demeanor, crime, and police - home, home · demeanor, crime, and police behavior: a reexamination...

DEMEANOR, CRIME, AND POLICEBEHAVIOR: A REEXAMINATION OF nIBPOLICE SERVICES STUDY DATA *

ROBERT E. WORDENROBIN L. SHEPARD

University at Albany,State University of New York

Recent research has called into question the seemingly well-estab-lished conclusion that the likelihood of arrest by the police rises whensuspects display a disrespectful or hostile demeanor toward the police.In this article we reanalyze data collected for the Police Services Study,on which a substantial body of supporting evidence for this conclusionis based, to determine whether previous analyses of these data havemisestimated the effects of demeanor on police behavior. We find that,insofar as the data permit us to address the criticisms, the original find-ings hold.

More than three decades of research on police behavior have producedfew findings that are as consistently replicated and as widely accepted asthe finding that when suspects display a disrespectful or hostile demeanortoward the police, the likelihood of arrest or other punitive action by thepolice rises. This proposition emerged from early qualitative research(Westley, 1953, 1970) and was refined through subsequent qualitativestudy (Brown, 1981; Van Maanen, 1974, 1978). It has been unifonnly sup-ported by quantitative analyses of observational data, including theBlack-Reiss data collected in 1966 (Black, 1971, 1980; Black and Reiss,1970; Friedrich, 1977, 1980; Reiss, 1971), the Sykes-Clark ("MidwestCity") data collected in 1970 (Lundman, 1974, 1979; Lundman et al., 1978;Sykes et al., 1976), and the Police Services Study data collected in 1977(Smith, 1984, 1986, 1987; Smith and Klein, 1983, 1984; Smith and Visher,1981; Smith et al., 1984; Visher, 1983; Worden, 1989, 1995; Worden andPollitt, 1984), as well as other observational data collected in smaller scalestudies (Ericson, 1982; Piliavin and Briar, 1964).

David Klinger (1994a) has called these findings into question. Heargues that quantitative research on police behavior has measureddemeanor improperly and has failed to control adequately or at all forother important variables. He concludes that additional analyses of extant

. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 46th Annual Meeting of theAmerican Society of Criminology, Miami, Florida, November 1994. We gratefullyacknowledge the comments of Steve Mastrofski and Hans Tach.

831996VOLUME 34 NUMBER 1CRIMIN 0 LOGY

WORDEN AND SHEPARD84

IIobservational data should be conducted to determine whether previouslyreported findings hold in the face of his criticisms. In this article, wereanalyze data collected for the Police Services Study to determinewhether previous analyses of these data have misestimated the effects ofdemeanor on police behavior.

KLINGER'S CRmQUE

Klinger's (1994a) critique raises three issues. First, Klinger argues thatsome and perhaps much of the previous research has erred in measuringsuspects' demeanor. He maintains that demeanor consists only of "legallypermissible behavior of citizens during interactions with police officersthat indicates the degree of deference or respect they extend to theinvolved officers" (p. 477; emphasis in original), and thus valid measuresof demeanor would not include actions that violate the law. But severalstudies, he points out, explicitly treated physical attacks by suspects oneither officers or other citizens as indicators of a disrespectful or hostiledemeanor, and a number of other studies, Klinger infers, probably madethe same error. Thus, these studies might have mistaken the effects ofillegal conduct for those of a disrespectful demeanor.

Second, Klinger argues that, whether or not previous research hasimproperly defined disrespect, it has failed to control for crimes commit-ted by suspects during their encounters with police, such as assaults oneither officers or other citizens. While multivariate analyses of policebehavior have typically included measures of crime, Klinger surmises thatthe measures capture only "the legal character of events preceding policeintervention" (p. 480)-that is, "pre-intervention crime." By failing tocontrol for "interaction-phase" criminality, however, previous researchmay have confounded the effect of suspects' illegal behavior with that oftheir demeanor toward the police.

Fmally, Klinger argues that previous research has not adequately con-trolled for suspects' criminal behavior, inasmuch as it has used only crudemeasures of crime that fail to capture variation in the seriousness ofoffenses. Some studies have included a distinction between felony andmisdemeanor offenses, and some have included characteristics of the situ-ation that are correlated with seriousness, such as the presence of weaponsor injuries. Yet, according to Klinger, the measures are so imprecise thatthey do not suffice to control for crime.

As a consequence of these shortcomings, Klinger maintains that previ-ous research has failed to provide proper estimates of the effects of sus-pects' demeanor, and perhaps of other extralegal variables on policebehavior. Klinger finds support for these criticisms in his analysis ofobservational data on Metro-Dade (Florida) police officers' behavior in

DEMEANOR AND POLICE BEHAVIOR 85

245 interpersonal disputes. Measuring demeanor on a three-point ordinalscale that is based only on citizens' legal behavior, Klinger finds that-asexpected-a disrespectful demeanor bears a substantively and statisticallysignificant relationship to arrest. In the face of controls for pre-interven-tion and interaction-phase criminality, however, he finds that the esti-mated effect of demeanor is small in magnitude and statistically

insignificant.Klinger's critique raises the possibility that previous research has led to

erroneous conclusions. Lundman (1994) addresses this possibility inreanalyzing the "Midwest City" data. He concludes that "extralegal fac-tors, including demeanor, may shape police exercise of discretion," butthat "the effects of demeanor depend on how it is represented" (p. 647).He shows that while some measures of demeanor consistently yield nullfindings, other measures consistently yield positive findings. The latter, hesurmises, differ from the former in that they tap behavior by suspects thatmakes encounters especially difficult for police (pp. 647-649). In this arti-cle we explore the implications of Klinger's critique for findings based onanalyses of the Police Services Study data.

REANALYSES OF THE POLICE SERVICESSTUDY DATA

The Police Services Study (PSS) included 24 police departments in threemetropolitan areas (Rochester, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; andTampa-St. Petersburg, Florida). The departments ranged in size from 13sworn officers to over 2,000, and they served municipalities whose popula-tions ranged from 6,(XX) to 499,(XX). The sample is not random, but it is arough cross-section of organizational arrangements and service conditionsfor urban policing in the United States. Compared with other smaller andlarge-scale studies of police, the PSS provides a considerably stronger basefrom which to draw generalizations about American policing.

Patrol observation and other data collection focused on 60 neighbor-hoods, which were selected with explicit reference to the race and incomeof residents. The sample of neighborhoods thus represents a rough cross-section of residential service conditions for each department. On amatched sample of 15 shifts in each neighborhood, officers were accompa-nied by trained observers, who recorded information about police-citizenencounters, including the characteristics and actions of the citizens and theactions of the officers. Over the 900 shifts on which observation was con-ducted, information on 5,688 police-citizen encounters was coded on astandardized form (see Caldwell, 1978).

