Scott E. Wolfe

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Michigan State University

The veil of darkness (VOD) is a practical and rigorous methodology for examining racial disparities in police traffic stop behavior. Past research, however, has been littered with methodological inconsistencies inhibiting cross‐study comparison and decisions regarding policy. Accordingly, we clarify four aspects of its implementation: 1) coding day...

The literature on cognitive distortions offers insight on why we continue to face reform challenges regarding police use of force- and citizen interaction-related outcomes. We used two studies of police officers to determine the extent to which one cognitive distortion—dichotomous thinking—was associated with problematic orientations about use of f...

Many U.S. cities witnessed both de‐policing and increased crime in 2020, yet whether the former contributed to the latter remains unclear. Indeed, much of what is known about the effects of proactive policing on crime comes from studies that evaluated highly focused interventions atypical of day‐to‐day policing, used cities as the unit of analysis,...

Objectives: Judgments about police procedural fairness consistently have a stronger influence on how the public ascribes legitimacy to the police than evaluations of police effectiveness. What remains largely underexplored, however, is the potential moderating effect of procedural justice on the relationship between effectiveness and legitimacy and...

Occupational stress influences many aspects of policing and can contribute to unacceptable attitudes and behaviors among law enforcement officers. Specifically, officers with greater workload stressors may be more likely to hold attitudes favorable toward police misconduct. Yet, we predict that organizational justice may inhibit the effect of such...

The development of police legitimacy evaluations is a core component of the legal socialization process. Research has identified many factors that impact peoples’ perceptions of legitimacy such as social and ethnic identity, but the role of American identity has yet to be examined. This study attempted to gain a deeper understanding of the factors...

Research Summary We conducted a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) of a social interaction training program to determine its effectiveness in improving attitudes and behaviors among police officers. Survey data and a series of difference-indifference tests found that participating in the training program improved attitudes with treatment group offi...

Organizational justice has been shown to be an important predictor of criminal justice employees' work-related perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. This study takes stock of the organizational justice effect on criminal justice employees' work outcomes by subjecting the literature to a meta-analysis. Multilevel modeling based on 1,924 effect size...

One of the hidden dangers of police work is self-imposed—the failure to wear seat belts. Unfortunately, little evidence exists concerning the factors that account for why officers do not wear their seat belts. This study used a sample of 450 police officers to develop and test a framework for understanding the predictors of seat belt use. We found...

Several controversial police use of force incidents in recent years have led to calls for improving officers' de-escalation skills. A more fruitful approach to police training reform may be a broader focus on improving officers' social interaction skills. By viewing all police-citizen encounters as social interactions that can either escalate towar...

Controversial incidents involving uses of force by police in recent years have led to calls for improving officers’ de-escalation skills. A more fruitful approach to police training reform may be a broader focus on improving officers’ social interaction skills. By viewing all police-citizen encounters as social interactions that can either escalate...

There is little evidence about “what works” in police training. The good news is that training evaluations are becoming more common. As we build this evidence base, we need to explore the factors that predict whether officers are receptive to the training programs they complete. We advance a theory of officer training motivation and receptivity tha...

Based on the survey of 495 police officers from the Croatian capital of Zagreb, this chapter explores the relation between organizational justice and police integrity. Grounded in the theory of police integrity and the related methodology developed by Klockars and colleagues, our study incorporates a number of hypothetical scenarios, ranging from p...

Objectives Democratic policing involves an ongoing dialogue between officers and citizens about what it means to wield legitimate authority. Most of the criminological literature on police legitimacy has focused on citizens’ perceptions of this dialogue—that is, audience legitimacy. Consequently, we know little about how officers perceive their leg...

Exploring the Relation between Organizational Justice and Police Integrity

Policing experts have suggested that shifting from a warrior mindset – officers viewing themselves as warriors fighting crime – to a guardian mindset – officers valuing working with the public to reduce crime – is a valuable method for improving police-community relations across the United States. However, little empirical evidence has been used to...

Objectives A body of literature has demonstrated that the perceived legitimacy of legal authorities is an important predictor of criminal offending. Criminal offending is itself age-graded and good explanations of offending should offer some insight for how it changes as individuals age. This article attempts to address this gap by developing and t...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of sheriff deputies’ perceived legitimacy of their agency’s citizen advisory council (CAC). Design/methodology/approach The authors obtained survey data from 567 sheriff deputies in a southeastern state. The authors first asked whether respondents knew their agency had a CAC, and then...

