Research Symposium

BIO

My name is Collin Paoli, and I am from Orlando, Florida. I am a Criminology major with a Human Development minor. I'm excited about my journey ahead—I'm aiming to attend law school and ultimately become an attorney after completing college.

Understanding Assaults on the Police: A Systematic Review on the Strength, Limitations, and Future of National Data Sources for Empirical Research

Abstract

Assaults on the police represent a pressing public policy issue, especially as law enforcement faces challenges in recruitment and retention due to the unique occupational dangers associated with policing. A growing body of empirical research has sought to understand the prevalence, risk factors, and consequences of these incidents; however, its development is complicated by the limitations of national data sources on police assaults. The aim of this systematic literature review is threefold: (1) assess the prevalence of each national data source on police assaults, (2) synthesize the limitations of these data sources as detailed in prior research, and (3) describe the unique feature of each data source that can facilitate future research. To this end, searches of literature published from January 1960 to September 2024 were performed using a combination of search strategies, such as electronic database searches, reference searches, and forward citation searches. Studies will be screened against a set of inclusion criteria and coded to address the study’s three key research questions. It is anticipated that the results of this study will highlight the key strengths and limitations of current national data on this crucial public policy issue. Further, it will illuminate opportunities to improve the state of police assault data and facilitate translational policing research.

Keywords: criminology police assault