The Relationship Between Individual Police Officer Work Habits and the Stated Reasons Prosecutors Reject Their Domestic Violence Investigations

Nelson, Eric L.

doi:10.1177/2158244013511826

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The report may include a description or photographs of any physical injuries incurred by the individuals involved in the incident or statements made by the victim or perpetrator. Spontaneous statements such as "I'll teach her to open her mouth" or "I'll kill the bastard" are particularly useful for prosecutors when challenging the accuracy and truthfulness of testimony (Nelson, 2013). The FRPO's report may also provide contact information for witnesses, who can be served with subpoenas to testify in court.…”

Section: Prosecutorial Charging Decisions Police Investigation and Ipvmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A prosecutor’s decision to accept or reject an IPV case is dependent on the quality of information that the first responding police officer (FRPO) includes in their written report of the incident. Although prosecutors may interview the victim or other witnesses, or hire an investigator to gather additional evidence, their course of action corresponds to “the evidence an officer memorializes in her/his written report” (Nelson, 2013, p. 2). Even with quality FRPO reports, however, there is no guarantee that prosecutors will investigate the crime.…”

Section: Prosecutorial Charging Decisions Police Investigation and Ipvmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing the Impact of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Arresting, Prosecuting, and Convicting Suspects of Intimate Partner Violence

2016

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The perceived benefits that generally accompany body-worn cameras (BWCs) include the ability to increase transparency and police legitimacy, improve behavior among both police officers and citizens, and reduce citizen complaints and police use of force. Less established in the literature, however, is the value of BWCs to aid in the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of intimate partner violence (IPV) offenders. We attempt to fill that void by examining the effect of pre- and post-camera deployment on a number of outcomes related to arrest, prosecution, and conviction. The findings provide initial evidence for the utility of BWCs in IPV cases. When compared with posttest non-camera cases, posttest camera cases were more likely to result in an arrest, have charges filed, have cases furthered, result in a guilty plea, and result in a guilty verdict at trial. These results have several implications for policing, prosecuting, and convicting IPV cases.

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Section: Prosecutorial Charging Decisions Police Investigation and Ipvmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Prosecutorial Charging Decisions Police Investigation and Ipvmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Impact of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Arresting, Prosecuting, and Convicting Suspects of Intimate Partner Violence

2016

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“…The effects of criminal background checks can also differ by race (Pager 2003;Bushway 2004;Funk 2004;Decker et al 2015). Furthermore, magistrates and prosecutors may rely mostly, or solely, on information in the police report without much review (Phillips & Varano 2008;Holleran et al 2010;Nelson 2013Nelson , 2014. Thus, the category of the arrest charge can affect decisions on pretrial detention and bail, which can lead to punishment before the decision of guilt or innocence takes place (Wald 1964;Frazier et al 1980;Spohn 2008), and influence the eventual disposition of the case (Myers 1982;Heaton et al 2017;Leslie & Pope 2016;Dobbie et al 2017a;Stevenson 2017).…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Police Discretion and Racial Disparity in Organized Retail Theft Arrests: Evidence from Texas

Braun¹,

Rosenthal²,

Therrian³

2018

J Empirical Legal Studies

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When definitions of two distinct criminal offenses overlap, power to decide which definition to apply to an arrest devolves to local law enforcement agencies. This discretion can lead to unequal treatment and denial of due process, especially when disadvantaged populations are arrested for nonviolent property crimes. We present a Bayesian analysis of arrests under a vaguely worded statutory scheme for retail theft in Texas, in which a shoplifter who is guilty of property theft is also guilty of organized retail theft. Using arrest data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, we find wide variation across law enforcement agencies in initial charging categories, with black and Hispanic arrestees being charged for the more serious crime more often than white arrestees. The racial discrepancy is greater for agencies serving cities with higher per‐capita income. These results highlight consequences of ambiguous provisions of criminal codes and suggest a method for identifying agencies whose policies may have disparate impact across racial and ethnic groups.

