Open Access Publisher and Free Library
03-crime prevention.jpg

CRIME PREVENTION

CRIME PREVENTION-POLICING-CRIME REDUCTION-POLITICS

Police Corruption in the NYPD: From Knapp to Mollen

By Steven V. Gilbert

Police Corruption in the NYPD: From Knapp to Mollen explores how the New York Police Department experienced two major investigations within a quarter of a century. It compares the states of corruption within the NYPD during the Knapp and Mollen commissions, examining why corruption continued and why the revealed ethical breaches became more serious. It also discusses how corruption was enhanced even after accountability and responsibility were assigned to department administration. The book gives in-depth discussions of the Knapp and Mollen reports and relates the history and relevance of efforts to combat corruption and to improve police practices. It uses empirical data from interviews and current NYPD recruit training documents as reference materials in examining police practices. It also identifies failures of leadership that contributed to the systemic ethical degeneration of the NYPD. Police Corruption in the NYPD goes beyond the training of ethics and enforcement by delving into the departmental failures that permit officers to develop from being merely unethical to becoming criminals. By presenting and analyzing theories of corruption from current authorities, it lays a foundation for critical discussion and comparison between commissions as well as current department ethical training and practices

Boca Raton; London; New York: CRC Press, 2016. 176p.

Corruption and Anti-corruption in Policing—Philosophical and Ethical Issues

By Seumas Miller

High levels of police corruption have been a persistent historical tendency in police services throughout the world. While the general area of concern in this book is with police corruption and anti-corruption, the focus is on certain key philosophical and ethical issues that arise for police organisations confronting corruption. On the normative account proffered in this book the principal institutional purpose of policing is the protection of legally enshrined moral rights and the principal institutional anti-corruption arrangement is what is referred to as an integrity system. The latter includes oversight bodies with investigative powers and internal affairs departments as well as specific devices such as early warning indicators, professional reporting mechanisms and integrity tests. Key concepts analysed in the book include corruption, noble cause corruption and collective moral responsibility. The key ethical issues analysed include investigative independence, professional reporting, covert operations and integrity tests.

Cham: Springer, 2016. 106p.

To Serve and Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption from the Lager Beer Riot to the Summerdale Scandal, 1855-1960

By Richard C. Lindberg
In this serious yet entertaining book, historian Richard Carl Lindberg probes unexplored avenues of Chicago history and presents the first in-depth history of the Chicago Police Department in over a century. The book traces the stormy history of the department from the 1850s to the Summerdale Scandal of the near present. Interspersed with the major chapters about the chaotic struggle between reform and the machine are short, intimate vignettes: the Armory Station, a gray, somber fortress that housed some of Chicago's most desperate characters for over thirty years; Francis O'Neill, Chicago's turn-of-the-century police chief who collected Irish folk songs and transcribed them into sheet music; the first fingerprint conviction in Cook County in which a man paid the ultimate price; and a retrospective look at some of the most infamous murder cases of the century and how the police solved them. Lindberg discusses the tie between politics, organized crime, vice, and the police department. He presents a history of Chicago politics and law enforcement in chronological order and recounts pivotal events in Chicago history in the police context.

  • The book reveals how police corruption in Chicago was the result of the political drag on the department; the pernicious influence of meddling aldermen and vice operatives that prevented the police from carrying out their sworn duties in a forthright manner. Lindberg examines the lack of central authority over the police department; police superintendents were traditionally weak, subservient figures to the mayor, unable, and often unwilling to exercise control over the bureaucracy. Students and scholars of history, criminal justice, Chicago history, and law enforcement will find To Serve and Collect provocative reading.

Westport, CT: Praeger, 1991. 366p.