We reexamine four previous studies of police behavior that were basedon the PSS data and which include or focus on a set of situational factors,


including suspect demeanor, as influences on police behavior: Smith andVisher's (1981) analysis of arrest in police encounters with all suspectsother than traffic violators; Worden and Pollitt's (1984) analysis of arrestin domestic disturbances; and Worden's (1989) analyses of dispositions indisputes and in traffic stops. For each reanalysis, we reestimate the origi-nal model, and we estimate the parameters of the same model to whichmeasures of interaction-phase criminality and the seriousness of pre-inter-vention crime are added. We also estimate models that include these addi-tional controls and alternative measures of suspects' demeanor.

MEASURESThe PSS observation protocol provides two fonDS of data on suspects'

demeanor. FlfSt, observers coded a number of different actions in whichcitizens engaged, several of which can be (and for some previous analyseshave been) construed as disrespectful or hostile. Table 1 reports the fre-quency with which these actions were taken by the 2,932 citizens who werecoded as suspects, treating traffic violators as a separate group. Amongthose suspected of an offense other than a traffic violation, few assaultedpolice, but a number passively resisted officers' authority by refusing tocooperate, an even larger proportion argued with or cursed officers, and astill larger proportion asked officers to leave them alone. Suspects whoacted in one or more of these ways toward police could be said to havechallenged the officers' authority or definition of the situation, and so tohave acted in a disrespectful or hostile fashion. Thus, 19% of these non-traffic suspects were less than civil. Traffic violators were, as a group, lesslikely to be disrespectful, although when they were disrespectful, it wasmore likely to take the form of arguing with or cursing officers.

Second, PSS observers coded their characterizations of citizens' pre-dominant demeanor at each of three points in time during an encounter:at the beginning of the encounter (i.e., when the observed officer arrivedat the scene), during the encounter, and at the officer's departure. Thecoding categories and the distributions of demeanor across these catego-ries are shown in Table 1. It appears all the more from these data thatcivility is the rule and incivility the exception, for most suspects were char-acterized as businesslike. Only 8% of all nontraffic suspects and 4% oftraffic violators were characterized as disrespectful by observers at any ofthe three times. One might in addition include suspects whose demeanorwas characterized as cool or detached among those who failed to displaythe expected deference to the police, inasmuch as it may indicate to policethat "their position and authority in the interaction are not being takenseriously" (Van Maanen, 1978:229; also see Friedrich, 1977:370; Worden,1989). Even then, all but 13% of .the suspects and 6% of the traffic viola-tors were deferential.


Measures of Suspects' DemeanorTable 1.

Traffic Violators (N = 1~7) Other Suspects (N = 1865)

0.9% 4.6%

1.9 6.1

2.64.8

93.50.2

10.68.5

81.41.1

Coded ActionsRefused to Answer Officer's

QuestionsRefused to Give Other Cooper-

ation RequestedAsked Officer to Leave Self

AloneArgued with or Cursed OfficerNone of the AboveFought with the OfficerUsed or Attempted to Use a

Weapon Against the Officer 0.0 0.3

Observers' Characterizations ofSuspects' Demeanor

At AtBeginning During At End Beginning During At End

87.3%4.01.3

83.8%5.722

84.1%6.72.1

n.3%3.40.9

76.6%4.61.1

76.9%5.31.0

1.01.0

2.90.6

0.70.3

1.31.3

3.31.7

1.40.8

2.01.40.10.60.01.3

1.92.50.10.30.00.0

1.72.10.20.30.02.0

3.24.20.31.20.6

11.4

4.06.80.30.90.10.8

3.14.10.21.10.06.3

BusinesslikeFriendlyApologeticPleading, Trying to Enlist

Officer's Aid, SympathyFrightenedCool, Detached, Couldn't Care

LessSarcastic, Disrespectful, HostileOtherDon't KnowUnconsciousNot Present

The prevalence of disrespect, however, depends on when in the encoun-ter it is assessed: Seven percent of the nontraffic suspects displayed a dis-respectful demeanor during encounters, while slightly more than 4% weredisrespectful at the beginning or end of encounters. Similarly, 4% of thenontraffic suspects were cool or detached during encounters, and just over3 % were detached at the beginning of encounters. Those analyses thathave relied exclusively on observers' characterizations of demeanor(Worden, 1989, 1995; Worden and Pollitz, 1984) have used only those atthe outset of an encounter in order to ensure the proper temporal order ofthe variables. This is, of course, a conservative approach whereby somedisrespectful suspects, including perhaps some who were subsequentlyarrested, are coded for analysis as civil. A less conservative approach is todefine as disrespectful those suspects who display disrespect at the begin-ning or during the encounter, at the risk of confounding the effect of sus-pects' demeanor on police behavior with the effect of police behavior onsuspects' demeanor. A priori, neither measure is unbiased; the systematic

88 WORDEN AND SHEPARD

error in the former is probably biased against the hypothesis, and the sys-tematic error in the latter is probably biased in favor of the hypothesis.Previous quantitative research has made assumptions about but has failedto explore the differences between these two measures.

In each of the analyses that follow, we estimate the effects of demeanoras it is measured in several alternative ways, in addition to the measureused in the original analysis. We use the coded actions of suspects to con-struct several measures of demeanor. One dichotomous measure indicatesonly passive noncompliance, that is, a refusal to answer questions or other-wise cooperate. A second dichotomous measure indicates active but onlyverbal resistance, that is, arguing with the officer or asking that the policeleave him or her alone. We distinguish these forms of disrespectful behav-ior from each other so that we need not assume that each form hasequivalent effects on police behavior, as one must when they are collapsedinto a single dichotomy. A third measure is an ordinal scale with threevalues: 0 = civility; 1 = noncompliance; and 2 = verbal resistance. Thisscale is predicated on the assumption that the different actions representdifferent degrees of hostility, and it enables us to test the proposition thatthe degree of hostility is related to the police response.

We use observers' characterizations of demeanor to construct fourdichotomous measures. Two measures are based on observers' characteri-zations of demeanor as disrespectful or hostile, one is confined to suspects'demeanor at the outset of the encounter, and another includes in additionsuspects' demeanor during the encounter. Two other measures are basedon observers' characterizations of demeanor as cool or detached; thesemeasures differ correspondingly in the time frame that they encompass.

