Sexual assault violence affects many college students regardless of ethnicity, age, gender, race, or socio-economic background. There is a problem with reporting sexual assaults on college campuses to campus law enforcement officials. The purpose of this qualitative narrative study was to utilize the theory of andragogy and social theory to…

In 2019, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) was directed to provide Congress with a report on the state of school policing in the United States that examined the current role of police in schools and provided recommendations on how they can better serve the needs of students. To address this directive, NIJ engaged two consultants to conduct a…

As state legislatures increasingly turn their gaze to education and school policy, one intervention that is particularly concerning is the proposal to arm civilian school personnel. Under the guise of school safety, these policies suggest that allowing teachers, who often have little if any training, to carry weapons on school grounds may deter a…

National School Resource Officer Appreciation Day, established in 2022 and celebrated on February 15th, provides a focal point for exploring the role of School Resource Officers (SROs) in Midwestern school districts. Through qualitative research involving interviews with 10 administrators, this study examined how districts decide to add,…

Purpose: This paper aims to contribute to the literature on distributed sensemaking by studying how the police establish and develop their new position as police contacts during the police reform. Design/methodology/approach: The authors studied how the position of police contact, a cornerstone of the recent Norwegian police reform, was…

Youth social movements for racial justice, especially against police violence, are on the rise. And this broader policy landscape is reflective of how youth are addressing racism in policing in their local context. Therefore, by drawing upon scholarship related to Black Radicalism, activism, and social movements, this study examines how youth of…

The aim was to explore potential explanatory factors for the three dimensions of willingness to intervene in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women: police or personal involvement and noninvolvement. N = 280 students at a Spanish university (78.20% women) from the fields of educational, community, and interventions responded to a…

The relationship between higher education and law enforcement performance is still under debate. Since the early 1900's policy makers have not come to a consensus to make college education a qualification for law enforcement employment nationally. The disagreement is not whether higher education has value, to the extent which it improves police…

In this paper, we present a thought piece examining recent core policing reforms introduced in the Republic of Ireland (ROI), responding to a perceived crisis of legitimacy, for An Garda Síochána (AGS) (translated: 'The Guardian of the Peace'). Central to this process is the critical reform of the education and training of police and their…

Purpose: Investigate first- to third-graders' understandings of the police. Design/methodology/approach: Phenomenography is used to analyze elementary students' understandings of the police as a social institution Findings: The results indicate three qualitatively different ways of understanding the police. The police as: attributes, activities…

This study provides a timely, qualitative exploration of the perceived efficacy of cultural competency training for both law enforcement officers and educators. It comprises 18 semi-structured interviews, 10 of which were conducted with education professionals and 8 with law enforcement officers. Drawing four main themes from the interview sample,…

Many Black young adults engage in their communities through critical action, or activism, as they transition into adulthood. However, knowledge about predictors of critical action remain sparse. The present longitudinal study addresses this gap by exploring links between critical action, ethnic-racial identity, and racial discrimination among 143…

This study evaluated whether an intervention on implicit bias would mitigate police academy recruits' implicit associations and color-blind racial ideology. The police recruits' racial attitudes were tested before and after the completion of the implicit bias training. Their implicit associations on Race, Skin-Tone, and Weapons were tested as…

The social autopsy takes the death of a set of individuals as its starting point and then critically and systematically examines social and political conditions to explain these deaths and generate awareness and policy change. After distinguishing the social autopsy from other means to explain excess and premature deaths, we delineate three core…

Researchers have found that sex trafficking in the 21st century is a growing human rights atrocity. This qualitative case study investigates law enforcement professionals' perceived needs as first responders to identify and support sex trafficking victims. Specifically, this study examines resources, training, and support that they perceive to be…