Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing Chapter Contents Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

Chapter 6Prolem and Solution in Modern Policing

Chapter Introduction

6-1 The Role of Discretion in Policing6-1a Justification for Police Discretion

6-1b Factors of Police Discretion

6-2 Police Organization and Field Operations6-2a The Structure of the Police Department

6-2b Police on Patrol: The Backbone of the Department

6-2c Detective Investigations

6-2d Aggressive Investigation Strategies

6-2e Clearance Rates and Cold Cases

6-2f Forensic Investigations and DNA

6-3 Police Strategies: What Works6-3a Calls for Service

6-3b Patrol Strategies

6-3c Predictive Policing and Crime Mapping

6-3d Arrest Strategies

6-3e Community Policing and Problem Solving

6-4 “Us versus Them”: Issues in Modern Policing6-4a Police Subculture

6-4b The Physical Dangers of Police Work

6-4c Stress and the Mental Dangers of Police Work

6-4d Authority and the Use of Force

6-5 Police Misconduct and Ethics6-5a Racial and Ethnic Biases in Policing

6-5b Police Corruption

6-5c Police Accountability

6-5d Ethics in Law Enforcement

6-6 Chapter Review6-6a Chapter Summary

6-6b Questions for Critical Analysis

6-6c Key Terms

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing Chapter Introduction Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

Chapter Introduction

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

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Learning Ojective

The Role of Dicretion in Policing

Explain why police officers are allowed discretionary powers.

Police Organization and Field Operation

List the three primary purposes of police patrol.

Indicate some investigation strategies that are considered aggressive.

Describe how forensic experts use DNA fingerprinting to solve crimes.

Police Strategie: What Work

Explain why differential response strategies enable police departments torespond more efficiently to 911 calls.

Explain community policing and its contribution to the concept of problem-oriented policing.

“U veru Them”: Iue in Modern Policing

Determine when police officers are justified in using deadly force.

Police Miconduct and thic

Identify the three traditional forms of police corruption.

Explain what an ethical dilemma is and name four categories of ethicaldilemmas that a police officer typically may face.

To target your study and review, look for these numbered Learning Objective iconsthroughout the chapter.

Jutified?

One morning in January 2012, thirteenyear- old Jaime Gonzalez walked into a first-period class at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville, Texas, and, for no apparentreason, punched another student in the face. As school administrators tried to calman agitated Gonzalez in the hallway, their puzzlement turned to alarm—the eighthgrader had a gun tucked into his pants. Within minutes, the school was in lockdown

and two local police officers had arrived on the scene. They shouted at Gonzalez to“Put the gun down! Put it on the floor!” Disregarding these orders, Gonzalez raisedhis weapon. The officers fired three times and hit the teenager twice, once in thechest and once in the abdomen. “Subject shot,” one of the officers said as he calledfor emergency medical aid.

After Gonzalez died from his wounds in a local hospital, an already-shakencommunity learned one more piece of Noralva and Jaime Gonzalez embrace at thefuneral of their son, who was fatally shot by Brownsville, Texas, police afterbrandishing what appeared to be a handgun at his school. disturbing news.Although the weapon Gonzalez had been brandishing looked like a black Glocksemiautomatic pistol, it was actually a relatively harmless .177-caliber BB gun,available on the Internet for $60. As might be expected, this development openedthe Brownsville police to a great deal of criticism. “Why was so much excess forceused on a minor?” asked Gonzalez’s father, Jaime Sr. “What happened was aninjustice,” insisted Noralva, the boy’s mother.

Brownsville interim police chief Orlando Rodriguez defended his officers’ decisionmaking. He stressed that, as far as the two men knew, they were dealing with anarmed suspect who posed a serious threat to more than seven hundred studentsand about seventy-five staff members. “When I looked at that gun, there is no doubt[that] from a distance it’s absolutely real,” agreed school official Carl A. Montoya. “Ithink the officers responded, obviously, from their training. From that perspective,it was a real gun.”

Noralva and Jaime Gonzalez embrace at the funeral of their son, who wasfatally shot by Brownsville, Texas, police after brandishing what appearedto be a handgun at his school.

AP Photo/rownville Herald, Yvette Vela

1. Do you think the two Brownsville police officers acted reasonably under thecircumstances? Why or why not?

2. It is not uncommon for law enforcement agents to shoot children or adultsarmed with BB guns or other types of air pistols that appear to be deadlyweapons. Should society expect police officers to wait to determine the fullextent of the threat posed by an apparent shooter before using deadly forceas a protective measure? Explain your answer.

3. After thirty-year police veteran Michael A. Black retired, he said, “Althoughmy gun left its holster on [many] occasions, I am grateful that I never had toshoot anyone.” Does this statement surprise you? What might be some of thepsychological consequences for a law enforcement agent who fatally shoots asuspect, even if the shooting is justified?

