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In the United States, about 150 police officers die every year in the line of duty, and government figures suggest that some 350 suspected criminals are justifiably killed in confrontations with police. Seeking lessons behind these gruesome statistics and other disturbing trends in violent behavior nationwide (see main text) are researchers at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
OBJECTIVE: To review assault victim attendance at the accident and emergency department of Glasgow Royal Infirmary before and after a police initiative to curb knife carrying and tackle violent assaults ("Operation Blade"). METHODS: Assault victim attendance was reviewed for the month before the implementation of Operation Blade and for one month a year later. The number of victims requiring treatment in the resuscitation room for stab wounds before, during, and after Operation Blade was also reviewed as a crude indicator of the frequency of serious assaults in the city. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in the nature or number of assault victims attending this hospital one year after Operation Blade compared with the month before its implementation. Operation Blade reduced the number of serious stabbings for a period of 10 months, but subsequently numbers surpassed those prevailing before its implementation. CONCLUSIONS: Any attempt to combat this complex and multifactorial problem must be addressed through a combined public health and education initiative in conjunction with regular press and police campaigns to achieve a sustained effect.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the number and characteristics of motor vehicle crash deaths related to police pursuits in the United States. METHODS: Analysis of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the Crashworthiness Data System of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for the years 1994-2002. RESULTS: There were 2654 fatal crashes involving 3965 vehicles and 3146 fatalities during the nine year study period. Of these, 1088 were to people not in the fleeing vehicle. These crashes often occurred at high speed, in the night, on local roads. Most of the pursued drivers had prior motor vehicle related convictions. CONCLUSIONS: Many deaths related to police pursuits are to innocent victims. Given that most of the pursued drivers had prior convictions, alternative means of detaining them should be explored.
BACKGROUND: Over the past two decades there has been a substantial increase in environmental levels of palladium, platinum, and rhodium, the platinum group elements (PGEs), due to the widespread use of catalytic converters for automotive traction. AIM: To evaluate urinary platinum levels in occupationally exposed subjects. METHODS: A total of 161 employees from the Rome City Police Force were studied; 103 were traffic police involved in controlling streets with an average flow of vehicles, while the remaining 58 were control subjects engaged only in office work. Platinum quantification in the urine samples of these subjects was carried out by sector field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. RESULTS: There were no statistically significant differences between platinum levels in the group of subjects engaged in traffic control and the control group (4.45 (2.42) ng/l v 4.56 (2.84) ng/l, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Urinary levels were found to be higher than those reported for other urban populations, thus showing a progressive increase in human exposure to Pt.
OBJECTIVE: The study examined whether outreach teams of mental health professionals and police officers could assess and make appropriate dispositions for psychiatric emergency cases in the community, even in situations involving violence or potential violence. The study also assessed whether such teams could reduce criminalization of mentally ill persons. METHODS: One hundred and one consecutive referrals to law enforcement-mental health teams in Los Angeles were studied through records review. Subjects' status during a six-month follow-up period was also examined. RESULTS: Referral had a high rate of past criminal arrests, violence, and major psychopathology. Sixty-three had a history of violence against persons, 59 had a criminal arrest history, 79 had prior psychiatric hospitalizations, and 66 were serious substance abusers. At referral, 70 manifested severe psychiatric symptoms, 20 were overtly violent, and 29 others exhibited threatening behavior. However, only two of the group were arrested; 80 were taken to hospitals. At six-month follow-up of 85 referrals, 22 percent had been arrested (12 percent for crimes of violence), and 42 percent had been rehospitalized. CONCLUSIONS: Outreach emergency teams composed of a police officer and a mental health professional are able to deal appropriately with persons who have acute and severe mental illness, a high potential for violence, a high incidence of substance abuse, and long histories with both the criminal justice and mental health systems. Such teams apparently avoid criminalization of the mentally ill.
