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Police style and legally serious crime: A contextual analysis of municipal police departments
Journul All
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Justice
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pp. 401-412
(1992)
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POLICE STYLE AND LEGALLY SERIOUS CRIME: A CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF MUNICIPAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS
JOHN P. CRANK Department of Criminal Justice University of Nevada, Las Vegas Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-5009
ABSTRACT Research on jurisdictional vuriation in styles of policing traditionally has focused on offenses that are not legally serious and that ure thus thought to provide the greatest opportunity for the exercise of discretion. The present reseurch examined variability in police style with regard to legally serious crime, us indicated by arrest practices for Index crime offenses. Factors that lead to jurisdictional variation in legalistic style were assessed among municipal police departments in Illinois. Offense classifications that represent violent crime, property crime, and street crime were selectedfor analysis. Correlates of jurisdictional variation in police style were found to be the concentration of personnel in the lower ranks, police presence, and the height of the organization. The presence of minorities and type of municipal governance also were associuted with jurisdictional variation in police style.
In 1968, with the publication of Varieties Behavior, James Q. Wilson began a tradition of empirical research on the causes of jurisdictional variation in arrest statistics. Wilson presented a typology of police styles to distinguish theoretically among agency-wide propensities to invoke the criminal law for legally nonserious offenses. Police style, as conceptualized by Wilson, was the way in which police responded to discretionary situations commonly encountered in their work, and it was indicated at the aggregate level by jurisdictional variation in police behavior. A legalistic style was suggested by the tendency to respond to a discretionary encounter by enforcing the law, and it was evidenced by proportionally high departmental arrest statistics. of Police
401
Wilson’s research sparked a broad inquiry into organizational and environmental determinants of jurisdictional variation in police behavior (e.g., Langworthy, 1986; Brown, 1981; Swanson, 1978; Talarico and Swanson, 1978). ’ Mastrofski, Ritti, and Hoffmaster (1987: 389) presented a loosely coupled model to account for jurisdictional variation in arrests for drinking-driving offenses. According to this model, increases in size and bureaucratization contributed to the influence of the “informal peer group.” Consequently, administrative policies had less impact on arrest behavior among large than small departments (see also Brown, 1981). Smith and Klein ( 1983) presented a modified Wilsonian
JOHN P. CRANK
402
model of police organizational types, in which police departments were classified as legalistic, service, militaristic, or fraternal. The authors found that the effect of these organizational types on the tendency to arrest was slight, and they concluded that situational factors were more important than organizational characteristics for understanding the tendency to arrest. Swanson (1978) characterized departments as open or closed according to the proportional impact of environmental or organizational factors on arrest statistics. Liska and Chamlin ( 1984) examined crime control among “macrosocial units” (cities larger than 100,000 population); crime control was tapped by city and neighborhood-wide arrest statistics. Crank’s (1990) comparison of variation in jurisdictional arrest statistics among urban and rural departments and Slovak’s ( IY86) examination of arrest statistics and police log books both employed Wilson’s ( 1968) typology of departmental styles, and they identified departments with higher arrest statistics as legalistic.
decision to arrest when circumstances are legally serious. The present research assessed the extent to which various factors are associated with a legalistic police style for legally serious crime. Police legalistic behavior for three types of serious crime was examined: violent crime, crimes of stealth, and motor vehicle theft (selected because it is a type of “street” crime thought to be susceptible to deterrent patrol activity). It is hoped that this research will provide insight into the way particular community and organizational factors independently affect jurisdictional variation in police behavior.
PREDICTORS
STYLE
The present research examined the influence of a variety of contextual factors, both environmental and organizational, that have been associated with aggregate-level police behavior for legally serious crime. Mitlority
Purpose
OF POLICE
Presence
of Research
Research on police legalism traditionally has examined police behavior regarding misdemeanor or otherwise nonserious crime. Police handling of nonserious crime is believed to provide more opportunities for discretion. thus allowing nonlegal factors to affect the decision to arrest (Wilson, 1968). Conscquently, the preponderance of research on jurisdictional variation in police behavior has assessed arrest practices for nonfelony crimes (Crank, 1990; Langworthy, 1986). Nevertheless, interest in jurisdictional variation in arrest behavior for legally serious crime can he discerned in the efforts of some researchers. Swanson ( 1978) identified both environmental and organizational factors that produced variation in arrest behavior for murder and aggravated assault, and Slovak ( 1986) found evidence of variation in arrests for both violent crime and property offenses. These findings suggest that police style, traditionally believed to emerge only in legally anbiguous situations. also may be evident in the
The first contextual influence on police behavior examined in this research was minority group presence (Swanson, 1978). The presence of minority groups in a community frequently has been regarded as a factor explaining police behavior (Bayley and Mendelsohn, 1969). The police presence in minority neighborhoods is often greater than elsewhere (Walker, 1983). Relatedly, the percentage of nonwhites in a community has been linked to fear of crime (Liska, Lawrence, and Benson, I98 I ). These factors contribute to a high arrest rate for minorities. This suggests what Liska and Chamlin ( 1984) have described as a compositional effect at the community level of analysis: as the percentage of nonwhites increases, the total arrest rate for the community also should increase. In the present research, two indicators of minority presence were used to test for the compositional effect suggested by Liska and Chamlin: the percent of the community that is Black and the percent of the community that is Hispanic.
Police Style and Legally
Municipal
Governance
Type of municipal governance has been cited as an important influence on police style (Wilson, 1968). A legalistic policing style and commission-style city governments were historically linked by urban reform efforts at the turn of the twentieth century (Fogelson, 1977). Wilson (1968) observed that municipal governments that reflect a community concern for “good government” were more likely to have legalistic police departments. Langworthy (1985) found empirical support for Wilson’s hypothesis in communities with a citymanager government. The present data allow for a test of the legalistic-good government relationship through comparisons of two types of “good governments,” city manager and commission governments, to traditional mayor-council municipal governments. Geography Two aspects of the geography of the police agency’s jurisdiction were of interest in the present research. First was the urban-rural status of the department. Slovak (1986) suggested that a legalistic style of policing is a latent function of organizational survival in turbulent urban environments. However, there are reasons to suspect that a legalistic police style may be found in a rural environment as well. Rural communities are often more conservative and supportive of the police than urban communities (Kowalewski et al., 1984). Public support for the police provides legitimacy for the interpretation of discretionary encounters as opportunities to arrest (Quinney, 1970). Urban-rural differences have accounted for jurisdictional variation in arrest behavior for misdemeanor crimes (Crank, 1990). An issue related to geography was the presence of a large urban metropolis, Chicago, in a predominantly rural state. The present research assessed whether close proximity to Chicago affected a department’s style of policing. Departments in the Cook County MSA, though small in comparison to the Chicago Police Department, tend to be larger than rural departments with service populations of a similar size. The median number
Serious
403
Crime
of full-time sworn officers per department in the Cook County MSA was 27 at the time of this research. Further, these departments not only are close to Chicago, they are also close to each other: the Cook county MSA contains 179 municipal police agencies. The impact of this regional influence on police arrest behavior has been observed previously by Crank (1990). However, Crank neglected to include other urban or suburban areas in his analysis of policing style; consequently, the regional influence of Cook County, when compared to other urban areas, was untested. The present research, consequently, evaluated differences in police style between the Cook County MSA and other MSAs in Illinois. Organizational
Influences
Various organizational structures have been normatively associated with a legalistic style and, by implication, with “professional” police organizations (Wilson, 1968). The present research assessed four dimensions of police departmental structure that have been associated with a more legalistic policing style. It should be emphasized that these four dimensions do not measure all organizational characteristics associated with a “legalistic” policing style; they were included because they have been of interest in investigations into variability in both the behavior and the structure of police organizations (Crank, 1990; Langworthy, 1986; Walker, 1983) .’ Police Strength Police strength, or the number of police in proportion to the community population, has been historically associated with the production of arrests (Walker, 1983). Increases in the quantity of police have been advocated as a strategy to increase the reactive ability of the police to respond to calls for assistance. Further, an increased police presence may have a deterrent effect on crime. Thus, increases in the sheer number of sworn officers have been made by departments responding to citizen demands to “do something about crime NOW” (Wilson, 1978). However, the effectiveness of such increases is being challenged
404
JOHN P. CRANK
more and more. Sharp increases in police staffing were associated with profound problems of line-level control, training of police personnel, and police crime in Detroit in 1989. Further, the effectiveness of increased personnel is mediated by the specific strategies police employ to control crime. Thus. increasing the size of the police organization, though widely advocated as a crime control strategy that will increase the effectiveness of the department. has produced mixed and conflicting results (Wilson, 1978).
