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This paper aims to evaluate how five Operation Soteria Bluestone (OSB) participating forces integrated principles of procedural justice and proactive disruption of offending into their investigations, specifically during the closing stages of a case when considering exit strategy and longer-term prevention.

A mixed-methods approach was taken, including 32 semi-structured interviews with officers and 59 case reviews of recent rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO). Data analysis methods included qualitative thematic analysis of interviews, while data from reviewed case logs was extracted and analysed using a bespoke case review tool.

Increased workloads, preparation of evidence and relational/communication difficulties with the crown prosecution service (CPS) were identified as barriers to implementing long-term disruption options. Dedicated resourcing, training and support are needed to promote suspect-focused investigative strategy and wider uptake of long-term disruption methods. Early investigative approach was also found to have “snowball” effects on suspect exit strategy, with initial lack of suspect focus and preoccupation with victim credibility, impeding consideration of long-term disruption and safeguarding options. Findings also point to a disparity between promising practice in relation to procedural justice for victims and (a relative lack of) proactive policing of repeat suspects.

The study represents a novel contribution to research on policing RASSO, illustrating the scale and nature of the obstacles to changing how these offences are investigated, even when under intense scrutiny from policy makers. It also highlights how increased organisational investment and support is linked to positive changes in practice in some forces.

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.

An extensive literature review was conducted.

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.

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.

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.

This paper sets out to encompass a comparative analysis of news reports and official police records of TASER deployments from 2002 to 2005.

The methodology involves a content analysis of all LexisNexis and New York Times articles involving police use of the TASER during the study period (n = 353). Regional (New York Times) and national (LexisNexis) news reports describing police use of the TASER are compared with police reports of all TASER deployments by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) during the same timeframe (n = 375).

Descriptive statistics and logistic regression are used to compare the data sources with respect to: the circumstances in which the weapon is deployed; the characteristics of the suspects involved in the TASER incidents; and the significant predictors of continued suspect resistance and repeated use of the TASER by an officer.

The paper examines official police records on TASER deployments from one police agency. This limits the ability to generalize the research findings to other police agencies that have adopted different practices and policies regulating the deployment of CEDs. Additionally, the content analysis includes only articles in the mainstream print media.

The paper concludes with a discussion about some myths associated with news reports on police use of the TASER, and their potential impact on both public perception and police practices.

To date, research has not systematically compared media representations of the TASER with official reports on police deployments of the weapon. That is the focus of this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to test how modifying one’s alibi statement interacts with exposure to deceptive interrogation techniques.

In all, 90 participants walked about a university building for 15 minutes and either stole an envelope from a staff pigeonhole (guilty condition) or put the envelope there along the way (innocent condition). Subsequently, participants were asked to provide an alibi for the past 15 minutes. Guilty and half of the innocent participants were instructed to omit that they had been in the vicinity of the pigeonholes. The rest of the innocent participants were asked to tell the truth. Several days later, participants were questioned about six statements taken from their alibis, three of which contained altered information.

As expected, participants were largely blind to our alterations, with detection rates ranging from 1 to 36 percent. Contrary to cognitive load predictions, detection rates did not vary as a function of truthfulness. Rather, guilty participants were less likely to detect alterations than innocents.

Memory distrust and guilty suspects’ aim to keep a low profile might be possible explanations for these findings.

It is recommended that law enforcement officers and other legal practitioners refrain from using deceptive interrogation techniques and such techniques that can cause inconsistencies in suspects’ reports. Researcher should make it their task to educate these professional groups about the natural occurrence of memory related, non-deceptive inconsistencies in successive statements.

This research uses a new methodology to study the effect of deceptive interrogation techniques on both innocent and guilty suspects. The findings are relevant for legal practitioners and researchers.

Analyzes “use of force” reports from one municipal law enforcement agency to assess officer reliance upon Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) spray. When the agency first authorized OC, it classified OC as an impact weapon along with batons, flashlights, and stun guns. A year later, the department revised its policy and downgraded OC to the level of soft hand techniques (punches, kicks, and pain compliance). Before this policy change, social characteristics of officers and suspects had no influence on whether OC was used. New predictors emerged after the restrictions on OC were relaxed. Officers who were male, college educated, and veterans were more likely to rely upon OC than hand‐to‐hand maneuvers. In addition, officers tend to resort to pepper spray when they are at a physical disadvantage compared to the relative size of the offender. OC use does decline as suspects become more violent. Finally, the use of pepper spray significantly curtails officer and offender injuries. Discusses the implications of these findings for police organizations and further research.

Both anecdotal and empirical evidence indicates that even well-intentioned eyewitnesses can make inaccurate identifications resulting in erroneous prosecutions and wrongful convictions. The risk of erroneous identification increases when witnesses are asked to identify people belonging to other races. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the policies which enhance the likelihood of obtaining accurate identifications from eyewitnesses. Legal implications especially relevant to police administrators in the USA including constitutional considerations and risks of civil liability are integrated with the empirical record and used to make policy recommendations likely to decrease legal and public relations entanglements for police.

