Limited research has examined what factors serve as potential barriers and motivators for law enforcement personnel in seeking mental health support. The current study presents findings from a survey of 158 sworn and civilian personnel from a large Southeastern Sheriff's office to shed light on these potential barriers/motivators. We drew on previous literature to create measures related to mental health stigma, confidentiality, burnout, various stressors, and organizational support, among others. The main effects OLS regression models suggest that increased perceptions of stigma and personal stressors significantly lowered employees’ willingness to seek mental health support. However, increased burnout and job satisfaction were associated with employees seeking mental health support. Multiplicative models show that as job satisfaction increased within nonwhite respondents, those respondents were significantly more likely to seek mental health assistance. However, as personal stressors increased among nonwhite respondents, those respondents were significantly less likely to seek help. Finally, as overall health increased among white respondents, those respondents were significantly more likely to seek help. Findings indicate that mental health issues experienced by employees vary based on group membership. We discuss several future research directions and policy implications derived from these findings.

The intersection of fear of crime and media consumption has been examined in urban environments extensively. However, like many aspects of criminal justice research, much less is known about these concepts in non-urban environments. Further, there is an assumption that the processes of how media will influence fear of crime will work similarly in non-urban environments. This question remains open to empirical examination. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between media consumption and fear of crime in a semi-rural environment. Using data collected via telephone survey, and conducted within a selected non-urban community, we examine the relationship between media consumption and fear of crime while controlling for a host of confounders. Results indicated that media consumption is related to fear of crime among this specialized sample. However, this relationship becomes nonsignificant once perceived disorder is introduced. Findings and implications are discussed.

Purpose: While there has been a sizeable amount of research on identifying the correlates of citizen satisfaction with police agencies, that research has not been synthesized to identify patterns across different studies. This study presents the results of a meta-analysis that assessed the predictive strength of the most commonly included correlates of satisfaction with police. Methods: An exhaustive search for studies on satisfaction with police produced 66 studies eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Random effects models were conducted along with moderating analyses. Results: Findings revealed that gender, race, age, fear of crime, and victimization were statistically significant predictors of satisfaction with police. Moderating analyses revealed that certain variables, Hispanic ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and perceptions of crime, while not significant in the main effect size analysis, were significant in the moderator analysis. Conclusions: It is important that future research establishes a more standardized form of measurement for satisfaction, with the consideration that confidence and trust may operate as distinct constructs. Additionally, it is imperative to move beyond investigating demographic factors alone and instead focus on variables related to procedural justice, performance theory, and neighborhood context.

•Permanent beat proportion is associated with higher rates of police fatal force.•Community training for recruits is associated with higher rates of fatal force.•Problem solving partnerships are not significant when outliers are removed.•No other community policing measures were significantly related to fatal force.

The last summary of the research on police search decisions was completed by the National Research Council in 2004, and the present study uses the meta-analytic method to update the previous summaries of research on police search behavior. In doing so, two objectives are attempted: 1) identify which suspect characteristics impact decisions to search citizens and 2) assess the impact of methodological characteristics on research results. Of the suspect characteristics that have been analyzed, suspect race and gender appear to have the greatest impact on search decisions. However, it also appears that the methodological characteristics of research studies have a strong influence on findings. The findings of this analysis point to a primary concern for future research on search decision-making. Analyses of search behavior must standardize operationalization of the dependent variable before research in this area can be adequately synthesized.

This study examines the relationship between citizen’s police satisfaction and fear of crime. Fear of crime and police satisfaction are often studied in major cities and in separate analyses. Our study contributes to and adds updated context to the existing literature by examining the impact of these variables in a small semirural city. Multivariate analyses revealed that police satisfaction and fear of crime were related and that lower levels of police satisfaction were associated with higher levels of fear. Results also indicated that women, older individuals, and those who perceive greater levels of physical disorder had greater levels of fear. The data used for this project were collected via telephone survey. The implications of these methods and findings are also discussed.

This paper explores the relationship between disorder and police satisfaction while controlling for other relevant factors related to police satisfaction such as race, gender, age, and prior police contact. We present results from a survey of residents in a semi-rural southern city. This survey location provides a unique opportunity to explore the effects of disorder and social cohesion on police satisfaction in an environment that incorporates elements of both urban and rural environments. The results indicate that white respondents, older respondents, and those that were more integrated into their neighbourhoods were more satisfied with the police. Variation in the levels of disorder did not, however, have an impact of citizen satisfaction. The implications for these findings are also discussed.

Purpose: Synthesis research on the correlates of arrest has had a long history of analysis in police decision making research. Yet, much of this line of synthesis research has found mixed results and has been unable to definitively state whether relationships exist between suspect demographic characteristics, race, gender, age, and ethnicity, and arrest. This research attempts to clear this confusion created by previous synthesis attempts particularly.Methods: Meta-analysis was used to generate weighted mean effect sizes of the effect of race, gender, age, and ethnicity on arrest. Effect sizes were weighted using the inverse variance method and random effects modeling was also used. Moderator analyses were also performed.Results: Black individuals, males, and Hispanic individuals were significantly more likely to be arrested than white individuals, females, and non-Hispanic individuals. These effects persisted across the majority of moderator categories. Age was not a significant predictor of arrest.Conclusions: The results here bring some degree of order to a large amount of arrest decision making literature. The findings confirm the results of a previous meta-analysis on race and arrest and also expand upon that research. These results expand "what we know" about the effect of race on arrest. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.