General Service Law Enforcement Agencies
Police agencies that are regularly engaged in preventing crime, investigating crimes, apprehending criminal, maintaining order, and providing other miscellaneous services.
Social Control
The use of sanctions and rewards within a group to influence and shape the behavior of individual members of that group; the organized ways in which society responds to behavior and people it regards as deviant, problematic, worrying, threatening, trouble
3 Types of Social Control
- Private (Primary): family, friends
- Parochial (Secondary): schools, churches, neighborhood groups
- Public (Governmental): government, regulatory, law enforcement
Problem-Oriented Policing (POP)
stresses increased police response to identified crime problems
- discard general approach
- concentrate on specific problems in the community
- Giuliani Experiment In NY
- Examine A Specific Problem Facing The Community And Look At A Specific Solution
Community Policing
- work closely with community
- allows officers to make more decisions
- away from Bureaucracy of Police Organizations
- decentralize controls
Zero-Tolerance Policy
- based on belief that aggressive enforcement of disorder will motivate residents to take better care of communities
- calls for the police to focus primarily on disorder, minor crime, and the appearance or crime through purpose of restoring order to comm
Police: Gatekeepers into the Criminal Justice System
� Every arrest a police officer makes impacts how the CJ
system will respond.
� Bail or Jail
� Trial or Guilty Plea
� Probation or Jail Sentence
� When Police Unilaterally institute a major change in strategy it impacts all segments of the CJ System
Police Role in Political System
� Public Control and Accountability are based in the political system.
� Politicians use police services to demonstrate their political power.
� Politics versus Professional Standards
Broken Windows
� John Wilson And George Kelling
� Crime in Social Control Context
� Fix the Small Problems Before they become BIG Problems
Zero Tolerance Policing
� Arrest for Minor Offenses
� Fare Jumping
� Gun Possession
� Tougher Stand
� Centralized Controls
� Strict Policy Guidelines
Robert Peel
- Father of modern policing
- fought to improve the basic structure of law enforcement
- (1829) persuaded the English Parliament to establish the London Metropolitan Police
Patronage
The promise or provision of public sector jobs by politicians, usually to individuals who have made significant campaign contributions or otherwise helped the politician be elected.
Police Unions
At the local level, these are collective bargaining units representing certain classes of employees in the police department.
English Heritage and Policing
- Limited Authority for Police
- Local Control of Police
- Highly decentralized Police authority
Three Eras of American Policing
Our Text Book
- The Political Era: 1830s --- 1900
- The Professional Era: 1900----1960
- The Era of Conflicting Pressures: 1960s to Now
Some Scholars
- The Political Era: 1830s --- 1900
- The Professional Era: 1900----1960
- The Reform Era: 1960s---- 1970
Police Population Ratio
The measure of local police protection expressed as the number of sworn officers, per-thousand citizens
NO IMPACT ON CRIME
Local Political Control
A tradition, inherited from England during the colonial period that places primary responsibility for public protection with local governments.
Fragmentation
The separation of police departments into many regional and jurisdictional areas.
What Fragmentation Can Cause:
- Lack of Coordination in Crime Fighting:
-- Information Sharing is Essential to apprehend
criminals particularly burglary, robberies and
auto theft.
- Crime Displacement
-- If one township starts a prevention program, it
may push crime to another localit
Police Agencies with Special Jurisdiction:
- Regional Agencies - Delaware River Port Authority, SEPTA
- Tribal Police - Native American Reservations
- Transit Systems - Transit Police
- Colleges and Universities - Campus Police
- Public Schools - School Police
Coroner
medical examiner responsible for aiding crime investigations by probing deaths thought not to be of natural causes.
The Budget Game
- Most Budget Cycles Are One Year For All Agencies
- Often Governments Play a Game with the Budget Numbers when it comes to Policing and Staff
- Authorized Strength of a Police Department versus
Currently Employed Strength
- Politicians can't be seen cutt
Tribal Police
Agencies whose primary responsibility is to provide general law enforcement services for Indian Nations
Accreditation
Process of voluntary professional self-regulation that serves as a final approach to establishing minimum national standards in policing. Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). Accreditation Process is Voluntary, and NO Penalty f
Role of the Federal Government on Municipal Police:
- Constitutional Mandates: When the Supreme Court Rules that Police procedures are in violation of the Constitution, then the federal government intercedes
- Federal Government also provides technical expertise and guidance through the Bureau of Justice A
Department of Homeland Security
- Created by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 as a result of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
- Goal was to streamline agencies
who protected the nation into one department.
Quasi Military Style
- refers to how the police are organized in a military style.
- includes uniforms, ranks, command structure, authoritarian, and weapons
Bureaucracy
A pyramidal model of government administration in which tasks are grouped into separate bureaus or department,and info flows up and down according to the hierarchical structure.
- Marked by diffuse authority, visible division of labor, and inflexible rule
Community Oriented Policing can:
- Deformalize: To eliminate many of the rules and policies that stifle creativity and discourage problem solving within police organizations
- Decentralize: To place greater decision making responsibility on rank and file officers at the neighborhood leve
Civil Service
A nearly universal set of formal and legally binding procedures governing personnel decisions in police organizations, ensuring that such decisions are based on objective criteria and not on favoritism, bias, or political influence
Police Union
An organization legally authorized to represent police officers in collective bargaining with the employer
Collective Bargaining
A method of determining conditions of employment through bilateral negotiations according to the following principles:
- Employees have a legal right to form unions, and employers are requires to negotiate with the union's designated representatives
Contingency Theory
A theoretical framework for understanding the structures and practices of police organizations based on underlying premise that these organizations are created and structures to achieve specific goals, such as crime control, and will ultimately fail if un
Institutional Theory
A theoretical framework for understanding the structures and practices of police organizations based on the premise that police organizations are social institutions that operate in relation to their external social and political environment.
Resource Dependency Theory
A theoretical framework for understanding the structures and practices of police organizations based on the premise that such organizations must obtain resources to survive, and that to obtain these resources they must engage in exchanges with other organ
Essay Topic Summary
- Racial Profiling
- Police Budgeting Process
- Broken Windows Theory: fix small problems before they become big problems/crime in social control context