Situational Risk Factors and Decision Making in Police Officers

Swencionis Jillian K, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the psychology of how situations shape police officers' decisions and actions when interacting with community residents in the field. Police officers' core role competencies require them to maintain control, and also to maintain their own legitimacy, during interactions with residents that can be challenging for everyone involved. This project investigates how chronic situations within American patrol policing impacts core role competencies, and subsequent decisions to use force. This project expands and refines scientific theories of when, how, and for whom status and identity correspond with aggression and violence. This research also seeks to benefit society through its findings, contact with officers and residents, and mentorship of undergraduate research scholars. This project investigates how situational vulnerabilities, social status, and social identity predict the per-interaction rate of force in officer-resident interactions. To do so, the investigators will conduct surveys of officers in police agencies across seven U.S. cities, and link officers' survey responses with data describing officers' actual behavior in interactions with residents in the field, including pedestrian and vehicle stops and use of force. This approach enables the investigators to test relationships between situational vulnerabilities and use of force, with situational factors as moderators. To understand the chronic situations of policing from community residents' perspectives, the investigators will also conduct representative surveys of residents in three U.S. cities. These methods also enable controls for neighborhood-level factors, including arrest rates, racial segregation, and income inequality. Together, these studies begin to design a science of chronic situations in powerful institutions within embedded, dynamic social contexts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.