Physical resistance or an assault on the officer by the suspect is not anexplicit part of any measure of demeanor, following Klinger's argument,but rather is captured in a separate dummy variable based on observers'reports that suspects fought with officers (which the PSS coding manualdefines as "physical aggression" that may include "vigorous self-defense").Similarly, an assault by the suspect on another citizen is captured inanother dummy variable based on observers' reports that suspects foughtwith other citizens. The PSS coding form was not designed to tap interac-tion-phase crime as such and so these measures are somewhat imprecise.These measures are also incomplete in that they do not capture everyoffense that a suspect might commit in an officer's presence. But Klinger'scritique focuses on these types of crime because some previous researchhas included them in the operationalization of demeanor, and further, con-trols for these behaviors sufficed in Klinger's analysis to render the esti-mated effect of demeanor insignificant. While we believe that theinclusion of more complete and refined measures of interaction-phase


crime would not affect the results, as we explain below, the possibility can-not be dismissed.

Also following Klinger's suggestion, we use a five-point ordinal scale tocontrol for the seriousness of pre-intervention crime, where 0 = no crime,1 = minor property crime, 2 = minor violent or major property crime, 3 =moderate violent crime, and 4 = major violent crime. For each encounter,the observer recorded at least one and up to three codes, selected from alist of 247 problem codes, to characterize the nature of the problem ateach of three times: as it was initially presented to police (usually by adispatcher), upon the officer's arrival at the scene, and at the end of theencounter. The seriousness scale is based on the most complete and accu-rate information available to the observer at the conclusion of the encoun-ter.

ENCOUNTERS WITH SUSPECTS

Smith and Visher (1981) utilized PSS data to examine the situationaldetenninants of arrest. Their analysis focused on 742 encounters thatinvolved at least one citizen who was regarded as a suspect, excluding traf-fic stops and other encounters that involved multiple suspects who wereheterogeneous in race, age, or sex (1981:170). Smith and Visher opera-tionalized suspects' demeanor as a dichotomous variable based (we infer)on observers' characterizations (i.e., a "hostile attitude") and the codedactions (including refusals to cooperate and arguing with or cursing theofficer). The seriousness of the initial offense was also measured as adichotomous variable, which distinguished felonies from misdemeanors.They report that officers' arrest decisions are influenced by a number ofsituational factors, including suspects' demeanor toward the police. Theirestimates (1981:Table 3) indicate that in the typical encounter (i.e., one inwhich the explanatory variables have modal values), an antagonisticdemeanor increases the probability of arrest from .10 to .35.

For our reexamination of Smith and Visher's finding about the effect ofdemeanor, we reproduce as closely as possible their sample and theirmeasures, and with few exceptions our logit estimates of the parameters oftheir model parallel their probit estimates (see the column for the originalmodel in Table 2). Ambiguities concerning sample specification and oper-ationalizations leave us with a subset of PSS encounters, and perhaps a setof measures, that are not identical to those that Smith and Visher used.Excluding encounters that concerned only traffic law violations or trafficaccidents, 1,305 encounters involved one or more suspects. We infer, then,that Smith and Visher also excluded those encounters with suspects forwhich the data do not indicate a specific misdemeanor or felony offense(e.g., suspicion stops); the exclusion of such encounters (as we define


Table 2. Logistic Regression of Arrest on SituationalFactors: Encounters with Nontraffic Suspects(Smith and Visher, 1981)

B c 0 E

Constant -3.59

(0.53)0.03

(0.24)-0.04(0.25)0.19

(0.23)-1.70-(0.45)2.~

(0.37)-0.88-(0.22)0.86-

(0.34)0.43-

(0.15)-0.86-(0.36)-0.32(0.39)

-3.31

(0.55)-0.07(0.25)-0.07(0.26)0.13

(0.24)-1.55.

(0.51)2.25.

(0.40)-0.97.(0.23)0.81.

(0.35)0.45.

(0.16)-0.68.(0.40)-0.06(0.41)

-3.54

(0.52)0.00

(0.24)-0.12(0.25)0.22

(0.23)-1.63.(0.44)2.59.

(0.36)-0.93.(0.22)O.~

(0.33)0.48.

(0.15)-0.81.(0.35)-0.31(0.39)

-3.62

(0.54)~.02(0.25)0.00

(0.26)0.12

(024)-1.93-

(0.47)2.71-

(0.38)~.8g.(0.23)0.87-

(0.35)0.38-

(0.16)~.91-(0.37)~.24(0.40)

-3.68

(0.54)-0.03(0.25)-0.06(0.25)0.19

(0.24)-1.94.

(0.47)2.63.

(0.37)-o.~(0.23)0.83.

(0.34)0.42-

(0.15)-0.85.(0.36)-0.22(0.40)

Police Entry

Location

Bystanden

Infomtal Disposition

Formal Disposition

Suspect Race (1 = White)

Suspect Sex (1 = Male)

Suspect Age

Victim Knows Suspect

Victim Stranger to Suspect

Felony

Offense Seriousness 0.45-(0.15)4.32-

(1.14)0.53

(0.77)

0.4~(0.16)4.49-

(1.19)0.35

(0.83)

0.47*(0.15)4.42*

(1.15)0.54

(0.76)

0.47*(O.IS)4.18-

(1.19)0.20

(0.79)

0.46*(0.15)4.35*

(1.15)0.32

(0.77)

Suspect Fought with Officer

Suspect Fought with Other Citizen

Suspect's Demeanor

Observer Characterization asHostile at Beginning/During orNoncompliantNerbally Resistant

Observer Characterization:Hostile at Beginning

Observer Characterization:Detached at Beginning

Observer Characterization:Hostile at Beginning/During

Observer Characterization:Detached at Beginning/During

Noncompliance

1.43. 1.18*

(0.25) (0.26)0.74

(0.49)0.48

(0.50)0.78.

(0.35)0.29

(039)1.2g.

(0.35)1.02.

(0.28)Verbal Resistance

Behavioral Scale 0.75.(0.13)748N 748 748 641 748 748

. p < .05. one-tailed test.

NOTE: Entries are unstandardized coefficients and, in parentheses. standard errors.


them) reduces the number of encounters to 748. Despite these discrepan-cies, our results are quite comparable to theirs, and with respect todemeanor, our results are virtually the same.

When controls for pre-intervention and interaction-phase criminalityare incorporated into Smith and Visher's model, the estimated effect ofdemeanor is diminished only somewhat, and it remains substantively andstatistically significant (see column A). Disrespect increases theprobability of arrest from .11 to .28.1 In addition, all of the other extrale-gal and legal variables that were initially reported as significant remainsignificant even in the face of added controls. Physical resistance orassaults on officers by suspects have a substantial effect on the likelihoodof arrest, but fighting with other citizens does not.

