Trends in Police Research: A Cross‐Sectional Analysis of the 2003 Literature

Abstract

This review represents the fourth in an annual special feature in Police Practice and Research: An International Journal. It provides a cross‐sectional analysis of the police literature for the year 2003, highlighting the substantive categories of the literature as well as the distribution of publication medium and methodological typology. In doing so, the authors provide a ‘snapshot’ of the current research trends in policing and, using the results of Beckman et al.’s (2003) review as a baseline, state both the substantive and methodological research patterns of this specific field of criminology.

Keywords:

• Police
• Police Research
• Police Trends
• Police Literature Review

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted by the Police Research Group at the Department of Criminology, University of Maryland, a graduate student organization under the direction of Professors David Weisburd and Jean McGloin. The authors would like to thank Professors Weisburd and McGloin for their expert guidance, and Catherine Gibbs of Niagara County Community College and Jennifer Drake of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service for their assistance on this project.

Notes

[1] See Beckman, K., Lum, C., Wyckoff, L., & Larsen‐Vanderwall, K. (2003). Trends in police research: A cross‐sectional analysis of the 2000 literature. Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, 4(1), 79–96.

[2] The authors rely on these abstract databases for accuracy; only those citations including in the author field ‘et al.’ are checked for accuracy.

[3] The reference date for database holdings is August 31, 2005. Given the inherent limitations of abstract databases, readers are cautioned that the resulting bibliography may not represent all police literature published in 2003.

[4] Global issues was the only new subcategory added in 2003. There were no significant differences between trends in analyses conducted with and without this category.

[5] Trends were assessed based on percent change in percent of total distribution between 2000 and 2003. Given the small number of cases within categories, this measure should be interpreted only as an indication of direction and degree of change.

[6] References are listed in alphabetical order by subcategory.