Louise Porter

Griffith University · Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS)

Criminal defendants can face significant pressures to plead guilty, but wrongful conviction scholarship has largely overlooked the study of guilty pleas. This study content analyzed 139 Australian appellate court judgments in which a guilty plea conviction was overturned, investigating the types of errors involved in these convictions, and the stag...

The timing of an investigation after an officer-involved shooting (OIS) is influenced by conflicting forces. The public demands expedited resolution, but police officers are provided several protections that can delay investigations of their actions. This study conducts a randomized experiment to determine the impact of question timing after an OIS...

Purpose This paper explores the applicability of environmental theories to understanding patterns of police misconduct. In turn, it aims to offer a method for identifying prevention techniques that can be practically applied by policing agencies. Design/methodology/approach The study empirically examined 84 substantiated matters of police miscondu...

While there is a considerable body of evidence on the influence of individual and situational, and to a lesser extent community factors, on police use of force, little is known about the influence of police agency factors on use of force by police. Greater use of community policing approaches has recently been recommended for U.S. policing agencies...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the contours of the police code of silence, a critical component of the ability to control misconduct and enhance integrity within any police agency. Unlike the extant research, dominated by single-country studies, this paper provides an in-depth exploration of the code across five countries and tests...

This study identifies subtypes of citizen behavioral characteristics within police use of force events and assesses ecological influences on these subtypes. Data comprised police use of force reports, recorded crime data, and census data. Latent class analysis was applied to 19,900 police use of force events to identify latent classes of citizen be...

Objectives This randomised controlled trial tested the effect of immediate versus delayed, as well as repeated, questioning on memory retrieval regarding details of officer-involved shootings. Methods A sample of 87 police officers experienced “active armed offender” training scenarios followed by a memory questionnaire testing their recall and re...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine whether community-oriented policing (COP) influences rates of police use of force across communities, and whether the impact of COP varies according to the level of violent crime in communities. Design/methodology/approach A range of data sources including police use of force reports, online surveys...

As part of their duties, police regularly engage with citizens, which can result in the use of force. While we know how often and under what circumstances officers use force, little is known about officers’ decision-making processes that lead to force. The study took a naturalistic decision-making approach to analyze debrief sessions between 91 rec...

Extant research on police use of force has established that force is not distributed evenly across communities, with minority threat, ecological contamination, and social disorganisation some of the most common theories used to understand the distribution of police use of force in the US. The current study aimed to test the relevance of these theor...

Police officers are increasingly called upon to explain and defend their behaviour towards citizens, particularly where force is used. While there is a well-established body of research on factors that are associated with the use of police force, little is known about whether officers are actually considering these factors when making force decisio...

Recent events, particularly in the United States, have highlighted strained police-citizen relations and the importance of citizens viewing police as legitimate and trustworthy. Perceptions of unreasonable police officer conduct, particularly related to demeanor and physical force, are often at the center of public complaints. The present study use...

With the increased focus on applying procedural justice into policing practice, a small number of studies have examined officer attitudes to procedural justice. These studies have measured a diverse range of attitudinal concepts – from officers’ alignment to procedural justice principles, to the perceived effectiveness of the principles in obtainin...

Purpose From 2002 to 2014, the Portland Police Bureau reported large reductions in complaints against officers and use of force indicators. The purpose of this paper is to develop a case study to document these changes and explore possible influences. Design/methodology/approach The paper maps the changes in conduct indicators against the develo...

Policing is one of the most dangerous occupations and is consistently placed in the top five occupations for injuries and fatalities as a result of occupational violence [Prenzler, T. (2012). Policing and security in practice: challenges and achievements. New York: Palgrave Macmillan]. Police–citizen encounters that involve the use of force present...

This study examined variations of police use of force by applying Terrill et al.’s [(2003). A management tool for evaluating police use of force: an application of the force factor. Police quarterly, 6 (2), 150–171] adaptation of Alpert and Dunham’s [(1997). The force factor: measuring police use of force relative to suspect resistance. Washington,...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore Australian police officers’ perceptions of unethical conduct scenarios with the aim of understanding unwillingness to report infractions. Design/methodology/approach – The responses of 845 officers were compared across 11 scenarios to explore variation in the extent to which they understood the beh...

