THE POLICE AND HIGHER EDUCATION The Challenge of the Times

As law enforcement agencies continue to increase their educational standards, it is incumbent upon colleges and universities to offer curricula that prepare policemen to meet the challenge of modern times Criminal justice programs should pave the way for innovation and change in the police establishment by producing well-educated men, with a strong liberal arts background, capable of understanding self, community, and the role of the police in modem society.     

POLICE SUBCULTURE RECONSIDERED

Most comprehensive discussions of the police acknowledge the inability of legal and bureaucratic regulations to determine officer behavior. Attention is turned instead toward the informal norms developed within the police subculture. These discussions, however, tend to overstress the chasm between the formal and informal. They also provide inadequate tools for understanding differentiation, conflict, and change within police departments. I address these shortcomings here by mobilizing a particular conceptualization of the term "normative order"—as a set of rules and practices oriented around a central value. Six such orders are crucial to policing: law, bureaucratic control, adventure/machismo, safety, competence, and morality. I illustrate the importance of each by drawing upon ethnographic observations of the Los Angeles Police Department, and explain how my conceputalization offers a comprehensive yet flexible means to understand the social world of policing.     

POLICE EMPLOYMENT AND SUBURBAN CRIME

Although politicians, police, and others have often advocated the expansion of police employment in the effort to control crime, the empirical relationship between police employment and crime rates has seldom been systematically explored. This study incorporates variables which are causally related both to crime and police employment roles for the 252 northern and northeastern suburbs for which police employment and crime data are available for 1970–1972. Separate analyses of violent and property crime are undertaken, incorporating data on police employment as a causally related variable along with several other determinants of crime identified in earlier studies. The analysis suggests that police employment and crime rates are reciprocally related, and that these relationships offer more support for a “labeling” than a “deterrence” perspective.     

IMPROVING OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES OF POLICE

Despite advances in measurement and the sophistication of statistical technique, quantitative studies of police behavior seems to have reached the limits of their capacity to explain variance, develop and test theory, and inform policy choices. This paper suggests that further advances in observational studies of police behavior require that researchers account for the cognitive decision processes police use in exercising their discretion. A method for debriefing officers after encounters with the public is described. The results of a preliminary test of the method indicate that valuable in formation can be obtained with quite limited reactivity effects.     

POLICE MISCONDUCT AS ORGANIZATIONAL DEVIANCE

The aim of this paper is to extend and clarify the organizational deviance perspective by focusing on police misconduct. Toward that end the paper defines organizational deviance and police misconduct, illustrates the linkages between natural persons and deviant departments, and considers the public policy implications of viewing police misconduct as organizational deviance.     

POLICE DIVERSION An Illusion?

Diversion is defined on the basis of five restrictions that place important limitations on what should be considered “authentic” diversion. Each of the restrictions is reviewed in light of a number of current diversion programs known to the author. It is concluded that diversion as conceptualized by its proponents is not receiving a fair test and will be rejected on the basis of programs that have been operational zed in ways inconsistent with the original intent of its early advocates.     

POLICE CULTURE AND COERCION*

Researchers have long noted the link between police culture and coercion. To date, however, there have been no empirical studies of this relationship. Using data collected as part of a systematic social observation study of the police in Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida, this research examines the relationship between traditional views of police culture—from an attitudinal perspective‐and coercion—from a behavioral perspective. After developing a classification scheme of officers' outlooks in the context of police culture, we examine the extent to which officers' alignment with cultural attitudes translates into differences in coercive behavior. The findings indicate that those officers who closely embody the values of the police culture are more coercive compared with those that differentially align with the culture, suggesting that police use of force is a function of officers' varying attitudinal commitments to the traditional view of police culture. The implications of these findings for policy and future research are considered.     

THE POLICE AND CHILD ABUSE: AN ANALYSIS OF POLICE DECISIONS TO REPORT ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR*

This research examines police decisions to report child abuse. A questionnaire was administered to 142 law enforcement officers at both municipal and county police agencies in a southern county. Vignettes were used to determine the response of police to several abuse events that differ in their nature and seriousness. Other items measured include dogmatism, knowledge of the reporting law, and experience reporting child abuse. The results indicate that the primary contributors to police decisions are definition of the behavior as serious, perception that the behavior is criminal, and race of the family. Conclusions and inferences are made regarding how these perceptions are formed and their impact on police discretion.     

ORGANIZATIONAL NORMS AND POLICE DISCRETION.

This essay explores the issues involved in designing public policies. It suggests that those programs not well designed will generate inappropriate expectations for success. This lack of design sophistication may not lead to well-conceived methods for achieving stated objectives. Taking the Low Enforcement Assistance Administration's Community Anti-Crime Program as an example, the paper analyzes the implicit sociological theory which guided the development of this new and important program. The essay concludes by highlighting some of the important contributions the Community Anti-Crime Program can make in the criminal justice policy arena despite its conceptual shortcomings. While design problems may hinder the implementation of programs, they do not necessarily have to cripple them.     

OBSERVATIONS ON POLICE UNDERCOVER WORK*

Law enforcement officers are dependent upon citizens to alert them to criminal violations of the law. When citizens do not willingly communicate information to the police or cannot be induced to do so, police officers themselves adopt fictitious identities of various types. This paper explores police undercover work, a form of covert law enforcement used to gather information about conduct external to the organization. Through interviews with supervisors and practitioners, the benefits and liabilities of the assignment for the officers and the organization are presented. The work enables the police to investigate citizens who are not suspected of criminal activity and therefore lends itself to abuse. The practice itself demands attention as the lack of operational guidelines, standardless selection of operatives, and loose supervision imperil the safety of officers and the rights of citizens.     

MAINTAINING RESEARCH ACCESS IN POLICE ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract This paper explores certain of the general problems associated with maintaining research access in police organizations. Among the problems researchers are likely to encounter are difficulties in communicating and winning the acceptance of street-level patrol officers, problems in developing a mutually acceptable field role, and threats of premature termination. The solutions suggested include specific and repeated efforts to inform patrol-level officers of the research, emphasis of the occupational features of the traditional participant-as-observer role, and making specific plans to deal with attempts at premature termination.     

A FOUR-DIMENSIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON POLICE TYPOLOGIES

Using factor analysis with variables previously assumed to be conceptually bipolar, four dimensions of police juvenile bureaus are suggested: juvenile specialist, community service, local, and organizational orientations. Further analysis shows these four types to have different relationships with legalism, community satisfaction, and personalized treatment of juveniles.     

THE REASSURANCE FACTOR IN POLICE PATROL

In addition to its more obvious functions, police patrol also has the function of citizen reassurance-providing feelings of safety that a citizen experiences when he knows that a police officer or patrol car is nearby. Since this function is highly related to both visibility and awareness, it is svggested that in locations of both cognitive centrality and high density, fixed posts be established that would both serve the reassurance function and provide another communication link between the police and the public. Recent studies by Milgram. Sommer, Hall, and Lynch have all contributed to our understanding of what Milgram calls “the congnitive map of the city,” and this concept can be utilized in the pursuit of safety.