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“…RLE and RGE officers were sorted according to their routine use or non-use of the six optional actions that together comprise the best practices method for the investigation of domestic violence crime (Nelson, 2013a). RLE officers had their cases rejected 270% more often, and were criticized by prosecutors as producing ambiguous investiations with insufficient evidence (Nelson, 2013b). Because some police officer will habitually conduct a minimal DV crime investigation, and no more, the role of patrol sergeants is seen as essential in order to insure that every DV crime is thoroughly investigated.…”

Section: Charges That Can Be Added To Most Investigationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a companion article to the present one (Nelson, 2013b), this author compared routine lesser effort (RLE) officers against routine greater effort (RGE) officers on rates of criminal case filing, and conviction for domestic violence crime. RLE and RGE officers were sorted according to their routine use or non-use of the six optional actions that together comprise the best practices method for the investigation of domestic violence crime (Nelson, 2013a).…”

Section: Charges That Can Be Added To Most Investigationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

If You Want to Convict a Domestic Violence Batterer, List Multiple Charges in the Police Report

Nelson

2014

Sage Open

Self Cite

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Problem: Even though reforms in the past 40 years mandated police response to domestic violence (DV) crime, and in many states also mandated arrest, never-the-less baseline rates of DV prosecution remain low. Background: The nature of prosecution is reviewed, noting that nearly all criminal cases are resolved through plea bargaining in state and federal cases. Thus, the nature of plea bargaining is examined from a perspective of negotiable currency. Past research demonstrates that if multiple crimes are described and listed in the first responding police officer’s written report, there is a substantially greater odds that the suspect will be prosecuted and found guilty. Those extra charges can be dropped by prosecutors in exchange for a plea of guilt. Purpose: This empirical study examines a discretionary best practices crime investigation method that can be operationalized by first responding police officers, in situ, to determine whether its use leads to a significant increase in rates of prosecution and criminal conviction for DV crime. The methodology is the choice to thoroughly investigate each DV crime to uncover concurrent and also past-but-still-chargeable crimes. This optional work is time-consuming because children, neighbors, the 911 caller, and others must be contacted and interviewed. Method: Randomly selected police reports ( n = 366) were found to contain 22 combinations of crime codes listed as violations, for DV and other concurrent crimes. The reports were evaluated on a number of prosecutorial outcomes. Frequency statistics were calculated, and logistic regression was used to confirm key relationships. Results: Only one third of all submitted reports listed more than one crime. For those investigations that did lead to prosecution, 97% resolved through plea bargaining. Most single charge misdemeanor DV police reports were found to be “dead upon arrival” at the prosecutor’s office, with only 29% resulting in any type of criminal conviction. Conversely, reports that list four crimes have a 100% rate of conviction. Three quarters of all “felony” DV, as labeled by police, either resulted in no criminal prosecution or prosecution as a misdemeanor. This replicates a finding of the California State Attorney General who reported a serious problem with police regularly inflating DV charges. Police routinely failed to list children as victims (4% of investigations), even though they could have been listed about 61% to 86% of the time. Conclusions: There is substantial room for investigative improvement by police. A number of easily added crime codes are reviewed in the discussion section. The importance of sergeants sending officers back to the scene of the DV crime, while it is still warm and witnesses and additional evidence are still available is discussed. The article concludes with a prediction: As rates of listing more than one crime in police reports increases, there should follow a significant and permanent increase in rates of prosecution and criminal conviction for DV crime.

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The Relationship Between Individual Police Officer Work Habits and the Stated Reasons Prosecutors Reject Their Domestic Violence Investigations

Cited by 11 publications

References 21 publications

Assessing the Impact of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Arresting, Prosecuting, and Convicting Suspects of Intimate Partner Violence

Assessing the Impact of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Arresting, Prosecuting, and Convicting Suspects of Intimate Partner Violence

Police Discretion and Racial Disparity in Organized Retail Theft Arrests: Evidence from Texas

If You Want to Convict a Domestic Violence Batterer, List Multiple Charges in the Police Report

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