Projects
Criminal Justice Research Partnerships
Partnerships between criminal justice agencies and researchers take many forms, but the objectives are, we believe, the same regardless of the form: using social science methods and findings to better inform the development of strategies, programs, organizational structures, and managerial practices in criminal justice agencies or criminal justice task forces. The Finn Institute has served as the research partner to several localities in upstate New York. We assist with the analysis of crime and other public safety problems, and with the formulation (and refinement) of data-driven strategies for crime reduction; we also evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and assist with the development of systems for crime and intelligence analysis, performance measurement systems, and related programming. More…
Citizen Oversight of the Police
Citizen oversight of the police has proliferated among the larger cities of the U.S., based on the expectations that it would curtail police misconduct and raise the public’s confidence in the police. But social science offers very little empirical evidence to either confirm or refute these expectations. In 2001, one northeastern city established a police review board to provide for citizen oversight, and to learn about how well the new board achieved some of its objectives, Rob Worden and Shelagh Dorn designed and administered surveys of complainants, other people who had contact with city police (i.e., police “clients”), and officers against whom complaints were filed. More…
Juvenile Delinquency Reduction
In 2006, one upstate New York city enlisted the assistance of Institute staff in the development of a juvenile delinquency reduction strategy. Working with the city’s Juvenile Crime Enforcement Coalition (JCEC), a multi-agency group, we conducted a resource and needs assessment, which culminated in a series of strategic recommendations, spanning prevention to intervention. More…
Evaluation of Public Surveillance Cameras
In 2007, serving as the research partner to a County-wide law enforcement task force, the Institute initiated the first phase of a process and outcome evaluation of the County’s Public Surveillance Camera Project (PSCP). The study included an outcome evaluation estimating the impact of the introduction of cameras on crime and disorder. Using a form of interrupted time series analysis (known as Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average [ARIMA] modeling), the effects of camera surveillance on crime and disorder were estimated. The study also included a key informant survey designed to assess the extent to which the cameras bear on citizens’ perceptions of safety and concerns regarding proper use of cameras. Institute staff provided regular feedback to key actors to guide mid-course corrections or modifications to the project, as needed. The Phase I project culminated in a monograph describing the program environment, a description of the phases of the project evolution, core program requirements, and findings from our analysis of crime and disorder reduction effects. More…
Gang Abatement Initiative
The Institute is working with the Schenectady District Attorney’s Office on the development of a Street Gang Abatement Initiative. Plans for the project stem from the Institute’s work with a multi-agency group in Schenectady County focusing on the development of data driven law enforcement strategies that are fair and effective. More…
Crime and Traffic Safety
Rob Worden and Sarah McLean recently finished writing an overview of the theory and practice of DDACTS – Data Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety. DDACTS is an initiative of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which applies traffic enforcement to both traffic safety and crime reduction. In addition, Institute staff are working with partner agencies on the analysis of crash patterns, and also examining the extent to which criminal offending and motor vehicle offending are correlated.
Continuous, Collegiate In-Service Police Training
The Institute is working with the Albany Police Department Training Unit in its efforts to develop an innovative, comprehensive in-service training model: Continuous, Collegiate In-Service Training. This model of in-service training provides for extensive, multi-modality training for all officers in core subject matter, with additional, more specialized training in a set of “tracks” designed for officers’ professional development. The Finn Institute is evaluating the impact of this training model on the retention of training content, officer job satisfaction, and dimensions of police performance, including citizens’ subjective experience in their interactions with officers.
Early Warning Systems for Police Misconduct
Based on the premise that a small set of “problem officers” account for a disproportionate fraction of police misconduct, an early warning system (EWS, also known as an early intervention system) is a management tool used to monitor indicators of misconduct, identify officers who display symptoms of problem behavior, and intervene with counseling, retraining, or other means. From 2001 until 2004, Rob Worden, Shelagh Dorn, Chris Harris, and others worked with one large northeastern police agency to examine cross-sectional and longitudinal patterns of (real and alleged) police misconduct, analyzing up to fifteen years of data on indicators that are commonly incorporated into early warning systems, such as personnel complaints, uses of force, secondary arrests, police-involved vehicle crashes, civil litigation, and others. We also simulated the performance of common mechanisms for selecting officers for an EWS intervention, assessing the accuracy of their predictions, and also evaluated the effectiveness of the agency’s training intervention for problem officers. More…
Procedural Justice in Citizens’ Contacts with the Police
Theory and some empirical evidence suggest that offenders may be less prone to recidivate when their treatment by the legal system conforms to principles of procedural justice. When legal authorities treat offenders with respect and dignity, give offenders an opportunity to tell their side of the story, and act impartially, offenders are more likely to experience the legal process as fair and just, to see the legal system as legitimate, and to feel a stake in the society that the legal system is designed to sustain B and hence less likely to re-offend. We are testing the hypothesis that recidivism is affected by the perceived fairness with which police treat the people whom they arrest. More…