Fallen Blue Knights: Controlling Police Corruption

By Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovic

Despite its suspected prevalence, no comprehensive analysis of police corruption has been published for nearly three decades. Fallen Blue Knights provides a systematic, in-depth analysis of the subject, while also addressing the question of what can be done to ensure successful corruption control. Kutnjak Ivkovi'c argues that the current mechanisms for control--the courts, prosecutors, independent commissions, and the media, as well as the internal control mechanisms within a police agency itself--suffer from severe shortcomings that substantially limit their effectiveness. In this much-needed analysis, Kutnjak Ivkovi'c redefines the roles of major players and develops a novel, comprehensive model of corruption control.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 256p.

Scandal and Reform: Controlling Police Corruption

By Lawrence W. Sherman

Presents a study of four police departments in which both honest police officers and citizens were victimized by police corruption. Explores the methods which were used such as surveillance and other covert techniques in order to successfully reform the departments. The cities involved were New York City, Oakland Calif., Newburgh, N.Y.; and a pseudonym for a Midwestern City called Central City in this report.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. 273p.

Police Corruption: Preventing Misconduct and Maintaining Integrity

By Tim Prenzler

While many police officers undertake their work conforming to the highest ethical standards, the fact remains that unethical police conduct continues to be a recurring problem around the world. With examples from a range of jurisdictions, Police Corruption: Preventing Misconduct and Maintaining Integrity examines the causes of police misconduct and explores applied strategies designed to maximize ethical conduct and identify and prevent corruption.

Boca Raton; London; New York: CRC Press, 2009. 240p.

Police Corruption and Police Reforms in Developing Societies

By Kempe Ronald Hope, St.

Much of the literature on police corruption and police reforms is dominated by case studies of societies classified as developed. However, under the influence of globalization, developing societies have become a focal point of scholarly interest and examination. Police Corruption and Police Reforms in Developing Societies provides critical analyses of the extent and nature of police corruption and misconduct in developing societies. It also examines police reform measures that have been implemented or are still necessary to control and mitigate the effects of police corruption in developing societies.

This book offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of the causes and consequences of police corruption. It also relates lessons learned from police reform efforts that have been made in a wide cross section of developing societies spanning several continents.

Boca Raton; London; New York: CRC Press, 248p.

Police Corruption: Deviance, Reform and Accountability in Policing

By Maurice Punch

The book portrays police corruption as consisting of many deviant and criminal practices in the context of policing that may change character over time. Corruption is defined in a broad, multifaceted way that has the common thread of abuse of policing authority and the trust of the community. Its most serious forms involve criminal conspiracies that use specialized professional knowledge, contacts, and power to both commit crimes and evade detection. Typologies of corruption are identified, along with the forms of corruption that emerge in diverse policing environments. Also discussed are the pathways officers may take into corruption and their rationalizations for their corrupt and criminal behaviors. The book rejects the overarching portrayal of police corruption as caused by a few individual "bad apples" while promoting the metaphor of "bad orchards," meaning that police corruption stems from corrupting police subcultures and temptations related to institutional failures and the nature of policing. Comparative analyses are made of police corruption, scandal, and reform in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. The analyses examine issues of control, accountability, and the new institutions of oversight, such as the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) for England and Wales, at a time when external oversight of police has become a prominent feature of anticorruption efforts.

Cullompton, Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2009. 296p.

Police Suicide: Is Police Culture Killing Our Officers?

Edited by Ronald A. Rufo

There is no question that more police officers die from suicide than those killed in the line of duty. The suicide and attempted suicide of police officers is a mental health concern that has been neglected for far too long.
Police Suicide: Is Police Culture Killing Our Officers? provides realistic insight into the life of a police officer through a police officer’s eyes. Presenting invaluable lessons learned by a Chicago police officer with more than 20 years of experience, it supplies detailed accounts of what an officer goes through to survive on the streets, as well what he or she gives up in return.

Boca Raton; London; New York: CRC Press, 2017, 282p.

