Study of Sworn Nonfederal Law Enforcement Officers Arrested in the United States, 2005-2011 (ICPSR 35648)
Version Date: Jun 30, 2017 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Philip Stinson, Bowling Green State University
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35648.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed expect for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) is further information is needed.
This collection is composed of archived news articles and court records reporting (n=6,724) on the arrest(s) of law enforcement officers in the United States from 2005-2011. Police crimes are those crimes committed by sworn law enforcement officers given the general powers of arrest at the time the offense was committed. These crimes can occur while the officer is on or off duty and include offenses committed by state, county, municipal, tribal, or special law enforcement agencies.
Three distinct but related research questions are addressed in this collection:
- What is the incidence and prevalence of police officers arrested across the United States?
- How do law enforcement agencies discipline officers who are arrested?
- To what degree do police crime arrests correlate with other forms of police misconduct?
Citation View help for Citation
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Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
County
Restrictions View help for Restrictions
Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
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These data are part of NACJD's Fast track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed expect for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.
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Additional information on this collection can be found on the Police Integrity Lost Web site.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The purpose of the current research project is to promote police integrity by gaining a better understanding of police crime and agency responses to officer arrests.
Study Design View help for Study Design
Data for the current collection were collected as part of a project designed to locate cases in which sworn law enforcement officers had been arrested for any type of criminal offense(s). Data were derived from published news articles using the Google News search engine and its Google Alerts email update service. Google Alerts searches were conducted using 48 search terms such as ("agent was arrested", "agent was charged", and "agent was convicted"). The Google Alerts email update service sent a message each time one of the automated daily searches identified a news article in the Google News search engine that matched any of the designated search terms. The automated alerts contained a link to the URL for the news articles.
The articles were located, examined for relevancy, printed, logged, and then scanned, indexed, and archived in a digital imaging database for subsequent coding and content analyses. The present study focuses on the identification and description of the cases in which police officers were arrested during the years 2005-2011.
Content analyses were conducted in order to code the cases in terms of (a) arrested officer, (b) employing nonfederal law enforcement agency, (c) each of the charged criminal offenses, (d) victim characteristics, (e) organizational adverse employment outcomes, and (f) criminal case dispositions. Each of the charged criminal offenses was coded using the data collection guidelines of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) as the coding protocol for each criminal offense category. In each case every offense charged was recorded on the coding instrument as well as the most serious offense charged in each police crime arrest case. The most serious offense charged was determined using the Uniform Crime Report's (UCR) crime seriousness hierarchy. An additional eight offenses were added following an earlier pilot study police officers who were arrested often were charged with criminal offenses not included in the NIBRS.
One of the primary issues in coding was differentiating between arrest cases with multiple victims and officers who were arrested on multiple occasions within the study years 2005-2011. Arrest incidents that involved multiple victims with corresponding criminal charges were assigned an individual case for each respective victim. Additionally, law enforcement officers who were arrested on multiple occasions had an arrest case generated in the project database for each respective arrest.
Secondary data were employed from the Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA) to ascertain demographic data including the number of full-time sworn personnel and part-time sworn personnel employed by each agency where arrested officers served. County and independent city were used to verify location of arrested officers' employing law enforcement agencies, as well as for use as a key variable to merge other data sources into the project's master database and data set. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2003 county-level urban to rural nine-point continuum scale was used to measure rurality. Population data from the U.S. Census Bureau's decennial census in years 2000 and 2010 were utilized for county, independent city, and state populations.
Sample View help for Sample
The Google News searches resulted in the identification of 6,724 cases in which sworn law enforcement officers were arrested during the years 2005 through 2011. The cases involved the arrests of 5,545 individual sworn officers employed by 2,529 nonfederal state and local law enforcement agencies located in 1,205 counties and independent cities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Each article that is collected will be read in order to determine if it meets the criteria for case inclusion.
Time Method View help for Time Method
Universe View help for Universe
All sworn nonfederal law enforcement officers in the United States who were arrested for committing one or more crimes between 2005 and 2011.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
The Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA) to ascertain demographic data including the number of full-time sworn personnel and part-time sworn personnel employed by each agency where arrested officers served.
The collection triangulated data sources using the Public Access to Courts Electronic Records (PACER) system of federal court records to investigate correlates of police integrity and misconduct.
Google News search engine and its Google Alerts email update service to collect articles on possible cases to use.
Population data from the U.S. Census Bureau's decennial census in years 2000 and 2010 were utilized for county, independent city, and state populations.
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Police Integrity Lost Dataset (244 variables, n=6,724)
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Not Applicable
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2017-06-30
Version History View help for Version History
- Stinson, Philip. Study of Sworn Nonfederal Law Enforcement Officers Arrested in the United States, 2005-2011. ICPSR35648-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2017-06-30. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35648.v1
Notes
These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.