This and the following two mcasurcs of police organizational structure were developed by Blau (1970) in his formal theory of structural differentiation. and they were extended to research on police organizational structure by Langworthy ( 1986) and to police arrest behavior for misdemeanor offenses by Crank ( 1990). Concentration refers to the proportion of officers in the line ranks of a department, and it is a measure of structural differentiation (Langworthy, 1986). The rclationship between concentration and arrest is hypothesized to be direct: increases in the concentration of personnel in the line ranks should contribute to increased numbers ofjurisdiction-wide arrests. Concentration also may be conceptualized as an inverse measure of a latent consequence of efforts to professionalize police organizations. The idea is that reform efforts, concerned with “professionalizing” police organizations through principles of scientific management, had the latent consequence of fostering a police bureaucracy with a large proportion of personnel in supervisor positions (Regoli et al., 1988; Fogelson, 1977). This decreased the proportion of lower-strata personnel directly engaged in street-level activity, including arrest activity. Thus, the police professionalism movement. with its latent conscqucncc of lowering the number of officers at the street level. may have produced the conditions for lower dcpartmental arrest rates. LLlJYr-S Of interest next were organizational layers. a measure of the number of ranks within an
organization. They are also a measure of vertical differentiation (Langworthy, 1986). Like concentration, layers provide an indicator of the bureaucratization of the police organization fostered by the police professionalism movement; thus, layers too arc a latent function of efforts to professionalize the police. The number of layers in an organization has been associated with message distortion and communication distance across the chain of command, which limit a chief’s ability to implcment politics and control behavior across the chain of command (Guyot, 1986). One effect may be to undermine efforts by a chief to limit line-level interpretation of discretion as a decision not to arrest. In other words, one consequence of a tall organizational structure. mcssagc distortion. may be lower arrest rates.
Finally. supervisory ratio refers to the ratio of officers below the rank of sergeant to sergeants. and it is also a measure of administrative overhead (Langworthy, 1986). Decreasing the span of control has been advocated as a strategy to gain increased accountability from line-officers. Decreasing the supervisory ratio enhances the observation of line personnel, and the potential for abuse of discretion is correspondingly minimized (Wilson and McLaren. 1977). Police activity can be channeled into productive arrest-producing activity. Thus, lowering the supervisory ratio may be associated with a more legalistic style of policing.
ME’I-HODS A common practice in research on police style is to construct the sampling frame using large police agencies (Slovak, 1986; Liska and Chamlin, 1984; Swanson, 197X). Yet. of an estimated 16,943 municipal police departments identified in the United States in 1977, more than 90 percent had fewer than SO fulltime sworn officers (Walker, 1983). Thus, research on determinants of police style, conducted among large metropolitan agencies,
Police Style and Legally
effectively has excluded most police departments from the analysis. The present research was conducted among all municipal departments in Illinois serving populations greater than 2,500. This sample provided variety not only in the sizes of communities represented but in other influences, such as the urban or rural status of the department, which cannot be tapped when only large metropolitan departments are examined. Data for this research were compiled from several sources. Police departments were identified through the Illinois Crime Reports (Illinois State Police, 1986). Information on Index offenses was supplied by the Illinois state police. Information on police departmental structure was provided by the Illinois Training Board (Apa, 1986). Data on city governments were obtained from the Municipal Yearbook (International City Management Association, 1986). Demographic data were provided by the U.S. Census of General Population Characteristics (1980). These sources provided information on municipal police organizations in all communities in Illinois larger than 2,500 population (N = 392).’ Measurement
of Variubles
Police style was measured in terms of the aggregate 1986 arrest statistics for offense classifications reported by Illinois municipal police departments to the FBI as Index crimes. Five offense types were examined in this research. Aggravated Battery and Aggravated Assault were utilized because they provided an index of police style with regard to violent crime. The inclusion of Burglary and Theft allowed examination of jurisdictional variability in police style for serious crimes commonly regarded as crimes of stealth. Finally, Motor Vehicle Theft provided a measure of a serious crime that, because of its visibility, may be the most susceptible of the offenses listed above to efforts to increase the number of police in patrol positions (Wilson, 1978) and, by implication, to changes in organizational characteristics tied to the delivery of police services. Descriptive statistics for each offense classification are presented in Table 1.
Serious Crime
405
An inspection of Table 1 reveals substantial differences in the means and medians of the arrest statistics for all offense classifications. Moreover, the standard deviations are consistently larger than the means. An examination of the distribution of these variables revealed the presence of substantial positive skew. A decision was made to use the log transform of these variables in subsequent regression analyses. Predictors Minority Presence was measured by means of two variables. Percent Hispanic represented the percent of the community population identified in the 1980 census as Hispanic. Percent Black represented the percent identified in the 1980 census as Black. City governance was measured through the use of orthogonally structured contrast codes. This coding technique was selected in preference to the more traditional “dummy” variable coding strategy for two reasons: first, orthogonally structured codes do not generate the substantial intercorrelations frequently cited in connection with comparable dummy variables.’ Second, the interpretation of contrast codes is straightforward. Whereas values representing regression coefficients for dummy codes indicate deviation from the mean value of an excluded category, regression coefficients for contrast codes represent deviations from the grand mean, weighted by the contrast value (Cohen and Cohen, 1975). Two measures of city governance were used. Commission contrasted Commission to MayorCouncil and Concil-Manager municipal governments. Council-Manager contrasted the Council-Manager to the Mayor-Council types of municipal government. 5 The geographic predictors also were measured with orthogonally structured contrast codes. Rural contrasted communities located in counties designated rural by the 1980 census with communities in counties designated Metropolitan Statistical Areas by the U.S. Census. Cook contrasted communities located in the Cook County MSA with communities located in other Metropolitan Statistical Areas in Illinois.h
JOHN
P.
CKANK
TABLE 1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS: ARRESTS BY OFFENSE CLASSIFICATION Offense
Classification
Aggravated Battery Aggravated Assault Burglary Theft Theft, Motor Vehicle
Mean
Mediun
Stundurd Deviation
N
104.98 17.69 18.08 103.90 6.41
41 .oo 6.00 6.00 32.00 2.00
212.55 43.42 42.98 187.69 13.52
384 363 385 385 368
Four measures were used to tap organizational variables. Police Strength was determined by dividing the total number of fulltime sworn officers in a department by the total community population. Concentration was computed by dividing the total number of full-time officers below the rank of sergeant by the number of sworn full-time officers. Layers was measured by a simple count of the number of ranks within the police agency. Finally, Supervisoty Ratio was calculated by dividing the total number of sworn full-time patrol officers by the number of sergeants within the police agency. Descriptive statistics of all predictors are presented in Table 2. Substantial differences in the medians and means of two variables, Percent Black and Percent Hispanic, indicated the presence of positive skew. Like the dependent variables, these two variables were log-transformed so that they could be used in regression analyses. The following table presents the intercorrelations among the interval-level variables used in the present research. The predictors Percent Black and Percent Hispanic and the five dependent variables are log transforms. The upper left triangle in Table 3 shows the correlations among the predictors. An inspection of this triangle reveals typically modest correlations. The exception to this pattern is the correlation of - .61 between Supervisory Ratio and Concentration. This strong relationship may be partially a measurement artifact, in that both variables have the same numerator. The lower right triangle shows the correlations among the logged dependent variables. Not surprisingly, these
variables were substantially intercorrelated. The consistently high intercorrelations among these variables suggest that arrest frequencies for legally serious crime are somewhat consistent across jurisdictions-departments that have high rates of arrest for burglary, for example, also have high rates of arrest for theft and aggravated assault, and so on.
