law enforcement – Wicked Problems, Wicked Solutions

Making Sense of January 6th: Trump’s Capitol Offense

This post was first published in January 2021. Editor Note: Over the coming weeks, The College of Social Sciences and Public Policy at Florida State University will work to provide experiential and academic faculty perspectives on the causes and consequences of the events surrounding January 6, 2021. This means that some posts will offer academic…

Ph.D. Spotlight: Criminal Justice Institutions: Human Behavior in a System of Neutral Competence

Within the majority of courtrooms throughout the U.S. you will find statues of lady justice in all sizes. Generally, she is depicted as a woman wearing a toga in a powerful pose, holding a scale in one hand, sword in the other, and is blindfolded. Lady justice is said to stem from Greek and Roman…

Ph.D. Spotlight: The Influence of Security and Support on Performance, Punishment, and Parental Engagement in Majority White and Majority Minority Schools

Schools across the United States are ramping up security in hopes of preventing shootings and other forms of school violence. There are two types of school security environments: inclusionary and exclusionary. Inclusionary security is intended to monitor and socialize students, while exclusionary environments are intended to remove students from the school. Many schools are supplementing…

George Floyd and the Future of Police Misconduct

This piece first appeared in The Beacon. The death of George Floyd at the hands of a cop with a history of excessive force complaints has spurred protests, demonstrations, and riots across the nation. Unfortunately, the violence some protesters have unleashed on these cities is likely to exacerbate existing cultural and political schisms, making meaningful…

Lessons from the Lab: Police Corruption and Law Enforcement

The results of our study are rather intriguing. First, we saw that the presence of police, even when it is corrupt, was much better than anarchy. Second, corrupt police managed to enforce the law no worse than honest police, although, of course,citizens incurred significant costs due to wide-spread bribery.