Lead is an environmental toxin that contributes to several health and neurological development problems, with young children particularly at risk. Research shows that elevated blood lead levels (EBLLs) are higher in communities characterized by concentrated disadvantage. However, studies have provided conflicting evidence regarding the relationship...

Recent policing research has identified a positive relationship between line-level officers’ perceptions of organizational justice and their adherence to agency goals and job satisfaction. However, we have little understanding of the factors that are related to police managers’ support for organizational justice when interacting with employees. We...

Neighborhood structural conditions influence police behavior, but few studies have addressed whether neighborhood conditions are associated with officers’ perceptions of residents in those communities. This is an important gap because officers’ perceptions of what they can expect from residents in disadvantaged communities may help explain differen...

Purpose: Law enforcement officers who believe their supervisors are organizationally fair are more satisfied with their jobs, more confident in their authority, and more likely to use procedural justice. The problem, however, is that we have little understanding concerning why officers care about being treated fairly. We address this issue by drawi...

Policing has been the subject of intense public scrutiny for the better part of two years after several high-profile police killings of unarmed African Americans across the United States. The scrutiny has been so extreme that some contend there is currently a “war on cops” – whereby citizens are emboldened by protests and negative media coverage of...

President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing recently endorsed procedural justice as a way to restore trust between police and communities. Yet police-citizen interactions vary immensely, and research has yet to give sufficient consideration to the factors that might affect the importance officers place on exercising procedural justice dur...

Federal consent decrees have been a method of police reform available to the federal government since the 1990s. The consent decree process has been shrouded in secrecy for many years. Recently, the methods and data have become available allowing for more detailed analyses of the objectives and outcomes of these agreements. As a result, several rev...

We examined whether police officer self-legitimacy moderates the effect of supervisor procedural injustice on organizational trust. Data from a sample of sheriff’s deputies (N = 510) were used to test this question. Results from multivariate models showed that (1) supervisor procedural injustice was associated with less organizational trust among d...

Purpose: This study explored whether police departments have engaged in " de-policing " —withdrawal from active police work—in response to unprecedented levels of negative attention, as well as the correlates of changes in police behavior. Methods: Using data from 118 of the 121 police departments serving jurisdictions over 5000 residents in Missou...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to examine the factors associated with management-level officers’ sensitivity to various manifestations of the “Ferguson Effect.” Design/methodology/approach: A survey was administered to police officers attending an advanced training institute in the southeastern United States in the fall of 2015. Specifical...

Purpose: We argue that the police have been adversely impacted by Ferguson-related negative publicity in ways beyond the supposed increase in crime (e.g., reduced motivation and increased perception of danger). Further, we suggest that organizational justice is a key factor that influences officers’ sensitivity to such Ferguson effects. Methods: W...

We examined whether police officer self-legitimacy moderates the effect of supervisor procedural injustice on organizational trust. Data from a sample of sheriff’s deputies (N = 510) were used to test this question. Results from multivariate models showed that (a) supervisor procedural injustice was associated with less organizational trust among d...

This study investigates whether low self-control theory explains self-reported criminal activity in late adulthood. Cross-sectional survey data from telephone interviews conducted with individuals aged 60 years and older in Arizona and Florida (N = 2,000) are used. Regression analyses show that low self-control is related to criminal offending. The...

Objectives Terrorism is becoming a priority among police agencies in many Western democracies. Scholars argue that increasing homeland security responsibilities can erode police–community relations, in that people perceive the police as neglecting local crime problems for homeland security concerns. Methods Using Israel as a case study, we evaluat...

Perceptions of legal actor legitimacy have important implications for criminal behaviour. While the link between perceptions of legitimacy and legal compliance has been well established, the sources of legitimacy evaluations are less clear. Drawing from the literature on legal socialization, we examined whether parents’ perceptions of the legitimac...

Limited attention has been devoted to the dimensionality of the low self-control scales commonly constructed in two nationally representative datasets routinely used to test self-control theory—Add Health and NLSY79. We assess the measurement properties of the low self-control scales by comparing a series of exploratory and confirmatory models that...

Participation in risky lifestyles is a well-established predictor of victimization. Several variables have been identified as key predictors of risky activities (e.g., low self-control) but there may be additional sources not considered in the literature to date. We argue that perceptions of procedural unfairness represent a break in social control...

Purpose: There has been widespread speculation that the events surrounding the shooting death of an unarmed young black man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri—and a string of similar incidents across the country—have led to increases in crime in the United States. This study tested for the “Ferguson Effect” on crime rates in large U.S....

Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) general theory of crime – simply referred to as “self-control theory” – has been one of the most influential individual-level explanations of criminal behavior for almost 25 years. A lengthy roster of research studies has tested the core propositions of the theory, gaining many supporters along the way. At the same...

