Section II: Law Enforcement

1. Section II: Law Enforcement Chapter 4: Contemporary Policing Chapter 5: Community Policing, Problem Solving Policing & Service

2. Introduction • Why Do We have Police? • Police have the power and authority to do something in a situation. They are necessary when coercion is required. • Stereotyped image role of Crime Fighter!! • 90% of police work is social service • Are police crime fighters or preservers of the peace?

3. Police and the People • Police authority come from the people. • Police are a part of their communities, state and federal government. • Success of policing depends heavily of public support. • The people largely determine the goals of policing and give law enforcement agencies their authority to meet these goals. Citizens support is vital.

4. Traditional Goals of Policing: • Historically, the basic goals of most police agencies are to: • Enforce laws • Preserve the peace • Prevent Crimes • Protect Civil Rights and Civil Liberties • Provide services

5. These goals often overlap. • Enforcing the Law: • They must decide what laws to enforce • They assist in prosecution • They are often blamed for failure (they are in the public eye) • Public support may be the single most important factor in the total law enforcement effort

6. Preserving the Peace: • Police are often called to intervene in non-criminal conduct such as: crowd control, domestic disputes, parking, pedestrians. • Some of the above could result in crimes if not resolved. • Police presence at this level could be enough to reduce threat of crime.

7. Preventing Crime: • This is very closely related to Law Enforcement and peace preservation. • It differs from the above in that it attempts to eliminate potentially dangerous or criminal situations. • It is proactive • Crime Prevention may include education of the public, working with juveniles, working with P&P, providing police presence.

8. Protecting Constitutional Rights: • Concerns for crime control must be balanced by concern for due process. • Providing Services: • They may refer service out to other agencies if necessary. What type of service do police provide?

9. Contemporary Goals Resulting from Community Policing • Goals resulting from implementing community policing usually include forming partnerships with the community and a proactive, problem-solving approach to crime, fear of crime, and crime prevention. • Organization of the Department: • The specific organization of a police Department is influenced by the department’s size, location, and extent and type of crime with which it must deal

10. Whatever the agency size, police organization seeks “strict accountability through a clear rank structure, military symbols and procedures, a rigid communicational hierarchy, and close supervision” • Most police departments are organized into two basic units: administrative services and field services. Tasks and personnel are assigned to one or the other.

11. Administrative services include communications and records, recruitment and training and provision of special facilities and service. • Communications: • Police must be keep current and informed. Current information is usually provided at roll call, radio, phone and computer.

12. Communication is the Life Line of any police Department! • Records: Police records may be categorized as (1) administrative records, (2) arrest records, (3) identification records and (4) complaint records. • Identification Records contain fingerprints, photographs and other descriptive data obtained from arrested persons.

13. Centralized, integrated, accurate systems of communication and records increase the effectiveness and efficiency of field services. • A data Privacy act regulates the use of confidential and private information on individuals in the records, files and processes of a state and its political subdivision.

14. Field Services include patrol, traffic, investigations, and community service. • Traditionally police departments have been generalists. That is, most of their personnel is assigned to patrol, and each officer is responsible for providing basic law enforcement services of all types to a specified geographic area.

15. Larger departments tend to be more specialist oriented. (task forces, detectives, sex crimes) • Usually 60 to 70 percent of a department’s police officers are assigned to patrol operations, providing continuous police service and high visibility of law enforcement.

16. Rural Policing: • Some rural areas have only a small police force or may only have one officer. Backup can be miles away. • Police subculture: • A subculture is any group demonstrating specific patterns of behavior that distinguish it from others within a society.

17. Policing has been identified as a subculture commonly referred to as “The Blue Brotherhood.” • Police officer will commonly lose their non-police friends within a few years. • Some times they are isolated from the rest of society. • “us vs. them” which may foster the “blue wall of silence.”

18. Styles of policing: • Typologies are as follows: • Enforcer: most likely to use excessive force. • Crime fighter/zealot: new, inexperienced or unable to see the gray areas associated with policing. • Social service/agent: more attuned to due process. Often young, well educated, and idealistic. More flexible but also interested in protecting society.

19. Stereotypes: Suspicious, Cynical, Indifferent, Authoritarian, Bigoted, Brutal. • Police Image results from the media portrayal of police officers and from everyday contacts between individual police officers and citizens. • What influences Police Image?

20. Watchdog: Opposite end of spectrum from the enforcer. The watchdog wants to maintain the status quo, in not making waves. May ignore common violations, such as traffic offenses, and tolerate a certain amount of vice and gambling. • No officer is purely one type or another. An officer may change style depending on the situation.