J J Willis
Biographic Data
| ID | 93115 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J J Willis |
| GIVEN NAMES | J J |
| FAMILY NAME | Willis |
| SIGNATURE | WILLIS J J |
| AFFILIATIONS | George Mason University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9954-8401 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 158 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1914 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Culture eats strategy for breakfast”: An in‐depth examination of police officer perceptions of body‐worn camera implementation and their relationship to policy, supervision, and training
Research Summary This study uses interviews with 23 police officers from a small police department to conduct an in‐depth examination of their perceptions of three critical but understudied areas related to body‐worn camera programs: the implementation and policy‐making process, supervision, and training. The focus is on understanding the factors which contribute to, or undermine, body‐worn camera integration and acceptance. Policy Implications I…
Exploring a Craft Learning Model for Reviewing Patrol Officer Decision-Making in Encounters with the Public
Since the 1960s, police departments have turned to rules and procedures to help control how patrol officers, as legal decision-makers, exercise their discretionary authority. The logic of the administrative rulemaking model depends on the development and enforcement of bureaucratic rules and regulations. The public outcry over high-profile incidents of police abuses of authority has renewed interest in this approach. This article conceptualizes a…
Making sense of body-worn cameras in a police organization: A technological frames analysis
This case study of a small police agency in the United States uses semi-structured interviews, a patrol officer survey, and observations, to examine the technological frames of managers and users for interpreting the implementation and use of body-worn cameras. A technological frames approach allows for an in-depth comparison of the knowledge, assumptions, and interpretations of a new technology between groups and for an examination of the proces…
Translating police research into policy: Some implications of the National Academies report on proactive policing for policymakers and researchers
In February 2018, the U.S. Committee on Proactive Policing published its report on the evidence regarding the effects of different forms of proactive policing, particularly on crime and disorder. In this essay, we explore three obstacles to evidence-based policymaking in policing, some of which were raised by the Committee, but we take occasion to develop here: (1) the mistrust of science; (2) the paucity of cost-efficiency analyses; and (3) the …
Technology use and constituting structures: Accounting for the consequences of information technology on police organisational change
The influence of information technology on organisational change has long been a concern in policing. Despite the assumption that technology holds great potential for improving police performance, studies suggest that technology delivers mixed results. In this article, we use a theoretical model well-known in studies on organisations and information systems but less familiar in criminal justice. The structurational model of information technology…
The effects of body-worn cameras on police organisation and practice: A theory-based analysis
This study applies the technical/rational model of organisations to help explain the effects of body-worn cameras on police organisation and practice in a single police agency in the United States. Consistent with the technical/rational model, cameras had enhanced those people-processing and environment-changing features of the police organisation which had tangible goals and well understood means for their accomplishment. In comparison, body-wor…
Improving policing by integrating craft and science: What can patrol officers teach us about good police work
Evidence-based policing is one of the latest attempts to change what the police do and how they do it. Within this context the craft of policing is acknowledged but generally undervalued. Neglecting what craft can contribute to science is an overlooked opportunity. This paper examines the insights that officers’ experiences can offer into the kinds of reforms that are both pressing and possible. To do so, we conducted in-depth interviews with 38 …
Compstat and The New Penology: A Paradigm Shift in Policing
James J. Willis* and Stephen D. MastrofskiUsingfieldworkdatacollectedatsevenpoliceagencies intheUnitedStates,thisstudyasks‘Towhatextent is the operation of Compstat, a recent and highly touted police management and account-abilitysystem,consistentwiththenewpenology?’.Examiningamultidimensionalreforminanarea(police innovation) that has been relatively neglected helps illuminate to what degree Compstat ispart of a new trend in criminal justice, and…
Bridging the Normative Gap in Graduate Criminal Justice Curricula: Teaching Theories of Justice
Encouraging graduate students to think about the values that guide criminal justice policy and practice and their implications for justice is essential for a full understanding of the field. In fact, several prominent scholars have recently called for an approach that integrates empirical with normative analysis. Based on an examination of empirical evidence on pedagogical practices, literature on normative theories, and personal teaching experie…
Innovations in Policing: Meanings, Structures, and Processes
Research on organizational innovation is challenging given its complex nature. Using Wolfe's (1994) review and critique of the vast innovation literature, we identify some of the key conceptual and theoretical issues within three separate research streams: diffusion, organizational innovativeness, and innovation process. In doing so, we suggest that police researchers should pay more attention to defining and conceptualizing innovation; to testin…
Police Organization Continuity and Change: Into the Twenty‐first Century