Despite the prominent role that procedural justice has taken in policing research, we know surprisingly little about police perceptions of procedural justice as an effective tool in their encounters with members of the public. In this study, we start with a focus on the perceptions of police recruits in a major police service, exploring their perce...

Issues of force and excessive force remain prominent in policing in most jurisdictions. This study addresses the relationship between officer gender and force-related allegations, and adds to the growing literature on women in policing and strategies to reduce police-citizen conflict. The study utilised six years of Queensland police data from 2007...

This chapter reports the results of an Australian survey of police using the international ethical climate questionnaires developed by Klockars et al. Two major police departments distributed the questionnaires to their officers on condition of anonymity. The findings from the survey-conducted in 2013-were largely positive. On the whole, respondent...

School shootings are a concern due to their impact in the local community. This paper aimed to (a) establish frequent characteristics of the offender and offence, (b) explore the differences between offenders who are over the age of 18 years and those who are younger, and (c) consider the underlying themes of the offence characteristics. Data were...

Australia has seen an increase in the abuse of prescription drugs, including obtaining them through prescription fraud. As the gate-keepers to medications, pharmacists have the opportunity to assess the veracity of prescriptions and those presenting them. The present study investigated how pharmacists detect deception in the context of prescription...

Australia has seen an increase in the abuse of prescription drugs, including obtaining them through prescription fraud. As the gate-keepers to medications, pharmacists have the opportunity to assess the veracity of prescriptions and those presenting them. The present study investigated how pharmacists detect deception in the context of prescription...

Global population-level patterns in female participation in contemporary political and revolutionary conflict remain largely unknown as systematic empirical research in the area is lacking. Accordingly, this study systematically documented the participation of a comprehensive sample of women involved in conflict around the world. A statistically de...

For any profession, establishing codes of ethics that are both practically relevant and up to date is an ongoing challenge. Law enforcement is no exception to this as agencies are faced with an evolving modern environment. With changes in technology, types of policing, and sources of societal conflict there is a potential array of new or evolving e...

Some places have no crime and some have a lot, and thus we study hotspots. Corruption is structured differently to crime, but hotspots still are notable. The difference is that hotspots are not places but clusters of activity. This article analyses corruption cases from New York City to explore a way of identifying such clusters. Seventy-two cases...

This paper analyses factors involved in Indigenous deaths associated with police contact in Australia since the Royal Commission of Inquiry, with a view to identifying possible points of prevention. Coronial reports were collected of 98 cases of Indigenous deaths, occurring in police custody or during custody-related operations between 1992 and 200...

This article summarizes surveys of three key stakeholder groups in the police complaints and discipline process: the public, complainants and police. In general, public and complainant surveys showed strong support for independent processing of complaints. Complainants were generally deeply dissatisfied with police-dominated and mixed (police/indep...

This article looks beyond the traditional compliance-based model of police oversight to discuss the emerging contributions of external oversight agencies to proactive police reform. Drawing on the approach of Problem Oriented Policing and the Scan, Analyse, Respond, Assess (SARA) problem-solving model, the article provides a framework to highlight...

A key feature of modern policing is external oversight of alleged police misconduct. The present paper focuses on the three UK oversight agencies: the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland (PCCS); and the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI). Document analysis and interviews were ut...

This article aims to review the potential of a risk assessment model for the purpose of counter-terrorism intelligence gathering, and discuss potential factors. First the literature on offender profiling is reviewed and applied to Islamist violent extremism. The difficulty of applying this approach to general offending is noted, particularly with r...

The present study examines co-offending groups that commit violent firearms offences within the UK, in order to develop an understanding of these groups in terms of their level of professionalism. A sample of 69 cases was selected from two British law databases, consisting of offences that involved the utilization of a firearm in a violent crime co...