Columns B through E report the coefficients of the same model withalternative measures of demeanor. Most of the coefficients are substan-tively and statistically significant. Suspects who were characterized byobservers as disrespectful either at the beginning or during encounterswere significantly more likely to be arrested (column C). When demeanoris measured only in terms of observers' characterizations at the beginningof encounters (column B), however, the estimated effect does not reachthe conventional .05 level of statistical significance. A cool or detacheddemeanor, at either the beginning of or during encounters, has no signifi-cant effect (columns B and C). As shown in column D, passive noncompli-ance and active verbal resistance have significant effects independently ofone another; they raise the probability of arrest from .09 to .27 and .22,respectively. These estimates of the effects of noncompliance and verbalresistance differ from those based on an ordinal scale (column E): Non-compliance on this scale raises the probability of arrest to .20, and verbalresistance further raises the probability to .34.

In performing the above analyses, we followed Smith and Visher inexcluding encounters in which there was no specified offense prior topolice intervention. However, one might expect that the effect ofdemeanor would be more pronounced in such "no crime" encounters.When the analysis reported in Table 2 is repeated on all 1.305 encounterswith nontraffic suspects, however. only one finding is altered: Suspectscharacterized as hostile at the beginning of encounters were significantly

1. In this and each subsequent instance that we report estimated changes inprobabilities, we calculate two probabilities: one of arrest given that the suspect is civiland given that all of the other variables have their modal values; the other given thatthe suspect is either disrespectful or detached, while all of the other variables have theirmodal values. Thus, the difference between the two probabilities stems entirely fromthe coefficient for demeanor, and we report changes in probabilities only if the coeffi-cient for demeanor is statistically significant. On the computation of probabilities, seeAldrich and Nelson (1984) and Peterson (1985).


more likely to be arrested (b = 0.82 with a standard error of 0.40). In thislarger sample, then, the effect of an antagonistic demeanor is uniformlysignificant.

DOMESnc DISTURBANCES

Worden and Pollitt (1984) employed PSS data to replicate and extendthe work of Berk and Loseke (1980-1981), who relied on archival data toexamine the situational determinants of police arrest in domestic distur-bances. Like Berk and Loseke, Worden and PoUitz defined domestic dis-turbances to include conflicts between people involved in a heterosexual,conjugal relationship at the time of or prior to the incident, of which theyfound 167 among the encounters observed for the PSS. Also followingBerk and Loseke, Worden and Pollitt estimated the parameters of a modelthat included a number of situational variables, such as the complainant'spreference, the man's sobriety, and the disputants' marital status. In their"extended model," Worden and Pollitt estimated the effects of severalvariables on which Berk and Loseke had no data, one of which was thesuspect's demeanor toward the police.

Worden and Pollitt measured the suspect's demeanor in terms of theobserver's characterization of demeanor upon the officer's arrival, dichot-omized as antagonistic or civil. The only controls for the seriousness ofthe crime(s) were, following Berk and Loseke, dummy variables thatreflected the presence of injuries and allegations by the woman that theman had been violent. They report that the estimated effect of a disre-spectful demeanor is quite substantial; the (unstandardized) ordinary leastsquares coefficient is .43.

Table 3 presents logit estimates of the coefficients of the original model,along with estimated coefficients of other models that include the controlsfor prior offense seriousness and interaction-phase crime, and variousoperationalizations of demeanor. It is quite clear that the original findingconcerning the effect of demeanor stands even in the face of these addi-tional controls (see column A). The estimated effect of a disrespectfuldemeanor is dramatic: In a typical case, disrespect increases the likelihoodof arrest from .06 to .61. Moreover, the conclusion is substantially thesame regardless of how disrespect is operationalized. In each model (col-umns B through E), disrespect has a substantively and statistically signifi-cant effect on arrest. When demeanor is measured in terms of observers'characterizations, either at the beginning of encounters (column B) or atthe beginning and during encounters (column C), disrespect raises thelikelihood of arrest, while a detached demeanor has no effect. Interest-ingly, the effect of disrespect in domestic disturbances is no greater whenthe measure includes demeanor during the encounter; this measure yields


an estimated increase in the probability of arrest only from .02 to .18.2The estimated effect of noncompliance is substantial (column D), increas-ing the probability of arrest from .02 to .34. Somewhat surprisingly, how-ever, the effect of verbal resistance, independent of noncompliance, issmall and statistically insignificant. This difference is obfuscated when thetwo dichotomies are combined to form a single ordinal measure ofdemeanor (column E), the coefficient for which indicates that theprobability of arrest increases from .04 to .11 when the suspect is noncom-pliant and to .27 when the suspect offers verbal resistance.

DISPUTES

Worden (1989) analyzed police disposition of 320 encounters thatinvolved disputes between two or more parties. The purpose of that anal-ysis was to estimate the power of situational and attitudinal variables inexplaining the form of officers' interventions in disputes, including arrest,other coercive actions, mediation, separating the disputants, and offeringadvice. Consequently, the measure of disposition was a nominal variablewith 14 categories. Explanatory variables included a set of dummy vari-ables that reflected the seriousness of the offense (if any), the presence ofbystanders or other officers, the characteristics of the disputants (sex, race,sobriety, and the nature of their relationship), the victim's demeanor, andthe suspect's demeanor. The suspect's demeanor was measured in termsof two dummy variables based on the observer's characterization ofdemeanor at the outset of the encounter; one variable reflected a disre-spectful demeanor, and the other reflected a detached demeanor. Theeffects of these variables on disposition were estimated through a discrimi-nant analysis. The estimated effect of a disrespectful demeanor achievedstatistical significance, although it was not substantively large. The entireset of variables had only modest explanatory power.

For our purposes here, we can simplify the dependent variable and theanalysis. Because the hypothesis in question is that a disrespectful orotherwise insufficiently deferential demeanor raises the likelihood of apunitive response by police, we focus on dichotomous measures of policebehavior, and we use logistic regression to estimate the parameters of themodel. In addition, because the attitudinal predictors are of no relevanceto this reanalysis, we include 104 cases that were excluded from the origi-nal analysis due to missing attitudinal data or other reasons (Worden,1989:note 13).

2. The N for the original model and for model A is reduced by missing values forsuspects' demeanor-that is, cases in which suspects were not present at the beginningof the encounter. The estimated effects of demeanor in model B are unaffected by theexclusion of these cases.


Logistic Regression of Arrest on SituationalFactors: Domestic Disturbances (Worden andPollitt, 1984)

Table 3.

