Criminal Justice Review

Community policing is the operating philosophy of the majority of American police departments in the new millennium. Though most departments claim to engage in community policing, research has shown that implementation of the strategy is uneven. One way to investigate the implementation of community policing is to study patrol officer attitudes toward community policing because research has shown that attitudes are related to behavior. The present study used qualitative data to explore the extent to which patrol officers have endorsed and implemented community policing in one medium-sized agency in Florida. Furthermore, the research sought to gain insight into the organizational barriers that prevented officers from adopting community policing in their daily work. Results indicated that although most officers agreed with the philosophy of community policing, significant barriers, such as lack of resources, prevented its full implementation in this agency. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Although many police departments throughout the nation have been quick to incorporate the use of conducted energy devices (CEDs) within their use-of-force policies, the use of these devices on college campuses has been relatively unexamined in the literature. This article addresses campus police agency decisions regarding CEDs as a less-than-lethal force alternative. This study utilized a stratified random sample of public 4-year universities and colleges throughout the United States. Respondents answered questions pertaining to multiple variables, such as political pressure, public opinion, officer safety, liability, and funding, as factors considered when deciding whether to acquire CEDs. The results suggest that a majority of the public institutions surveyed have not acquired CEDs due to public opinion. Furthermore, the results reveal that for institutions that have issued CEDs their acquisition can be attributed to the campus law enforcement agency's concern for officer safety. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

The prosecution of intimate partner violence is thought to be infrequent, as is the rate at which those prosecutions result in a criminal conviction. The paucity of prosecutorial and court response to intimate partner violence is considered one of the inadequacies of the justice system, an indicator of society's inattentiveness to violence against women, and another reason to question the criminal justice system's ability to successfully address violence between intimate partners. Our review of 135 English language studies leads us to challenge the widely accepted notion that prosecution and conviction for this offense are infrequent. There is great variability in the reported rates of prosecution and conviction for intimate partner violence. These studies report that, on average, about one third of the reported offenses and more than three fifths of arrests result in the filing of charges; more than half of all prosecutions result in a criminal conviction.

Beyond considerations of relative punitiveness, very little is known about how offenders understand the experience of serving a probation sentence. The current study surveyed offenders currently on probation to assess the extent to which they believed their sentence was rehabilitative, incapacitative, deserved, and a deterrent to future offending. Perceptions that probation served no purpose and that it represented a game of manipulation and impression management were also investigated. The results showed that most probationers believed that their sentence was a deterrent, and it was rehabilitative and deserved. They also felt that probation served multiple purposes, and a minority of respondents perceived that there was no point to being on probation. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Employee turnover can have devastating effects on correctional facilities. Excessive turnover wastes recruiting and training dollars. In addition, high turnover rates may also directly affect the security of the institution as well as the safety of both staff and inmates. Thus this study surveyed correctional staff at a maximum security private prison to examine the impact of the work environment, personal characteristics, external employment opportunities, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment on turnover intent. The results of the multivariate ordinary least squares regression equations generally supported the proposed path model, and indicated age, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment directly influence turnover intent, whereas gender, job satisfaction, role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, input into decision making, and organizational fairness indirectly affected employees' decisions to leave the job.

The growing number of older prisoners in state and federal prisons has fostered an important discussion in literature regarding the potential benefits of age-segregated living arrangements for older inmates. This article begins with a brief review of the reasons for America's aging prison population. Thereafter, it uses a multidisciplinary literature review to clarify a 4-point rationale for age-segregated prisons: (a) cost savings via centralized health care for older prisoners; (b) the reduction of civil liabilities for correctional systems that centralize disability services as per requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; (c) the advancement of prisoner safety for older inmates; and (d) the promotion of rehabilitation by advancing treatment opportunities with a group that is most likely to desist from future criminal activity (in part) due to age-related desistance from crime. Conclusions focus on age segregation within the historical context of segregation in prison based on sociodemographic characteristics.