American policing demonstrates both continuity and change. A high degree of decentralization persists, as do bureaucratic structures of larger police agencies. The structures and practices of the nation’s numerous small agencies remain underexamined. The potential growth of professional structures inside and outside the police organization is largely unexplored. The core police patrol technology has remained essentially unchanged for decades, and…
The co-implementation of Compstat and community policing
Punishment and the cultural limits to state power in late 18th-century Britain
The late 18th century is widely regarded as a time of rapid and momentous change in European and US penal history. Having identified this as the crucial formative period of the modern penitentiary, scholars naturally have sought to explain the developments that contributed to this modern form of punishment. However, at least in the case of Britain, this was also a time of continuity. Despite the well-publicized efforts of prison reformers, semina…
Making Sense of COMPSTAT: A Theory-Based Analysis of Organizational Change in Three Police Departments
COMPSTAT, the latest innovation in American policing, has been widely heralded as a management and technological system whose elements work together to transform police organizations radically. Skeptical observers suggest that COMPSTAT merely reinforces existing structures and practices. However, in trying to assess how much COMPSTAT has altered police organizations, research has failed to provide a broader theoretical basis for explaining how CO…
Transportation versus Imprisonment in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain: Penal Power, Liberty, and the State
Existing explanations for historical changes in punishment in Britain have tended to examine the replacement of disorderly prisons and public executions with national penitentiaries from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Despite their significant contributions to our understanding of how punishments operate in a broader social, political, and economic context, these scholarly accounts have narrowed debate on the mechanisms of pen…
Reforming to Preserve: Compstat and Strategic Problem Solving in American Policing
Research Summary: This paper provides the first national description of Compstat programs, considered in the framework of strategic problem solving. Relying on a survey of American police departments conducted by the Police Foundation, we examine the diffusion of Compstat programs and the nature of Compstat models throughout the United States. We also assess the penetration of models of strategic problem solving more generally into American polic…
Self, Surveillance, and Society
There is much to admire about Thomas Voire. At a time when many contemporary observers express concern about increasing crime rates, an economic downturn, xenophobia, and political apathy, Tom is presented as a law-abiding and hard-working citizen. We do not use the word citizen lightly. Born in 1966, Tom has lived peaceably, stayed gainfully employed, served his country, explored non-U.S. cultures in libraries and museums, and, most laudably, de…
The Blessing of Discouragement
Reforming to Preserve: Compstat and Strategic Problem Solving in American Policing
Research Summary: This paper provides the first national description of Compstat programs, considered in the framework of strategic problem solving. Relying on a survey of American police departments conducted by the Police Foundation, we examine the diffusion of Compstat programs and the nature of Compstat models throughout the United States. We also assess the penetration of models of strategic problem solving more generally into American polic…
Making Sense of COMPSTAT: A Theory-Based Analysis of Organizational Change in Three Police Departments
COMPSTAT, the latest innovation in American policing, has been widely heralded as a management and technological system whose elements work together to transform police organizations radically. Skeptical observers suggest that COMPSTAT merely reinforces existing structures and practices. However, in trying to assess how much COMPSTAT has altered police organizations, research has failed to provide a broader theoretical basis for explaining how CO…
The effects of body-worn cameras on police organisation and practice: A theory-based analysis
This study applies the technical/rational model of organisations to help explain the effects of body-worn cameras on police organisation and practice in a single police agency in the United States. Consistent with the technical/rational model, cameras had enhanced those people-processing and environment-changing features of the police organisation which had tangible goals and well understood means for their accomplishment. In comparison, body-wor…
Transportation versus Imprisonment in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain: Penal Power, Liberty, and the State
Existing explanations for historical changes in punishment in Britain have tended to examine the replacement of disorderly prisons and public executions with national penitentiaries from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Despite their significant contributions to our understanding of how punishments operate in a broader social, political, and economic context, these scholarly accounts have narrowed debate on the mechanisms of pen…
Police Organization Continuity and Change: Into the Twenty‐first Century
American policing demonstrates both continuity and change. A high degree of decentralization persists, as do bureaucratic structures of larger police agencies. The structures and practices of the nation’s numerous small agencies remain underexamined. The potential growth of professional structures inside and outside the police organization is largely unexplored. The core police patrol technology has remained essentially unchanged for decades, and…
The co-implementation of Compstat and community policing
Improving policing by integrating craft and science: What can patrol officers teach us about good police work