Existing literature demonstrates a clear connection between perceptions of procedural injustice and offending behaviors. Despite this connection, the mechanisms through which procedural injustice influences offending remain theoretically underdeveloped. To address this gap, the current study proposes that techniques of neutralization can be used to...

High-profile events involving police use of force in various cities throughout the US and internationally have garnered enormous media coverage and demonstrated the importance of police-community relations. To date little empirical attention has focused on how such events may negatively impact police officers. Using survey data from 567 officers, t...

Digital piracy is an emerging criminal behavior. Little empirical research has been produced that examines the role of neutralization and performance of this behavior. Using short-term longitudinal data from college students, the present study examines the trajectories of digital piracy and the role of neutralization. The findings from this study s...

In response to increasing violent crime rates in several U.S. cities over the past year, some have pointed the finger of blame at de-policing, a result of the so-called "Ferguson Effect." Although the Ferguson Effect on crime rates remains an open question, there may also be a Ferguson Effect on other aspects of police officers' jobs, such as willi...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the situational and individual officer characteristics of officer-involved vehicle collisions that result in fatality, injury, and non-injury outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – Data on 35,840 vehicle collisions involving law enforcement officers in California occurring between January 2000 and...

Purpose – Little is known regarding the impact of organizational policies and practices on police officers’ driving behaviors. To address an important gap in the empirical literature, this study examined how perceived likelihood of discipline for violations of agency driving policies impacted officer-involved vehicle collisions. Design/methodology...

Objectives This study tests the generality of Tyler’s process-based model of policing by examining whether the effect of procedural justice and competing variables (i.e., distributive justice and police effectiveness) on police legitimacy evaluations operate in the same manner across individual and situational differences. Methods Data from a rando...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the gap in the literature by investigating the identity theft behaviors of adolescents under the age of 18 and the predictors of these behaviors. To better understand the predictors of hacking behaviors in young people, two criminological theories, general theory of crime and social learning th...

Tyler’s process-based model of policing suggests that the police can enhance their perceived legitimacy and trustworthiness in the eyes of the public when they exercise their authority in a procedurally fair manner. To date, most process-based research has focused on the sources of legitimacy while largely overlooking trust in the police. The prese...

Violence and active shooter situations in schools have been important issues to the public, policy makers, and scholars in recent years. School resource officers (SROs) are widely used in efforts to address school crime-related threats. Yet, little is known about the factors that influence key stakeholders' (e.g., school principals) evaluations of...

Purpose The goal of the current study is to assess the perspectives of law enforcement executives and public school principals regarding SROs, armed teachers, and armed school administrators in order to inform the policy discussion surrounding school safety issues. Design/methodology/approach This study utilizes data collected from two surveys tha...

Self-control theory has been one of the most scrutinized general frameworks of crime for over 20 years. A majority of evidence pertaining to the theory, however, is derived from samples of teenagers and young adults. Relatively little information exists regarding whether self-control explains offending among people in late adulthood. As such, the g...

Increased cell phone use among adolescents has created new opportunities for deviance and victimization in recent years. One teenage cell phone−based behavior that has received increased attention from a variety of sources including public health researchers, parents, and law enforcement is “sexting” (i.e., a minor receiving sexually explicit photo...

The recent events of the Sandy Hook (CT) school shooting, along with other similar events, have prompted calls for various strategies to prevent these incidents in the future. One such strategy is the placement of school resource officers in every elementary, middle, and high school in the United States. Given that many schools do not have resource...

The purpose of the present study is to contribute to the gap in the literature by investigating the hacking behaviors of adolescents under the age of 18 and the predictors of these behaviors. In order to better understand the predictors of hacking behaviors in young people, we will be utilizing two criminological theories: General Theory of Crime a...

Wal-Mart is not an ordinary retail store - communities are impacted in significant ways by its entrance. Using various data sources and propensity-weighted multilevel modelling, this paper explores the 'Wal-Mart effect' on crime. Concentrating on the 1990s, results reveal that Wal-Mart is located in United States counties with higher crime rates, n...

Although procedural justice has been a key predictor of police legitimacy, recent findings illustrate that other factors influence this outcome (i.e., low self-control and ethnic identity). However, no research to date has evaluated whether individual-level informal social controls impact police legitimacy evaluations. Survey data are used to exami...

Although procedural justice has been a key predictor of police legitimacy, recent findings illustrate that other factors influence this outcome (i.e., low self-control and ethnic identity). However, no research to date has evaluated whether individual-level informal social controls impact police legitimacy evaluations. Survey data are used to exami...

