Policing: Purpose and Organization

1. Policing: Purpose and Organization

2. Learning Objectives • Explain the basic purposes of policing in democratic societies • List and describe the three major levels of public law enforcement • Identify the three styles of policing • Describe community policing • Describe the nature of scientific police management • Identify factors that influence an individual police officer’s use of discretion

3. The Rights of the AccusedUnder Investigation • Individual Rights: Common law, constitutional, statutory, and humanitarian rights of the accused: • A right against unreasonable searches • A right against unreasonable arrest • A right against unreasonable seizures of property • A right to fair questioning by authorities • A right to protection from personal harm

4. The Rights of the AccusedUnder Investigation • Public Order: Individual rights must be effectively balanced against these community concerns: • The efficient apprehension of offenders • The prevention of crimes

5. The Police Mission • The basic purposes of policing in democratic societies are to:

6. American Policing: From the Federal to the Local Level • Three major legislative and judicial jurisdictions • Federal • State • Local • Little uniformity

7. Federal Agencies • There are 11 United States government services Federal Bureau of Investigation • Began in 1908 • Mission statement: • “The Mission of the FBI is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners.”

8. Federal Bureau of Investigation • Organization • 56 field offices and 400 satellite offices (resident offices) • Legal attaché offices (Legats) • Major FBI operations • National Computer Crime Squad (NCCS) • Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) • Laboratory Division • National Academy Program

9. State-Level Agencies • American state policing

10. State-Level Agencies • Centralized state policing model: • Assist local law enforcement • Operate identification bureaus • Maintain a centralized criminal records repository • Patrol the state’s highways • Provide select training for municipal and county officers

11. State-Level Agencies • Decentralized state policing model: • Draws a clear distinction between traffic enforcement on state highways and other state-level law enforcement functions. • Characterizes operations in the southern United States.

12. Local Agencies • The term “local police” encompasses a wide variety of agencies.

13. Local Agencies • 13,580 municipal police departments • 3,100 sheriff’s departments • The majority of local agencies employ fewer than ten full-time officers. • City police chiefs are typically appointed. • Sheriffs are elected officials of a county law enforcement agency.

14. Policing Styles • A style of policing describes how a particular police agency sees its purpose and identifies the methods and techniques it uses to fulfill that purpose. • Watchman style • Legalistic style • Service style

15. Police−Community Relations • Police−community relations refers to: • Team policing is: An area of police activity that recognizes the need for the community and the police to work together effectively and that is based on the notion that the police derive their legitimacy from the community they serve. The reorganization of conventional patrol strategies into “an integrated and versatile police team assigned to a fixed district.”

16. Police−Community Relations • Strategic policing is: • Problem-solving policing is: A type of policing that retains the traditional police goal of professional crime fighting but enlarges the enforcement target to include nontraditional kinds of criminals. A type of policing that assumes that many crimes are caused by existing social conditions within the community and that crimes can be controlled by uncovering and effectively addressing underlying social problems.

17. Police−Community Relations • Community policing is: • Elements of community policing: • Community-based crime prevention • Reorientation of patrol activities to emphasize the importance of non-emergency services • Increased police accountability to the public • Decentralization of command “A collaborative effort between the police and the community that identifies problems of crime and disorder and involves all elements of the community in the search for solutions to these problems.

18. Police−Community Relations

19. Police−Community Relations • Chicago’s Alternative Policing Strategies (CAPS) • Community Policing Consortium

20. Critique of Community Policing • Its complexity and evolving nature make its effectiveness difficult to measure. • Citizen satisfaction with police performance is difficult to conceptualize and quantify. • Conditions of life, rather than race, are most predictive of citizen dissatisfaction. • There may not be a high degree of consensus in the community. • Not all officers are willing to accept nontraditional images of police work.

21. Critique of Community Policing • Police subculture refers to: • Socialization into the police subculture commences with recruit training and continues thereafter. • Committed to traditional view of police work. A particular set of values, beliefs, and acceptable forms of behavior characteristic of American police with which the police profession strives to imbue new recruits.

22. Scientific Police Management • Scientific police management refers to: • Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) • Exemplary Projects Program • Kansas City Experiment The application of social science techniques to the study of police administration for the purpose of increasing effectiveness, reducing the frequency of citizen complaints, and enhancing the efficient use of available resources.

23. Discretion and the Individual Officer • Police discretion refers to: • Individual officers retain considerable discretion in what they do. The opportunity of law enforcement officers to exercise choice in their daily activities.

24. Factors That Influence Discretion