Evidence-based policing is one of the latest attempts to change what the police do and how they do it. Within this context the craft of policing is acknowledged but generally undervalued. Neglecting what craft can contribute to science is an overlooked opportunity. This paper examines the insights that officers’ experiences can offer into the kinds of reforms that are both pressing and possible. To do so, we conducted in-depth interviews with 38 …
Innovations in Policing: Meanings, Structures, and Processes
Research on organizational innovation is challenging given its complex nature. Using Wolfe's (1994) review and critique of the vast innovation literature, we identify some of the key conceptual and theoretical issues within three separate research streams: diffusion, organizational innovativeness, and innovation process. In doing so, we suggest that police researchers should pay more attention to defining and conceptualizing innovation; to testin…
Punishment and the cultural limits to state power in late 18th-century Britain
The late 18th century is widely regarded as a time of rapid and momentous change in European and US penal history. Having identified this as the crucial formative period of the modern penitentiary, scholars naturally have sought to explain the developments that contributed to this modern form of punishment. However, at least in the case of Britain, this was also a time of continuity. Despite the well-publicized efforts of prison reformers, semina…
Exploring a Craft Learning Model for Reviewing Patrol Officer Decision-Making in Encounters with the Public
Since the 1960s, police departments have turned to rules and procedures to help control how patrol officers, as legal decision-makers, exercise their discretionary authority. The logic of the administrative rulemaking model depends on the development and enforcement of bureaucratic rules and regulations. The public outcry over high-profile incidents of police abuses of authority has renewed interest in this approach. This article conceptualizes a…
Technology use and constituting structures: Accounting for the consequences of information technology on police organisational change
The influence of information technology on organisational change has long been a concern in policing. Despite the assumption that technology holds great potential for improving police performance, studies suggest that technology delivers mixed results. In this article, we use a theoretical model well-known in studies on organisations and information systems but less familiar in criminal justice. The structurational model of information technology…
Compstat and The New Penology: A Paradigm Shift in Policing
James J. Willis* and Stephen D. MastrofskiUsingfieldworkdatacollectedatsevenpoliceagencies intheUnitedStates,thisstudyasks‘Towhatextent is the operation of Compstat, a recent and highly touted police management and account-abilitysystem,consistentwiththenewpenology?’.Examiningamultidimensionalreforminanarea(police innovation) that has been relatively neglected helps illuminate to what degree Compstat ispart of a new trend in criminal justice, and…
The Blessing of Discouragement
Self, Surveillance, and Society
There is much to admire about Thomas Voire. At a time when many contemporary observers express concern about increasing crime rates, an economic downturn, xenophobia, and political apathy, Tom is presented as a law-abiding and hard-working citizen. We do not use the word citizen lightly. Born in 1966, Tom has lived peaceably, stayed gainfully employed, served his country, explored non-U.S. cultures in libraries and museums, and, most laudably, de…
Reforming to Preserve: Compstat and Strategic Problem Solving in American Policing
Research Summary: This paper provides the first national description of Compstat programs, considered in the framework of strategic problem solving. Relying on a survey of American police departments conducted by the Police Foundation, we examine the diffusion of Compstat programs and the nature of Compstat models throughout the United States. We also assess the penetration of models of strategic problem solving more generally into American polic…
Transportation versus Imprisonment in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain: Penal Power, Liberty, and the State
Existing explanations for historical changes in punishment in Britain have tended to examine the replacement of disorderly prisons and public executions with national penitentiaries from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Despite their significant contributions to our understanding of how punishments operate in a broader social, political, and economic context, these scholarly accounts have narrowed debate on the mechanisms of pen…
Making Sense of COMPSTAT: A Theory-Based Analysis of Organizational Change in Three Police Departments
COMPSTAT, the latest innovation in American policing, has been widely heralded as a management and technological system whose elements work together to transform police organizations radically. Skeptical observers suggest that COMPSTAT merely reinforces existing structures and practices. However, in trying to assess how much COMPSTAT has altered police organizations, research has failed to provide a broader theoretical basis for explaining how CO…
Punishment and the cultural limits to state power in late 18th-century Britain
The late 18th century is widely regarded as a time of rapid and momentous change in European and US penal history. Having identified this as the crucial formative period of the modern penitentiary, scholars naturally have sought to explain the developments that contributed to this modern form of punishment. However, at least in the case of Britain, this was also a time of continuity. Despite the well-publicized efforts of prison reformers, semina…
Police Organization Continuity and Change: Into the Twenty‐first Century
American policing demonstrates both continuity and change. A high degree of decentralization persists, as do bureaucratic structures of larger police agencies. The structures and practices of the nation’s numerous small agencies remain underexamined. The potential growth of professional structures inside and outside the police organization is largely unexplored. The core police patrol technology has remained essentially unchanged for decades, and…