FINDINGS Regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between the predictors and arrests for each offense classification. As indicated previously, the predictors for minority presence and the five dependent variables were log transformations of the original data. Findings are presented in Table 4. Minority
Presence
The first area of interest was minority presence. Both measures of minority presence were consistently associated with the logged dependent variables. Increases in Percent Black were associated with increased legalism for Aggravated Buttery (B = .231), Aggravated Assault (B = .277), Burglary (B = .282), Theft (B = .099), and Motor Vehicle Theft (B = ,280). Similarly, increases in Percent Hispanic were significantly associated with increased legalism for Aggravated Battery (B = .294), Aggruvuted Assault (B = .243), Burglary (B = .117), Theft (B = .146), and Motor Vehicle Th& (B = .119). Clearly, a minority presence in the communities surveyed in the present research was associated
Police Style and Legally
Serious
407
Crime
TABLE 2 DESCRIPTIVESTATISTICSOF MEASURESOF ENVIRONMENTAND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Variable Community Culture Percent Black Percent Hispanic City Governance Council-Manager Mayor-Council Urban-Rural Status Cook County Other MSA Rural Organizational Structure Police Strength Concentration Layers Supervisory Ratio
Median
,046 .024
,004 .013
.133 .034
388 389
-
-
-
87 273
-
-
-
161 104 125
,002 .666 3.683 4.120
with increases in arrests for all crime categories, suggesting that police were consistently more legalistic with proportional increases in these minority populations. It should be noted that comparable analysis of these variables was conducted with unlogged independent variables. Substantial improvement in fit was noted in each instance in which variables were logged. An interpretation of the model “fit” with logged variables is that when the percent of these minorities in a community is small, increases in the proportion of minorities are accompanied by proportionally steep increases in arrests. The rate at which police make arrests subsequently declines as the proportion of minorities increases further. In other words, police are more likely to make arrests of Black and Hispanic minorities when the percentages of these groups in communities are relatively small. Though the rate of arrests declines with increases in the percentages of these groups, it does not level out altogether. Municipal
Standard Deviation
Mean
Governance
Of interest next was the influence of city governance on police style. It will be recalled
.002 .667 4.000 4.000
,001 .179 1.108 1.822
N
390 389 391 293
that this variable was constructed so that commission governments were compared to all other types of municipal governments. Table 4 shows that Commission type municipal governments did not differ significantly in legalistic behavior from other types of municipal governments for any offense classification. City Manager governments displayed more legalistic behavior than MayorCouncil governments for three offense classifications, attaining significance for Aggravated Assault (B = loo), Burglary (B = .137), and Theft (B = ,104). These findings indicate that city-manager types of governments are more legalistic than mayor-council types. Thus, findings here generally support similar findings noted by Wilson (1968) and Langworthy (1985), both of whom identified higher arrest frequencies for “good-govemment” cities. Geography The influence of urban-rural status on legalistic behavior was assessed next. Table 4 shows that rural communities infrequently displayed significant variation in arrests for legally serious crime, compared to other
Aggravated Battery Aggravated Assault Burglary Theft Theft, Motor Vehicle
Percent Black Percent Hispanic Police Strength Concentration Layers Supervisory Ratio
.39 .43 .44 .23 .40
1.00 .I8 -.04 -.02 .22 .I2
Percmt Black
.37 .35 .13 .I8 .20
1.00 .21 .I0 .lO .23
Perccwt Hi.ymlic
-.I3 -.08 -.I8 .Ol -.07
1.00 .Oh p.03 .03
Police Stwqth
1.00 .28 .46 .43 .45 .46 .40
.I I .I4 .03 .I I .I5
Layus
1.00 -.21 .61
Concrtmwtim
.31 .32 .21 .34 .32
I .w
Supmisor~ Ratio
TABLE OF CORRELATIONS
TABLE 3
1.00 .x9 .76 .I5 .71
Aggrcwclted Batwr)
1.00 .lO .6X .70
Aggrmtrtcd Assnult
1.00 .69 .69
Burgl~w~
1.00 .61
Thqft
1.00
Theft. Motor Vehicle
Police Style and Legally Serious Crime
409
TABLE 4 THE IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTALAND ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS ON ARRESTS BY OFFENSE CLASSIFICATION Aggravated Battery
Predictors
Community Culture Percent Black Percent Hispanic City Governance Commission City Manager Urban-Rural Rural
Aggravated Assault
b Beta b Beta
.I44 .231* ,422 .294*
b Beta b Beta
,063 .034 .I07 .07 I
-.042 ,024 .I46
b Beta b Beta
- .063 - ,058 - .063 -.040
-.018 -.Ol6 - ,040 -.026
,171 .277* ,345 .243*
loo*
Burglaq
Theft, Motor Vehicle
Theft
.I72 .282* .I62 .117*
,068 .099” .23l
,058 .033 .I99
.I18 ,059 .I71
.137*
.104*
,148 ,280” ,145 .119*
.146*
-.028 -.019 .079 ,064
Status
Cook County Organizational
-.051 - ,047 -.25.5 -. 167*
-.034 - .028 -.I48 - ,086
-.094 -.lOl” -.09l - ,069
Structure
Police Strength Concentration Layers Supervisory Control Independent R’ Contribution Environment Organization Multiple Correlation Explained Variance
b Beta b Beta b Beta b Beta
--410.746 -.181* 2.522 .240* ,507 .325* ,076 ,104
-334.078 -.142* 2.635 .255* .539 .357* -.039 - .054
-332.352 -_ 148* I.774 .174* .602 .397* ,019 ,026
- 152.321 -.06l 2.859 .248* ,733 .427* ,090 .073
-262.801 -_ l24* 3.732 .352” .459 .345* .Ol I ,017
,123 ,185 .7lO .504*
,106 .I45 .650 .423*
.I 14 .I75 ,676 .457*
,029 ,227 ,629 .39.5*
.08 I ,182 ,648 .420*
*Significant, probability less than .05
communities. In only one instance did Rural achieve significance: rural jurisdictions were less likely to show arrests for Motor Vehicle Theft (B = -. 101) than other jurisdictions. Crank’s (1990) finding of urban-rural differences in police style in the handling of mis-
component in police style for legally crime in Illinois.
demeanor crime, then, did not extend to legally serious crime. Also, in only one instance did Cook County police style exhibit significant differences from that of city governments located in other MSAs in Illinois, and this was for Burglary (B = -. 167). These findings thus do not reveal a strong regional
Finally, the influence of organizational structure on police style was assessed. Police Strength significantly affected arrest practices for all but one offense classification. However, the relationship was invariably negative. As the ratio of police to the community population increased, arrests declined
Orgunizutional
serious
Structure
410
JOHN P. CRANK
for Aggravated Battery (B = - .18 I), Aggravated Assault (B = -. 142), Burglary (B = - .148), and Motor Vehicle Theft (B = - ,124). This finding, which extends Crank’s (1990) finding of the same observed relationship for misdemeanor crime, suggests that policies to “do something about crime” may have little success if they rely solely on strategies aimed at increasing the number of police relative to the population of the service community. Because the dependent variables were logged, the negative sign of the unstandardized regression coefficient means that while the relationship was negative, proportionally larger values of the predictor, Police Streqth, were marked by increasingly smaller changes in the dependent variables (Hanushak and Jackson, 1977). A converse pattern of findings emerged for Cmceritrution. Concentration was significantly associated with Aggravuted Batter? (B = .240), Aggrm~ated Assulrlt (B = .255), Burglary (B = .174), Theft (B = .248), and Motor Vehicle Theft (B = ,352). Increases in the number of line officers were, in the present research setting, consistently and positively related to police legalism regarding legally serious crime. The relationship was such that, as the number of line officers compared to the size of the department administration increased, arrests increased at a slightly accelerating rate. The influence of Lugers on arrest behavior was significant for all offense classifications. Layers was positively associated with Aggruvated Buttery (B = ,325). Aggruvated Assuult (B = .357), Burglary (B = .397). Thqft (B = .427), and Motor Vehicle Thqft (B = .345). Increases in organizational height were associated with increased legalistic behavior. The notion that organizational height in some way interferes with departmental tendencies to arrest was not supported by these data. Finally, in no instance did Supervisory Rutio exhibit significant independent effects for any offense classification. Additional insight into the relationships between the predictors and police arrest practices can be gained by comparing the grouped contributions of environmental and organizational factors to the total explained variance in arrests for each offense classification.
For all offense classifications, organizational factors provided a greater independent contribution than environmental factors. The difference between the contributions of organizational and environmental factors was greatest for Theft (R’ difference = ,198) and Motor Vehicle Theft (R’ difference = .lOl). While it must be acknowledged that environmental factors may have yielded indirect effects on arrest statistics through their influence on organizational factors, when the independent effects of both categories of variables were examined, organizational variables were more important for explaining variation in arrest practices for legally serious crime than were environmental factors.
