Turning it on and off: a behavioural and situational comparison of non-fatal violence perpetrated by on- versus off-duty police officers

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Reid, Khy
Porter, Louise E
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2024
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Abstract

Though research into police use of force continues to expand, analysis of off-duty police violence remains deficient and duty status comparisons of police violence are almost non-existent. Some argue that the broader policing context may ‘spill-over’ into off-duty settings, creating a consistency in police behaviour regardless of duty status. Others argue that off-duty police violence is vastly different from on-duty excessive force. The present study aimed to empirically compare extra-legal violence by police officers committed on- versus off-duty, to explore possible duty status differences in behaviours of the offending officers and the victims involved, as well as situational characteristics of the encounters. A sample of 119 cases (61 on-duty and 58 off-duty) of violence by Australian police officers that was determined to have violated law or policy was collected from open access sources (law reports and media articles) and content analysed. Chi-square analysis was used to select variables into three multivariate regression models to predict duty status from offender behaviour, victim behaviour, and individual/situational characteristics. A final regression model then included all resultant significant factors. The primary finding was the consistency across duty status in many aspects, particularly officer characteristics, despite some notable differences in context. The full model showed the factors most predictive of duty status to be offender verbal behaviour and handcuff use, and the situational characteristics of the number of offending officers present and whether the victim had been suspected of a crime. The behavioural consistency across duty status is discussed in terms of spill-over of police violence.

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Policing and Society

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This accepted manuscript is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advance online version.

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Reid, K; Porter, LE, Turning it on and off: a behavioural and situational comparison of non-fatal violence perpetrated by on- versus off-duty police officers, Policing and Society, 2024

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