Changing Police Encounters through Procedural Justice Training: A Multi-City Randomized Trial at Crime Hot Spots
Can police be trained to treat people in fair and respectful ways, and if so, will this influence evaluations of the police, and crime? To answer these questions, we randomly allocated 120 crime hot spots to a procedural justice (PJ) and standard condition (SC) in three cities. 28 officers were randomly assigned to the conditions. The PJ condition officers received an intensive 5-day training course in the components of procedural justice (giving voice, showing neutrality, treating people with respect, and evidencing trustworthy motives). We used police self-report surveys to assess whether the training influenced attitudes, systematic social observations to examine impacts on police behavior in the field, and arrests to assess law enforcement actions. We conducted pre and post household surveys to assess resident attitudes toward the police. Impacts on crime were measured using crime incident and citizen- initiated crime call data. The training led to increased knowledge about procedural justice, and more procedurally just behavior in the field. At the same time, PJ officers carried out many fewer arrests than SC officers. Residents of the procedural justice hot spots were significantly less likely to perceive police as harassing or using unnecessary force, though we did not find significant differences between the PJ and SC hot spots in perceptions of procedural justice and legitimacy of police officers. We found a significant relative 14 percent decline in crime incidents in the PJ hot spots during the experiment, and a similar though non-significant relative decline in crime calls.
Speaker and Presenter Information
Heather Vovak is a Research Scientist at the Metropolitan Police Department (Washington, DC). Previously, she was a Senior Research Associate at the National Police Foundation. She has experience working on randomized controlled experiments, currently serving as project director for a multi-site randomized controlled trial examining the impact of procedural justice training for police officers in crime hot spots. Dr. Vovak is also the project director for a randomized controlled experiment evaluating police stops in violent crime hot spots. She has additionally worked on projects involving gun crimes, police technologies, and police training.
David Weisburd is a Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University (and Executive Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy), and Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law in Jerusalem. Professor Weisburd is an elected Fellow of the American Society of Criminology and of the Academy of Experimental Criminology. Professor Weisburd is one of the leading international police researchers, and served as the Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Proactive Policing. He is author or editor of more than thirty books and more than 200 scientific articles that cover a wide range of criminal justice research topics, including policing, crime at place, violent crime, white-collar crime, illicit markets, criminal justice statistics and social deviance.
Dr. Cody Telep is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Programs in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. His Ph.D. is in Criminology, Law and Society from George Mason University, where he worked in the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy. His research interests include the impact of police practices on crime and disorder, assessing the relationship between police activities and perceptions of legitimacy, understanding how to advance the use of evidence-based policies and practices in policing and criminal justice, and using experimental methodologies in evaluation research. He has been working with the Phoenix Police Department on an evaluation of the intelligence officer program since 2014.
Relevant Government Agencies
Dept of Justice, Judicial Branch Agencies, Municipal Government, State & Local Government
Event Type
Webcast
This event has no exhibitor/sponsor opportunities
When
Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 3:00pm - 4:15pm
ET
Cost
Complimentary: $ 0.00
Website
Click here to visit event website
Organizer
Justice Clearinghouse
