The Police: Organization, Role, and Function

Chapter 6

Police are organized in a militaristic hierarchical structure

Principles of chain of command and unity of command are

operational

Personnel decisions often based on time-in-rank considerations

Police Organization

Fearless crime fighters

Always making an arrest

Most arrests are for serious felonies

Always dealing with crime

Ordinary people doing a job

Arrests average 2 per month

Most arrests are for misdemeanors

Calls dealing with crime are 5 - 20% of total

The Police Role

Deter crime by being visible

Maintain public order (peacekeeping)

Respond quickly to emergencies

Arrest criminals

Aid citizens in distress

Facilitate movement of people and traffic

Create a sense of safety and security

The Patrol Function

Order maintenance, or peacekeeping, accounts for the bulk of patrol

activities. These functions fall on the border between criminal and

non-criminal behavior. In many situations, this means the patrol

officer uses his or her discretion to “handle situations” or to be

problem solvers.

Order Maintenance or Peacekeeping

Variations in patrol techniques (normal, proactive, and reactive) had

very little effect on crime and citizens’ attitudes towards the police

Does Patrol Work: The Kansas City Study

It may not be the mere presence of police that deters crime, but how

they approach the job

Targeting certain types of crimes for enforcement may be effective

Aggressive patrol and "crackdowns" in crime "hot spots” may help

reduce criminal activity

Can Proactive Patrol Effect Crime Rates?

Formal police action such as arrest may have a specific deterrent

function

Arrests seem to reduce the likelihood that first-time offenders will

continue their activity

Some evidence suggests that an increase in arrest rate can help

reduce an area’s overall crime rate

Will Arrests Deter?

Much time is spent on nonproductive work

Chances of making an arrest are most closely linked to when it was

reported

33% chance if reported in progress

10% chance if reported 1 minute later

5% if more than 15 minutes elapse before reporting the crime

How Effective are Investigations?

Too little time is spent following unsolved cases.

Sources of information must be broadly based. Victims can play a

greater role as the source of important data.

Improving the effectiveness of preliminary investigations by patrol

officers will help detectives.

Reasons for Investigative Inefficiencies

Increasing the practice of giving patrol officers greater responsibility

for conducting preliminary investigations at the scene of a crime

Greater emphasis on collecting physical evidence, identifying

witnesses, checking departmental records, and using informants

Police managers should pay more attention to screening cases and

monitoring case flow and activity with measurable productivity goals

Use of targeted investigations with direct attention to career criminals

Increase the use of available technologies

Improving Investigative Effectiveness

Police-Community Relations (PCR) - improving the relationships

between the police and public

Team Policing - decentralized decision making so the police could

easily respond to neighborhood problems

Problem-Oriented Policing - identifying and responding to long term

problems

Changing Concepts of Policing

Neighborhood disorder creates fear

Neighborhoods give out crime-promoting signals

Police need citizens' cooperation

“Broken Windows Model”

Problem solving is best done at the neighborhood level, not in some

distant headquarters. Locally situated police working with residents

are a good problem-solving team.

Community-Oriented Policing

Decentralization of police allows problem solving to occur at the level

where issues originate

Stresses shared power with local groups

Patrol officer becomes manager of own beat

Emphasizes results rather than bureaucratic details

Innovative Neighborhood-Oriented Policing (INOP)

Citizens must actively participate with police in fighting crime. Power

must be shared with local groups to give way to a “bottom-up”

decision-making process.

The effective police officer will be one whose skills produce well-

managed communities. Therefore, training and recruitment efforts

must be altered.

Community-Oriented Policing: Changing the Police Role

The core of problem-oriented policing is a proactive orientation.

Police are called upon with the community to identify particular long-

term community problems that have a relationship to crime.

Problem-Oriented Policing

Part of Problem-Oriented Policing

This concept concentrates on a relatively few locations that produce

a significant portion of all police calls

Hot Spots of Crime

If Community-Oriented Policing is to be successful, new strategies must be

developed to deal with significant administrative problems such as:

Defining the community to which the police respond

Defining the roles of all members of the crime prevention team – police

and community members

Changing how police officers are supervised

Re-orienting police values to include community-oriented policing as

central to the overall police mission

Revise police training to help them become community organizers

Recruit and promote police managers who are skilled and trained in

community change strategies

The Challenges of Community Policing

The most professional and highly motivated officers are the ones

most likely to support community policing efforts.

There is no clear-cut evidence that community policing is highly

successful at reducing crime or changing the traditional values and

attitudes of police officers involved in such programs.

National surveys find that police administrators still consider law

enforcement their top priority.

Overcoming Obstacles

Oversight systems generally are organized into one of four models or a

variation of one that include:

Citizens investigate allegations of police misconduct and recommend a

finding to the head of the agency.

Officers investigate allegations and develop findings. Then, citizens

review and recommend that the head of the agency approve or reject

the findings.

Complainants may appeal findings established by the agency to citizens

who review them and make recommendations to the head of the

agency.

An auditor investigates the process the agency uses to accept and

investigate complaints and reports to the agency and the community the

thoroughness and fairness of the process.

Police Oversight: Civilian Review Boards

Consolidation

Informal arrangements for periods of time

Sharing resources

Pooling resources

Contract services

Using more civilians

Give cops more tasks

Provide for a system of Differential Police Response (DPR)

Can Police Productivity be Improved?