By Shima Baradaran Baughman  

In recent years, the national conversation in criminal justice has centered on police. Are police using excessive force? Should they be monitored more closely? Do technology and artificial intelligence improve policing? The implied core question across these national debates is whether police are effective at their jobs. Yet we have not explored how effective police are or determined how best to measure police effectiveness. This Article endeavors to measure how effectively police perform at their core function of crime. The metric most commonly used to measure police effectiveness at crime-solving is a "clearance rate:" the proportion of reported crimes for which police arrest a person and refer them for prosecution. But clearance rates are inadequate for many reasons, including the fact that thy are highly manipulable. This Article therefore provides a set of new metrics that have never been used systematically to study police effectiveness-referred to as "criminal accountability" metrics. Criminal accountability examines the full course of a crime to determine whether police detect and ultimately resolve the committed crime. Taking into account the prevalence and the number of crimes police solve, the proportion of crimes solved in America is dramatically lower than we realize. Only with a clearer conversation, rooted in accurate data about the effectiveness of the American police system, can we attempt a path toward increased criminal accountability and public safety. 

Alabama Law Review [Vol. 72:1:47  2020.

By David McElhattan

Research summary: A growing literature documents the effect of criminal justice contact on inequalities in the labor market. While ample evidence indicates that a criminal record itself imposes considerable disadvantage, the formal legal mechanisms that may contribute to criminal record-based exclusion have received less empirical attention. The present study examines how one such mechanism—legal requirements for employers and license boards to perform criminal background checks—shapes labor market outcomes among formerly incarcerated people. The study draws from novel longitudinal data on the extensiveness of background check requirements at the state level, as well as individual-level data on incarceration, wages, and unemployment from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Results show that while the extensiveness of state-level background check requirements does not significantly affect the likelihood of unemployment, formerly incarcerated people residing in states where background check requirements are extensive are estimated to earn significantly lower wages than their counterparts in states with few screening mandates. Policy implications: Criminal background check requirements stand as significant policy barriers that diminish the earning potential of formerly incarcerated people. Policy makers seeking to mitigate the collateral consequences of criminal convictions should narrow the scope of these laws to target specific, highly sensitive occupations, as opposed to broader workplace contexts. Reforms should also address persistent data quality issues in state criminal history record systems and shift the burdens imposed by incomplete or erroneous rap sheets. To minimize adverse self-selection, background check procedures should clarify for applicants the role that a criminal history record may play in clearance decisions. Finally, future research should assess the marginal benefit of criminal background checks compared with other methods of screening prospective hires and licensees.

Criminology & Public Policy, 2024. 39p.

By Marco Gopfert

This book titled“Policing the Frontier: An Ethnography of Two Worlds in Niger”by Mirco Gopfert. is part of the seriesPolice/Worlds: Studies in Security, Crime, and Governance. It explores the topic of policing in rural Niger and examines thei nteraction between the police and the local communities. The book provides an ethnographic perspective on the challenges and complexities of policing in this context.

Cornell University Press, 2020, 175 pages