Two arguments have been advanced regarding the effect of low self-control on the religiosity-crime relationship. The first holds that self-control explains both religiosity and criminal offending (the confounding hypothesis), whereas the second posits that religiosity promotes self-control and indirectly affects antisocial behavior (the mediation h...

Prior research suggests that legal orientations (or domains of legal socialization), such as legitimacy and legal cynicism, influence compliance with the law (or criminal offending). The aim of this study was to assess a potential threat to the internal validity of these findings. Specifically, the authors test whether one potential confounder, low...

Prior research suggests that legal orientations (or domains of legal socialization), such as legitimacy and legal cynicism, influence compliance with the law (or criminal offending). The aim of this study was to assess a potential threat to the internal validity of these findings. Specifically, the authors test whether one potential confounder, low...

Digital piracy is becoming a common criminal behavior. However, criminologists do not have a firm understanding of how self-control, peer association, and neutralization come together to explain digital piracy. Using data from college students' responses to hypothetical scenarios, the present study determines if self-control, peer association, and...

Policing is recognized as a morally dangerous profession. This study extends analyses of police corruption via a scale developed by Carl Klockars by surveying police managers attending the Administrative Officers’ Course at the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville. The findings indicate that these police managers acknowledge th...

Although police misconduct has interested policing scholars for many years, extant research has been largely atheoretical and has ignored the role of organizational justice in understanding the behavior. This study uses survey data from a random sample of 483 police officers employed in the Philadelphia Police Department to explore the role of orga...

This study examines prosecutorial decisions to reject gang-related homicide charges. Focusing on a large, “traditional” gang jurisdiction—Los Angeles—the authors investigate the effect of victim, suspect, and incident characteristics on the likelihood of case rejection for 614 homicide suspects. The data were collected by the Los Angeles District A...

Objective The process-based model has influenced policing research for a number of years, but the role of individual differences on procedural justice judgments and perceived police legitimacy has received limited attention. The current study fills a void in the literature by examining the effect of low self-control on individuals' procedural justi...

A large body of social science literature has focused on the factors that influence sentencing outcomes within the federal court system. A neglected variable in this line of research is the citizenship status of the offender. Using the United States Sentencing Commission’s Monitoring of Federal Criminal Sentences data from 2006, the present study e...

The purpose of the present study is to examine the influence that race, ethnicity, and experience with the courts has on the interconnection between justice, satisfaction with the courts, and attitudes toward the courts. Using national level polling data, the results show that different forms of justice coalesce into a latent measure of justice. Fu...

The purpose of the present study is to examine the influence that sex has on the interconnection between justice, satisfaction with the courts, and attitudes toward the courts. Using national level polling data, the results show that different forms of justice coalesce into a latent measure of justice. Further, the results show that sex differences...

Digital piracy is an emerging criminal behavior. Criminological research has been successful in explaining intentions to commit digital piracy using several different theories. Social learning and self-control have been two of the theories that have consistently been able to explain digital piracy. Importantly, differential association has been sho...

This paper reports the finding from a study that examined the relationship between social bond variables and drunk driving in a sample of university students. A questionnaire containing indicators representing social bond variables, as well as a measure of drunk driving was administered to a sample of 1459 college students. The results of this stud...

The present study addresses the perceptions of university students regarding punishments for individuals whom engage in the online solicitation of children for sex. Differences in biological sex and age of victim and sex of offender may influence university students’ views of punishment for this behavior. Using self-reports from a 2 × 2 × 2 factori...

Digital piracy has been shown to be an emerging societal problem. However, research has demonstrated limited techniques that effectively combat digital piracy. The purpose of the present study is to examine the utility of computer viruses in deterring digital piracy. The findings from responses to a survey of college students revealed that fear of...

Purpose Identity theft is an emerging form of criminal behavior, with complaints about the behavior rising. However, little research has explored the correlates of these complaints, especially state‐level correlates. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state‐level characteristics correlated with identity theft complaints. Design/methodolog...

Research has shown a link between digital piracy and self-control. However, the research focuses on only one version of self-control theory. The purpose of the present study is to examine the link between self-control and digital piracy. Using data from 358 college students, this study shows that all 3 measures of self-control help us understand th...

The rates of digital piracy appear to be increasing, suggesting that additional research that uses new approaches is necessary to evaluate the problem. Using data from undergraduate students (n = 353), the present study explores actual digital piracy and the intention to perform piracy using latent class analysis, develops profiles of these individ...

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