Attacks on the Police and Testing a Specific Theory of Targeted Danger Perception - CANCELLED

• In Event: Direct and Indiract Police Contact: Perceptions and Implications

Abstract

Police officers face the potential of danger every day in the line of duty and a wide body of research has examined how officers respond to those dangers – especially when it comes to police officers’ own use of force. Macro-level research has focused on the role of neighborhood- and city-level property and violent crime rates to explain officers’ perceptions of danger and therefore their own use of force when working in high-crime areas. Additionally, micro-level research has examined officers’ perceptions of danger based on their use of force decisions – most often in artificial simulation experiments. Despite this relative wealth of knowledge, it is still difficult to understand how police officers perceive danger that is directed at them specifically in the real world. Using nationwide news reports of direct attacks on police officers over the past 10 years, this study utilizes interrupted time series analyses to examine rates of police use of force before and after those incidents in order to determine whether a more specific, or targeted, danger perception effect might exist in the real world, independent of a more general perception of danger. Preliminary results and implications for both theory and practice are discussed.

Author

• Zachary Hays, California State University, Bakersfield