CONCLUSIONS The present research has assessed factors affecting the extent to which police departments in Illinois adopted different policing styles for legally serious offenses. A variety of factors were associated with variability in jurisdictional styles of policing for legally serious crime. The finding of jurisdictional variation in police behavior for legally serious crime extends previous research on police style, which traditionally has focused on misdemeanor crime. Indeed, the factors examined in the present research consistently explained 40 to 50 percent of the variance in police arrest practices. Findings of a relationship between minority representation in a community and the frequency of arrest for legally serious crime provide support for the proposition of Liska and Chamlin (1984) that there is a compositional effect linking the percentage of minorities and jurisdictional arrest practices. Even with a wide variety of organizational and environmental variables acting as controls, both Percent Black and Percent Hispanic consistently exhibited independent effects on arrests for legally serious crime. For communities with a Hispanic presence, these effects were strongest for violent crimes, while for communities with a Black presence, these effects were similar in magnitude for all offense classifications except theft. The nonlinear modeling strategy
Police
Style and Legally
used here, a log-log analysis of the relationship between percentages of minorities and the measures of legally serious crime, produces findings that may be described as a deceleration effect, such that the effect of the presence of minority populations on arrest practices is high when the percentage of the minority population is small but it decelerates with an increasing minority presence in a community. It must be emphasized, however, that the “contextual” effects observed here were at the aggregate level; thus, they do not allow for the influence of the racial or ethnic characteristics of individuals who are arrested. The present research also found that citymanager types of municipal governance were associated with police legalism for three types of legally serious crime. These findings complement related research on city-manager governments and legalism in the treatment of misdemeanor crime (Langworthy, 1985). However, support for the legalism-good government relationship did not extend to commission governments. Organizational factors also displayed independent effects on police behavior. Increases in police strength were negatively associated with police arrest practices for all offense classifications, though the rate of decrease declined as the proportion of police relative to the service population became large. This finding contradicts the view of crimecontrol advocates, who contend that simply adding more police officers will affect crime. On the other hand, it was found that the concentration of personnel in the lower ranks was positively associated with increased aggregate levels of arrests, and it was related in such a way that the rate of increase in arrests tended to increase as the ratio of line personnel to the total number of sworn officers grew. This pattern also was noted for the height of the organization: increases in the number of organizational layers were consistently associated with the tendency of the police to produce arrests for legally serious crime. The patterns of relationships for both police strength and concentration also suggest that latent consequences of the police professionalization movement have resulted in organizational structural patterns inconsistent
Serious
411
Crime
with legalistic behavior. Increases in police strength had a nonlinear adverse effect on arrests for legally serious crime. The concentration of personnel in the lowest ranks may be thought of as an inverse measure of the police bureaucracy that has developed as a latent function of the police professionalization movement. The implication of the findings is that professionalization and legalistic behavior may be, at least with regard to the two latent consequences of police professionalization investigated here, inconsistent and even contradictory phenomena: organizational professionalism has contributed to the development of structures that may inhibit legalistic behavior. The independent effects of race and type of city government on police legalism suggest that the combination of the presence of city managers and minorities intensifies the tendency of the police to display a legalistic style regarding the production of arrests for violent crime and motor vehicle theft. It may be that police departments in mayor-city council government cities are vulnerable to the political power of city council members, who may represent minority or ethnic constituencies and who may express their concerns through political influence when police are perceived as overly aggressive in arrest behavior. Thus, a diverse representation on city councils may have the effect of dampening the arrest behavior of the police, while a city manager holds a post insulated from such influences.
NOTES I. See Worden (1989) views of this literature.
and Sherman
(1980)
for re-
2. The variables used in this research are not exhaustive of the dimensions of organizational structure linked to the production of either police behavior or variability in police organizational structure. An extensive literature has assessed relationships between organizational structure and effectiveness. Langworthy (1985) has provided an excellent discussion of normative theory and police organizational structure. 3. Because of potentially biasing effects in regression analyses stemming from its large size, the Chicago Police Department was not included in this research. 4. Dummy
variables,
when constructed
for multiple
412
JOHN
P. CRANK
categories of the same variables, are inherently correlated (Cohen and Cohen, 1975). Moreover, intercorrelations among dummy variables for multiple levels of the same categoric variable increase in correlation as the sizes of the categories become uneven. In other words, dummy variables are inherently multicollinear. Consequently, the power of analyses using dummy variables constructed from different levels of the same nominallevel variable always will be less than that of corresponding analyses using contrast codes. 5. The following managerial style:
contrast
codes
were
used for city
Department of State Police ( 1986). Crinzr in ItSpringfield, IL: State of Illinois. International City Management Association (1986). Thr municipal yurbook. Washington, D.C.: The International City Management Association. Kowalewski, D.; Hall, W.; Dolan, J.; and Anderson, J. (1984). Police environments and operational codes: A case study of rural setting. J Police Sci A&n 12:36372. Langworthy. R. M. ( 1985). Thr .SIW~II~W r$‘potic~c~ or,qu~ix~tiom. New York: Praeger. ~ (1985). Wilson’s theory of police behavior: A replication of the constraint theory. Jmricc~ Quurfer!) Illinois
timis.
2:X9-98.
City Governance Commission
MayorCouncil
CityManager
-I -1
-I
2 0
Commission City Manager
6. The following mrdl status:
contrast
codes were used for urban-
Urban-Rural
Rural Cook
I
Cook County
Other MSA
-1
-I -I
I
Status Rural Counties
Liska, A. E., and Chamlin, M. B. (1984). Social structure and crime control among macrohocial units. Am J Sot 90:3X3-95.
__
Lawrence, J. J., and Benson, M. (19X1). Perspective\ on the legal order: The capacity for ho&l control. Am J Sot X7:413-26. Maatrofski. S.; Ritti. R. R.; and Hoffmaster. D. (1987). Organizational determinant5 of police discretion: The case of drinking-driving. J Grim Jusr 15:3X7-402. Quinney. R. ( IY70). The .sociu/ rrdiry of‘ c~rimr. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Regoli. R. M.; Crank, J. P.; Culbertson. R. G.: and Poole, E. D. (19X8). Linkage.\ between professionaliration and professionalivn among police chiefs. J C‘rim Jrr.\r 16:X9-98.
2 0
REFERENCES Apa, A. and the Illinoi\ Local Government Law Enforcement Officer’s Training Board ( 19X6). I,ocxrl /
Crank. J. P. (1990). An examination of factors influencing police style in urban and rural communities. J Res Crime 27: 166-89. Fogclson, R. M. (1977). Big-city police. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Guyot. D. ( 1986). Bending granite: Attcmpth to change the rank structure of American police departments. In Po/ic,r crttr,li,~i.s/nrti~~, ismes, cd. M. Pogrcbin and R. Regoli, 43-57. New York: Associated Faculty Press. Hanushak. E. A., and Jackson J. E. (1977). Sttr/i.\tictr/ rnerhods fiv socicrt ,scicr~~i.\t.s. New York: Academic Press.
Sherman. L. (1980). Cause:, 01‘ police behavior: The current htatc of quantitative research. J Rcs C‘rirn I7:6Y- 100. Smith, I>., and Klein, J. (IYX3). Police agency charactcristics and arrest decisions. In Evaluating pcrformance 01. criminal justice agcncles, ed. G. Whitakcr and C. Phillips. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. Swanson, C. (197X). The influence of organization and environment on arrest policies in major U.S. cities. /‘dill\’ Stud J 7:39O&YX. Talarico, S. M.. and Swanson. Jr. C. R., (1978). Styles of policing: A preliminary mapping. Poticl\ Sfurl J 7:399+406. U.S. Census ( 1980). Gcwrtrt potd~~tro~r c~hcrr~to-i.v frc‘.\. Washington. D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Walker. S. (1983). The polio iu Anrcritu. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wilson, J. Q. (197X). The police and crime. In PO/~<.irra: A !,ic~, firm the .sm~~~f. ed. P. K. Manning and J. Van Maanen, 202-13. Santa Monica. CA: Goodyear Publishing. ( 1068). Vurierics of’ poticx, hehrr~vor-. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wilson, 0. W., and McLarcn, R. C. (lY77). Polk ~rct~~~i~~isrrtrrio~z.4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Worden. R. (1980). Situational and attitudinal explanatlonx of police behavior: A theoretical reappraisal and empirical assessment. I,trn, & S/x R 23:667-7 I I
ofCriminu/
rights
reserved.
