Law Enforcement ch 4,6,8

Civil Service

Formal and legally binding procedures governing personnel decisions. Nearly Universal. Purpose: to ensure personnel make decisions objectively. Reinforces the hierarchy of police department (rewards hierarchy, seniority hierarchy, status hierarchy, rank hierarchy)

Police Personality (Skolnick)

Good versus bad people. 52% of police think it is okay to use more force than needed on person. Officers routinely suspicious of all people. Develop perceptual shorthand-associate with criminals and other potentially dangerous people. Everyone is a criminal in cops eyes.

Professional Departments

Follow the Book approach to policing-professionalism is equated with bureaucratization. DO NOT CHALLENGE THEM.

Office politics. Cliques

Horizontal clique

Impact of Police Unions

Improvements in salaries and benefits and major impact has been the reduction of the chiefs power.

Active cop

Initiates calls, makes more arrests and is in more contact with citizens. back up officers on other calls, assert control of situations.

Performance Evaluation of Police Problems

Unclear definitions, Halo effect, central tendencies

police "reality shock" with criminal justice system

Use police officers as "insiders" and they see the reality of the system

Friendship networks

the chief can maintain networks of friends through favorable assignments

police "reality shock" with the department

"Department Politics"

What are the 3 police unions?

1) Fraternal Order of Police 2) International Union of Police Associations 3) Teamsters Law Enforcement League

About how many prostitutes are full-time in the nation?

250,000 and it is a 7-9 billion industry.

Cost to prostitution

7 to 9 billion

Code of Silence

Also known as the "blue curtain". a code of honor among police officers whereby officers refuse to testify against corrupt colleagues, creating a veil of secrecy around police actions. Secrecy: It is the attitude displayed by police officers to the rest of the world. Police officers keep secret the misbehavior of other police officers. They believe citizens will not understand.

Minnesota Domestic Violence Experiment (1981-1982)

An increase in arrests lowered the chance of repeats ( not accurate) The truth is many people stopped calling cause they did not want friends, or family arrested for domestic violence disputes. "Flawed"

Police attitudes

Are a product of selective contact with the public. They deal with professionals who had negative attitudes toward police(lawyers, judges, caseworkers). The stereotype "youre a cop youre supposed to get hostility" . They faced with public hostility, officers rely on fellow officers in times of crisis. in the eyes of the police every person can be a potential criminal.

"Station Queens"

Avoid danger. Initiate few contacts with citizens. Respond only to calls to which they are dispatched. Make few traffic stops/field interrogations/ arrests

Symbols of the Police

Badge, gun, uniform. People react to these symbols and form stereotypes

COMPSTAT

Computer Comparison Statistics. Holds Commanders Accountable. Clarifies the department's mission, goals, and values. Organizational power and authority transferred to commanders who are responsible for geographic areas. Resources are transferred to commanders. Data used to identify problems and to evaluate success and failure. Middle managers expected to use innovative problem-solving tactics.

What are the four noncrime models?

Crime Prophylactic, Police knowledge, social work and community cooperation.

Order Maintenance

Domestic violence, traffic enforcement, neighbor disputes and service calls

Community cooperation

Effective responses to noncrime calls can help police establish greater credibility with the police.

Education Effect

Fewer complaints

Civil Service Problems

Limits the power of the chief in making personnel decisions. limits opportunities and incentives for individual officers. Provisions for discipline make it difficult for chiefs to terminate or discipline bad officers.

Police Unions

Majority of officers are in unions.

Call girls

More upper class of Prostitutes. They get their name because in most cases they receive phone calls from clients and arrange to meet them at convenient locations. (hotels, apartments,etc).

Is police work is the most dangerous occupation?

No

task forces

Officers are put into different ranks based on specific talents.

Cohort Effect

Officers hired in one decade will have different ideas and lifestyles than officers hired in later decades. Old street cop culture vs. new bureaucratic style

Crime Prophylactic

Police intervention can defuse potentially violent situations and prevent them from escalating into criminal violence.

Policing the Mentally Ill

Police response to the mentally ill: 1) Hospitalization 2) Arrest 3) Informal Disposition. Psychriatic first aid, "mercy booking" ---> popular term for the practice by some US law enforcement departments of jailing (booking) for his or her own protection a person who is showing obvious signs of severe mental and psychiatric decompensation.

Police Unions: Grievance Procedures

Provides due process to employees

Police "reality shock" when entering profession

The astonishment a new police officer experiences during the first weeks and months on the job when encountering the unpleasant aspects of dealing with the public, the criminal justice system and the department.

Police Unions: Collective Bargaining

The method of determining conditions of employment through bilateral negotiations

Seniority

The more experience the more job opportunities. Eliminates favoritism and discrimination. Least experienced officers get the most difficult assignments--> leads to younger officers being better qualified and trained than older officers.

The capacity to use force (Egon Bittner)

This further isolates officers from the public. Egon Bittner suggested that police have arrest powers, ability to take a life. This distinguishes their job from other occupations. They are symbolized by the uniform, badge and weapon ( officers rarely have to remind people they could be arrested)

What is the most common type of order maintenance?

Traffic Enforcement

Vice Crimes

Vice Crimes are victim-less crimes with no complaining party. It involves behavior that many regard as legitimate and private. Conflicting public attitudes. Enforcement is selective, arbitrary and inconsistent. (Prostitution, drugs, gambling(illegally) --> only when people complain, but since no one is complaining it is hard to find the crime.

Skeezer

Women and men who trade sex for crack cocaine

The Halo Effect

a cognitive bias in which an observer's overall impression of a person, company, brand, or product influences the observer's feelings and thoughts about that entity's character or properties. (She is beautiful she must be good)

Noncrime models

aka Stephen Mastrogskis models. Four different ways that non-crime calls for service can help improve police effectiveness in dealing with crime.

Stereotyping

citizens react to the badge, gun, treat officers as a category rather than an individual.

Division along racial-ethnic lines

form their own groups. There is limited interaction between officers of different races and ethnicities.

police "reality shock" with public

hostility from citizen, there are stereotypes based on the uniform, gun, badge. They have to do the dirty work that no one else wants to do (tell a family their family member has been killed in a car accident). arrests, plea bargain

Glass Ceiling (Woman officers)

hurts career advancement because they are a woman. Lack of promotions. (12% of sworn in officers are women)

Social work

latent coercive power of the police can help steer potential lawbreakers into law abiding behavior (treatment, rehab) (POLICE WANT THIS)

Police Knowledge

non-crime calls give officers a broader exposure to the community with the result that they have more knowledge that help them solve crime