This paper integrates an empirical literature review with legal research and analysis in order to advocate for prudent policy reforms.

Both the empirical record and current US law indicate that police administrators would be well-advised to require serial, double-blind identification procedures where witnesses are routinely warned about the perpetrator’s potential absence and required to give immediate certainty statements. Officers should be prohibited from using the same suspect with the same witness more than once and should be provided with training on the inherent dangers of inaccuracy associated with cross-racial identifications.

While a significant amount of material concerning eyewitness identification exists, most of the existing work does not integrate legal realities, especially those concerning civil liability, within the framework of the eyewitness identification literature. Nor does past work contextualize the need for reform with the emerging racially charged atmosphere in which US police must currently work.

In the context of rising reports of rape, set against falling convictions, it has been argued that rape has been de facto decriminalised in England and Wales. This paper aims to explore how police and prosecutors investigating rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) use and perceive investigation management documents (IMDs), and how high-quality IMDs may lead to better justice outcomes. IMDs must be started by police at the beginning of an investigation and should document: what an officer is/is not doing and why; what the reasonable lines of enquiry are and their outcomes; and what has translated to evidence and supports charge, disclosure or unused material. The document is shared with the crown prosecution service at the point a charging decision is sought.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 police officers and five crown prosecutors across five areas in Year 2 of Operation Soteria Bluestone, a project that aimed to improve how police investigate rape. These interviews were analysed using the qualitative method of thematic analysis.

Three main themes were identified relating to timeliness, understanding, and quality of IMDs. It was found that IMDs are not always started at the beginning of RASSO investigations or even at all. Officers also lacked understanding around the purpose of IMDs, often seeing them as duplications of other case files. Finally, prosecutors and police concurred that the quality of IMDs are generally poor and lacking in critical reflection.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first academic paper to consider the use of IMDs by police and prosecutors in RASSO investigations. As such, it is both a unique contribution to the field and also provides a platform for future research. Understanding how police officers can produce the highest quality IMDs, in a timely fashion, is of paramount importance given the wider societal context of increasing reports of rape alongside low charge rates. Implications for training are considered.

Despite recent increases, the low level of convictions in cases of rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO), aligned with the subsequent lack of victim satisfaction with the process, has highlighted the various challenges and barriers throughout the criminal justice process. Whilst understanding the shortcomings of criminal justice processes in cases of RASSO requires a holistic approach, this paper focuses on case preparation and the application of the Full Code test. Its purpose is to explore the application of this test and preceding case preparation in police decision-making around submitting cases for charging decision, following the recommendations of the first year of Operation Soteria Bluestone.

This study adopted a mixed-method approach, combining both interviews and case reviews of selected RASSO cases across five forces in England and Wales.

This research found a shift towards “threshold thinking”, whereby officers arguably no longer try to predict a prosecutor’s decision and instead focus on meeting the requirements for the application of the test. In terms of case preparation, the research demonstrates a move away from “fishing expeditions”, with a preference for more focused approaches to collecting evidence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies looking at the use of full code test principles in police decision-making in RASSO cases.

Networks connecting two important supporting institutions – law firms and venture capital partnerships – explain regions’ disparate abilities to sustain diverse high-technology ventures. In order to explain the diversity of entrepreneurial activity in a region, we distinguish between institutional capacity (the number of law firms and venture capitalists in a locale), strong interinstitutional connections that span legal and financial domains, and cohesive structural communities of directly and indirectly connected supporting organizations. We argue that strong connections and cohesive communities are essential, but little examined contributors to the development of diverse research-based economies. We find support for the argument in an empirical analysis of initial public offerings (IPOs) by U.S. high-technology companies in five industries between 1993 and 2005. Linking regional outcomes to strong ties that span local legal and financial institutions and to cohesive structures that weld them into communities offers new insights for research on the institutional and network underpinnings of entrepreneurship and regional economic development.

Extant literature resoundingly praises Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) programs for the multitude of benefits they provide for law enforcement agencies and individuals with mental illnesses. The majority of CIT research is based on perceived benefits of this approach. Most of the goals of CIT programs are readily amenable to empirical study, yet there are few outcome evaluations of the programs. The purpose of this paper is to examine why empirical studies examining the effectiveness of CIT programs are nominal.

Structural and practical impediments to the collection of empirical data for CIT programs were identified through including examinations of the types of data routinely collected, interviews with CIT participants, and the researchers’ own observations of hindrances to the data collection processes. By triangulating these methods, the authors were able to observe a number of impediments to the collection of empirical data on this topic.

The multi-jurisdictional CIT program under review had several data problems. First, there was a lack of official data concerning CIT calls. Second, it was virtually impossible to follow a person with mental illness throughout the system from first contact to final disposition. Third, data sharing was hindered by a lack of memorandums of understanding. Fourth, important information was not being properly recorded.

This manuscript provides recommendations to address data concerns for CIT evaluations. Suggestions are intended to help facilitate more robust data for analysis and evaluation purposes, helping to grow the literature on the effectiveness and efficiency of CIT programs.