Police, Purpose and Organization - Comprehensive Notes

Police, Purpose, and Organization

Policing in America

• Police are at the forefront of the criminal justice process.
• Most people's only experience with the criminal justice process is contact with a local police officer.
• Most people have never been in a courthouse for a criminal matter or in jail/prison.

Roles of the Police

• American expectations of the police depend on how we view their role in society.
• Different people have different role expectations for the local police.
• Role conflict can occur when public expectations differ from the official police role.

Role, Role Expectations, and Role Conflict

• Role: The rights and responsibilities associated with a particular position in society.
• Role expectation: The behavior and actions that people expect from a person in a particular role.
• Role conflict: The psychological stress and frustration that results from trying to perform two or more incompatible responsibilities.

Perspectives on the Role of Police

• The majority of perspectives consider the police to be:
  • Community leaders in public safety.
  • Possessors of broad discretion.
  • Short-term problem solvers for sociological and technological issues.
  • Serving in hostile or dangerous environments.

Characteristics of Police Work

• Police work involves:
  • Quick decision-making.
  • Working independently.
  • "Dirty work."
  • Danger.

Law Enforcement Officers Assaulted in the United States by Circumstance, 2011

• Total assaults: 54,774 (100%)
  • Disturbance calls: 18,216 (33.3%)
  • Other arrest attempts: 8,045 (14.7%)
  • Handling/transporting prisoners: 6,902 (12.6%)
  • Investigation of suspicious persons: 5,139 (9.4%)
  • Traffic pursuits/stops: 4,828 (8.8%)
  • Handling mentally deranged persons: 1,331 (2.4%)
  • Burglaries in progress: 795 (1.5%)
  • Civil disorders: 743 (1.4%)
  • Robberies in progress: 558 (1.0%)
  • Ambush situations: 212 (0.4%)
  • All other: 8,005 (14.6%)

Conflicting Roles of Police

• Americans have never been sure what role they want police officers to play.
• Police have acted as:
  • Peacekeepers
  • Social workers
  • Crime fighters
  • Public servants

Historical Context of Police Roles

• 19th Century: Police acted as peacekeepers and social service agents (feeding the hungry, housing the homeless).
• 1920s: Police began to focus on crime-fighting.
• 1960s: Civil rights movement led to violent clashes between police and citizens.

Operational Styles of Police

• Operational styles develop as officers gain experience.
• The existence of different styles indicates a lack of systematic training and deployment of officers with a unified approach.

James Q. Wilson's Policing Styles

• Legalistic: Emphasis on law violations, using threats or arrests to solve disputes.
• Watchman: Emphasis on informal means of resolving disputes and community problems.
• Service: Emphasis on helping the community rather than strictly enforcing the law.

Categorizing Policing Styles

• Difficult to categorize officers because they react differently depending on the situation.
• Research indicates that police do not have a monolithic culture and officers in the same department may have different attitudes toward their work.

Levels of Police

• Local Police:
  • Majority of personnel.
  • NYPD is the largest.
• State Police:
  • 49 departments (none in Hawaii).
  • Texas Rangers were among the first.
• Federal Agencies:
  • No single agency has unlimited jurisdiction.
  • Function determined by specific laws.
  • Primarily investigative functions.

Police Organization

• Organized on a hierarchical structure or military model.
  • Emphasizes superior-subordinate relationships for discipline, control, and accountability.

Police Organization: Chain of Command

• Principles of chain of command are operational.
  • Police Chief
  • Deputy/Assistant Chief
  • Major
  • Captain
  • Lieutenant
  • Sergeant/Inspector
  • Patrol Officers
• Personnel decisions often based on time-in-rank considerations.

Roles within the Chain of Command

• Police Chief: Sets mission/goals for the department.
• Deputy/Assistant Chief: Manages daily operations.
• Major: Handles budget/liaison with city leaders.
• Captain: Oversees specific units.
• Lieutenant: Assists lower-ranking officers, addresses morale issues.
• Sergeant/Inspector: Supervises/manages patrol.
• Patrol Officers: Interact directly with the public.

Police: The Most Visible Segment of the Criminal Justice System

• Police have multiple functions.

