Times Herald-Record: Perception vs. reality: People don’t feel safer despite drop in crime

Major violent and property crime in the mid-Hudson region has declined 42 percent from 1990 to 2015 despite a growing population, mirroring a national trend.

The question is: Do you feel safer?

A recent national poll suggests people don’t. The Gallup poll done in October 2016 found that Americans’ direct experience with crime was at a 16-year high, reflecting a gradual increase in the percentage who said they or a household member had been the victim of a robbery, vandalism or violent crime in the past year.

In the same poll, Americans’ perceptions of the seriousness of crime nationally and in their local area was unchanged from 2015. But it has worsened slightly since 2001…

Click here to read more

Statescoop.com: Civil rights advocates: Texas’ new police body camera footage fee is “a shot” at poor communities

Police departments in Texas are now required to charge a set fee to release any body camera footage to the public, a change that civil rights advocates fear could severely restrict access to police video.

Thanks to a new policy from Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office that took effect Nov. 24, every law enforcement agency in the state now has to collect at least a $10 fee for each recording it releases through the state’s public records act. If the video in question hasn’t been released before, police can charge $1 per minute of footage requested.

Departments were previously free to set their own fee structures for the release of the footage, but a law enacted in September 2015 directed Paxton’s office to propose new statewide policy as part of a broader move to encourage the use of body cameras by local police. The attorney general first published a public notice on the new rule in July, which received no comments…

Click here to read more

Statescoop.com: Judge strikes down Calif. City’s $3,000 bill for release of police body camera videos

A California judge just ruled that a city police department was out of line when it charged public records requesters thousands of dollars to get access to body camera footage, raising big questions about how agencies release police videos and other electronic records going forward.

An Alameda County Superior Court judge recently decided that Hayward, California — a city just outside of Oakland — misinterpreted the state’s public records law when it forced the National Lawyers Guild to pay $3,200 to get access to body camera footage. The group was hoping to get access to select body camera videos from a 2014 “Black Lives Matter” demonstration, since some claimed that officers used excessive force in trying to disperse protesters…

Click here to read more

International Business Review: Fighting crime with computers: Is predictive policing the future of law enforcement?

When it comes to predictive policing – using cutting-edge data algorithms and software to help fight crime – it’s easy to stumble into the realm of science-fiction.

Minds will drift to Minority Report, the Tom Cruise action flick that centres on the notion of using ‘pre-crime’ systems to catch criminals before they act, and while police maintain this is not their intention, the increasing reliance on secretive technology to catch and judge criminals is more popular than ever before…

Click here to read more

Exploring the Defensive Actions of Drug Sellers in Open-Air Markets: A Systematic Social Observation

by Eric L. Piza and Victoria A. Sytsma (2016)

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 53(1): 36-65


Open Access Post Print
Published Article

Abstract

Objectives: The current study contributes to the literature through a systematic social observation (SSO) of the defensive actions of drug sellers within open-air retail markets. The study expands upon previous literature by incorporating a novel data collection and coding method.

Methods: Video footage of narcotics transactions was extracted from the CCTV system of the Newark, NJ Police Department. Researchers transcribed and coded the footage to measure the frequency of defensive actions incorporated by drug sellers. Fisher’s exact tests measured whether the frequency of each defensive action significantly differed across geographic setting or time-of-day.

Results: The frequency of many defensive actions was significantly related to geographic setting and time-of-day. The strongest relationship was observed between the use of stash spots and setting. Overall, the findings suggest that drug sellers adopt tenets of Opportunity Theory to protect themselves from law enforcement, specifically by acting as guardians and place managers on their own behalf.

Conclusions: This study extends prior techniques and provides an additional case study on the use of CCTV footage in the study of street-level crime. This methodology can be used in concert with more traditional ethnographic techniques in the study of the drug trade and in crime-and-place research in general.