OriginalModel

-3.12(0.82)-1.13(0.75)-0.77(0.93)0.52

(O.~)-6.11

(27.12)2.28'

(1.10)5.00

(27.15)1.53.

(0.71)0.77

(0.83)-0.55(0.82)

B c D EA

-3.51

(0.94)-1.19

(0.78)-{).83

(1.07)0.69

(0.86)-6.58

(27.32)2.m-

(1.11)S.14

(27 3S)1.71-

(0.77)0.53

(0.86)-{).5S

(0.83)030

(0.28)-{).46

(2.61)-S.79

(99.64)

-3.52

(0.93)-1.25

(0.80)-0.00

(1.10)0.65

(0.88)-6.55

(27.18)2.10-

(1.12)5.12

(27.20)1.W

(0.77)0.55

(0.86)~.68

(0.85)0.32

(0.28)~.40

(2.68)-5.72

(99.64)

-3.69

(0.85)-1.M(0.67)-0.29(0.84)0.49

(0.78)-6.42

(27.74)1.48

(0.97)4.94

(27.76)1.72.

(0.68)1.16

(0.73)0.21

(0.72)0.27

(0.24)-0.23(2.38)-5.46

(99.64)

-4.72

(1.07)-1.36.

(0.78)-0.12

(0.99)1.02

(O~)-6.44

(27.02)2.03.

(1.16)6.52

(27.03)1.41.

(0.79)0.46

(0.82)-o.~

(0.82)0.34

(0.30)1.30

(3.43)-4.82

(99.64)

-3.89

(O.W)-1.04

(0.67)-6.36

(0.87)0.76

(0.77)-6.66

(28.01)1.00

(1.(17)5.87

(28.03)1.19-

(0.70)-6.18

(0.76)-631

(0.71)0.40

(0.26)0.93

(210)-5.84

(99.64)

Constant

Principals Married

White Man

Woman Calls Police

Woman Injured

Complaint Signed

Both Present x Woman Injured

Both Present x Man Drinking

Both Present x Only the WomanAlleges Violence

Private Setting

Offense Seriousness

Man Fought with Officer

Man Fought with OtherCitizen(s)

Man's Demeanor

Observer Characterization:Hostile at Beginning

Observer Characterization:Hostile at Beginning/During

Observer Characterization:Detached at Beginning

Observer Characterization:Detached at Beginning/During

Noncompliance

Verbal Resistance

2.97.(1.04)

3.25-(1.19)

3.37-(1.21)

2.15.(0.82)

0.93(1.26)

-0.36(1.32)

3.06*(0.83)0.51

(0.74)1~.

(037)167

Behavioral Scale

lS2 152 167 167N 152

. p < .05, one-tailed test.

NOTE: Entries are unstandardized coefficients and, in parentheses, standard errors.

It is once again clear that the likelihood of arrest increases when sus-pects display a disrespectful or hostile demeanor (Table 4). Although themagnitude of the estimated effect is smaller when interaction-phase crimeis controlled (column A), the effect is statistically significant-disrespect


Table 4. Logistic Regression of Arrest on SituationalFactors: Disputes (Worden, 1989)

Ori~McideJ

-4.64(0.92)1.71-

(0.96)1.69-

(0.82)Q.32

(0.9S)1.97-

(0.87)1.93-

(0.51)-0.68(0.7S)-1.14(0.79)-o.ss(0.64)0.24-

(O.~)-0.12(0.54)-2.17-(0.76)-1.26(O.~)0.01

(0.72)0.91

(0.63)0.21

(0.63)0.65

(0.92)0.89

(0.61)-4.82(21.05)

0.00(0.54)-0.02(1.51)

A

-4.75

(0.91)

D

-4.78(0.77)

-2.11-

(O~2.04-

(0.57)-0.63(0.76)-1.27(0.71)-0.65(0.64).0.21-(O.~)-0.20(0.57)-2.00*(0.76)-0.98(0.91)0.30

(0.72)0.94

(0.66)0.30

(0.61)0.74

(0.99)0.76

(O.~)-4.82

(21.00)-0.21(0.54)0.44

(1.42)0.67-

(0.30)1.61

(1.06)-0.67(0.99)

-2.m-

(0.71)1.96-

(0.49)0.34

(o.~)-1.15(0.61)

-0.74

(0.58)0.14-

(8:OJ)(0.51)-1.38*(0.59)-0.97(0.89)0.58

(O.~)0.71

(O.flJ)0.31

(0.55)1.29

(o.~)0.88

(0.54)-4.76

(15.97)-0.37(0.50)1.27

(1.05)0.73-

(0.25)1.31

(0.96)-0.86(0.03)

-2.05-

(0.74)2.3S-

(Q.S6)0.65

(0.61)-1.09

(0.64)-o.S9

(0.61)0.17-

(0.07)0.06

(0.51)-1.24-

(0.61)-0.43

(0.87)0.57

(0.62)0.99-

(0.60)0.13

(0.56)0.86

(0.87)0.82

(0.57)-S.2S

(26.42)-0.58

(0.53)1.97

(1.06)0.74-

(0.27)1.47

(0.95)-121

(0.99)

-1.78*

(O.'m)1.82*

(0.48)0.41

(0.(1)-0.92(0.62)-0.83(O-W)0.11

(0.07)018

(O.SJ)-1.29-(0.58)-o.~(0.86)0.53

(0.59)0.82

(0.58)G.28

(0.53)l.m

(0.77)0.69

(0.54)-4.53

(15.93)-0.40(O.SJ)1.57

(1.02)0..

(0.25)1.41

'(0.92)-0.71(0.91)

Constant

Aggravated Assault

Assault

fight

Complaint Signed

Arrest Requested

Disputant(s) Armed

Disputant(s) Injured

Private Location

Number of Bystanders

Other Officers Present

Disputant(s) Friends

Disputant(s) Unrelated

Disputant(s) Drinking

Disputant(s) Drunk

Disputants Black

Disputants Mixed Race

Disputants Male

Disputants Female

Disputants Acquainted with Officer

Victim Antagonistic

Offense Seriousness

Suspect roUght with Officer

Suspect roUght with Other Citizen

Suspect's DemeanorObserver OIaracterization:

Hostile at BeginningObserver OIaracterization:

Hostile at Beginning/DuringObserver OIaracterization:

Detached at BeginningObserver OIaracterization:

Detached at Beginning/DuringNoncompliance

Verbal Resistance

Behavioral Scale

N

2.2S-(0.67)

1.94-

(0.94)

1.59-(0.69)

2.12-(0.92)

-1.31-

(0.57)

0.78(0.72)

-2.24-

(0.62)0.02

(0.56)

320

-o.SO*

(0.25)3~

-~

-1m

-33). p < .05, one-tailed test.

