the literature. The authors found that there is insufficient evidence to suggest that the GLM can reduce recidivism. This has implications for practitioners who wish to deliver evidence-based practices in prison/community settings. There is currently not enough peer-reviewed evidence to unequivocally confirm the efficacy of the GLM. The authors recommended additional quality programme outcome research be carried out.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to assess quantitative and qualitative studies on the efficacy of the GLM and provides foundations for future research.