Justin Nix
Biographic Data
| ID | 5721164 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Justin Nix |
| GIVEN NAMES | Justin |
| FAMILY NAME | Nix |
| SIGNATURE | NIX J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nebraska at Omaha |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3812-8590 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 222 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Victim Notification and Re-Engagement in the Minnesota Sexual Assault Kit Initiative
Using data from the Minnesota sexual assault kit initiative (MN SAKI) project, we examined the predictors of victim notifications, processes, and the outcomes. Findings indicated cases selected for victim notification ( n = 80; 19.8%) were more likely to involve victims who were non-White and not cooperative; suspects who were strangers, adults, and non-White; and SAKs with DNA evidence, but not CODIS hits. While most victims were located and not…
What predicts testing a sexual assault kit? Findings from the Minnesota sexual assault kit initiative project
The relationship between warrior and guardian mindsets and support for police reform
This study investigates how distinct cultural orientations among police officers are associated with their support for contemporary reform efforts. Although prior research has established that police culture shapes officer attitudes toward reform, the specific impact of differing cultural perspectives remains underexplored. Drawing on survey data collected from three U.S. police agencies including a sample of 217 officers, this study examines the…
Police de-escalation training and its effects on communication: Evidence from an experimental evaluation
ViCAP usage and viability for sexual assault investigations: Findings from a survey of Saki sites
In 2018, the Bureau of Justice Assistance Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) began mandating SAKI funding awardees submit eligible cases to the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP), a database which allows for the identification and analysis of serial violent crimes. Limited research has examined the use of ViCAP by SAKI sites or SAKI site personnels’ perceptions of ViCAP. To address this gap, we conducted a survey of SAKI sites (N = 2…
Police Shootings in Canada: An Empirical Analysis and Call for Data
We analyzed police shootings in Canada (except Québec) between 2017 and 2019. Drawing upon media reports and information provided by police oversight agencies, we attempted to identify all incidents where on-duty police officers discharged their firearm with the intent to strike a person. Findings indicated that such incidents occurred an average of 58 times per year. Approximately 39% of police shootings were fatal, 48% were non-fatal, and 12% w…
Unveiling the Unseen: Documenting and Analyzing Nonfatal Shootings by Police
Justice at the
When police pull back: Neighborhood‐level effects of de‐policing on violent and property crime, a research note
Many U.S. cities witnessed both de‐policing and increased crime in 2020, yet whether the former contributed to the latter remains unclear. Indeed, much of what is known about the effects of proactive policing on crime comes from studies that evaluated highly focused interventions atypical of day‐to‐day policing, used cities as the unit of analysis, or could not rule out endogeneity. This study addresses each of these issues, thereby advancing the…
Officer diversity may reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police
Would police racial and gender diversification reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police? The theory of representative bureaucracy indicates that it might. We tested the effects of officer diversity in two experiments embedded in a national survey that oversampled Black Americans, producing several findings. First, in early 2022, nearly 2 years after George Floyd's killing, most Black Americans remained afraid of police mistreatment. Second, in …
Turnover in large US policing agencies following the George Floyd protests
The “war on cops,” retaliatory violence, and the murder of George Floyd
The police murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 and revived claims that public outcry over such high‐profile police killings perpetuated a violent “war on cops.” Using data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) on firearm assaults of U.S. police officers, we use Bayesian structural time series (BSTS) modeling to empirically assess if and how patterns of firearm assault on police officers in the United Sta…
Understanding the Bounds of Legitimacy: Weber’s Facets of Legitimacy and the Police Empowerment Hypothesis
Despite considerable evidence that police legitimacy results in beneficial outcomes like compliance, cooperation, and empowerment, scholars have yet to agree on how to define and operationalize legitimacy. Drawing on Max Weber’s facets of legitimacy, we developed and tested a measure of “traditional authority,” reflecting the possibility that some people legitimate the police more so based on tradition than normative concerns regarding fairness. …
Body-Worn Cameras and Transparency: Experimental Evidence of Inconsistency in Police Executive Decision-Making
Body-worn cameras (BWC) have diffused rapidly throughout policing as a means of promoting transparency and accountability. Yet, whether to release BWC footage to the public remains largely up to the discretion of police executives, and we know little about how they interpret and respond to BWC footage – particularly footage involving critical incidents. We asked a nationally representative sample of police executives (N = 476) how supportive they…
