Exam 2 Police Methods

preventive patrol

• generally attributed to the early writings of O.W. Wilson

• suggested that officers should conduct high-visibility random patrols, respond directly and rapidly to citizen requests for service, resolve the problem/issue at hand, and promptly return to service to await the next call for assistance.

George Kelling

• conducted research into the effectiveness of patrol operations in what has since come to be known as the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment

• explored the traditional philosophy underlying police patrols as they were then conducted in most police agencies across the country

Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment

• sought to answer whether or not such an approach was the most effective way for agencies and officers to meet the goals and objectives they sought to accomplish

• the city’s 15 patrol districts were divided into three distinct groups of five each

  • control

  • proactive

  • reactive

• found that there were no statistically significant differences in these measures across the three types of districts thereby raising questions regarding the effectiveness of prevailing patrol deployment strategies

reactive district

police presence was removed

hypothesized that level of crime would increase

proactive district

police presence was resassigned to this district

hypothesized that level of crime would decrease

control district

no change to police presence

no change in level of crime

sociological perspective

particularly useful in understanding the origins of group behavior

anthropological perspective

lends insight into how group norms, customs and values are transmitted from one generation of officers to the next

What are some stressors for police officers?

• life threatening stressors

• organizational stressors

• external stressors

• functional stressors

• physiological stressors