The assessment of a suspect's fitness to be interviewed by the police is becoming an increasingly important part of a police surgeon's workload. This paper discusses the assessment in terms of the various factors that may render a person prone to providing an involuntary or false confession and proposes an aide memoire to assist the examining doctor.
The aim of this prospective study was to identify the number of people with a possible learning disability suspected of having committed a criminal offence who were taken into police custody during a defined period of time. Between 18 January 1993 and 18 March 1993 992 people were taken into custody at Parkside Police Station, Cambridge, of whom 251 (25.3%) were screened by the custody officer using a brief questionnaire to ascertain the presence or absence of reading and writing difficulties and to see if they had received extra help at school or if they had attended a special needs school. Information on age, sex, suspected offence, disposal, if a solicitor assisted and incidence of homelessness was gathered from the custody reports.
Technologies promise to make our organizations more productive, efficient or effective. But our experience does not always fulfill this promise. Public safety agencies are the target of a barrage of new information technologies offering better performance, many of which are attractive because they can be financed through federal grants. But when evaluations are performed of these technologies, improvements do not always result. This article describes the experiences of a state police agency (SPA) during its use of cellular digital packet data (CDPD) systems to support its problem-oriented policing (POP) project. The CDPD system should have improved the SPA's POP operations; in practice, it was not as clear. Although participants believed the CDPD technology worthwhile, there were only a few minor differences between POP officers that did and did not use it. This evaluation suggests the need for better databases to measure performance as well as more informed federal funding of ways to assess the impact of technologies.
The public's and police officers'interpretation and handling of realistic hypothetical domestic violence cases and their stereotypic views about domestic violence are discussed. A sample of 131 experienced officers, 127 novice officers, and 157 adult laypersons were randomly assigned to read a domestic violence case. Experienced officers were more likely to arrest only the husband than were laypersons or rookie officers even when respondents inferred that the husband was primarily responsible or had used violence before. Experienced officers considered their stereotypic beliefs about battered women's propensity to use self-defense in arriving at their arrest decision whereas laypersons and rookie officers did not. These findings indicate that the public and police officers have not adopted the feminists' message that arrest is the best response to handle all domestic violence cases. Policy implications are discussed.
Teaching about domestic violence and racism is a formidable task that requires the inclusion of material that challenges dominant ideologies about race and gender. A recent training for police officers about domestic violence and racism serves as a good example of how challenging the task can be. Drawing from this 1-day police training, from existing pedagogical literature, and from the authors' collective experiences teaching about these issues, the authors address challenges encountered and propose strategies to mitigate them. The authors propose a multilevel approach to implementing strategies to address these challenges, which includes ongoing involvement during three stages of the training.
BACKGROUND: In individuals with no known ischaemic heart disease, the prevalence and significance of ST-segment depression on ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring is unclear. We therefore determined the prevalence of ST-segment depression among middle-aged male police officers, an occupational group in whom an increased risk of ischaemic heart disease has been reported, who also had multiple individual coronary risk factors but no known ischaemic heart disease. METHODS: Full-time male police offices aged 45 years or more with at least two coronary risk factors but no known ischaemic heart disease performed a 24h ambulatory electrocardiographic monitor, timed to include a shift of work. The number and duration of episodes of ST-segment depression were determined. In those in whom ST-segment depression was detected, exercise thallium scintigraphy and repeat 24h ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring were performed. RESULTS: The prevalence of ST-segment depression on 24h ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring, including an 8h period of normal work, was 3.4% (95% confidence interval 1.3-8.3%). Exercise thallium scintigraphy was carried out in those in whom ST-segment depression had been detected. Despite two participants developing ST-segment depression during exercise, no evidence of myocardial ischaemia was observed on the perfusion scan. Therefore, the prevalence of ST-segment depression on ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring in this asymptomatic but high-risk population was low and, when it did occur, no exercise-induced myocardial ischaemia was observed. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that ST-segment depression on ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring in asymptomatic subjects may not represent myocardial ischaemia. The use of this parameter to screen asymptomatic populations for ischaemic heart disease is therefore highly questionable.