Justice
Vol.
Printed
in U.S.A.
20,
pp. 401-412
(1992)
0047-2352/92 Copyright
0 1992
Pergamon
$5.00
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POLICE STYLE AND LEGALLY SERIOUS CRIME: A CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF MUNICIPAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS
JOHN P. CRANK Department of Criminal Justice University of Nevada, Las Vegas Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-5009
ABSTRACT Research on jurisdictional vuriation in styles of policing traditionally has focused on offenses that are not legally serious and that ure thus thought to provide the greatest opportunity for the exercise of discretion. The present reseurch examined variability in police style with regard to legally serious crime, us indicated by arrest practices for Index crime offenses. Factors that lead to jurisdictional variation in legalistic style were assessed among municipal police departments in Illinois. Offense classifications that represent violent crime, property crime, and street crime were selectedfor analysis. Correlates of jurisdictional variation in police style were found to be the concentration of personnel in the lower ranks, police presence, and the height of the organization. The presence of minorities and type of municipal governance also were associuted with jurisdictional variation in police style.
In 1968, with the publication of Varieties Behavior, James Q. Wilson began a tradition of empirical research on the causes of jurisdictional variation in arrest statistics. Wilson presented a typology of police styles to distinguish theoretically among agency-wide propensities to invoke the criminal law for legally nonserious offenses. Police style, as conceptualized by Wilson, was the way in which police responded to discretionary situations commonly encountered in their work, and it was indicated at the aggregate level by jurisdictional variation in police behavior. A legalistic style was suggested by the tendency to respond to a discretionary encounter by enforcing the law, and it was evidenced by proportionally high departmental arrest statistics. of Police
401
Wilson’s research sparked a broad inquiry into organizational and environmental determinants of jurisdictional variation in police behavior (e.g., Langworthy, 1986; Brown, 1981; Swanson, 1978; Talarico and Swanson, 1978). ’ Mastrofski, Ritti, and Hoffmaster (1987: 389) presented a loosely coupled model to account for jurisdictional variation in arrests for drinking-driving offenses. According to this model, increases in size and bureaucratization contributed to the influence of the “informal peer group.” Consequently, administrative policies had less impact on arrest behavior among large than small departments (see also Brown, 1981). Smith and Klein ( 1983) presented a modified Wilsonian
JOHN P. CRANK
402
model of police organizational types, in which police departments were classified as legalistic, service, militaristic, or fraternal. The authors found that the effect of these organizational types on the tendency to arrest was slight, and they concluded that situational factors were more important than organizational characteristics for understanding the tendency to arrest. Swanson (1978) characterized departments as open or closed according to the proportional impact of environmental or organizational factors on arrest statistics. Liska and Chamlin ( 1984) examined crime control among “macrosocial units” (cities larger than 100,000 population); crime control was tapped by city and neighborhood-wide arrest statistics. Crank’s (1990) comparison of variation in jurisdictional arrest statistics among urban and rural departments and Slovak’s ( IY86) examination of arrest statistics and police log books both employed Wilson’s ( 1968) typology of departmental styles, and they identified departments with higher arrest statistics as legalistic.
decision to arrest when circumstances are legally serious. The present research assessed the extent to which various factors are associated with a legalistic police style for legally serious crime. Police legalistic behavior for three types of serious crime was examined: violent crime, crimes of stealth, and motor vehicle theft (selected because it is a type of “street” crime thought to be susceptible to deterrent patrol activity). It is hoped that this research will provide insight into the way particular community and organizational factors independently affect jurisdictional variation in police behavior.
PREDICTORS
STYLE
The present research examined the influence of a variety of contextual factors, both environmental and organizational, that have been associated with aggregate-level police behavior for legally serious crime. Mitlority
Purpose
OF POLICE
Presence
of Research
Research on police legalism traditionally has examined police behavior regarding misdemeanor or otherwise nonserious crime. Police handling of nonserious crime is believed to provide more opportunities for discretion. thus allowing nonlegal factors to affect the decision to arrest (Wilson, 1968). Conscquently, the preponderance of research on jurisdictional variation in police behavior has assessed arrest practices for nonfelony crimes (Crank, 1990; Langworthy, 1986). Nevertheless, interest in jurisdictional variation in arrest behavior for legally serious crime can he discerned in the efforts of some researchers. Swanson ( 1978) identified both environmental and organizational factors that produced variation in arrest behavior for murder and aggravated assault, and Slovak ( 1986) found evidence of variation in arrests for both violent crime and property offenses. These findings suggest that police style, traditionally believed to emerge only in legally anbiguous situations. also may be evident in the
The first contextual influence on police behavior examined in this research was minority group presence (Swanson, 1978). The presence of minority groups in a community frequently has been regarded as a factor explaining police behavior (Bayley and Mendelsohn, 1969). The police presence in minority neighborhoods is often greater than elsewhere (Walker, 1983). Relatedly, the percentage of nonwhites in a community has been linked to fear of crime (Liska, Lawrence, and Benson, I98 I ). These factors contribute to a high arrest rate for minorities. This suggests what Liska and Chamlin ( 1984) have described as a compositional effect at the community level of analysis: as the percentage of nonwhites increases, the total arrest rate for the community also should increase. In the present research, two indicators of minority presence were used to test for the compositional effect suggested by Liska and Chamlin: the percent of the community that is Black and the percent of the community that is Hispanic.
Police Style and Legally
Municipal
Governance
Type of municipal governance has been cited as an important influence on police style (Wilson, 1968). A legalistic policing style and commission-style city governments were historically linked by urban reform efforts at the turn of the twentieth century (Fogelson, 1977). Wilson (1968) observed that municipal governments that reflect a community concern for “good government” were more likely to have legalistic police departments. Langworthy (1985) found empirical support for Wilson’s hypothesis in communities with a citymanager government. The present data allow for a test of the legalistic-good government relationship through comparisons of two types of “good governments,” city manager and commission governments, to traditional mayor-council municipal governments. Geography Two aspects of the geography of the police agency’s jurisdiction were of interest in the present research. First was the urban-rural status of the department. Slovak (1986) suggested that a legalistic style of policing is a latent function of organizational survival in turbulent urban environments. However, there are reasons to suspect that a legalistic police style may be found in a rural environment as well. Rural communities are often more conservative and supportive of the police than urban communities (Kowalewski et al., 1984). Public support for the police provides legitimacy for the interpretation of discretionary encounters as opportunities to arrest (Quinney, 1970). Urban-rural differences have accounted for jurisdictional variation in arrest behavior for misdemeanor crimes (Crank, 1990). An issue related to geography was the presence of a large urban metropolis, Chicago, in a predominantly rural state. The present research assessed whether close proximity to Chicago affected a department’s style of policing. Departments in the Cook County MSA, though small in comparison to the Chicago Police Department, tend to be larger than rural departments with service populations of a similar size. The median number
Serious
403
Crime
of full-time sworn officers per department in the Cook County MSA was 27 at the time of this research. Further, these departments not only are close to Chicago, they are also close to each other: the Cook county MSA contains 179 municipal police agencies. The impact of this regional influence on police arrest behavior has been observed previously by Crank (1990). However, Crank neglected to include other urban or suburban areas in his analysis of policing style; consequently, the regional influence of Cook County, when compared to other urban areas, was untested. The present research, consequently, evaluated differences in police style between the Cook County MSA and other MSAs in Illinois. Organizational
Influences
Various organizational structures have been normatively associated with a legalistic style and, by implication, with “professional” police organizations (Wilson, 1968). The present research assessed four dimensions of police departmental structure that have been associated with a more legalistic policing style. It should be emphasized that these four dimensions do not measure all organizational characteristics associated with a “legalistic” policing style; they were included because they have been of interest in investigations into variability in both the behavior and the structure of police organizations (Crank, 1990; Langworthy, 1986; Walker, 1983) .’ Police Strength Police strength, or the number of police in proportion to the community population, has been historically associated with the production of arrests (Walker, 1983). Increases in the quantity of police have been advocated as a strategy to increase the reactive ability of the police to respond to calls for assistance. Further, an increased police presence may have a deterrent effect on crime. Thus, increases in the sheer number of sworn officers have been made by departments responding to citizen demands to “do something about crime NOW” (Wilson, 1978). However, the effectiveness of such increases is being challenged
404
JOHN P. CRANK
more and more. Sharp increases in police staffing were associated with profound problems of line-level control, training of police personnel, and police crime in Detroit in 1989. Further, the effectiveness of increased personnel is mediated by the specific strategies police employ to control crime. Thus. increasing the size of the police organization, though widely advocated as a crime control strategy that will increase the effectiveness of the department. has produced mixed and conflicting results (Wilson, 1978).
