Police Systems Exam 2 review

Organization

How a department is structured and shaped

Management

The processes that occur within the structure

Administration

The combination of organization and management

Traditional Supervisors

Encourage officers to produce large numbers of tickets and arrests

Innovative Supervisors

Mentor their officers, encouraging them to get to know citizens and focus on police and community problems

Supportive Supervisors

Attempt to develop positive relations with their subordinates

Active Supervisors

Like to involve themselves in police work by answering calls, writing tickets, and making arrests

Administrative acts, decisions, and rules are recorded in writing

True

Police Leadership

Process of directing and influencing officers and units to achieve goals

Blake and Mouton

1964, Managerial Grid

Good leadership can be measure on two dimensions

Concern for subordinates

Concern for organizational objectives

Motivation

Qualities within an individual that account for the level, direction, and persistence of effort expanded at work

Equity Theory

People examine rewards in relation to the rewards and efforts of others

Expectancy Theory

Officers will be motivated when they perceive that their work or effort will be appropriately rewarded

Strategic Planning

Where programs or strategies are developed to achieve goals and objectives emanating from policy planning

Operation Planning

Where sergeants and lieutenants, through supervision, put the strategies into action

Communications

The process of transmitting information and meaning between or among groups and individuals through a system of symbols, signs, and behavior

Two general types of information

Operational in nature

Management-related

Participative management

Where officers from lower ranks are allowed to provide input into policies

Crime Analysis

The examination and mapping of crime and calls for service in order to discover patterns

What does Crime Analysis do?

The collating or sorting of data to allow officers to visualize or better understand activities

COMPSTAT

Managerial process that uses crime analysis information

What does COMPSTAT do?

Gives administrators a measure of control as they direct police operations to specific crime and disorder problems such as gang or drug dealing in hot spots

Patrol Function

Performed by patrol officers who are allocated across beats to respond to calls and to observe for crime and suspicious activities

Investigative Function

Responsible for solving crimes, apprehending criminals, and recovering stolen property

Traffic Function

Responsible for reducing the frequency and severity of traffic crashes and facilitating the orderly flow of traffic

Examples of specialized units

Homicide and Sexual Assault

Allocating Police Personnel

Decisions about the number of officers assigned to the various units in the police department

Allocation decisions are generally made after a _______________

workload analysis

What factors are taken into consideration when looking at the workload analysis report in order to make allocation decisions?

How many arrests are made?

Is crime high/low?
How long does it take for police to respond to a call of service?

What is the goal of law enforcement

To address crimes in a timely manner

Average goal time to respond to a call

4-6 minutes

Most police work is the result of citizens calling the police

True

Police departments do not receive large volumes of calls

False

Code 1

Life threatening in progress

Time to respond to a Code 1

1 minute

Code 2

Life threatening event just occurred, property crimes in progress

Time to respond to a Code 2

5 minutes

Committed Time

Refers to any time that an officer is committed to some call or police activity

Beat Bounderies

The designed geographic area that a police officer is assigned to patrol, marking the limits of their assigned territory within a police jurisdiction

Historically, patrol units were staffed with only one-officer

False

Routine Preventative Patrol

Officers are assigned to patrol specific areas, often termed beats

Maximizing Resources for Directed Patrol

Directed Patrol is where departments appropriate higher levels of officers and other resources to combat crime or disorder problems in a specific location of geographical area

Directed Patrol Runs (D-Runs)

Officers are assigned travel to a specific location to have an impact on crime, disorder, or traffic problems

Split-Force Policing

A patrol force is split into two separate patrol groups

What are the two patrol groups?

The Patrol call-answering group

The Criminal interception group

What is the belief of Split-Force Policing?

That a patrol division is responsible for two essential functions:

Responding to calls for service

Crime suppression and prevention

Saturation patrol or crackdowns

Attempt to deter crime or problems in a specific area through sudden and dramatic increases in police officer presence

Stop and Frisk stops

Where police officers observe a suspicious person, stop the person, and talk with him or her

Suspect-oriented techniques

Ones in which agencies direct officers to concentrate on known suspects or classes of individuals

Racial Profiling

A charge leveled against police departments for stopping, citing, searching, or arresting a disproportionate number of minorities

Too often race is used by officers as the primary or only indicator when deciding to investigate a citizen

True

Officers often attempt to profile who?