Routledge Handbook of Private Security Studies

Edited by Rita Abrahamsen and Anna Leander

This new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of current research on private security and military companies, comprising essays by leading scholars from around the world. The increasing privatization of security across the globe has been the subject of much debate and controversy, inciting fears of private warfare and even the collapse of the state. This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the range of issues raised by contemporary security privatization, offering both a survey of the numerous roles performed by private actors and an analysis of their implications and effects. Ranging from the mundane to the spectacular, from secretive intelligence gathering and neighbourhood surveillance to piracy control and warfare, this Handbook shows how private actors are involved in both domestic and international security provision and governance. It places this involvement in historical perspective, and demonstrates how the impact of security privatization goes well beyond the security field to influence diverse social, economic and political relationships and institutions. Finally, this volume analyses the evolving regulation of the global private security sector. Seeking to overcome the disciplinary boundaries that have plagued the study of private security, the Handbook promotes an interdisciplinary approach and contains contributions from a range of disciplines, including international relations, politics, criminology, law, sociology, geography and anthropology.

London; New York: Routledge, 2015. 296p.

The Routledge Handbook of Security Studies

The Routledge Handbook of Security Studies

Edited by Myriam Dunn Cavelty and Victor Mauer

Focusing on contemporary challenges, this major new Handbook offers a wide-ranging collection of cutting-edge essays from leading scholars in the field of Security Studies. The field of Security Studies has undergone significant change during the past twenty years, and is now one of the most dynamic sub-disciplines within International Relations. It now encompasses issues ranging from pandemics and environmental degradation to more traditional concerns about direct violence, such as those posed by international terrorism and inter-state armed conflict. A comprehensive volume, comprising articles by both established and up-and-coming scholars, the Handbook of Security Studies identifies the key contemporary topics of research and debate today. This Handbook is a benchmark publication with major importance both for current research and the future of the field. It will be essential reading for all scholars and students of Security Studies, War and Conflict Studies, and International Relations.

London; New York: Routledge, 2009. 482p.

Equity, CriminologyRead-Me.Org
Cybersecurity is Patient Safety: Policy Options in the Health Care Sector

By Office Of Senator Mark R. Warner

From the Introduction: "Over the past decade, the American public has witnessed increasingly brazen and disruptive attacks on its health care sector that jeopardize sensitive personal information, delay treatment, and ultimately lead to increased suffering and death. In 2021, cybersecurity attacks on health care providers reached an all-time high, with one study indicating that more than 45 million people were affected by such attacks in 2021 - a 32 percent increase over 2020. The health care sector is vulnerable to cyberattacks for a number of reasons, including its reliance on legacy technology, a wide and highly varied attack surface (that only grows more complex from the ever-increasing number of connected devices), a high-pressure environment where even the slightest delay can have life-or-death consequences, funding constraints, and an outdated mode of thinking that views cybersecurity as a secondary or tertiary concern."

Office Of Senator Mark R. Warner . 2022. 36p.

Homelessness in California: Causes and policy considerations

By Jialu L. Streeter

For decades, California has had one of the country’s largest
populations of unhoused people. In recent years, however,
the challenges have severely worsened for the Golden State.
The homelessness counts in California rose by 42 percent
between 2014 and 2020, while the rest of the country had a
9 percent decrease. On any given night, the state has more
than 160,000 homeless persons.

California’s homeless crisis is associated with high housing
costs, inadequate shelter spaces, deinstitutionalization,
and changes in the criminal justice system.

Stanford, CA: The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), 2022. 13p.

Health and Health Care While Experiencing a Cycle of Homelessness and Incarceration

By Sarah Gillespie,Devlin Hanson,Nicole DuBois,Cary Lou,Christine Velez,Jennifer Esala,Tracey O'Brien

In 2016, the City and County of Denver launched the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB) to shift resources from expensive emergency services to more permanent, affordable housing and supportive services. The initiative aimed to increase housing stability and decrease jail stays for people trapped in the homelessness-jail cycle. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Evidence for Action program, the Urban Institute launched a health outcomes study as a complement to the ongoing SIB evaluation. This report focuses on the year before people were enrolled in the SIB evaluation, giving us a picture of the status quo for health services in Denver for people experiencing cycles of homelessness and incarceration.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 59p.