This and the following two mcasurcs of police organizational structure were developed by Blau (1970) in his formal theory of structural differentiation. and they were extended to research on police organizational structure by Langworthy ( 1986) and to police arrest behavior for misdemeanor offenses by Crank ( 1990). Concentration refers to the proportion of officers in the line ranks of a department, and it is a measure of structural differentiation (Langworthy, 1986). The rclationship between concentration and arrest is hypothesized to be direct: increases in the concentration of personnel in the line ranks should contribute to increased numbers ofjurisdiction-wide arrests. Concentration also may be conceptualized as an inverse measure of a latent consequence of efforts to professionalize police organizations. The idea is that reform efforts, concerned with “professionalizing” police organizations through principles of scientific management, had the latent consequence of fostering a police bureaucracy with a large proportion of personnel in supervisor positions (Regoli et al., 1988; Fogelson, 1977). This decreased the proportion of lower-strata personnel directly engaged in street-level activity, including arrest activity. Thus, the police professionalism movement. with its latent conscqucncc of lowering the number of officers at the street level. may have produced the conditions for lower dcpartmental arrest rates. LLlJYr-S Of interest next were organizational layers. a measure of the number of ranks within an
organization. They are also a measure of vertical differentiation (Langworthy, 1986). Like concentration, layers provide an indicator of the bureaucratization of the police organization fostered by the police professionalism movement; thus, layers too arc a latent function of efforts to professionalize the police. The number of layers in an organization has been associated with message distortion and communication distance across the chain of command, which limit a chief’s ability to implcment politics and control behavior across the chain of command (Guyot, 1986). One effect may be to undermine efforts by a chief to limit line-level interpretation of discretion as a decision not to arrest. In other words, one consequence of a tall organizational structure. mcssagc distortion. may be lower arrest rates.
Finally. supervisory ratio refers to the ratio of officers below the rank of sergeant to sergeants. and it is also a measure of administrative overhead (Langworthy, 1986). Decreasing the span of control has been advocated as a strategy to gain increased accountability from line-officers. Decreasing the supervisory ratio enhances the observation of line personnel, and the potential for abuse of discretion is correspondingly minimized (Wilson and McLaren. 1977). Police activity can be channeled into productive arrest-producing activity. Thus, lowering the supervisory ratio may be associated with a more legalistic style of policing.
ME’I-HODS A common practice in research on police style is to construct the sampling frame using large police agencies (Slovak, 1986; Liska and Chamlin, 1984; Swanson, 197X). Yet. of an estimated 16,943 municipal police departments identified in the United States in 1977, more than 90 percent had fewer than SO fulltime sworn officers (Walker, 1983). Thus, research on determinants of police style, conducted among large metropolitan agencies,
Police Style and Legally
effectively has excluded most police departments from the analysis. The present research was conducted among all municipal departments in Illinois serving populations greater than 2,500. This sample provided variety not only in the sizes of communities represented but in other influences, such as the urban or rural status of the department, which cannot be tapped when only large metropolitan departments are examined. Data for this research were compiled from several sources. Police departments were identified through the Illinois Crime Reports (Illinois State Police, 1986). Information on Index offenses was supplied by the Illinois state police. Information on police departmental structure was provided by the Illinois Training Board (Apa, 1986). Data on city governments were obtained from the Municipal Yearbook (International City Management Association, 1986). Demographic data were provided by the U.S. Census of General Population Characteristics (1980). These sources provided information on municipal police organizations in all communities in Illinois larger than 2,500 population (N = 392).’ Measurement
of Variubles
Police style was measured in terms of the aggregate 1986 arrest statistics for offense classifications reported by Illinois municipal police departments to the FBI as Index crimes. Five offense types were examined in this research. Aggravated Battery and Aggravated Assault were utilized because they provided an index of police style with regard to violent crime. The inclusion of Burglary and Theft allowed examination of jurisdictional variability in police style for serious crimes commonly regarded as crimes of stealth. Finally, Motor Vehicle Theft provided a measure of a serious crime that, because of its visibility, may be the most susceptible of the offenses listed above to efforts to increase the number of police in patrol positions (Wilson, 1978) and, by implication, to changes in organizational characteristics tied to the delivery of police services. Descriptive statistics for each offense classification are presented in Table 1.
Serious Crime
405
An inspection of Table 1 reveals substantial differences in the means and medians of the arrest statistics for all offense classifications. Moreover, the standard deviations are consistently larger than the means. An examination of the distribution of these variables revealed the presence of substantial positive skew. A decision was made to use the log transform of these variables in subsequent regression analyses. Predictors Minority Presence was measured by means of two variables. Percent Hispanic represented the percent of the community population identified in the 1980 census as Hispanic. Percent Black represented the percent identified in the 1980 census as Black. City governance was measured through the use of orthogonally structured contrast codes. This coding technique was selected in preference to the more traditional “dummy” variable coding strategy for two reasons: first, orthogonally structured codes do not generate the substantial intercorrelations frequently cited in connection with comparable dummy variables.’ Second, the interpretation of contrast codes is straightforward. Whereas values representing regression coefficients for dummy codes indicate deviation from the mean value of an excluded category, regression coefficients for contrast codes represent deviations from the grand mean, weighted by the contrast value (Cohen and Cohen, 1975). Two measures of city governance were used. Commission contrasted Commission to MayorCouncil and Concil-Manager municipal governments. Council-Manager contrasted the Council-Manager to the Mayor-Council types of municipal government. 5 The geographic predictors also were measured with orthogonally structured contrast codes. Rural contrasted communities located in counties designated rural by the 1980 census with communities in counties designated Metropolitan Statistical Areas by the U.S. Census. Cook contrasted communities located in the Cook County MSA with communities located in other Metropolitan Statistical Areas in Illinois.h
JOHN
P.
CKANK
TABLE 1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS: ARRESTS BY OFFENSE CLASSIFICATION Offense
Classification
Aggravated Battery Aggravated Assault Burglary Theft Theft, Motor Vehicle
Mean
Mediun
Stundurd Deviation
N
104.98 17.69 18.08 103.90 6.41
41 .oo 6.00 6.00 32.00 2.00
212.55 43.42 42.98 187.69 13.52
384 363 385 385 368
Four measures were used to tap organizational variables. Police Strength was determined by dividing the total number of fulltime sworn officers in a department by the total community population. Concentration was computed by dividing the total number of full-time officers below the rank of sergeant by the number of sworn full-time officers. Layers was measured by a simple count of the number of ranks within the police agency. Finally, Supervisoty Ratio was calculated by dividing the total number of sworn full-time patrol officers by the number of sergeants within the police agency. Descriptive statistics of all predictors are presented in Table 2. Substantial differences in the medians and means of two variables, Percent Black and Percent Hispanic, indicated the presence of positive skew. Like the dependent variables, these two variables were log-transformed so that they could be used in regression analyses. The following table presents the intercorrelations among the interval-level variables used in the present research. The predictors Percent Black and Percent Hispanic and the five dependent variables are log transforms. The upper left triangle in Table 3 shows the correlations among the predictors. An inspection of this triangle reveals typically modest correlations. The exception to this pattern is the correlation of - .61 between Supervisory Ratio and Concentration. This strong relationship may be partially a measurement artifact, in that both variables have the same numerator. The lower right triangle shows the correlations among the logged dependent variables. Not surprisingly, these
variables were substantially intercorrelated. The consistently high intercorrelations among these variables suggest that arrest frequencies for legally serious crime are somewhat consistent across jurisdictions-departments that have high rates of arrest for burglary, for example, also have high rates of arrest for theft and aggravated assault, and so on.