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-1 The Role of Discretion in Policing Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-1 The Role of Dicretion in Policing

Learning Ojective 1

Explain why police officers are alloweddiscretionary powers.

One of the ironies of law enforcement is that patrol officers—often the lowest-paidmembers of an agency with the least amount of authority—have the greatest amount ofdiscretionary power. Part of the explanation for this is practical. Patrol officers spend mostof the day on the streets, beyond the control of their supervisors. Usually, only two peopleare present when a patrol officer must make a decision: the officer and the possiblewrongdoer. In most cases, the law enforcement officer has a great deal of freedom to takethe action that he or she feels the situation requires.

Without this freedom, many police officers might find their duties unrewarding. Indeed,numerous studies have shown that higher levels of officer autonomy are reflected in higherlevels of officer job satisfaction. At the same time, discretion can lead to secondguessing on the part of the public, an officer’s superiors, and the officer him- or herself.Certainly, the Brownsville police officers just discussed would have preferred not to haveshot and killed Jaime Gonzalez, whether the boy was wielding a real gun or not. Theirdecisions were made in a split second, under stressful circumstances, and without thebenefit of the evidence that came to light following the shooting.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-1a Justification for Police Discretion Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-1a Jutification for Police Dicretion

Despite the possibility of mistakes, courts generally have upheld the patrol officer’sfreedom to decide “what law to enforce, how much to enforce it, against whom, and onwhat occasions.” This judicial support of police discretion is based on the followingfactors:

Police officers are considered trustworthy and are therefore assumed to make honestdecisions, regardless of contradictory testimony by a suspect.

Experience and training giveofficers the ability to determinewhether certain activity poses athreat to society, and to take anyreasonable action necessary toinvestigate or prevent suchactivity.

Due to the nature of their jobs, police officers are extremely knowledgeable inhuman, and by extension criminal, behavior.

Police officers may find themselves in danger of personal, physical harm and must beallowed to take reasonable and necessary steps to protect themselves.

Dr. Anthony J. Pinizzotto, a psychologist with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and

Charles E. Miller, an instructor in the bureau’s Criminal Justice Information ServicesDivision, take the justification for discretion one step further. These two experts argue thatmany police officers have a “sixth sense” that helps them handle on-the-job challenges.Pinizzotto and Miller believe that although “intuitive policing” is often difficult to explain tothose outside law enforcement, it is a crucial part of policing and should not be discouragedby civilian administrators.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-1b Factors of Police Discretion Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-1 Factor of Police Dicretion

There is no doubt that subjective factors influence police discretion. The officer’s beliefs,values, personality, and background all enter into his or her decisions. To a large extent,however, a law enforcement agent’s actions are determined by the rules of policing setdown in the U.S. Constitution and enforced by the courts. These rules are of paramountimportance and will be discussed in great detail in Chapter 7.

Regarding high-speed auto pursuits, one police administrator says, “Every chase islike a no-win situation for us. We can be criticized if we do chase but also if wedon’t.” Explain why the administrator might feel this way.

SVLumagraphica/Shuttertock

lement of Dicretion

Assuming that most police officers stay on the right side of the Constitution in mostinstances, four other factors generally enter the discretion equation in any particularsituation. First, and most important, is the nature of the criminal act. The less serious acrime, the more likely a police officer is to ignore it. A person driving 60 miles per hour in a55-miles-per-hour zone, for example, is much less likely to be ticketed than someone doing80 miles per hour. A second element often considered is the attitude of the wrongdoertoward the officer. A motorist who is belligerent toward a highway patrol officer is muchmore likely to be ticketed than one who is contrite and apologetic. Third, the relationshipbetween the victim and the offender can influence the outcome. If the parties are in afamilial or other close relationship, police officers may see the incident as a personalmatter and be hesitant to make an arrest.

Limiting Police Dicretion

The fourth factor of the discretion equation is departmental policy. A policy (A set ofguiding principles designed to influence the behavior and decision making of policeofficers.) is a set of guiding principles that law enforcement agents must adhere to in statedsituations. If a police administrator decides that all motorists who exceed the speed limit by10 miles per hour will be ticketed, that policy will certainly influence the patrol officer’sdecisions. Policies must be flexible enough to allow for officer discretion, but at the sametime be specific enough to provide the officer with a clear sense of her or his duties andobligations.

