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CORRELATES AND CAUSES OF VIOLENCE AGAINST POLICE OFFICERS: A CRIMINAL EVENTS ANALYSIS

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Date Issued:
2010
Abstract/Description:
Violence against police officers is a major problem in America. Previous studies on violence and police officers have usually focused on violence by police officers, not violence against police officers. This study is the first of its kind as it examines violence against police officers from a comprehensive, criminal events perspective with detailed use of force/officer violence data collected by the Orlando Police Department. Individual officer characteristics, individual offender characteristics, situational variables, and geographical factors are considered. Logistic regression results indicate that use of force incidents are more likely to involve battery against one or more police officers when multiple officers are involved, when offenders are female, when offenders are of larger size (measured by weight), and when offenders are known to have recently consumed alcohol before the incident. Spatial analysis results indicate that there is significant clustering of batteries against police officers within the City of Orlando, and that the areas where police battery is predominant are very similar to areas where alcohol-related businesses are prevalent, and theoretically, more alcohol is consumed. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Title: CORRELATES AND CAUSES OF VIOLENCE AGAINST POLICE OFFICERS: A CRIMINAL EVENTS ANALYSIS.
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Name(s): Covington, Michele, Author
Corzine, Jay, Committee Chair
University of Central Florida, Degree Grantor
Type of Resource: text
Date Issued: 2010
Publisher: University of Central Florida
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: Violence against police officers is a major problem in America. Previous studies on violence and police officers have usually focused on violence by police officers, not violence against police officers. This study is the first of its kind as it examines violence against police officers from a comprehensive, criminal events perspective with detailed use of force/officer violence data collected by the Orlando Police Department. Individual officer characteristics, individual offender characteristics, situational variables, and geographical factors are considered. Logistic regression results indicate that use of force incidents are more likely to involve battery against one or more police officers when multiple officers are involved, when offenders are female, when offenders are of larger size (measured by weight), and when offenders are known to have recently consumed alcohol before the incident. Spatial analysis results indicate that there is significant clustering of batteries against police officers within the City of Orlando, and that the areas where police battery is predominant are very similar to areas where alcohol-related businesses are prevalent, and theoretically, more alcohol is consumed. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Identifier: CFE0003200 (IID), ucf:48581 (fedora)
Note(s): 2010-08-01
Ph.D.
Sciences, Department of Sociology
Doctorate
This record was generated from author submitted information.
Subject(s): police
policing
violence
criminal events
social disorganization
crime analysis
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003200
Restrictions on Access: public
Host Institution: UCF

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