TY - JOUR
T1 - The chicken or the egg? The relationship between COP funding and COP research
AU - Ahlin, Eileen M.
AU - Gibbs, Jennifer C.
N1 - Funding Information:
Community oriented policing is one program that was heavily supported by federal agencies through funding appropriations. In addition to the speculation that policy is informed by research, a common belief is that funding is an important influence on the research interests of police scholars and practitioners. However, evidence is lacking. Namely, does the common-sense notion that research is driven by funding hold up to empirical scrutiny? Of course, what police do on the streets plays a large role in determining avenues of empirical inquiry. However, as funding sources shift focus, many suspect the emphasis of police researchers does, as well. Federal funding for research projects and resulting publications may be a strong motivator for scholars and practitioners to pursue a particular line of research or programming (though empirical evidence on the relationship between publications and funding is lacking), so scholarly productivity may be influenced by funding. However, there also is reason to suspect this relationship will not hold. Specifically, granting agencies have a limited amount of funding and relatively few proposals are funded.
Funding Information:
Similar to funding dedicated to law enforcement agencies, grants were available to researchers studying COP. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research arm of the Department of Justice, provided over $35 million in funding between 1995 and 2001 to COP-related research projects (National Institute of Justice, n.d.). Most of this funding was awarded to researchers in earlier years (over $20 million in 1995 and 1996), and by 2002, no funding was reported specifically for the category ‘community policing’ (National Institute of Justice, n.d.).3 However, about $12 million allocated to research projects funded by NIJ between 2002 and 2007 could be categorized as COP (National Institute of Justice, n.d.).
Funding Information:
Turning now to grant monies to practitioners and researchers, funding from the COPS office and NIJ waned since the early days of COP popularity. In 1998, funding from the COPS office peaked at $1.63 billion and dropped dramatically to $2.63 million in 2007 (Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2008). Funding from NIJ fell from $15 million in 1995 to $394,000 in 2007 (National Institute of Justice, n.d.). NIJ sponsored funding for COP-related projects peaked in 1995 and steadily declined to $1.4 million in 2001 (data not shown; National Institute of Justice, n.d.). There was a slight resurgence of funding in 2002 to $4.1 million allocated for COP-related research, evaluation, and development (National Institute of Justice, n.d.) that occurred during the same year as the third highest proportion of COP abstracts (0.3028). Several fluctuations in funding dollars were then experienced before COP-related funding from NIJ hit an all-time low at less than $500,000 in 2007 (which was only $100,000 less than funding in 2004; National Institute of Justice, n.d.).
Funding Information:
Figure 2. Proportion of COP abstracts and grant funding from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and National Institute of Justice (by funding year).
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2012/12
Y1 - 2012/12
N2 - We investigate the stability of community oriented policing (COP) as a mainstay of police research within the context of fluctuations in federal funding between 1995 and 2007. Using time-series analyses, we found an increase in the proportion of COP publications before funding suggesting the popularity of COP may have been one contribution to the perceived need for research funding. COP publications began to decline in 2005, corresponding to the earlier declining trend in funding. Policymakers may be using research to inform program-related funding decisions, but researcher interest in COP appears less tied to funding.
AB - We investigate the stability of community oriented policing (COP) as a mainstay of police research within the context of fluctuations in federal funding between 1995 and 2007. Using time-series analyses, we found an increase in the proportion of COP publications before funding suggesting the popularity of COP may have been one contribution to the perceived need for research funding. COP publications began to decline in 2005, corresponding to the earlier declining trend in funding. Policymakers may be using research to inform program-related funding decisions, but researcher interest in COP appears less tied to funding.
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U2 - 10.1080/15614263.2011.635482
DO - 10.1080/15614263.2011.635482
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84869436963
SN - 1561-4263
VL - 13
SP - 513
EP - 524
JO - Police Practice and Research
JF - Police Practice and Research
IS - 6
ER -