Costs and Offsets of Providing Supportive Housing to Break the Homelessness-Jail Cycle: Findings from the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative

By Sarah Gillespie, Devlin Hanson, Josh Leopold, Alyse D. Oneto

In 2016, the City and County of Denver launched the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB) to shift resources from expensive emergency services to more permanent, affordable housing and supportive services that can be difficult to fund without up-front capital. The initiative aimed to increase housing stability and decrease jail stays for people trapped in the homelessness-jail cycle. This report details the costs of supportive housing provided by the Denver SIB and the costs and cost offsets associated with supportive housing’s effects on outcomes across the housing and homelessness assistance, criminal justice, and health care systems.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 49p.

Breaking the Homelessness-Jail Cycle with Housing First: Results from Denver’s five-year supportive housing program show a better way to invest in people and communities

By Mary K. Cunningham, Devlin Hanson,Sarah Gillespie,Michael Pergamit,Alyse D. Oneto,Patrick Spauster,Tracey O'Brien,Liz Sweitzer,Christine Velez

Homelessness is growing in communities across the United States as housing becomes increasingly unaffordable and public systems fail to support people who need assistance, forcing thousands to sleep outside or in shelters. Without access to housing and services, many people experiencing chronic, or long-term, homelessness are trapped in a homelessness-jail cycle—rotating in and out of jail, detoxification centers, and emergency health care. This cycle doesn’t help people access the assistance they need to find stability, and it comes at a major cost to taxpayers. Rather than paying for the consequences of leaving people in homelessness, communities could invest in housing and services that end this harmful pattern. Results from the five-year Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB) show how both people and public budgets benefit when communities take this proactive approach.ess, communities could invest in housing and services that end this harmful pattern. Results from the five-year Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB) show how both people and public budgets benefit when communities take this proactive approach. The Denver SIB, launched in 2016 by the City and County of Denver, aimed to increase housing stability and decrease jail stays among people who were experiencing chronic homelessness and who had frequent interactions with the criminal justice and emergency health systems.

  • The Denver SIB, which provided supportive housing (a permanent housing subsidy and intensive services) to help participants stay housed, used a Housing First approach. Housing First programs don’t require participants to meet any preconditions, and they are built on the idea that secure, affordable, and permanent housing must be available before people can work on other challenges, such as mental health or substance use disorders. The Urban Institute, with partners from The Evaluation Center at the University of Colorado Denver, tracked implementation of the Denver SIB and evaluated its effects between 2016 and 2020. The evaluation used a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard for determining a program’s impact, that included 724 people: 363 people were in the treatment group (referred to the supportive housing program) and 361 people were in the control group (receiving services as usual in the community).

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 94p.

Alternatives to Arrests and Police Responses to Homelessness: Evidence-Based Models and Promising Practices

By Samantha Batko, Sarah Gillespie,Katrina Ballard,Mary K. Cunningham

In response to unsheltered homelessness, communities often turn to punitive responses: issuing ordinances that criminalize homelessness, clearing homeless encampments, and arresting people. This results in people becoming trapped in a cycle of homelessness and jail. The solution to this cycle is Housing First, an evidence-based strategy that has been proven to help people stay in housing and improve their quality of life. Until housing is available at the scale needed to end homelessness, communities can improve outcomes for people enduring unsheltered homelessness and for the community as a whole by considering promising innovations that prioritize inclusive public space management and shift the role of law enforcement agencies from policing homelessness to solving homelessness in partnerships with service providers. This report reviews the evidence for housing as the solution to homelessness and emerging evidence for inclusive public space and alternative crisis response policies and practices.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2020. 35p.