A national analysis of trauma care proximity and firearm assault survival among U.S. police
Past research on factors influencing firearm assault (FA) mortality have not focused on police officers who, compared to other U.S. workers and the general public, experience especially high rates of firearm victimization. This study focuses on this unique population of FA victims and examines the relationship between travel time to the nearest trauma care facility and the probability of survival among officers shot on duty. Combining data on tra…
The immediate and long-term effects of Covid-19 stay-at-home orders on domestic violence calls for service across six U.S. jurisdictions
We assessed immediate and long-term trends in calls for police service regarding domestic violence following COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Using open data from the Police Data Initiative, we performed interrupted time-series analyses of weekly calls for service for domestic violence in New Orleans (LA), Cincinnati (OH), Seattle (WA), Salt Lake City (UT), Montgomery County (MD), and Phoenix (AZ). Results indicate that five of the six jurisdictions…
Police killings of unarmed black Americans: A reassessment of community mental health spillover effects
We reevaluate the claim from Bor et al. (2018: 302) that ‘police killings of unarmed black Americans have effects on mental health among black American adults in the general population.’ The Mapping Police Violence data used by the authors include 91 incidents involving black decedents who were either (1) not killed by police officers in the line of duty or (2) armed when killed. These incidents should have been removed or recoded prior to analys…
Comparing 911 and emergency hotline calls for domestic violence in seven cities: What happened when people started staying home due to Covid‐19
Research Summary : We examine changes in help-seeking for domestic violence (DV) in seven U.S. cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Bayesian structural time-series modeling with daily data to construct a synthetic counterfactual, we test whether calls to police and/or emergency hotlines varied in 2020 as people stayed home due to COVID-19. Across this sample, we estimate there were approximately 1030 more calls to police and 1671 more calls…
Elevated police turnover following the summer of George Floyd protests: A synthetic control study
Research summary Several of the largest U.S. police departments reported a sharp increase in officer resignations following massive public protests directed at policing in the summer of 2020. Yet, to date, no study has rigorously assessed the impact of the George Floyd protests on police resignations. We fill this void using 60 months of employment data from a large police department in the western United States. Bayesian structural time‐series m…
What does the public want police to do during pandemics? A national experiment
When considered together with other evidence, one clear takeaway from our study is that the public values police patrols and wants officers on call, even during pandemics. Another is that people who believe the police are procedurally just are more willing to trust officers in times of crisis and to empower them to enforce new laws, such as social distancing ordinances. Our results thus support continued procedural justice training for officers. …
Gun victimization in the line of duty: Fatal and nonfatal firearm assaults on police officers in the United States, 2014–2019
GVA has decided strengths relative to existing data sources on police victimization and danger in policing. We consider the promises and pitfalls of this and other open-source data sets in policing research and recommend that recent state-level improvements in use-of-force data collection be replicated and expanded to include data on violence against police
Considering violence against police by citizen race/ethnicity to contextualize representation in officer-involved shootings
Testing a Social Schematic Model of Police Procedural Justice
Procedural justice theory increasingly guides policing reforms in the United States and abroad. Yet the primary sources of perceived police procedural justice are still unclear. Building on social schema research, we posit civilians’ perceptions of police procedural justice only partly reflect their personal and vicarious experiences with officers. We theorize perceptions of the police are anchored in a broader “relational justice schema,” compos…
The Impact of Negative Publicity on Police Self-legitimacy
High-profile events involving police use of force in various cities throughout the US and internationally have garnered enormous media coverage and demonstrated the importance of police-community relations. To date little empirical attention has focused on how such events may negatively impact police officers. Using survey data from 567 officers, this study considers whether perceptions of negative publicity are adversely related to officers’ sen…
A Bird's Eye View of Civilians Killed by Police in 2015: Further Evidence of Implicit Bias
Research Summary We analyzed 990 police fatal shootings using data compiled by The Washington Post in 2015. After first providing a basic descriptive analysis of these shootings, we then examined the data for evidence of implicit bias by using multivariate regression models that predict two indicators of threat perception failure: (1) whether the civilian was not attacking the officer(s) or other civilians just before being fatally shot and (2) w…
Police research, officer surveys, and response rates
