Sociology Ph.D. Dissertations

Advancing the Understanding of Police Crime from a Structural Perspective: An Analysis of American Counties

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

John H. Boman IV (Committee Chair)

Second Advisor

Danielle Kuhl (Committee Member)

Third Advisor

Wendy Manning (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Thomas J. Mowen (Committee Member)

Fifth Advisor

Philip Matthew Stinson (Committee Member)

Sixth Advisor

Starr E. Keyes (Committee Member)

Abstract

Decades of misconduct and crime committed by law enforcement officers throughout the United States have been uncovered by investigative journalism, independent commissions, and ethnographic research. Theoretical studies identify that individual and cultural factors are significantly related to an officer’s participation in criminal behavior. There exists a lack of complete understanding of how an officer’s community and environment may influence their participation in police crime. The purpose of this dissertation is to advance the field of criminology by expanding the structural level understanding of police crime through a theoretical lens and quantitative approach on a national scale. Drawing from social disorganization theory, five nationwide datasets are merged to construct a longitudinal, panel dataset that describes police crime throughout American counties. Using a structural level theoretical perspective, this project broadly explores how the characteristics of American counties may be associated with the criminal behaviors of police officers. The tenets of social disorganization theory suggest that counties with antecedents of social disorganization (such as characteristics of poverty, transient populations, and low educational attainment) should be associated with higher counts of police crime and general crime. Three research questions are investigated in this dissertation. The first two analytical chapters ask the following research questions: First, do county level variables correlate with counts of police crime? Second, are the correlates of general crime the same for police crime at a structural level? I construct and compare mixed-effects models regressing police crime and general crime onto county level variables. A comparison of these models informs a discussion about the structural similarities and differences between police crime and general crime. These findings inform the final analytical chapter, which explores the potentially interwoven relationship between police crime and general crime. The third research question explores whether general crime has a significant relationship with police crime. The complexities of this relationship inform a thorough discussion of policy implications associated with reducing police crime throughout the United States.

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