Chapter 5 The Police: Role and Function

1. Chapter 5 The Police: Role and Function

2. Learning Objectives • Understand the organization of police departments. • Articulate the complexities of the police role. • Discuss the concept of patrol and its effectiveness. • Be familiar with methods of improving patrol, including broken windows policing. • Discuss the organization of police detectives. • Know what forensics is and what forensic experts do for police agencies. • Understand the concept of community policing. • Discuss the concept of problem-oriented policing. • Be familiar with the various police support functions.

3. The Police Organization • Most municipal police departments are independent agencies within the executive branch of government • Most follow para-military model adhering to semi-rigid chain of command • Personnel decisions often based on time-in-rank

4. The Police Role • Crime fighting is a small part of overall role • Duties include: • handling minor disturbances • calls for service • administrative duties • traffic • Police role is varied and complex

5. The Patrol Function • Account for 2/3 of most departments’ personnel • Deters crime through visible presence • Maintains public order • Responds to law violations or emergencies • Identifies and apprehend criminals • Aids citizens in distress • Facilitates movement of people and traffic • Creates a sense of safety and security

6. Does Patrol Deter Crime? • Kansas City Patrol Study • Levels of patrol had no significant impact on any outcome measure

7. Proactive Policing and Directed Patrol • Use of aggressive, proactive patrol may help reduce crime • Active enforcement of minor regulations - more likely to experience lower felony crime • Directed patrol – involves concentrating police resources in high crime areas

8. Broken Windows Policing • Police as maintainers of community order and safety • Neighborhood disorder creates fear • Neighborhoods give out crime-promoting signals • Police need citizen cooperation • Community preservation, public safety, and order maintenance – not crime fighting – should be primary focus of patrol

9. The Investigation Function • Detectives investigate causes of crime and attempt to identify those responsible • Undercover/sting operations • Police deceive criminals into openly committing illegal acts • Common in investigation of prostitution, gambling, and narcotics • Critics argue constitutes entrapment or may encourage commission of additional offenses

10. How Do Detectives Detect?

11. Evaluating Investigations • Police have only a 5 percent chance of solving a crime if more than 15 minutes elapse from the time of occurrence to reporting • Detectives generally lack sufficient resources to carry out lengthy probes unless crime is serious • Most crimes are solved when the perpetrator is identified at scene of crime by patrol officers

12. Community Policing • Set of programs and strategies designed to bring police and the public closer together and create a more cooperative working environment

13. Changing the Police Role • Neighborhood orientation • Changing management styles • Changing recruitment and training

14. Challenges of Community Policing • Defining community • Defining roles • Changing supervisor attitudes • Reorienting police values • Revising training • Reorienting recruitment

15. Community Policing Effectiveness • Some community policing efforts can reduce disorder and impact the crime rate • No clear-cut evidence that community policing is highly successful at reducing all types of crime

16. Problem Oriented Policing • Stresses proactive problem solving, not reactive crime fighting • Hot spots of crime – places from which a significant portion of all police calls originate

17. Support Functions • Administrative functions (records, etc.) • Internal Affairs Division • Budgeting • Dispatch centers • Training bureau