This study examined lead exposure (n = 43) and semen quality (n = 18) among traffic police officers in Arequipa, Peru, where leaded gasoline is used. Blood lead (PbB) was measured using atomic absorption spectrophotometry, and semen was analyzed following World Health Organization (WHO) protocol. Mean PbB was 48.5 microg/dL. Although current PbB was associated with declines in several semen parameters (sperm morphology, concentration and total number of sperm), only sperm motility and viability differed significantly between the < or = 40 microg/dL and > 40 microg/dL categories, and decreased with increasing PbB in simple linear regression. Traffic police are an indicator group for excessive ambient lead exposure, and these results support earlier findings on the male reproductive toxicity of lead. The results should be interpreted cautiously since the numbers were small and the analysis was unable to control for all potential confounders due to incomplete data.
Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 is used by police officers to detain persons who they feel might be suffering with mental disorder until a formal Mental Health Act assessment can be undertaken. Previous studies have shown that the outcomes of these assessments result in remarkably different rates of subsequent hospital admissions. Within a rural setting it has also been shown that the rate of use of Section 136 varies considerably. This study examines the use of Section 136 within a family of eight police forces that have been matched to ensure that they cover similar populations. The results show that there are considerable variations in the use of Section 136, with the Devon and Cornwall region using the section over two and a half times the mean for the group. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.
This study aims to expand knowledge of partner abuse injury and help-seeking through a new source of data. We reviewed police reports during corresponding periods in 1996 and 1997 (n = 476). Complainants were injured in 17.4% of all incidents; 90% of those injured were women. Hispanics were more likely to be injured than non-Hispanics (OR = 2.06; 95% CI = 1.0, 4.25). The likelihood of injury decreased with each year of increasing age (OR = 0.95; CI = 0.91, 0.99). Only 20.5% of those injured consented to medical care. Police reports provide information on partner abuse injury that supplements hospital surveillance and household surveys.
Meta-analyses of police suicide rates and ratios to the comparison population were conducted using 101 samples from the literature. The large effect sizes (ES = .74) showed that suicide rates based on short time frames were significantly higher than for long time frames. There were regional differences such that rates in the Americas and Europe were higher than in the Caribbean and Asian regions. There were differences in rates between federal, regional, and municipal police forces. Issues researchers need to address include the use of long time frames; the reporting of more complete suicide statistics, including breakdowns by year, sex, and ethnic groups; and the rates for population comparison groups.
We examined different strategies for identifying nonfatal family and intimate assaults (FIAs) in police data. Police most often classify such incidents in the "assault" category, but they also use other crime categories. We estimated that, during 1984, 3300 FIAs (or 837 per 100,000 population) occurred in Atlanta. Of those, 77% were classified as assaults; 23% were classified in nonassault categories. Research measuring the magnitude of FIAs should take into account incidents classified in nonassault crime categories.
This study examined the effects of duty-related stress on police officers. Using a sample of 100 suburban police officers, an anonymous questionnaire requested demographic information and included a measure of duty-related stressors, SCL-90-R, the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder scale of the Impact of Events Scale-Revised, and a locus of control scale. Also assessed was whether Critical Incident Stress Debriefing was experienced. The results showed significant correlations between scores on duty-related stress, somatization, and symptoms of PTSD. 13% of the sample met the DSM-IV (1994) diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Results of the regression analysis showed the best predictors for the diagnosis of PTSD were associated with the factor of Exposure to Death and Life Threat, which corresponds to the DSM-IV AI criteria. Finally, 63% of the respondents stated that a critical incident debriefing would be beneficial following an extremely stressful event related to duty.
For 1960-1992, while divorce rates predicted the general homicide rates, neither divorce nor unemployment rates predicted the rates with which police killed civilians or civilians killed police.