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Many examinations of police misconduct involve case study methodologies applied to a single agency, or a handful of agencies. Consequently, there is little evidence regarding the types of misconduct across agencies, or the impact of department-level characteristics on the nature and prevalence of officer deviance. The purpose of this paper is to address this research gap using statewide data of over 1,500 charges of police misconduct filed with the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board (AZPOST) from 2000 to 2011.

This study examines variation in the prevalence and forms of misconduct across 100+ agencies based on agency type and size. Difference scores were calculated for every agency in the state to determine whether an agency’s level of misconduct was proportionate to the number of officers employed by that agency. AZPOST data were supplemented with Law Enforcement Management and Statistics data to identify organizational correlates of misconduct in agencies generating disproportionately low and high levels of misconduct.

Results identify variation in officer misconduct across different types of agencies. Tribal agencies generally experience higher rates of domestic violence and drug/alcohol-related incidents. Smaller agencies have more misconduct allegations involving supervisors. Organizational characteristics including pre-hiring screening, accountability mechanisms and community relationships are associated with lower levels of agency misconduct.

The use of AZPOST data enables a statewide examination of misconduct while accounting for organizational context. This study identifies organizational features that might serve to protect agencies against disproportionate rates of officer misbehavior.

Increasing minority representation in law enforcement has long been viewed as a primary means to improve police-citizen relations. The recommendation to diversify police departments was endorsed by the Kerner Commission and, most recently, the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. While these recommendations make intuitive sense, little scholarly attention has examined whether greater levels of minority representation translate into positive police-community relations. The purpose of this paper is to use the representative bureaucracy and minority threat frameworks to assess the impact of the racial/ethnic composition of both police departments and municipalities on disparities in traffic stops.

A series of ordinary least squares regression analyses are tested using a sample of more than 150 local police agencies from Illinois and Missouri.

Higher levels of departmental representativeness are not associated with fewer racial/ethnic disparities in stops. Instead, the racial/ethnic composition of municipalities is more predictive of racial patterns of traffic stops.

This study provides one of the few investigations of representative bureaucracy in law enforcement using individual departments as the unit of analysis. It examines Hispanic as well as black disparities in traffic stops, employing a more representative sample of different size agencies.

This article examines a range of issues associated with gangs in incarcerated settings. We begin by examining the similarities and differences between street and prison gangs, and differentiating them from other types of criminal groups. Next, we focus on the emergence and growth of gangs in prison, including patterns and theoretical explanations. Importantly, we draw theoretical linkages between differing perspectives on gang emergence and gang violence. We also present administrative and official responses to gangs in prison. Finally, we discuss the movement from prison to the street, examining the difficulties that former prisoners face when re‐entering communities.

Specialized police gang units are a rapidly emerging form of concentrated social control. Prior research, however, into the creation of specialized gang units suffers from a number of theoretical and methodological shortcomings. These shortcomings make it difficult to understand which of several potential explanations can best account for the establishment of specialized police gang units. Three perspectives are examined that have been hypothesized by policymakers and academics to explain the creation of gang units: contingency theory, social threat theory, and resource dependency theory. Using data obtained from police departments and communities around the country, the explanatory power of measures derived from these three theories is explored, while controlling for several environmental and organizational influences.

Although typologies of violence have become more common, relatively little attention has been given to Donald Black’s (1983) distinction between moralistic and predatory violence. Moralistic violence is rooted in conflict; predatory violence is rooted in exploitation. We elaborate Black’s typology and show how it is similar to, but distinct from, other typologies of violence. We also address the criteria by which typologies of any kind might be judged. Borrowing from the literatures on typologies and on standards of scientific theory, we argue that explanatory typologies should be evaluated according to four criteria: the degree to which they are powerful, theoretical, general, and parsimonious. Applying the criteria to Black’s typology, we argue that the distinction between moralistic and predatory violence is an important contribution to the arsenal of the student of violence.

Purpose – Some local governments are asking their police departments to enforce federal immigration law more aggressively. However, there is little research or policy guidance available to assist police in balancing local immigration enforcement with the norms of community-oriented policing.

Methodology – This paper presents results from a national survey of municipal police chiefs.

Findings – The survey responses indicate substantial differences in the way that police departments are approaching unauthorized immigration.

Implications – The highly varied nature of policing practice on this issue is a function of the lack of clear policy guidance and models for local enforcement of immigration law.

The purpose of this paper is to consider what the author might call the evolution of the evolutionary argument about gangs and, while acknowledging its explanatory power, suggests that gangs may develop in very different ways depending on the available opportunities, pre-existing forms of criminality in the areas in which gangs emerge and global change.

It is based on a review of the relevant literature and interviews with purposive samples of research, criminal justice and social welfare professionals and young people involved in or affected by gang crime. Findings were triangulated with data held by the police and other public authorities.

The term “street gang” includes a wide variety of groupings all of which are involved in some form of crime but with differential levels of organisation and commitment to purely instrumental goals. Gangs may form but not necessarily evolve. Gangs appear to develop in very different ways depending on the available opportunities, pre-existing forms of criminality in the areas in which they emerge and global changes in drugs markets.

The originality of the paper consists in its interrogation of the concept of “gang evolution” and its discussion of the variety of forms and evolutionary trajectories of gangs.