Role of Police: Key Functions

• Protect society
• Resolve community conflicts
• Promote & preserve civil order
• Apprehend criminals
• Defend Constitutional Rights
• Prevent & Detect Crime

Two Basic Roles of Police

• Order Maintenance:
  • Keep the peace, prevent situations from escalating.
  • Provide services (transportation, rescue animals, change tires, locked cars).
  • Occupies 80-90% of their time.
• Crime Fighter:
  • Traditional view of police, often portrayed by the media.
  • Occupies 10-15% of their time.

Police Patrol

• Patrol involves deploying police officers with responsibility for policing activities in a defined area (beat).
• Requires regular circuits of that area.
• Considered the "backbone of the department" by administrators.
• Most time-consuming and resource-intensive task officers undertake.

Patrol Duties

• Responding to burglar alarms
• Investigating traffic accidents
• Caring for injured people
• Trying to resolve domestic disputes
• Responding to radio calls

Types of Police Patrol

• Automobile
• Foot
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle
• Mounted
• Boat
• Helicopter
• K-9

Purposes of Patrol

• Deter crime by being visible
• Maintain public order (peacekeeping)
• Respond quickly to emergencies
• Arrest criminals
• Aid citizens in distress
• Facilitate the movement of people and traffic
• Create a sense of safety and security

Distribution of a Patrol Officer's Time on the Beat

• Free patrol: 29.4% (park and walk)
• Crime related: 26.4% (officer in trouble, suspicious person/vehicle, crime in progress, alarm, investigate crime, warrants, assist other police)
• Administration: 12.4% (meal break, report writing, firearms training, vehicle maintenance, at headquarters, court related)
• Traffic: 11.3% (accident investigation, parking problems, motor vehicle driving problems, traffic control, fire emergency)
• Order maintenance: 8.7% (order maintenance in progress, animal complaint, noise complaint)
• Service: 5.1% (service related)
• Medical: 2.4% (medical emergency, at local hospital)
• Unavailable: 4.2%

Assumptions about Preventive Patrol

• Rapid Response:
  • Assumption: Crime would decrease IF police got to the crime scene faster.
• Police Omnipresence:
  • Assumption: Crime would decrease IF police were a visible presence.

Crime Reported vs. Probability of Arrest

• Crime reported while in progress: 33.6%
• Probability of arrest decreases as time after the crime increases.

Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment (George Kelling, 1974)

• Tested 3 levels of patrol:
  • Preventive (normal) Patrol
  • Proactive Patrol
  • Reactive Patrol
• Found: No significant decrease of crime in ANY of the areas.
• Suggests that police presence does NOT deter crime.

Fair Share Approach to Policing & 10 to 1 Rule

• Simply putting more police on the streets will have little effect on crime rates.
• It may not be the mere presence of police that deters crime, but how they approach the job.

Directed Patrol

• Patrolling under guidance or orders on how to use patrol time.
• Evidence shows directed patrol can reduce the incidence of targeted crimes.

Crime Mapping

• Aids directed patrol.
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) crime mapping: charting crime patterns within a geographic area.
• Enables closer monitoring of crime and criminals through crime maps displaying various fields of information.

Hot Spots of Crime

• Crime is NOT randomly distributed but concentrated in a few locations.
• Just over half of all calls for police went to 3% of all addresses.

Aggressive Patrol

• Can result in arrests for both minor and serious offenses.
• Drawbacks:
  • Innocent citizens are inconvenienced by random stops and field interrogations.
  • Difficult to motivate all officers to use aggressive tactics.

Aggressive Patrol and Field Interrogations

• Aggressive patrol: The practice of having an entire patrol section make numerous traffic stops and field interrogations.
• Field interrogation: A temporary detention in which officers stop and question pedestrians and motorists in suspicious circumstances.

Types of Regularly Scheduled Patrols

• As of 2007, nearly all local police departments used automobile patrols routinely.
• Other types include foot, bicycle, motorcycle, marine, transporter, horse, and air patrols.

Community Oriented Policing

• A concept, not a "thing," achieved through various strategies.
• Key concept: police and public work together.

Community-Oriented Policing Principles

• Citizens must actively participate with police in fighting crime.
• Locally situated police will work as a team with residents.

