Jonathon A. Cooper – författare

Events in the United States during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s created tectonic shifts in how the police operated. This was especially true in terms of their relationship with society. These events included, among others: the due process revolution, which guided how police were to do their job; social science research that called into question that efficacy of the professional policing model; and race riots against police activity, which were the result of poor police-minority community relations. This book outlines these (and other) changes, explores their implications for the relationship between society and the police, and suggests that a knowledge of these changes is imperative to understanding trends in contemporary policing as well as the direction policing needs to take. As policing becomes more technologically savvy and scientific in its approach to fighting crime (for example, the SMART Policing Initiative, COMPSTAT, and problem oriented approaches such as Project Safe Neighborhoods) in a time when governments are faced with austerity, it is important to reconsider how policing got to the point it is so that, as police and governments move forward, constitutional guarantees are protected, communication with citizens remains viable and salient, and crime prevention becomes an empirical reality rather than a pipe-dream.

Contemporary Issues in Law Enforcement provides students with a highly contemporary collection of readings that articulate the complexity of modern policing. The anthology provides readers with articles that have been published since the turn of the twenty-first century and that demonstrate the richness of contemporary policing research.Employing a thoroughly academic approach, the book encourages students to consider the impact of the twentieth century on modern law enforcement, police and youth, the role police play in a democratic society, the intersection of police, politics, and minority populations, and the future of the administration of justice. Students read articles that discuss police professionalism, youth perceptions of police, questions of legitimacy and models for building legitimacy, and how law enforcement must contend with a society that harbors deeply divided opinions on the police. Each article is complemented by a brief introduction and discussion questions to add context and spark meaningful conversation.Designed to push the conversation forward on a critical and timely topic, Contemporary Issues in Law Enforcement is an excellent resource for courses and programs in criminology and criminal justice.

Using the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a case-study, along with two other states as controls, this book examines how BARJ legislation “trickles down” to the law enforcement level through Pennsylvania’s Juvenile Justice System Enhancement Strategy (PJJSES) and the Juvenile Justice Act (JJA). This legislation is a direct application of the BARJ model to law enforcement, essentially directing police discretion in the direction of informal dispositions. The decision to dispose formal action (such as, a referral to either juvenile court/probation, criminal court, or adult criminal court) or informal action (for instance, handling the situation within the department and/or releasing the juveniles to parents with a warning), play an integral role in determining which juveniles contact the justice system. To this end, while the overall focus of our volume and research is specifically on the impact of the PJJSES and its 2012 amendments on the number of formal dispositions of juvenile suspects by law enforcement officers, it speaks more broadly to the ability of the BARJ model to affect police officer behavior through influencing their decision-making processes.

Police Response to Mental Health Calls for Service: Gatekeepers and Street Corner Psychiatrists focuses on closing the gap in literature surrounding police responses to mental health calls for service, with an emphasis on the effect of training and relationships with mental health agencies, in order to better understand the interaction between police officers and individuals with mental health diagnoses. Kayla G. Jachimowski and Jonathon A. Cooper pay close attention to Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) and its impact on how police officers would respond to these calls for service, also examining how the relationships between police, the community, and mental health service providers impact police response. Jachimowski and Cooper argue for the importance of police training about mental health disorders and explore the likelihood of diverting individuals with mental illness from the criminal justice system. Scholars of criminology, sociology, and psychology will find this book particularly useful.