FINDINGS Regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between the predictors and arrests for each offense classification. As indicated previously, the predictors for minority presence and the five dependent variables were log transformations of the original data. Findings are presented in Table 4. Minority
Presence
The first area of interest was minority presence. Both measures of minority presence were consistently associated with the logged dependent variables. Increases in Percent Black were associated with increased legalism for Aggravated Buttery (B = .231), Aggravated Assault (B = .277), Burglary (B = .282), Theft (B = .099), and Motor Vehicle Theft (B = ,280). Similarly, increases in Percent Hispanic were significantly associated with increased legalism for Aggravated Battery (B = .294), Aggruvuted Assault (B = .243), Burglary (B = .117), Theft (B = .146), and Motor Vehicle Th& (B = .119). Clearly, a minority presence in the communities surveyed in the present research was associated
Police Style and Legally
Serious
407
Crime
TABLE 2 DESCRIPTIVESTATISTICSOF MEASURESOF ENVIRONMENTAND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Variable Community Culture Percent Black Percent Hispanic City Governance Council-Manager Mayor-Council Urban-Rural Status Cook County Other MSA Rural Organizational Structure Police Strength Concentration Layers Supervisory Ratio
Median
,046 .024
,004 .013
.133 .034
388 389
-
-
-
87 273
-
-
-
161 104 125
,002 .666 3.683 4.120
with increases in arrests for all crime categories, suggesting that police were consistently more legalistic with proportional increases in these minority populations. It should be noted that comparable analysis of these variables was conducted with unlogged independent variables. Substantial improvement in fit was noted in each instance in which variables were logged. An interpretation of the model “fit” with logged variables is that when the percent of these minorities in a community is small, increases in the proportion of minorities are accompanied by proportionally steep increases in arrests. The rate at which police make arrests subsequently declines as the proportion of minorities increases further. In other words, police are more likely to make arrests of Black and Hispanic minorities when the percentages of these groups in communities are relatively small. Though the rate of arrests declines with increases in the percentages of these groups, it does not level out altogether. Municipal
Standard Deviation
Mean
Governance
Of interest next was the influence of city governance on police style. It will be recalled
.002 .667 4.000 4.000
,001 .179 1.108 1.822
N
390 389 391 293
that this variable was constructed so that commission governments were compared to all other types of municipal governments. Table 4 shows that Commission type municipal governments did not differ significantly in legalistic behavior from other types of municipal governments for any offense classification. City Manager governments displayed more legalistic behavior than MayorCouncil governments for three offense classifications, attaining significance for Aggravated Assault (B = loo), Burglary (B = .137), and Theft (B = ,104). These findings indicate that city-manager types of governments are more legalistic than mayor-council types. Thus, findings here generally support similar findings noted by Wilson (1968) and Langworthy (1985), both of whom identified higher arrest frequencies for “good-govemment” cities. Geography The influence of urban-rural status on legalistic behavior was assessed next. Table 4 shows that rural communities infrequently displayed significant variation in arrests for legally serious crime, compared to other
Aggravated Battery Aggravated Assault Burglary Theft Theft, Motor Vehicle
Percent Black Percent Hispanic Police Strength Concentration Layers Supervisory Ratio
.39 .43 .44 .23 .40
1.00 .I8 -.04 -.02 .22 .I2
Percmt Black
.37 .35 .13 .I8 .20
1.00 .21 .I0 .lO .23
Perccwt Hi.ymlic
-.I3 -.08 -.I8 .Ol -.07
1.00 .Oh p.03 .03
Police Stwqth
1.00 .28 .46 .43 .45 .46 .40
.I I .I4 .03 .I I .I5
Layus
1.00 -.21 .61
Concrtmwtim
.31 .32 .21 .34 .32
I .w
Supmisor~ Ratio
TABLE OF CORRELATIONS
TABLE 3
1.00 .x9 .76 .I5 .71
Aggrcwclted Batwr)
1.00 .lO .6X .70
Aggrmtrtcd Assnult
1.00 .69 .69
Burgl~w~
1.00 .61
Thqft
1.00
Theft. Motor Vehicle
Police Style and Legally Serious Crime
409
TABLE 4 THE IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTALAND ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS ON ARRESTS BY OFFENSE CLASSIFICATION Aggravated Battery
Predictors
Community Culture Percent Black Percent Hispanic City Governance Commission City Manager Urban-Rural Rural
Aggravated Assault
b Beta b Beta
.I44 .231* ,422 .294*
b Beta b Beta
,063 .034 .I07 .07 I
-.042 ,024 .I46
b Beta b Beta
- .063 - ,058 - .063 -.040
-.018 -.Ol6 - ,040 -.026
,171 .277* ,345 .243*
loo*
Burglaq
Theft, Motor Vehicle
Theft
.I72 .282* .I62 .117*
,068 .099” .23l
,058 .033 .I99
.I18 ,059 .I71
.137*
.104*
,148 ,280” ,145 .119*
.146*
-.028 -.019 .079 ,064
Status
Cook County Organizational
-.051 - ,047 -.25.5 -. 167*
-.034 - .028 -.I48 - ,086
-.094 -.lOl” -.09l - ,069
Structure
Police Strength Concentration Layers Supervisory Control Independent R’ Contribution Environment Organization Multiple Correlation Explained Variance
b Beta b Beta b Beta b Beta
--410.746 -.181* 2.522 .240* ,507 .325* ,076 ,104
-334.078 -.142* 2.635 .255* .539 .357* -.039 - .054
-332.352 -_ 148* I.774 .174* .602 .397* ,019 ,026
- 152.321 -.06l 2.859 .248* ,733 .427* ,090 .073
-262.801 -_ l24* 3.732 .352” .459 .345* .Ol I ,017
,123 ,185 .7lO .504*
,106 .I45 .650 .423*
.I 14 .I75 ,676 .457*
,029 ,227 ,629 .39.5*
.08 I ,182 ,648 .420*
*Significant, probability less than .05
communities. In only one instance did Rural achieve significance: rural jurisdictions were less likely to show arrests for Motor Vehicle Theft (B = -. 101) than other jurisdictions. Crank’s (1990) finding of urban-rural differences in police style in the handling of mis-
component in police style for legally crime in Illinois.
demeanor crime, then, did not extend to legally serious crime. Also, in only one instance did Cook County police style exhibit significant differences from that of city governments located in other MSAs in Illinois, and this was for Burglary (B = -. 167). These findings thus do not reveal a strong regional
Finally, the influence of organizational structure on police style was assessed. Police Strength significantly affected arrest practices for all but one offense classification. However, the relationship was invariably negative. As the ratio of police to the community population increased, arrests declined
Orgunizutional
serious
Structure
410
JOHN P. CRANK
for Aggravated Battery (B = - .18 I), Aggravated Assault (B = -. 142), Burglary (B = - .148), and Motor Vehicle Theft (B = - ,124). This finding, which extends Crank’s (1990) finding of the same observed relationship for misdemeanor crime, suggests that policies to “do something about crime” may have little success if they rely solely on strategies aimed at increasing the number of police relative to the population of the service community. Because the dependent variables were logged, the negative sign of the unstandardized regression coefficient means that while the relationship was negative, proportionally larger values of the predictor, Police Streqth, were marked by increasingly smaller changes in the dependent variables (Hanushak and Jackson, 1977). A converse pattern of findings emerged for Cmceritrution. Concentration was significantly associated with Aggravuted Batter? (B = .240), Aggrm~ated Assulrlt (B = .255), Burglary (B = .174), Theft (B = .248), and Motor Vehicle Theft (B = ,352). Increases in the number of line officers were, in the present research setting, consistently and positively related to police legalism regarding legally serious crime. The relationship was such that, as the number of line officers compared to the size of the department administration increased, arrests increased at a slightly accelerating rate. The influence of Lugers on arrest behavior was significant for all offense classifications. Layers was positively associated with Aggruvated Buttery (B = ,325). Aggruvated Assuult (B = .357), Burglary (B = .397). Thqft (B = .427), and Motor Vehicle Thqft (B = .345). Increases in organizational height were associated with increased legalistic behavior. The notion that organizational height in some way interferes with departmental tendencies to arrest was not supported by these data. Finally, in no instance did Supervisory Rutio exhibit significant independent effects for any offense classification. Additional insight into the relationships between the predictors and police arrest practices can be gained by comparing the grouped contributions of environmental and organizational factors to the total explained variance in arrests for each offense classification.
For all offense classifications, organizational factors provided a greater independent contribution than environmental factors. The difference between the contributions of organizational and environmental factors was greatest for Theft (R’ difference = ,198) and Motor Vehicle Theft (R’ difference = .lOl). While it must be acknowledged that environmental factors may have yielded indirect effects on arrest statistics through their influence on organizational factors, when the independent effects of both categories of variables were examined, organizational variables were more important for explaining variation in arrest practices for legally serious crime than were environmental factors.
