Violence against police officers is a widely held concern for the law enforcement profession. Prior research into this problem has focused almost exclusively on individual, situational, or ecological correlates at the city or higher levels of aggregation rather than at the neighborhood level, potentially masking important local variation. This study examines block-group-level risk factors for serious assaults on police from a criminal opportunity perspective. Data for the study included 603 aggravated assaults on police in Boston, arrestee location data, violent crimes known to the police for the years 1993 to 1999, and 1990 census data. Findings indicate strong associations between serious assaults on police and block groups characterized by high arrestee density, criminogenic conditions, and propensity for violence.

The historic decrease in the crime rate reported within many U.S. cities during the past decade provides an opportunity to determine if police officers would rank other stressors higher when the ubiquitous crime factor is proportionally minimized. This study tests the assumption that law enforcement officers would experience lower levels of stress during an extended period of relatively low crime rates and predominantly report external, non-crime related factors as primary stressors. Stressor sources were measured from a sample of 1,022 police officers within a major northeastern U.S. city during an era of significantly declining crime rates. A description and mean ranking of organizational, job-related, and external stressors were presented for the sample, as were representative ranges of job tenure, rank, gender, race, work shift, and assignment areas. The results indicated generally moderate levels of stress and some distinctions in the variable categories while affirming the significance of select stressors identified within the literature.

There has been a great deal of scholarly and practical discussion regarding treating bias crimes as separate and distinct incidents. Critics assert that bias crimes are not inherently different from comparable nonbias offenses and that the consequences for victims are similar. This study presents findings from an analysis of survey data obtained from bias and nonbias assault victims from the city of Boston. Although there are several limitations to the authors' data, findings from the respondents replicate prior empirical research and indicate that bias crime victims experience more severe psychological sequelae, for a longer period of time, than victims of similar nonbias offenses. Specifically, the level of intrusive thoughts, feelings of safety, nervousness, and depression were all significantly higher for bias crime victims.