NOTE: Entries are uDStandardized coefficients and, in parentheses, standard errors.

,96 WORDEN AND SHEPARD

increases the probability of arrest in the typical case from .01 to .05. Fur-ther, the effect of a detached demeanor, which increases the probability ofarrest from .01 to .09, is also statistically significant. Once again, however,the effect of disrespect is no greater when it includes suspects' predomi-nant demeanor during the encounter (column B), and the effect of adetached demeanor is reduced to statistical insignificance.3 The estimatedeffect of noncompliance is significant, but verbal resistance has noindependent effect (column C). The estimated effect of demeanor when itis measured on an ordinal scale is significant (column D), but the starkdifference in the effects of its components-noncompliance and verbalresistance-is obscured.

Additional analysis (available from the authors upon request) showsthat suspects' demeanor also affects the likelihood that officers willrespond in a coercive fashion more generally-that is, threaten, lecture,use force, or arrest. Indeed, a disrespectful demeanor has a greater effectin eliciting a coercive response by police than in prompting an arrest, inthe sense that it produces a larger absolute change in the probability of acoercive response. Officers are unlikely to make arrests in disputes, andunlikely to arrest even hostile suspects, but they commonly use some kindof coercion. Disrespect at the beginning of an encounter raises theprobability of a coercive response from .50 to .74; disrespect at the begin-ning or during the encounter raises the probability from .50 to .68. Adetached demeanor, however, has no significant effect on coercion. Non-compliance has a significant effect, increasing the probability of a coerciveresponse from .49 to .70, but the effect of verbal resistance does notachieve statistical significance.

TRAFFIC STOPS

Worden (1989) analyzed police disposition of 847 traffic stops. Disposi-tion was conceived and measured as a polytomous variable, with outcomesof varying seriousness that arguably constitute an ordinal scale, includingno action, a verbal warning, a written warning, a citation, and an arrest.Explanatory variables included the nature of the infraction for which thesuspect was stopped (e.g., speeding, other moving violations, improperequipment or registration), the presence of bystanders or other officers,the characteristics (age, sex, race, and sobriety) of the suspect, and thesuspect's demeanor. The suspect's demeanor was measured in terms of

3. The N for the original model and for model A is reduced by missing values forsuspects' demeanor-that is, cases in which suspects were not present at the beginningof the encounter. The estimated effects of demeanor in model B are unaffected by theexclusion of these cases.


the observer's characterization of demeanor at the outset of the encoun-ter, dichotomized as antagonistic or civil. The effects of these variables ondisposition were estimated through a discriminant analysis. The estimatedeffect of demeanor achieved statistical significance, although it was notsubstantively large. As in Worden's (1989) analysis of disputes, the entireset of variables had only modest explanatory power.

None of the traffic stops was prompted by an offense as serious as aminor property crime, which means that all of these encounters have thesame value-zero-on Klinger's scale of seriousness. The seriousness oftraffic violations varies some, and some of that variance presumably is notcaptured by the dummy variables for types of violations, but we see noreason to expect, a priori, that the unmeasured variance in the seriousnessof traffic violations is related to suspects' demeanor. Further, additionalanalysis of these data reveals that no suspect in a traffic stop was observedto fight with other citizens or officers, although a few of the traffic stopsturned up evidence of other, more serious wrongdoing-two people whowere wanted by police and two cases of marijuana possession. Becausethese offenses were detected during the encounters, one might considerthem interaction-phase crime, for which analysis should control.

Table 5 presents the estimated effects of demeanor, operationalized inits various forms, based on an ordered probit analysis.4 These analysesconfirm the previous conclusion about the effect of suspects' demeanor;the estimated effect of a disrespectful demeanor is substantial and statisti-cally significant without and with (column A) controls for other offenses.They further reveal that a detached demeanor also has a significant effecton disposition (column B). The probability that the suspect in the typicaltraffic stop will be given a ticket rises from .39 to .61 if the suspect is disre-spectful, and to .55 if the suspect is detached.

The results also show that suspects' demeanor has a substantial effect onpolice disposition when demeanor is operationalized in alternative ways.When the measures of demeanor encompass behavior during encounters(column C), the effect of disrespect is somewhat more pronounced and theeffect of a detached demeanor is less pronounced and statistically insignifi-cant. Noncompliance and verbal resistance have independent effects onthe disposition of traffic stops (column D), although the effect of the latteris no greater than the effect of the former. Noncompliance and verbalresistance raise the estimated probability of a ticket from .38 to .65 and.62, respectively. When these forms of behavior are represented on an

4. Probit analysis takes advantage of the ordinal property of the dependent varia-ble, and so it is in this respect more appropriate than discriminant analysis; see McKel-vey and Zavoina (1975). The results are similar when the dependent variable isdichotomized to distinguish arrest or citation from less severe dispositions.


Table 5. Ordered Probit Analysis of Disposition by Police:Traffic Stops (Worden, 1989)

B C

0.29(0.25)1.22

(O.~1.48

(0.06)3.28

(0.14)-0.34(0.37)-1.56.(0.33)0.29*

(0.11)0.48.

(0.14)0.32.

(0.10)0.27

(0.20)0.14

(0.22)0.06

(0.10)0.02

(0.06)0.02

(0.00)0.49*

(0.10)-0.41.

(0.17)-0.03(O.~)

-0.41.

(0.13)268.

(1.15)0.17

(0.64)

D E

Constant 0.24(0.25)1.21

(O.~)1.47

(O.~3.22

(0.13)-0.24(0.33)-1.5g.(0.32)0.27*

(0.11)0.48*

(0.14)0.32*

(0.10)O.W

(0.21)0.13

(0.23)0.07

(0.10)0.03

(O.~)0.03

(O.W)0.53*

(0.10)-o.~(0.17)-0.04(O.~)-0.43*(0.12)2.fIJ*

(1.17)0.14

(0.6.1)

0.23(0.25)1.22

(0.fK))1.47

(0.06)3.23

(0.13)-0.27

(0.34)-1.58.

(032)0.28.

(0.11)0.48.

(0.14)0.32.

(0.10)0.20

(0.21)0.11

(0.22)0.07

(0.10)0.03

(0.06)0.01

(0.00)0.53.

(0.10)-0.44.(0.17)-0.04(O.~)-0.44.(0.12)2.63.

(1.19)0.15

(0.63)

0.49(0.26)1.22

(0.06)1.48

(0.06)3.36

(0.14)-0.33(0.37)-1.54.(0.33)0.28.