CONCLUSIONS The present research has assessed factors affecting the extent to which police departments in Illinois adopted different policing styles for legally serious offenses. A variety of factors were associated with variability in jurisdictional styles of policing for legally serious crime. The finding of jurisdictional variation in police behavior for legally serious crime extends previous research on police style, which traditionally has focused on misdemeanor crime. Indeed, the factors examined in the present research consistently explained 40 to 50 percent of the variance in police arrest practices. Findings of a relationship between minority representation in a community and the frequency of arrest for legally serious crime provide support for the proposition of Liska and Chamlin (1984) that there is a compositional effect linking the percentage of minorities and jurisdictional arrest practices. Even with a wide variety of organizational and environmental variables acting as controls, both Percent Black and Percent Hispanic consistently exhibited independent effects on arrests for legally serious crime. For communities with a Hispanic presence, these effects were strongest for violent crimes, while for communities with a Black presence, these effects were similar in magnitude for all offense classifications except theft. The nonlinear modeling strategy
Police
Style and Legally
used here, a log-log analysis of the relationship between percentages of minorities and the measures of legally serious crime, produces findings that may be described as a deceleration effect, such that the effect of the presence of minority populations on arrest practices is high when the percentage of the minority population is small but it decelerates with an increasing minority presence in a community. It must be emphasized, however, that the “contextual” effects observed here were at the aggregate level; thus, they do not allow for the influence of the racial or ethnic characteristics of individuals who are arrested. The present research also found that citymanager types of municipal governance were associated with police legalism for three types of legally serious crime. These findings complement related research on city-manager governments and legalism in the treatment of misdemeanor crime (Langworthy, 1985). However, support for the legalism-good government relationship did not extend to commission governments. Organizational factors also displayed independent effects on police behavior. Increases in police strength were negatively associated with police arrest practices for all offense classifications, though the rate of decrease declined as the proportion of police relative to the service population became large. This finding contradicts the view of crimecontrol advocates, who contend that simply adding more police officers will affect crime. On the other hand, it was found that the concentration of personnel in the lower ranks was positively associated with increased aggregate levels of arrests, and it was related in such a way that the rate of increase in arrests tended to increase as the ratio of line personnel to the total number of sworn officers grew. This pattern also was noted for the height of the organization: increases in the number of organizational layers were consistently associated with the tendency of the police to produce arrests for legally serious crime. The patterns of relationships for both police strength and concentration also suggest that latent consequences of the police professionalization movement have resulted in organizational structural patterns inconsistent
Serious
411
Crime
with legalistic behavior. Increases in police strength had a nonlinear adverse effect on arrests for legally serious crime. The concentration of personnel in the lowest ranks may be thought of as an inverse measure of the police bureaucracy that has developed as a latent function of the police professionalization movement. The implication of the findings is that professionalization and legalistic behavior may be, at least with regard to the two latent consequences of police professionalization investigated here, inconsistent and even contradictory phenomena: organizational professionalism has contributed to the development of structures that may inhibit legalistic behavior. The independent effects of race and type of city government on police legalism suggest that the combination of the presence of city managers and minorities intensifies the tendency of the police to display a legalistic style regarding the production of arrests for violent crime and motor vehicle theft. It may be that police departments in mayor-city council government cities are vulnerable to the political power of city council members, who may represent minority or ethnic constituencies and who may express their concerns through political influence when police are perceived as overly aggressive in arrest behavior. Thus, a diverse representation on city councils may have the effect of dampening the arrest behavior of the police, while a city manager holds a post insulated from such influences.
NOTES I. See Worden (1989) views of this literature.
and Sherman
(1980)
for re-
2. The variables used in this research are not exhaustive of the dimensions of organizational structure linked to the production of either police behavior or variability in police organizational structure. An extensive literature has assessed relationships between organizational structure and effectiveness. Langworthy (1985) has provided an excellent discussion of normative theory and police organizational structure. 3. Because of potentially biasing effects in regression analyses stemming from its large size, the Chicago Police Department was not included in this research. 4. Dummy
variables,
when constructed
for multiple
412
JOHN
P. CRANK
categories of the same variables, are inherently correlated (Cohen and Cohen, 1975). Moreover, intercorrelations among dummy variables for multiple levels of the same categoric variable increase in correlation as the sizes of the categories become uneven. In other words, dummy variables are inherently multicollinear. Consequently, the power of analyses using dummy variables constructed from different levels of the same nominallevel variable always will be less than that of corresponding analyses using contrast codes. 5. The following managerial style:
contrast
codes
were
used for city
Department of State Police ( 1986). Crinzr in ItSpringfield, IL: State of Illinois. International City Management Association (1986). Thr municipal yurbook. Washington, D.C.: The International City Management Association. Kowalewski, D.; Hall, W.; Dolan, J.; and Anderson, J. (1984). Police environments and operational codes: A case study of rural setting. J Police Sci A&n 12:36372. Langworthy. R. M. ( 1985). Thr .SIW~II~W r$‘potic~c~ or,qu~ix~tiom. New York: Praeger. ~ (1985). Wilson’s theory of police behavior: A replication of the constraint theory. Jmricc~ Quurfer!) Illinois
timis.
2:X9-98.
City Governance Commission
MayorCouncil
CityManager
-I -1
-I
2 0
Commission City Manager
6. The following mrdl status:
contrast
codes were used for urban-
Urban-Rural
Rural Cook
I
Cook County
Other MSA
-1
-I -I
I
Status Rural Counties
Liska, A. E., and Chamlin, M. B. (1984). Social structure and crime control among macrohocial units. Am J Sot 90:3X3-95.
__
Lawrence, J. J., and Benson, M. (19X1). Perspective\ on the legal order: The capacity for ho&l control. Am J Sot X7:413-26. Maatrofski. S.; Ritti. R. R.; and Hoffmaster. D. (1987). Organizational determinant5 of police discretion: The case of drinking-driving. J Grim Jusr 15:3X7-402. Quinney. R. ( IY70). The .sociu/ rrdiry of‘ c~rimr. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Regoli. R. M.; Crank, J. P.; Culbertson. R. G.: and Poole, E. D. (19X8). Linkage.\ between professionaliration and professionalivn among police chiefs. J C‘rim Jrr.\r 16:X9-98.
2 0
REFERENCES Apa, A. and the Illinoi\ Local Government Law Enforcement Officer’s Training Board ( 19X6). I,ocxrl /
Crank. J. P. (1990). An examination of factors influencing police style in urban and rural communities. J Res Crime 27: 166-89. Fogclson, R. M. (1977). Big-city police. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Guyot. D. ( 1986). Bending granite: Attcmpth to change the rank structure of American police departments. In Po/ic,r crttr,li,~i.s/nrti~~, ismes, cd. M. Pogrcbin and R. Regoli, 43-57. New York: Associated Faculty Press. Hanushak. E. A., and Jackson J. E. (1977). Sttr/i.\tictr/ rnerhods fiv socicrt ,scicr~~i.\t.s. New York: Academic Press.
Sherman. L. (1980). Cause:, 01‘ police behavior: The current htatc of quantitative research. J Rcs C‘rirn I7:6Y- 100. Smith, I>., and Klein, J. (IYX3). Police agency charactcristics and arrest decisions. In Evaluating pcrformance 01. criminal justice agcncles, ed. G. Whitakcr and C. Phillips. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. Swanson, C. (197X). The influence of organization and environment on arrest policies in major U.S. cities. /‘dill\’ Stud J 7:39O&YX. Talarico, S. M.. and Swanson. Jr. C. R., (1978). Styles of policing: A preliminary mapping. Poticl\ Sfurl J 7:399+406. U.S. Census ( 1980). Gcwrtrt potd~~tro~r c~hcrr~to-i.v frc‘.\. Washington. D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Walker. S. (1983). The polio iu Anrcritu. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wilson, J. Q. (197X). The police and crime. In PO/~<.irra: A !,ic~, firm the .sm~~~f. ed. P. K. Manning and J. Van Maanen, 202-13. Santa Monica. CA: Goodyear Publishing. ( 1068). Vurierics of’ poticx, hehrr~vor-. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wilson, 0. W., and McLarcn, R. C. (lY77). Polk ~rct~~~i~~isrrtrrio~z.4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Worden. R. (1980). Situational and attitudinal explanatlonx of police behavior: A theoretical reappraisal and empirical assessment. I,trn, & S/x R 23:667-7 I I