Drug couriers and traffickers, prostitutes, gang members, and terrorists

Criminal Investigations

The investigative function focuses on solving crimes reported to or discovered by the police

The term “detective” was first used in the

1840s

The London police created a detective unit in

1842

In the ____s, a Special Irish Branch was created to control for agitation for a separate Ireland

1880’s

Follow up or Latent Investigations

At the conclusions of the preliminary investigation, a decision must be made whether to assign the case for a follow up investigation

What are the three types of cases that detectives are assigned?

Walk-throughs, Where-are-theys, and Whodunits

Walk-throughs

When the suspect has been identified and apprehended

Where-are-theys

When the suspect has been identified but officers have been unable to make an apprehension

Whodunits

When the preliminary investigation did not result in identification of the perpetrator

Discretion

When the effective limits on a public official’s power leave one to free to make a choice among a number of possible courses of action

What qualities should officers posses to apply discretion contextually

Curious

Perceive danger

Tragic Perspective

Decisive

Self-control

Varied Approaches

Nature of police discretion

The departments exercises discretion when it prioritizes calls for service or selects a patrol technique

Discretion does not hold the power for abuse

False

Administrative discretion

Administrative function is designed to establish policies and procedures that guide the actions of operational personnel and include such activities such as planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, and budgeting

What tools are used by administrators when using discretion?

Rules

Disciplinary Process

Recruitment, training, and structuring of work

Mentorship

What are the 4 legal factors that influence the decision to invoke the CJ process?

Does probable cause exist?

is there a credible victim or witness who is willing to testify in court?

Suspect’s criminal record

Mandatory arrest laws for crimes such as domestic violence or DUI increase the likelihood of arrest

Offender Variables

Considerations of gender, age, race, socioeconomic status, and demeanor

Situational Variables

May revolve around the seriousness of the offence, whether officer were summoned by someone else, or the visibility of their actions

System variables

Includes such factors such as the officer’s perception of the law, peer-group relationships, community attitudes, department philosophy, and the system’s capacity to process legal violations

Situational Characteristics

Environmental and contextual factors that surround an event like time, location, presence of others that can influence the likelihood of an incident occurring

Incident characteristics

Are specific details of the event itself like the actions taken by the individuals involved; the type of crime committed, or the severity of the injuries sustained

Vice Crimes

Illegal activities that are considered immoral, such as prostitution, gambling, and drug use

Excessive Force

The use of any more force than a highly skilled officer should find necessary to use in that particular situation

Klockars (1995) 3 criteria to determine if force is excessive

Criminal Law

Civil liability

Fear of scandal

Fyfe’s (1995) two types of excessive force

Extralegal violence or brutality

Unnecessary force

Criminal Law (EF)

States that an officer’s use of force shall not constitute a crime

Civil Liability (EF)

Relates to the idea that an officer’s use of force shall not cause injury to an individual to the point that the courts would award payment to the person or his or her heir

Fear of Scandal (EF)

The nature of the officer’s behavior would result in embarassment to the department

Extralegal Violence or Brutality (EF)

Occurs when officers willfully and wrongfully use force that exceeds the boundaries of their authority

Unnecessary Force (EF)

Force used by well-intentioned officers who are unable to handle a situation and resort to force too quickly or needlessly

Used threats or shouts less than __ of the time

4%

Pursued a fleeing suspect __ of the time

7%

Placed cuffs or restraints on ___ of the suspects

77%

Used a weaponless tactic (holding, hitting, etc.) in ___ of the arrests

17%

Threatened to use a weapon, but did not do so, in ____ of the arrests

3.7%

Used a weapon in __ of the arrests, with the most common weapon being a flashlight

2%

Chronic deviants

Officers who repeatedly use excessive force and are abusive and disrespectful

Early Warning System (EWS)

Designed to identify officers who, as a result of their performance, may exhibit behavioral problems in using force and dealing with citizens

What are the benefits of having an EWS in place in police departments?

Reduce the number of civil suits against the department

Reduce the incidence of excessive force and abuse

Foster better police-community creations