Zachary A. Powell

California State University, San Bernardino | CSUSB · Criminal Justice

Contemporary discussions on policing focus on the impact of intense external scrutiny on proactive policing practices. Some commentators suggest negative feedback directed at law enforcement inhibits police willingness to engage in proactive police practices. This effect, known as 'de-policing' , endangers communities due to officer disengagement i...

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have been widely adopted in the United States due to their perceived promise of reducing police misconduct through a deterrent or Hawthorne effect. Much of the available evidence indicates that BWCs reduce civilian complaints, use-of-force, and other police misbehavior. However, there is a tendency for existing research to...

American police face considerable criticism from the public about the perceived unnecessary and excessive use of deadly force in civilian interactions. Police reform advocates often call for widespread change to reduce officer-involved shootings and other forms of deadly force. Some, such as California, pursued statewide legal interventions to limi...

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly contributed to stress among people worldwide, with first responders being disproportionately burdened. The enduring impacts and strategies to prevent burnout and recover from the pandemic among policing personnel remain unclear to date. Two-hundred ninety-seven participants from a large US metropolitan police dep...

Over the last 30 years, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has used the pattern-or-practice initiative to implement police reform in maligned law enforcement agencies. Despite the longevity of the program, there is limited empirical evidence that assesses the effectiveness of the initiative, and what evidence exists shows mixed results. This paper adv...

Introduction A study was conducted to investigate if an individual’s trust in law enforcement affects their perception of the emotional facial expressions displayed by police officers. Methods The study invited 77 participants to rate the valence of 360 face images. Images featured individuals without headgear (condition 1), or with a baseball cap...

The stigma associated with incarceration is well documented. Less attention has been directed to the impact of this stigma on those in romantic relationships with partners who are incarcerated (i.e. courtesy stigma). Using semi-structured interviews with 12 women involved in romantic relationships with men who were incarcerated, we explore whether...

Consent decrees, authorized by Section 14141 of the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act, represent one of the most powerful governmental tools used to encourage—and possibly force—police reform. The consent decree process, however, carries a significant fiscal burden; in some cases, the cost of police reform inhibits agencies’ cooperation with the decre...

Examining the environmental correlates of deviant behavior is a large area of interest that continues to promote much research in criminology. Recent attention has been given to understanding the effects of an elevated concentration of offenders on an individual’s likelihood of recidivism. To our knowledge, no study has explored whether an elevated...

Criminological inquiry has recently showcased increased attention toward the near repeat phenomenon, which suggests that following an initial criminal event, there is an increased risk for the occurrence of the same type of event spatially and temporally proximate to the initiating event. The majority of previous research tends focuses on the patte...

W e analyze why domestic homicide rates in a country sending troops into war increase with some international wars, but not others. Drawing from research on the brutalization effect, we first explain how war can have an effect on homicides through individuals learning acceptable behavior from the state. Second, we explain why we observe the brutali...

Warr (2016) recently proposed that remorselessness may offer a useful explanation for understanding persistence and desistance from criminal offending. While early empirical evidence supports this framework, not only is replication needed but there is also a need to consider potential determinants of remorselessness. Using data from the Study of Ea...

Crime and Justice has been published by the University of Chicago Press since 1979, originally as a hardcover annual journal and more recently both in print and electronically. In 2016–17, it was possible to investigate the scholarly influence of 374 articles published in 44 volumes between 1979 and 2015, according to Google Scholar and the Web of...

Work release is a rehabilitation program that offers incarcerated inmates the opportunity to seek employment in a community while serving out their sentence at a penal institution. In theory, working in the community prior to release enables an inmate to have a smoother transition into conventional society, resulting in a decreased likelihood of re...

Research Summary Section 14141 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 granted the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) the authority to investigate, intervene into, and force reforms within any police department deemed to exhibit a pattern or practice of police misconduct. The DOJ's primary enforcement mechanism is to sue the offe...

In the economics and housing literature, the narrative of the " arsonist for profit " is popularized, where a would-be offender destroys personal property for financial gain. More of than not, arson is expected to increase during periods of economic decline. Over a 12-year period, data on this crime and other demographic variables were collected fo...

Purpose – Relying on a moral development theoretical framework, the purpose of this paper is to argue that the perceived seriousness of a particular behavior is a reflection of one’s broader attitudes toward ethical behaviors. Attitudes toward ethical behavior should provide both an elaborated explanation for the relationship between the perceived...

Purpose – Klockars et al. use scenario methodology to measure perceived seriousness, level of discipline warranted, and willingness to report fellow officers engaged in various negative behaviors. These data are used to characterize the occupational culture of integrity in a given agency, relative to other agencies. What remains unclear is whether...