Effectiveness and efficiency of the police have been contentious topics from the public perspective. Police departments have developed policies to help better their patrol officers' effectiveness on the streets in both quality and timeliness. Although there have been few recent studies about the response time of officers to calls for service, this is a subject that should not go overlooked. As an important aspect to the patrol officer's repertoire, response time can have effects on the community and its perception on the police. This study uses a multi-level modeling approach to examine the effects of incident and neighborhood factors on police response time within a medium size Southwest city. Police departments use a scale to determine the priority of a call for service, commonly referred to as the PRI. This index scale was found to have the most effect on the response times, while a few cyclical patterns were obtained of level 1 variables. Neighborhood characteristics showed significant effects, measuring structural disadvantage, however, caution should be used in generalizing these findings to other public jurisdictions.

The effectiveness of police behavior on criminal activity has improved over the last thirty years. Yet, some police practices remain ineffective against crime. Because there is the potential for disconnect between their behavior and crime control, the police's legitimacy is threatened. Legitimacy is important because its acquisition is requisite for any organization to exist. Police therefore look to other sources of legitimacy, such as their institutional environment: The network of agencies who share similar challenges, and the collection of entities that influence the form and function of the police (e.g., sovereigns). When the police consider the practices and expectations of their institutional environment through the process of isomorphism, agencies resemble one another despite idiosyncratic exigencies. This process endows them with legitimacy. Largely studied at the interorganizational level, isomorphism can also apply at the intraorganizational level. This study considers the latter level of analysis. Because the study of isomorphism in policing has lacked empirical assessment, the current study borrowed from the field of spatial analysis. This is feasible insofar as police behavior can be understood territorially, including isomorphic processes. By controlling for the most pertinent territorial predictors of police behavior, spatial dependence can be understood as the manifestation of isomorphism. Further, local indicators of spatial autocorrelation in interaction with spatial dependence can be understood as the institutional influence of sovereigns. Considerable attention is spent elaborating these concepts. Across four dependent variables (juvenile arrests made by the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department for 2008 for violent crime, property crime, drug crime, and gun crime), isomorphic processes were overwhelmed by ecological variables for three criteria. For juvenile drug arrests, the behavior of distinct areal units was influenced by several sovereign entities from within the police department. Methodologically, this study introduces a novel empirical way of exploring isomorphism. Theoretically, it enriches the study of isomorphism by introducing the importance of territoriality. In terms of police practice, it suggests an innovative method for police organizational change, a process that is typified by resistance. By engaging sovereign entities in the change process, this resistance can be overcome in a naturally occurring ecological phenomenon.

ABSTRACT Research has shown that the manner in which people are treated in their interactions with agents of the criminal justice system matters. People expect criminal justice officials to treat them fairly and with honesty and respect, which is the basis for procedural justice. When people are treated in a procedurally just and equitable manner they will view the system as legitimate and will be more likely to voluntarily comply and cooperate with legal system directives. People who have personal or vicarious experiences of unfair or unjust interactions with the legal system tend to view the system as less legitimate and are less likely to comply and cooperate when they have contact with representatives of the system. This study examines a random sample of 337 arrestees in Maricopa County, Arizona who have been interviewed as a part of the Arizona Arrestee Reporting Information Network. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis are used to examine views of the procedural justice experienced by arrestees during arrest, perceptions of police legitimacy by arrestees, voluntary compliance to the law, and voluntary cooperation with police. Results of the study show that perceptions of legitimacy work through procedural justice, and that procedurally just interactions with police mediate racial effects on views of legitimacy. Views of procedural justice and legitimacy increase cooperation. No variables in this study were significantly related to compliance.