In recent years, policing scholars have increasingly used survey methods to gain insight into officers’ attitudes and behaviours. Yet, surprisingly, methodological research analysing surveys of police officers is rare. We analysed the extent and correlates of response rates in police surveys, providing insights about the survey design features and study characteristics associated with higher rates of officer participation. We examined the respons…
A Bird's Eye View of Civilians Killed by Police in 2015: Further Evidence of Implicit Bias
Research Summary We analyzed 990 police fatal shootings using data compiled by The Washington Post in 2015. After first providing a basic descriptive analysis of these shootings, we then examined the data for evidence of implicit bias by using multivariate regression models that predict two indicators of threat perception failure: (1) whether the civilian was not attacking the officer(s) or other civilians just before being fatally shot and (2) w…
Elevated police turnover following the summer of George Floyd protests: A synthetic control study
Research summary Several of the largest U.S. police departments reported a sharp increase in officer resignations following massive public protests directed at policing in the summer of 2020. Yet, to date, no study has rigorously assessed the impact of the George Floyd protests on police resignations. We fill this void using 60 months of employment data from a large police department in the western United States. Bayesian structural time‐series m…
Police research, officer surveys, and response rates
In recent years, policing scholars have increasingly used survey methods to gain insight into officers’ attitudes and behaviours. Yet, surprisingly, methodological research analysing surveys of police officers is rare. We analysed the extent and correlates of response rates in police surveys, providing insights about the survey design features and study characteristics associated with higher rates of officer participation. We examined the respons…
Third-person perceptions, hostile media effects, and policing: Developing a theoretical framework for assessing the Ferguson effect
What does the public want police to do during pandemics? A national experiment
When considered together with other evidence, one clear takeaway from our study is that the public values police patrols and wants officers on call, even during pandemics. Another is that people who believe the police are procedurally just are more willing to trust officers in times of crisis and to empower them to enforce new laws, such as social distancing ordinances. Our results thus support continued procedural justice training for officers. …
Testing a Social Schematic Model of Police Procedural Justice
Procedural justice theory increasingly guides policing reforms in the United States and abroad. Yet the primary sources of perceived police procedural justice are still unclear. Building on social schema research, we posit civilians’ perceptions of police procedural justice only partly reflect their personal and vicarious experiences with officers. We theorize perceptions of the police are anchored in a broader “relational justice schema,” compos…
Sensitivity to the Ferguson Effect: The role of managerial organizational justice
Comparing 911 and emergency hotline calls for domestic violence in seven cities: What happened when people started staying home due to Covid‐19
Research Summary : We examine changes in help-seeking for domestic violence (DV) in seven U.S. cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Bayesian structural time-series modeling with daily data to construct a synthetic counterfactual, we test whether calls to police and/or emergency hotlines varied in 2020 as people stayed home due to COVID-19. Across this sample, we estimate there were approximately 1030 more calls to police and 1671 more calls…
When police pull back: Neighborhood‐level effects of de‐policing on violent and property crime, a research note
Many U.S. cities witnessed both de‐policing and increased crime in 2020, yet whether the former contributed to the latter remains unclear. Indeed, much of what is known about the effects of proactive policing on crime comes from studies that evaluated highly focused interventions atypical of day‐to‐day policing, used cities as the unit of analysis, or could not rule out endogeneity. This study addresses each of these issues, thereby advancing the…
Turnover in large US policing agencies following the George Floyd protests
Gun victimization in the line of duty: Fatal and nonfatal firearm assaults on police officers in the United States, 2014–2019
GVA has decided strengths relative to existing data sources on police victimization and danger in policing. We consider the promises and pitfalls of this and other open-source data sets in policing research and recommend that recent state-level improvements in use-of-force data collection be replicated and expanded to include data on violence against police
Officer diversity may reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police
Would police racial and gender diversification reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police? The theory of representative bureaucracy indicates that it might. We tested the effects of officer diversity in two experiments embedded in a national survey that oversampled Black Americans, producing several findings. First, in early 2022, nearly 2 years after George Floyd's killing, most Black Americans remained afraid of police mistreatment. Second, in …
The “war on cops,” retaliatory violence, and the murder of George Floyd
