Four major research studies have concluded that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence in contrast to 10% of families in the general population. Although the research shows that among veteran police officers this percentage declines to about 24%, the fact remains that domestic violence is 2-4 times more likely in police...Read More

The police have the authority to enforce the law. There are two reasonable expectations that go along with that authority: First, law enforcement officers will follow the law in enforcing the law. Second, law enforcement officers will not engage in serious criminal activity themselves. The data for 2010 is interesting in considering these two reasonable...Read More

In the United States, the media and the government have created a socially constructed image of the police as the effective thin blue line that stands between anarchy and order. Officers and detectives are constructed as effective crime fighters who prevent crime and protect us from criminals. Police are portrayed as effective crime fighters who...Read More

Many people aspiring for a career in law enforcement wonder if they can become a police officer even if they have had some trouble in their past. Of course, the answer to this question is not an easy one and it really depends on what one means by “trouble.”  Fortunately, research conducted by the Bureau...Read More

In this series, we have examined the widely held belief that women are inferior to men in law enforcement and discovered that females perform equally as well as males in many areas and out-perform them in others. Our first two installments focused on similarities.Read More

Regardless of the fact that women have been employed in American law enforcement since the early 1900s, a historical pattern of bias and discrimination has continued, even in the face of substantial evidence, which shows that not only are women capable of doing police work, but often they out perform men in important aspects of...Read More

Women in American law enforcement face substantial obstacles to integration when entering the ranks of police organizations. While racial/ethnic minorities have faced significant discrimination in policing because of racial prejudice, women entering law enforcement have confronted gender ideology and gender bias as major impediments. Gender ideology is defined as a system of beliefs that attempts...Read More

By the 1960s, massive social and political changes were occurring in the United States. The civil rights movement was challenging white hegemony in the South and racist social policies in the North. The use of professional police forces to suppress the Civil Rights movement, often by brute force did irreparable damage to American policing. From...Read More

On a national basis, President Hoover appointed the Wickersham Commission in 1929 to examine what was perceived as a rising crime rate and police ineffectiveness in dealing with crime. It is no accident that in looking at those issues, the Wickersham Commission also became the first official governmental body to investigate organized crime.Read More

By the end of 19th century municipal police departments were firmly entrenched in the day-to-day political affairs of big-city political machines. Police provided services and assistance to political allies of the machine and harassed, arrested and interfered with the political activities of machine opponents. This was a curious dichotomy for an ostensibly crime control organization....Read More