Research Findings on Foot Patrol

• Officers out of cars and on a walking beat strengthen community ties.
• Experiments in MI and NY: Did not reduce crime, but resulted in less fear of crime, and gave officers greater satisfaction.
• This reduction of fear and greater satisfaction are because officers have significantly improved relationships between citizens.

Community Policing vs. Professional Model

• For decades, police followed the professional model, which rested on three foundations:
  • Preventive patrol
  • Quick response
  • Follow-up investigation

Broken Windows Theory (James Q. Wilson & George Kelling)

• If the "signs of crime" are not taken care of, more serious and costly crime problems are likely to occur.
• To solve the crime problem and reduce the fear of crime, police officers must be in close, regular contact with citizens.

Broken Windows Model: 3 Main Points

• Neighborhood disorder creates fear.
• Neighborhoods give out crime-promoting signals.
• Police need citizens’ cooperation.

Zimbardo Study

• Car parked without a license plate and hood up:
  • Bronx: Attacked within 10 minutes; everything of value removed within 24 hours.
  • Palo Alto: Untouched for a week; Zimbardo smashed windows, others joined in; turned upside down & destroyed within hours.

Philosophy and Components of Community Policing

• Citizens share responsibility for their community’s safety.
• Citizens and the police work collectively to:
  • Identify problems
  • Propose solutions
  • Implement actions
  • Evaluate the results

Community Partnership

• Establishing and maintaining mutual trust between citizens and police.
• Involves:
  • Talking to local business owners
  • Visiting residents in their homes
  • Supporting neighborhood watch groups
  • Ongoing communication with residents

Change Management in Community Policing

• Requires:
  • Flexible management styles
  • Emphasis on the value of patrol officers
  • Shifting decision-making and responsibility downward in the chain of command
  • Patrol officers having the resources to solve community problems

Implementing Community Policing

• Successful implementation requires that both the community and law enforcement understand the underlying philosophy and have a commitment to the community policing strategy.

Problem Oriented Policing

• Attacking underlying problems that give rise to time-consuming police incidents.
• Relying on officers to study and analyze the problems and develop solutions.
• Getting more involved with the public to ensure their needs are met.

Problem Solving in Community Policing

• Police need to devote time and attention to discovering a community’s concerns and recognize the validity of those concerns.
• A four-step process known as SARA is often used.

SARA Model

• Scanning: Police identify issues.
• Analyze: Collect information from a wide variety of sources.
• Response: Develop and implement solutions.
• Assess: Evaluate the effectiveness of the response.

COP vs. POP

Terrorism and Homeland Security

• Terrorism is one of the oldest forms of human conflict.
• Modern era of terrorism began in the late 1960s.
• United States soil remained largely free from serious acts of international terrorism until the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

Definitions and Types of Terrorism

• No single, universally accepted definition of terrorism.
• Key elements:
  • Fear
  • Panic
  • Violence
  • Disruption

FBI Definition of Terrorism

• "The systematic use of terror or unpredictable violence against governments, publics, or individuals to attain a political objective."
• The FBI divides terrorism into two broad categories:
  • Domestic terrorism
  • International terrorism

Domestic Terrorism

• The unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or its territories, without foreign direction, committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

Categories of Domestic Terrorism

• Right-wing terrorist groups: oppose government in general and government regulations in particular
• Left-wing terrorist groups: believe in a revolutionary socialist doctrine and seek radical change outside the established political process
• Special interest terrorist groups: fringe elements of antinuclear, environmental, pro-life, animal rights, and other movements
• Individual or “lone wolf” terrorists: operate alone or in small groups and defy detection

International Terrorism

• Violent acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any state, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or any state.
• These acts appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.

Three Types of International Terrorists

• State sponsors of terrorism: For these countries, terrorism is a tool of foreign policy.
• Formal terrorist organizations: These are autonomous, generally transnational, and have their own personnel, infrastructure, financial arrangements, and training facilities.
• Loosely affiliated extremists and rogue international terrorists

Four General Policy Principles Regarding Terrorism

• Make no concessions to terrorists and strike no deals (even if U.S. citizens are held hostage).
• Bring terrorists to justice for their crimes (no matter how long it takes).
• Isolate and apply pressure on states that sponsor terrorism to force them to change their behavior.
• Bolster the counterterrorist capabilities of those countries that work with the U.S. and require assistance.