Policing Homelessness: A Review of the literature on policing policies that target homelessness and best practices for improving outcomes

By Jordy Coutin

On Thursday, July 29th 2021, Los Angeles (LA) Mayor Eric Garcetti signed into law an ordinance amending Section 41.18 of the Los Angeles Municipal code (Spectrum 1 News, 2021). The series of amendments, proposed by LA City Council, reinstates prohibitions to “sit, lie, sleep, store, use, maintain, or place personal property upon any street, sidewalk, or other public right-of-way” in much of Los Angeles City, with particular enforcement around homeless services delivery sites, schools, parks, libraries, and underpasses (Shover et al., 2021; L.A.M.C. § 41.18, 2021). Violating these laws can carry fines for people experiencing homelessness (PEH) who refuse shelter and services, and authorizes forced removal if they do not voluntarily vacate encampments. Though the legislation includes a stated goal to prevent interactions between law enforcement and PEH and avoid arrest, advocates argue the ordinance will likely result in more contact between police and PEH (Zahniser & Oreskes, 2021). This legislation comes at the same time as residents and elected officials have renewed calls to re-examine the role police play in society, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of policing Black communities. Considering these public requests, the purpose of this paper is to examine findings from the literature on the types of policies that cause interactions between municipal and county law enforcement (referred to as police hereafter) and PEH, their outcomes, and the models and best practices being used by local governments to minimize negative outcomes

Los Angeles: Homelessness Policy Research Institute, University of Southern California, 2021. 18p.

No Access to Justice: Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness and Jail

By Madeline Bailey, Erica Crew, and Madz Reeve

On any given night in the United States, more than 550,000 people are experiencing homelessness.1 Among these, approximately 96,000 are chronically homeless, meaning they are facing long and repeated episodes of homelessness that make it increasingly difficult to return to housing.2 This crisis is perpetuated by a legal system that criminalizes survival behaviors associated with homelessness, fails to account for the ways in which people who are homeless face impossible odds within the legal process, and then releases them back into the community with even more obstacles than they faced before.3 Confirming this cycle, researchers have found that homelessness is between 7.5 and 11.3 times more prevalent among the jail population, and in some places the rate is much higher—for example, in San Francisco, California, a 2013 survey found that between 10 and 24 percent of people in jail identified as homeless at the time of arrest.4 Because of punitive laws and enforcement practices, people who are homeless are 11 times more likely to be arrested, nationwide, than those who are housed.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2020. 19p.

Punishing the Poorest: How the Criminalization of Homelessness Perpetuates Poverty in San Francisco

By Christopher Herring

This report details the effects of criminalization on the homeless residents of San Francisco. Since 1981, San Francisco has passed more local measures to criminalize sleeping, sitting, or panhandling in public spaces than any other city in the state of California.1 During this same period, the United States has experienced the greatest expansion of its jail and prison system under any democracy in history. This expansion has primarily affected the poorest members of this society.2 This report documents and analyzes the impacts of the rising tide of anti-homeless laws in our era of mass incarceration on those experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. This portrait of the impact of criminalization on homelessness in San Francisco is based on a citywide survey of 351 homeless individuals and 43 in-depth interviews carried out by volunteers at the Coalition on Homelessness and supervised by researchers at the UC Berkeley Center on Human Rights. It also analyzes data on policy, citations, and arrests received from the San Francisco Police Department, the Sheriff ’s Office, the Human Services Agency, and the Recreation and Park Department. The report provides an in-depth analysis of each step in the criminalization of homelessness—from interactions with law enforcement, to the issuance and processing of citations, to incarceration and release.

  • The study makes evident how criminalization not only fails to reduce homelessness in public space, but also perpetuates homelessness, racial and gender inequality, and poverty even once one has exited homelessness. The aim of this study is to provide sound empirical data on the impacts of the criminalization of homelessness in San Francisco, while also giving voice to the experiences of those whose housing status results in their regularly being processed through the city’s criminal justice system. Our hope is that these findings will inform public discussions and provide the basis for thoughtful policy approaches to these issues.

San Francisco: Coalition on Homelessness, 2015. 86p.