Exploring the validity of behavioral cues perceived to indicate violence in the context of police-citizen interactions

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to explore whether behavioral cues, which are thought to be predictive of violence, correspond with violent behavior in police-citizen interactions. The method applied consisted of qualitatively reviewing fifty-six existing video recordings of actual police encounters and subsequent coding in NVivo software. Further, the data was transformed and analyzed in a quantitative manner. Results indicated that a number of behavioral cues correlated with violent behavior, while no relationship was found between a subset of these behaviors and violence. Notably, not all suspects who exhibited valid behavioral cues during an encounter become violent, indicating that a nuanced approach is needed when evaluating the relevance of such behavior during a given interaction. The results of this study contribute to a relatively unexplored field of research on behavioral cues in the context of police-citizen interactions. The findings presented here suggest that future research on behavioral cues in the context of police-citizen interactions is warranted.