The co-implementation of Compstat and community policing
Bridging the Normative Gap in Graduate Criminal Justice Curricula: Teaching Theories of Justice
Encouraging graduate students to think about the values that guide criminal justice policy and practice and their implications for justice is essential for a full understanding of the field. In fact, several prominent scholars have recently called for an approach that integrates empirical with normative analysis. Based on an examination of empirical evidence on pedagogical practices, literature on normative theories, and personal teaching experie…
Innovations in Policing: Meanings, Structures, and Processes
Research on organizational innovation is challenging given its complex nature. Using Wolfe's (1994) review and critique of the vast innovation literature, we identify some of the key conceptual and theoretical issues within three separate research streams: diffusion, organizational innovativeness, and innovation process. In doing so, we suggest that police researchers should pay more attention to defining and conceptualizing innovation; to testin…
Compstat and The New Penology: A Paradigm Shift in Policing
James J. Willis* and Stephen D. MastrofskiUsingfieldworkdatacollectedatsevenpoliceagencies intheUnitedStates,thisstudyasks‘Towhatextent is the operation of Compstat, a recent and highly touted police management and account-abilitysystem,consistentwiththenewpenology?’.Examiningamultidimensionalreforminanarea(police innovation) that has been relatively neglected helps illuminate to what degree Compstat ispart of a new trend in criminal justice, and…
Improving policing by integrating craft and science: What can patrol officers teach us about good police work
Evidence-based policing is one of the latest attempts to change what the police do and how they do it. Within this context the craft of policing is acknowledged but generally undervalued. Neglecting what craft can contribute to science is an overlooked opportunity. This paper examines the insights that officers’ experiences can offer into the kinds of reforms that are both pressing and possible. To do so, we conducted in-depth interviews with 38 …
Technology use and constituting structures: Accounting for the consequences of information technology on police organisational change
The influence of information technology on organisational change has long been a concern in policing. Despite the assumption that technology holds great potential for improving police performance, studies suggest that technology delivers mixed results. In this article, we use a theoretical model well-known in studies on organisations and information systems but less familiar in criminal justice. The structurational model of information technology…
The effects of body-worn cameras on police organisation and practice: A theory-based analysis
This study applies the technical/rational model of organisations to help explain the effects of body-worn cameras on police organisation and practice in a single police agency in the United States. Consistent with the technical/rational model, cameras had enhanced those people-processing and environment-changing features of the police organisation which had tangible goals and well understood means for their accomplishment. In comparison, body-wor…
Translating police research into policy: Some implications of the National Academies report on proactive policing for policymakers and researchers
In February 2018, the U.S. Committee on Proactive Policing published its report on the evidence regarding the effects of different forms of proactive policing, particularly on crime and disorder. In this essay, we explore three obstacles to evidence-based policymaking in policing, some of which were raised by the Committee, but we take occasion to develop here: (1) the mistrust of science; (2) the paucity of cost-efficiency analyses; and (3) the …
Making sense of body-worn cameras in a police organization: A technological frames analysis
This case study of a small police agency in the United States uses semi-structured interviews, a patrol officer survey, and observations, to examine the technological frames of managers and users for interpreting the implementation and use of body-worn cameras. A technological frames approach allows for an in-depth comparison of the knowledge, assumptions, and interpretations of a new technology between groups and for an examination of the proces…
Culture eats strategy for breakfast”: An in‐depth examination of police officer perceptions of body‐worn camera implementation and their relationship to policy, supervision, and training
Research Summary This study uses interviews with 23 police officers from a small police department to conduct an in‐depth examination of their perceptions of three critical but understudied areas related to body‐worn camera programs: the implementation and policy‐making process, supervision, and training. The focus is on understanding the factors which contribute to, or undermine, body‐worn camera integration and acceptance. Policy Implications I…
Exploring a Craft Learning Model for Reviewing Patrol Officer Decision-Making in Encounters with the Public
Since the 1960s, police departments have turned to rules and procedures to help control how patrol officers, as legal decision-makers, exercise their discretionary authority. The logic of the administrative rulemaking model depends on the development and enforcement of bureaucratic rules and regulations. The public outcry over high-profile incidents of police abuses of authority has renewed interest in this approach. This article conceptualizes a…
Political science (15 works) · Policing Practices and Perceptions (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Public relations (12 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (11 works) · Criminology (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works)