Policing is now widely recognized as a high-risk occupation for diverse types of misconduct, including financial corruption, legal process corruption and excessive force. Police work also tends to attract large numbers of complaints, many of which concern lower-level customer service issues. This chapter reports on current developments in police in...

This article examines a case study of Tasmania Police to explore strategies for complaint reduction. The study uses quantitative complaints data and qualitative interviews to examine a 15-year period from 1994/1995 to 2008/2009. During this time, complaints against Tasmania Police reduced substantially. Most significantly, public ‘complaints agains...

This article explores theories of radicalization by analysing the 21 individuals convicted to date under Australian anti-terrorism laws. All 21 are Australian citizens and so are discussed with reference to literature on home-grown terrorists. Open source data in the form of media and law reports were collected and analysed for descriptive features...

This study explores differences between group and lone sexual assaults, using a framework of interpersonal dimensions of dominance submission and coop- eration hostility (Alison & Stein, Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 12, 515 538, 2001). From archival sources, 120 cases (60 group and 60 lone offender assaults) were content analysed for offender, v...

The current study aimed to explore the multivariate nature of police deviance in order to identify a descriptive model of the features of behaviour that could potentially inform approaches to prevention. Fifty cases were coded from law reports to extract variables describing the deviant behaviour. These were analysed descriptively to obtain frequen...

The present study examined the behavioural differences in sexual assault offences in relation to the offender–victim relationship (stranger versus non-stranger). These differences were examined specifically in the context of four interpersonal themes of interaction: dominance, submission, hostility and cooperation. The details of 100 sexual offence...

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This study examined the content of a contemporary sample of behavioural investigative advice reports produced by the National Policing Improvements Agency (NPIA), formally known as the National Centre for Policing Excellence, and compared this sample with previous offender-profiling samples reported by Alison, Smith, Eastman, and Rainbow in 2003. F...

Purpose. The purpose of this paper was, firstly, to replicate Porter and Alison's (2001) leadership behaviour scale and, secondly, to extend this research through the use of a new sample of group robbery offenders. This will provide further support for the use of such a scale to identify potential criminal leaders and also offer insight into the dy...

The behaviour of offenders and victims in 116 cases of group robbery (61 commercial, 55 personal) was examined. Four interpersonal themes were evident: dominance, submission, co-operation and hostility. These themes are governed by the principles of complementarity such that offender dominance elicits victim submission (reciprocity) and vice versa,...

Two hundred and twenty three group rape offences were collated from archival sources, with the majority of cases from US and UK law reports. This involved 739 separate offenders (722 male and 17 female). Descriptive analyses indicated that this sample of offences tended to be committed by young males (mean age 21 years old) upon approximately same-...

This study examined the relationship between decisions, actions, and orders as facets of influence, both over criminal events and group members, for 37 leaders of sexually violent gangs. The degree to which decisions, actions, and orders were employed during the offense (quantitative variation), as well as the combinations of these elements (qualit...

There are four main issues within the literature regarding police corruption that remain issues of contention: (1) what constitutes corruption; (2) what causes corrupt behavior; (3) how corruption can be investigated sensitively; and (4) how corrupt behavior can be prevented. The first section of the chapter reviews the literature concerning the de...

This study provides an analysis of offender-victim interactions in 223 cases of sexual violence committed in gangs. Cases were derived from archival sources such as law reports. A multivariate analysis revealed four interpersonal themes (dominance, submission, co-operation, and hostility) previously identified in studies of lone sexual assault [Ali...

The notion of 'desistance' (or 'going straight') is becoming a more prominent one in criminological discourse, and the Liverpool Desistance Study(LDS) aimed to provide a deeper understanding of this process from the perspective of the individuals taking this life path. However, the LDS was not intended to address how the research might be applied i...

The present study examined how decisions, actions, and orders combine to act as influence strategies that occur throughout different stages in gang rape. Thirty-nine gang rape cases, yielding 120 offenders, were coded according to each individual's level of involvement at each stage in terms of decisions, actions, and orders. The various combinatio...