(0.11)0.47.

(0.14)0.28.

(0.10)0.15

(0.21)0.13

(0.23)0.06

(0.10)0.00

(0.06)-0.06(0.09)O~

(0.10)-0.45.

(0.17)-0.03(O.~)-o.~(0.12)2.43

(1.00)0.31

(0.61)

0.32(0.26)1.22

(0.06)1.48

(0.06)3.32

(0.14)-0.38(0.39)-1.5S-

(0.33)O.JO-

(0.11)0.47-

(0.14)0.28-

(0.10)0.14

(0.21)0.17

(0.23)O.~

(0.10)0.01

(0.06)-0.04(0.1»)0.47-

(0.10)-0.42-

(0.17)-0.04(O.~)

-0.38-

(0.12)2.28

(2.52)0.26

(0.62)

14(1)

14(2)

14(3)

General Violation

Routine Stop

Equipment Violation

Speeding

Other Moving Violation

DUI

Car Chase

Female Suspect

Suspect's Age

Nonwhite Suspect

Suspect Sobriety

Suspect Known to Officer

Bystanders

Other Officers Present

Suspect Wanted by Police

Drug Violation

Suspect's DemeanorObserver Characterization:

Hostile at BeginningObserver Characterization:

Hostile at Beginning/DuringObserver Characterization:

Detached at BeginningObserver Characterization:

Detached at Beginning/DuringNoncompliance

Verbal Resistance

Behavioral Scale

1.26.(0.72)

1.27-(0.72)

1~(0.73)

1.49*(0.42)

0.56.(0.38)

0.32(0.31)

1.36.(0.38)0.83.

(0.19)o.sg.

(0.00)829N 826 826 826 829 829. p < .05, one-tailed test

NOTE: EntriC1 are unstandardized coefficients and, in parentheses, standard erron.


ordinal scale (column E), the estimated effect is significant, although theestimated changes in the probability of a ticket- which increases from .37to .55 and .64, respectively, for the two categories of demeanor-differsomewhat from the estimates derived from the use of dummy variables.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Previous analyses of PSS data consistently supported the propositionthat police behavior is influenced by suspects' demeanor, and our analysesprovide no evidence that previous findings were biased either by the oper-ationalization of demeanor or by the failure to control more adequatelyfor pre-intervention and interaction-phase crime. Indeed, the conclusionthat a hostile demeanor affects police behavior is not contingent (in thesedata, at least) on how demeanor is measured. In addition, previouslyreported findings about the effects of other legal and extralegal variablesalso are unaltered by the inclusion of the additional controls. We believethat there are several reasons that our efforts to address Klinger's criti-cisms leave previous findings intact, and related reasons to have confi-dence in causal inferences based on the results reported here.

The exclusion of interaction-phase assaults from measures of demeanoris of no consequence in our reanalyses. Contrary to Klinger's supposition,none of the studies reexamined here included interaction-phase assaults inthe operationalization of demeanor. Even if they had, suspects so infre-quently fought with officers or other citizens during their encounters withthe police that such illegal conduct could represent no more than a small(and typically redundant) part of any measure of hostility or incivility inthese data. Further, the estimated effects of such illegality on policebehavior are not consistently significant, and whatever effects such illegal-ity has were apparently not confounded with those of suspects' demeanor.

While the PSS data do not afford the opportunity to examine the effectsof interaction-phase crimes other than assaults, we suspect that thoseoffenses are almost equally infrequent. We also expect that the effects ofother interaction-phase crimes on police behavior are likely to be muchsmaller than those of assaults because the crimes are less serious. More-over, we would expect, a priori, that those offenses would bear weakerrelationships to suspects' demeanor than do assaults and, hence, that their(small) effects would be less likely still to be confounded with those ofdemeanor.

The inclusion of a scale that controls for the seriousness of pre-interven-tion crime has no bearing on the estimated effect of demeanor in the PSSdata, nor is it likely that a more refined measure of offense seriousnesswould alter the findings. Estimates of the effects of demeanor would bebiased by imprecision in the measurement of offense seriousness only if


demeanor and offense seriousness are related, that is, if hostile suspectsare more likely to have committed more serious crimes~ We know of no apriori reason to specify such a relationship, and there is no evidence ofsuch a relationship in the Metro-Dade data (Klinger, 1994a:Table 3) or inany of the subsets of police-citizen encounters analyzed above, in whichthe correlations are very small-rarely greater than .10-and statisticallyinsignificant. In any case, the "crude indicators" used in previous studiescapture a substantial proportion of the variation in seriousness. ForWorden's analysis of disputes, the seriousness of pre-intervention crimi-nality appears to have been largely captured by the three dummy variables(aggravated assault, assault, fight), which together explain 80% of the vari-ance in Klinger's offense seriousness scale. Even Smith and Visher's fel-ony/misdemeanor dummy variable accounts for half of the variance in theseriousness scale (r = .71). Thus, we believe that our inability to more fullymeasure and control for the seriousness of pre-intervention crime-whether it involves domestic conflict, traffic infractions, or offenses of amore general nature-is no reason to doubt these findings aboutdemeanor. While one could argue that analyses of these data that includemore complete and more refined measures of pre-intervention and inter-action-phase crime might yield different results that lead to opposite con-clusions, the possibility appears remote.

If these results pennit one to draw inferences about the effect ofdemeanor on police behavior, it may be instructive to consider how thesefindings can be reconciled with Klinger's null finding. It is possible thatKlinger's finding is an artifact of the assumptions on which his analysisrests. Klinger specifies an ordinal measure of demeanor that distinguishesencounters in which citizens were "moderately hostile" and those in whichcitizens were "highly hostile" from each other and from those in whichcitizens were civil. Klinger does not discuss the correspondence of thesecategories to theoretical constructs, and it may be that only "highly" hos-tile behavior is the kind of behavior that previous research has treated asantagonistic. Citizens were hostile (at the beginning of their interactionwith police) in 28% of the disputes observed in the Metro-Dade studycompared with 13 % of the disputes observed for the PSS, which suggestseither that Klinger's measure of hostility encompasses behavior that wasnot considered antagonistic in analyses of PSS data or that officers inMetro-Dade were dramatically more likely to encounter hostility. If theformer, and if "moderately hostile" behavior has a small or no effect while"highly hostile" behavior has the effect that previous research hasreported, the coefficient for this ordinal variable would underestimate theeffect of demeanor as it has been defined in previous research.