Dicretion and High-Speed Puruit At about 12:30 a.m. on December 14, 2012, a Cayce(South Carolina) police officer spotted a blue Hyundai heading down the street with itsheadlights off. When the officer signaled for the Hyundai to pull over, its driver sped away,leading to a two-minute chase at ninety miles per hour. Although such police action is oftennecessary, in this case it ended in tragedy when the Hyundai struck a minivan. Theaccident killed not only the driver of the Hyundai, who was legally drunk, but alsoChamberlain Branch, a forty-eight-year-old father of three who was in the minivan.

In fact, about 35 percent of all such police pursuits end in car crashes, causing around 350fatalities each year. One-third of the victims are third parties—drivers or passengers inother cars or pedestrian bystanders. Following the chase that led to Branch’s death,many wondered whether the police officer was justified in taking such risks in response toa minor traffic violation. The Cayce Police Department’s own guidelines for high-speedchases require that officers weigh “the seriousness of the original offense” against the“dangers created by the pursuit.”

To limit the discretion that can result in these kinds of tragedies, 94 percent of the nation’slocal police departments have implemented police pursuit policies, with 61 percentrestricting the discretion of officers to engage in a high-speed chase. The success of suchpolicies can be seen in the results from Los Angeles, which features more highspeed chasesthan any other city in the country by a wide margin. In 2003, Los Angeles police officerswere ordered to conduct dangerous pursuits only if the fleeing driver was suspected of aserious crime. Within a year, the number of high-speed pursuits decreased by 62 percent,and injuries to third parties dropped by 58 percent. (To learn how one police officer’s

split-second decision on the road led to a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, see the featureYou Be the Police Officer—High-Speed Discretion below.)

Dicretion and Dometic Violence In Chapter 3, we saw that many prosecutors arereluctant to charge domestic abusers with a crime. Similarly, police officers often hesitateto make an arrest in a domestic violence situation, even when the officer has strongevidence of an assault. In light of this apparent reluctance, in the 1970s jurisdictionsbegan passing legislation that severely limits police discretion in domestic violence cases.Today, twenty-one states have mandatory arrest laws (Requires a police officer to detain aperson for committing a certain type of crime as long as there is probable cause that he orshe committed the crime.) that require a police officer to arrest a person who has abusedsomeone related by blood or marriage. The theory behind mandatory arrest policies isrelatively straightforward: they act as a deterrent to criminal behavior. Costs are imposedon the person who is arrested. He or she must go to court and face the possibility of time injail. Statistically, these laws appear to have met their goals. Researchers have foundsignificantly higher arrest rates for domestic violence offenders in states with mandatoryarrest laws than in states without them.

Even so, mandatory arrest laws do not always trump police discretion. In a 2005 case, theUnited States Supreme Court refused to allow a civil lawsuit against Castle Rock (Colorado)police officers who failed to enforce a court order mandating that Jessica Gonzales’sestranged husband keep at least one hundred yards away from her house at all times. (Heeventually kidnapped and killed their three daughters.) In the decision, Justice AntoninScalia pointed out that there is a “well established tradition of police discretion [that] haslong coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest statutes.”

You e the Police Officer

High-Speed Dicretion

The Situation You are a police officer who, late at night, clocks a car traveling 73miles per hour on a road with a 55-mile-per-hour speed limit. You follow the car,activating your blue flashing lights to indicate that the driver, a young man namedVictor, should pull over. Instead, Victor speeds up to 85 miles per hour andproceeds to lead you on a chase that seems right out of a Hollywood movie. Goingdown a narrow, two-lane street, Victor swerves through traffic, forcing numerousother cars off the road, and runs several red lights. You mimic these dangerousmaneuvers, and, about six minutes after the chase began, you find yourself directlybehind Victor’s bumper, both of you speeding at 90 miles per hour. For a shortperiod, there are no other cars nearby.

The Law Your department has no specific policy regarding high-speed pursuits.According to case law, law enforcement agents must act “reasonably” in suchsituations, weighing the risks to themselves, the suspects, and any innocentbystanders before taking any action.

Your Deciion Use your discretion to consider your various options. You canabandon the chase as too dangerous and allow Victor to escape. You can continue

the pursuit. Or, you can attempt to force Victor off the road, thereby exposing bothof you to possible injury or even death. What will you do?

[To see how a police officer in rural Georgia reacted in a similar situation, go toExample 6.1 in Appendix B.]

Self Aement

Fill in the blanks and check your answers.

In general, a law enforcement officer has a great deal of when itcomes to his or her duties. When a police administration wants to curtail thisfreedom of action, it can institute a departmental to guide the officer’sdecision making in certain situations, such as highspeed chases. With regardto domestic violence, many states have passed legislation to furtherrestrict police discretion in this area.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-2 Police Organization and Field Operations Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-2 Police Organization and Field OperationBrownsville police administrators placed the two officers involved in Jaime Gonzalez’sdeath, discussed at the beginning of this chapter, on administrative leave pending aninvestigation into the incident. In other words, the officers were temporarily relieved oftheir duties, with pay. This step does not imply that they were suspected of anywrongdoing. Most law enforcement agencies react similarly when a firearm is fired in theline of duty, both to allow for a full investigation of the event and to give the officer achance to recover from what can be a traumatic experience.