The police murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 and revived claims that public outcry over such high‐profile police killings perpetuated a violent “war on cops.” Using data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) on firearm assaults of U.S. police officers, we use Bayesian structural time series (BSTS) modeling to empirically assess if and how patterns of firearm assault on police officers in the United Sta…
Considering violence against police by citizen race/ethnicity to contextualize representation in officer-involved shootings
Trust in the Police: The Influence of Procedural Justice and Perceived Collective Efficacy
Tyler’s process-based model of policing suggests that the police can enhance their perceived legitimacy and trustworthiness in the eyes of the public when they exercise their authority in a procedurally fair manner. To date, most process-based research has focused on the sources of legitimacy while largely overlooking trust in the police. The present study extends this line of literature by examining the sources of trust in the police. In particu…
Is the Effect of Procedural Justice on Police Legitimacy Invariant? Testing the Generality of Procedural Justice and Competing Antecedents of Legitimacy
Pulled over: How police stops define race and citizenship
Epp, Maynard-Moody, and Haider-Markel’s Pulled Over is a timely and captivating book. Central to their argument is that there is a fundamental difference between investigatory stops and traffic sto
Sensitivity to the Ferguson Effect: The role of managerial organizational justice
The Impact of Negative Publicity on Police Self-legitimacy
High-profile events involving police use of force in various cities throughout the US and internationally have garnered enormous media coverage and demonstrated the importance of police-community relations. To date little empirical attention has focused on how such events may negatively impact police officers. Using survey data from 567 officers, this study considers whether perceptions of negative publicity are adversely related to officers’ sen…
A Bird's Eye View of Civilians Killed by Police in 2015: Further Evidence of Implicit Bias
Research Summary We analyzed 990 police fatal shootings using data compiled by The Washington Post in 2015. After first providing a basic descriptive analysis of these shootings, we then examined the data for evidence of implicit bias by using multivariate regression models that predict two indicators of threat perception failure: (1) whether the civilian was not attacking the officer(s) or other civilians just before being fatally shot and (2) w…
Police research, officer surveys, and response rates
In recent years, policing scholars have increasingly used survey methods to gain insight into officers’ attitudes and behaviours. Yet, surprisingly, methodological research analysing surveys of police officers is rare. We analysed the extent and correlates of response rates in police surveys, providing insights about the survey design features and study characteristics associated with higher rates of officer participation. We examined the respons…
Third-person perceptions, hostile media effects, and policing: Developing a theoretical framework for assessing the Ferguson effect
Testing a Social Schematic Model of Police Procedural Justice
Procedural justice theory increasingly guides policing reforms in the United States and abroad. Yet the primary sources of perceived police procedural justice are still unclear. Building on social schema research, we posit civilians’ perceptions of police procedural justice only partly reflect their personal and vicarious experiences with officers. We theorize perceptions of the police are anchored in a broader “relational justice schema,” compos…
Gun victimization in the line of duty: Fatal and nonfatal firearm assaults on police officers in the United States, 2014–2019
GVA has decided strengths relative to existing data sources on police victimization and danger in policing. We consider the promises and pitfalls of this and other open-source data sets in policing research and recommend that recent state-level improvements in use-of-force data collection be replicated and expanded to include data on violence against police
Considering violence against police by citizen race/ethnicity to contextualize representation in officer-involved shootings
The immediate and long-term effects of Covid-19 stay-at-home orders on domestic violence calls for service across six U.S. jurisdictions
We assessed immediate and long-term trends in calls for police service regarding domestic violence following COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Using open data from the Police Data Initiative, we performed interrupted time-series analyses of weekly calls for service for domestic violence in New Orleans (LA), Cincinnati (OH), Seattle (WA), Salt Lake City (UT), Montgomery County (MD), and Phoenix (AZ). Results indicate that five of the six jurisdictions…
Police killings of unarmed black Americans: A reassessment of community mental health spillover effects
We reevaluate the claim from Bor et al. (2018: 302) that ‘police killings of unarmed black Americans have effects on mental health among black American adults in the general population.’ The Mapping Police Violence data used by the authors include 91 incidents involving black decedents who were either (1) not killed by police officers in the line of duty or (2) armed when killed. These incidents should have been removed or recoded prior to analys…
Comparing 911 and emergency hotline calls for domestic violence in seven cities: What happened when people started staying home due to Covid‐19
