Policing a Free Society.

At present, the average homicide clearance rate in the United States is approximately 65%, down roughly 15% from the mid-1970s. This research seeks to inform how police can best improve homicide clearance rates by identifying best practices in homicide investigations. To accomplish this goal, as part of a federally funded project, seven geographically representative law enforcement agencies were identified that had at least 24 homicides in 2011 and had a clearance rate of 80% or higher from which effective investigative practices could be gleaned. Qualitative findings indicate that a strong community policing presence, collaboration with external agencies, and an innovative culture facilitate high rates of homicide clearance. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

/pdf/effective-police-homicide-investigations-evidence-from-seven-1ojd477k7p.pdf

Effective Police Homicide Investigations Evidence From Seven Cities With High Clearance Rates

The need for rapid response has been a perennial issue in policing. Although several studies have examined the effect of response time on apprehension probability, little attention has been given t...

Police Response Time to In-Progress Burglary: A Multilevel Analysis

Research in the area of corrections is expansive in its breadth, impressive in its depth, and grows with each year that passes. We know so much more about the correctional enterprise than we knew even just a decade ago, and yet there is still so much uncharted territory and so much we could learn. In this article, we review key research findings in the four areas of mass incarceration, community corrections, institutional corrections, and prisoner reentry. We focus specifically on the past 10 years and, with an eye toward mapping uncharted or underexplored territory, we offer directions for future research in these areas. Although it is impossible to provide a comprehensive roadmap for future corrections research, we hope to have identified sufficient new directions to further (and perhaps even complicate) understandings of corrections in the broader context of justice research.

New Directions in Correctional Research

Quelles sont les dynamiques de l'enquete criminelle ? 
Une demarche relative a sa performance revet-elle un interet ?

La presente etude aborde le travail d'investigation dans une approche qui se souhaite originale et pluri-disciplinaire. 

D'abord, dans le cadre d'un etat de l'art, l'enquete est decrite dans ses differents aspects au travers :
- des concepts qui l'animent (processus d'information, technologie de savoir, moyen de production d'une verite) ;
- de ses evolutions et de ses adaptations au contexte (historique, institutionnel, criminel) ;
- des mythes et realites qui construisent l'identite de l'enqueteur ;
- des processus qui l'animent et des parametres qui fondent son systeme ;
- de l'analyse de ses facteurs de performance.

Ensuite, une experimentation empirique est realisee aupres de trois services de la gendarmerie et de la police francaise de 2012 a 2017.
Elle permet de realiser un examen de l'enquete et du systeme de representation de l'enqueteur en croisant trois approches :
- une etude quantitative de 600 procedures judiciaires courantes au prisme de 130 facteurs ;
- une etude qualitative de 3 enquetes relatives a des faits graves et complexes ;
- une etude subjective dans le cadre d'un sondage aupres de 900 enqueteurs.

Analysant l'influence reelle et percue des facteurs institutionnels et non institutionnels, cette these expose les equilibres subtils des jeux de pouvoirs entre les acteurs de l'enquete, entre la transparence et le secret, entre l'efficacite policiere et la protection des libertes individuelles, entre le role des hommes et celui des structures. 
Ce travail de recherche propose la creation d'un dispositif auto-apprenant en matiere d'investigation judiciaire. Au regard des evolutions de la societe, il interroge la legitimite de l'enquete parmi les autres modes de regulation sociale.

 = 

What are the dynamics of the criminal investigation?
Does the performance related approach represent an interest ?

The current study builds a work of investigation in an original and multidisciplinary way.

First, in the framework of a state of the art, the investigation is described in its various aspects through :
- concepts that drive it (information process, knowledge technology, means of producing a truth) ;
- its evolutions and adaptations to the context (historical, institutional, criminal) ;
- myths and realities related to the identity of the investigator ;
- the processes that drive it and the parameters that underpin its system ;
- the analysis of its performance factors.

Then, an empirical experiment is carried out with three services of the French gendarmerie and police from 2012 to 2017.
It allows a review of the survey and the investigator's system of representation by crossing three approaches :
- a quantitative study of 600 daily trial court proceeding using 130 factors ;
- a qualitative study of 3 investigations relating to serious and complex facts ;
- a subjective study in a survey of 900 investigators.

Analyzing the real and perceived influence of the institutional and non-institutional factors, this thesis exposes the checks and balances of power relationships among actors of the investigation, between transparency and secrecy, between police efficiency and the protection of individual liberties, between the role of men and structures.

This research project proposes the creation of a self-learning device for judicial investigation. It’s questioning the legitimacy of the investigation among the other modes of social regulation in accordance with the evolutions of the society

Management de l'enquête et ingénierie judiciaire, recherche relative à l'évaluation des processus d'investigation criminelle

Over the past three decades, concomitant increases in prison population and the use of parole, coupled with a more punitive parole philosophy and fiscal crises at every level of government, have prompted a renewed interest in intermediate sanctions— especially for technical parole violators. A number of jurisdictions have developed intermediate sanctions that are both custodial and therapeutic—but do not involve a return to prison—for technical violators. Despite their growing popularity, little research has examined these technical violator programs, and as a result, basic questions regarding their impact remain unanswered. This article examines a therapeutic technical violator program in the state of New Jersey called Halfway Back. Using a quasiexperimental, retrospective matched groups design, the study explores the impact of the program through a comparison of recidivism and incarceration costs among random samples of program participants (n = 227) and nonparticipants (n = 392). Results suggest that p...

Halfway Back: An Alternative to Revocation for Technical Parole Violators

Research in the late 1970s discovered two on-going problems with criminal investigations. The first problem involved the inefficiency in the work done by detectives, and the second centered on the ...

Marc A. Ruffinengo

Papers

Halfway Back: An Alternative to Revocation for Technical Parole Violators

Expanding the Role of Patrol in Criminal Investigations: Houston's Investigative First Responder Project