It is also possible that Klinger's finding is an artifact of the measures athis disposal. The coding instrument for the Metro-Dade data does not


enable one to discriminate the demeanor of suspects from that of othercitizens in encounters (Klinger, personal communication, May 17, 1995).Thus if, say, a complainant or a witness was moderately or highly hostile,for Klinger's (1994a) analysis the demeanor variable is scored accordingly.But it is suspects' demeanor that is at issue, and insofar as hostile suspectsbear a greater risk of arrest than do other hostile citizens, then Klinger'sanalysis of the Metro-Dade data may underestimate the relationshipbetween suspects' demeanor and arrest. Some insight might be gainedthrough comparable analyses of PSS data. When measures of demeanorare constructed without regard for the role of citizens in the encounters,the estimated magnitude of the effect is attenuated somewhat in mostinstances, and especially when demeanor is measured in terms of observ-ers' characterizations. In two instances this attenuation is the differencebetween a statistically significant and an insignificant coefficient.

It is also possible that Klinger's null finding reflects changes in policingover time. The increasing professionalism and changing demographic pro-file of police officers, and the increased risk of civil liability, might havediminished the extent to which police officers respond to displays of disre-spect. One might argue that the type of officer for whom citizens'demeanor is particularly salient-typified by Joseph Wambaugh's "BlueKnight," Bumper Morgan-is part of a now nearly bygone era, and thatanother type of officer-the snappy, legalistic bureaucrat who adopts amore impersonal posture vis-a-vis citizens-is represented in increasingnumbers in increasingly professionalized police departments (see Brown,1981; White, 1972). The PSS data were collected in 1977 and the Metro-Dade data in 1985-1986. Moreover, since changes in the composition andoutlooks of police officers have almost certainly proceeded at a very dif-ferent pace in different police departments, the eight- or nine-year timespan could understate the differences between Metro-Dade and the PSSdepartments collectively. One might expect that the changing compositionand outlooks of police could produce a change in the patterns of influ-ences on officers' behaviors, and one might speculate that Klinger's find-ings reflect these developments (even if Klinger has underestimated theeffect of demeanor). This interpretation is further supported by a recentanalysis of observational data collected in 1992 (Mastrofski et al., 1995),which found that suspects' "active resistance" does not affect theprobability of arrest when illegal forms of resistance are controlled.s

5. This support must be qualified, however, insofar as the resistance in question isnot equivalent to previous conceptions of a disrespectful or hostile demeanor. Activelyresistant suspects were those who "refused to comply with an explicit police command,acted threateningly toward police, or offered physical resistance. . .. Unlike some defi-nitions of demeanor, this excludes forms of hostility, such as a glare or argumentativecomment, that fall short of explicit failure to obey" (Mastrofski et al., 1995:549).


Another variation on the theme of temporal changes would emphasizethe increasing workload of police. Mastrofski (personal communication,September 13, 1994; also see Mastrofski et al., 1994) has observed that itmay be useful to think of arrests as a form of work that consumes a scarceresource, time, and that other, less time-consuming responses should beexamined. Our analysis of disputes, for example, indicates that when sus-pects are disrespectful, police are more likely to take coercive actions,which may but do not necessarily include arrest. Further, analyses of theBlack-Reiss data (Friedrich, 1980) and of the PSS data (Worden, 1995)confirm that police are more likely to use force against disrespectful sus-pects; so too does Klinger's (1994b) analysis of Metro-Dade data. Anarrest is only one of the punitive measures that police officers can takeagainst citizens who fail to grant them the expected deference, and ifpolice are now more reluctant to pay the price (in time) of an arrest inorder to punish "assholes" (Van Maanen, 1978), they may be correspond-ingly more likely to use alternatives.

Whether or not Klinger's (1994a) findings foreshadow those of futureinquiries, it would be desirable for future scholarship to attend to the mea-surement of demeanor with due care. Our analyses show that differentmeasures yield estimated effects of different magnitude, though with fewexceptions they all lead to the same conclusion. While we believe thatsome measures are more valid on their face than others are (see Wordenand Shepard, 1995), one might infer that the effect of demeanor is so sub-stantial that these different measures produce substantively and statisti-cally significant coefficients despite varying attenuation due tomeasurement error. Not all measures of demeanor in the Midwest Citydata yield similar fiildings (Lundman, 1994), however, and careful mea-surement will be all the more important if the impact of demeanor hasdiminished over time, since smaller effects will be detected only by moresensitive measures.

While scholars have agreed, by and large, that demeanor is an importanttheoretical construct in explaining police behavior, the research reflectslittle agreement on the behaviors that constitute disrespect. Previousresearch has defined disrespect in a variety of ways, with little or noexplicit consideration of the correspondence between the concept and theindicators used. Different data collection efforts have been based on dif-ferent coding schemes,6 and even analyses of a single data set have used

6. Compare, for example, the measures based on PSS data with those thatLundman (1994) constructs using Sykes and Clark's Midwest City data: "Each uninter-rupted statement directed by an alleged violator to an officer was immediately contentanalyzed by an observer and placed into one of three mutually exclusive interactionalcategories" (p. 636), which were polite, deferent, and impolite. Thus "the indicators ofdemeanor were limited to spoken words" (p. 650). It would appear, then, that either


different operationalizations. The most valuable contribution of Klinger'scritique, in our view, is its challenge to clarify the definition and improvethe measurement of citizens' demeanor toward the police. Klinger raisesimportant issues of conceptualization and operationalization, the resolu-tion of which will hinge on theoretical development and further empiricalinquiry (see Worden and Shepard, 1995).

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1989 Situational and attitudinal explanations of police behavior: A theoreticalreappraisal and empirical assessment. Law & Society Review 23:667-711.

1995 The "causes" of police brutality: Theory and evidence on police use offorce. In William A. Geller and Hans Toch (eds.), And Justice for All:Understanding and Controlling Police Abuse of Force. Washington, D.C.Police Executive Research Forum.

Worden, Robert E. and Alissa A. Pollitz1984 Police arrests in domestic disturbances: A further look. Law &; Society

Review 18:105-119.Worden. Robert E. and Robin L. Shepard

1995 On the meaning and measurement of suspects' demeanor toward thepolice. Unpublished manuscript, University at Albany, State Universityof New York.

Robert Eo Worden is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and of Public Policy atthe University at Albany, State University of New York. His research focuses primarilyon developing theories of police decisionmaking and behavior, and on evaluating theimplementation and outcomes of police strategies and policies.

Robin L. Shepard is currently pursuing her doctorate in criminal justice at the Uni-versity at Albany. Her primary research interests include explaining police behavior

and assessing police effectiveness.

demeanor, crime, and police - home, home · demeanor, crime, and police behavior: a reexamination...

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