Research Summary : We examine changes in help-seeking for domestic violence (DV) in seven U.S. cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Bayesian structural time-series modeling with daily data to construct a synthetic counterfactual, we test whether calls to police and/or emergency hotlines varied in 2020 as people stayed home due to COVID-19. Across this sample, we estimate there were approximately 1030 more calls to police and 1671 more calls…
Elevated police turnover following the summer of George Floyd protests: A synthetic control study
Research summary Several of the largest U.S. police departments reported a sharp increase in officer resignations following massive public protests directed at policing in the summer of 2020. Yet, to date, no study has rigorously assessed the impact of the George Floyd protests on police resignations. We fill this void using 60 months of employment data from a large police department in the western United States. Bayesian structural time‐series m…
What does the public want police to do during pandemics? A national experiment
When considered together with other evidence, one clear takeaway from our study is that the public values police patrols and wants officers on call, even during pandemics. Another is that people who believe the police are procedurally just are more willing to trust officers in times of crisis and to empower them to enforce new laws, such as social distancing ordinances. Our results thus support continued procedural justice training for officers. …
Understanding the Bounds of Legitimacy: Weber’s Facets of Legitimacy and the Police Empowerment Hypothesis
Despite considerable evidence that police legitimacy results in beneficial outcomes like compliance, cooperation, and empowerment, scholars have yet to agree on how to define and operationalize legitimacy. Drawing on Max Weber’s facets of legitimacy, we developed and tested a measure of “traditional authority,” reflecting the possibility that some people legitimate the police more so based on tradition than normative concerns regarding fairness. …
Body-Worn Cameras and Transparency: Experimental Evidence of Inconsistency in Police Executive Decision-Making
Body-worn cameras (BWC) have diffused rapidly throughout policing as a means of promoting transparency and accountability. Yet, whether to release BWC footage to the public remains largely up to the discretion of police executives, and we know little about how they interpret and respond to BWC footage – particularly footage involving critical incidents. We asked a nationally representative sample of police executives (N = 476) how supportive they…
A national analysis of trauma care proximity and firearm assault survival among U.S. police
Past research on factors influencing firearm assault (FA) mortality have not focused on police officers who, compared to other U.S. workers and the general public, experience especially high rates of firearm victimization. This study focuses on this unique population of FA victims and examines the relationship between travel time to the nearest trauma care facility and the probability of survival among officers shot on duty. Combining data on tra…
Turnover in large US policing agencies following the George Floyd protests
The “war on cops,” retaliatory violence, and the murder of George Floyd
The police murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 and revived claims that public outcry over such high‐profile police killings perpetuated a violent “war on cops.” Using data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) on firearm assaults of U.S. police officers, we use Bayesian structural time series (BSTS) modeling to empirically assess if and how patterns of firearm assault on police officers in the United Sta…
Police Shootings in Canada: An Empirical Analysis and Call for Data
We analyzed police shootings in Canada (except Québec) between 2017 and 2019. Drawing upon media reports and information provided by police oversight agencies, we attempted to identify all incidents where on-duty police officers discharged their firearm with the intent to strike a person. Findings indicated that such incidents occurred an average of 58 times per year. Approximately 39% of police shootings were fatal, 48% were non-fatal, and 12% w…
Unveiling the Unseen: Documenting and Analyzing Nonfatal Shootings by Police
Justice at the
When police pull back: Neighborhood‐level effects of de‐policing on violent and property crime, a research note
Many U.S. cities witnessed both de‐policing and increased crime in 2020, yet whether the former contributed to the latter remains unclear. Indeed, much of what is known about the effects of proactive policing on crime comes from studies that evaluated highly focused interventions atypical of day‐to‐day policing, used cities as the unit of analysis, or could not rule out endogeneity. This study addresses each of these issues, thereby advancing the…
Officer diversity may reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police
Would police racial and gender diversification reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police? The theory of representative bureaucracy indicates that it might. We tested the effects of officer diversity in two experiments embedded in a national survey that oversampled Black Americans, producing several findings. First, in early 2022, nearly 2 years after George Floyd's killing, most Black Americans remained afraid of police mistreatment. Second, in …
Policing Practices and Perceptions (25 works) · Psychology (24 works) · Criminology (23 works) · Political science (23 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (22 works) · Law (20 works) · Gun Ownership and Violence Research (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Sociology (11 works)