Federal Subsidies and Evidence of Progressive Change

Abstract

This research reviews the history of police change, documents law enforcement's sustained effort to maintain legitimacy through change, and serves as a backdrop for an empirical assessment of recent efforts by law enforcement to adopt meaningful change. This research quantitatively assesses the effects of federal funding on two outcomes: the percentage change in police employment between 1993 and 1999 and an index of progressive policing practices that reflect the community-oriented policing (COP) philosophy. The authors use regression with robust standard errors and a sample of 177 municipal police agencies staffed with 100 or more full-time officers to assess competing explanations for variation in these outcomes. Findings support claims that federal assistance grants contributed to progressive changes for the recipient agencies. Organizations receiving manpower grants increased hiring to a noteworthy extent, and innovation grants were closely associated with reforms in street-level practices. Targeted federal assistance helped municipal police agencies make progressive changes consistent with the COP model.

The use of specialized cybercrime policing units: an organizational analysis

“…Other research, though not always framed explicitly in a contingency perspective, suggests that the adoption of specific innovations by police agencies is linked to environmental contingencies. For example, structural complexity (Damanpour, 1991;1996;Roberts et al, 2012), legislation (Drew, 2011), grant receipt (Helms & Gutierrez, 2007), pressure from the community (Katz, 2001), age of the organization (Katz et al, 2002), form of government (Morabito, 2010), technology (Darroch & Mazerolle, 2012), and department size (Morabito, 2010;Roberts et al, 2012) are all correlated with the adoption of police innovation.…”