Administrative leave is a bureaucratic response to an officer-involved shooting. In abureaucracy (A hierarchically structured administrative organization that carries outspecific functions.) , formal rules govern an individual’s actions and relationships withcoemployees. The ultimate goal of any bureaucracy is to reach its maximum efficiency—inthe case of a police department, to provide the best service for the community within theconfines of its limited resources such as staff and budget. Although some policedepartments are experimenting with alternative structures based on a partnershipbetween management and the officers in the field, most continue to rely on the hierarchicalstructure described below.

A lieutenant (in the white shirt) gives instructions to two sergeants. On his left, apatrol officer appears to be awaiting instructions. How do the delegation ofauthority and the chain of command contribute to police efficiency?

le Rieder/Photo Reearcher

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-2a The Structure of the Police Department Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-2a The Structure of the Police Department

Each police department is organized according to its environment: the size of itsjurisdiction, the type of crimes it must deal with, and the demographics of the population itmust police. A police department in a racially diverse city often faces different challengesthan a department in a homogeneous one. Geographic location also influences policeorganization. The makeup of the police department in Miami, Florida, for example, ispartially determined by the fact that the city is a gateway for illegal drugs smuggled fromCentral and South America. Consequently, the department directs a high percentage of itsresources to special drug-fighting units. It has also formed cooperative partnerships with

federal agencies such as the FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection in an effort to stopthe flow of narcotics and weapons into the South Florida area.

Chain of Command

Whatever the size or location of a police department, it needs a clear rank structure andstrict accountability to function properly. One of the goals of the police reformers,especially beginning in the 1950s, was to lessen the corrupting influence of politicians. Theresult was a move toward a militaristic organization of police. As you can see in Figure6.1 on the right, a typical police department is based on a “top-down” chain of commandthat leads from the police chief down to detectives and patrol officers. In this formalizedstructure, all persons are aware of their place in the chain and of their duties andresponsibilities within the organization.

Figure 6.1

A Tpical Police Department Chain of Command

Most American police departments follow this model of the chain of command,though smaller departments with fewer employees often eliminate several of thesecategories.

Delegation of authority (The principles of command on which most police departmentsare based, in which personnel take orders from and are responsible to those in positions ofpower directly above them.) is a critical component of the chain of command, especially inlarger departments. The chief of police delegates authority to division chiefs, who delegateauthority to commanders, and on down through the organization. This structure creates a

situation in which nearly every member of a police department is directly accountable to asuperior. As was the original goal of police reformers, these links encourage discipline andcontrol and lessen the possibility that any individual police employee will have theunsupervised freedom to abuse her or his position. Furthermore, experts suggest thatno single supervisor should be responsible for too many employees. The ideal number ofsubordinates for a police sergeant, for example, is eight to ten patrol officers. This numberis often referred to as the span of control. If the span of control rises above fifteen, then it isassumed that the superior officer will not be able to effectively manage his or her team.

Organizing Area and Time

In most metropolitan areas, police responsibilities are divided according to zones known asbeats and precincts. A beat is the smallest stretch that a police officer or a group of policeofficers regularly patrol. A precinct—also known as a district or a station—is a collection ofbeats. A precinct commander, or captain, is held responsible by his or her superiors atpolice headquarters for the performance of the officers in that particular precinct.

Police administrators must also organize their personnel by time. Most departmentsseparate each twenty-four-hour day into three eight-hour shifts, also called tours orplatoons. The night shift generally lasts from midnight to 8 A.M., the day shift from 8 A.M. to4 P.M., and the evening shift from 4 P.M. to midnight. Officers either vary their hours by, say,working days one month and nights the next, or they have fixed tours in which theyconsistently take day, night, or evening shifts. A number of police departments haveimplemented compressed workweeks, in which officers work longer shifts (ten or twelvehours) and fewer days. Such schedules are believed to improve the officers’ quality of lifeby providing more substantial blocks of time off the job to recover from the stresses ofpolice work.

Law nforcement in the Field

To a large extent, the main goal of any police department is the most efficient organizationof its field services. Also known as “operations” or “line services,” field services includepatrol activities, investigations, and special operations. According to Henry M. Wrobleskiand Karen M. Hess, most police departments are “generalists.” Thus, police officers areassigned to general areas and perform all field service functions within the boundaries oftheir beats. Larger departments may be more specialized, with personnel assigned tospecific types of crime, such as illegal drugs or white-collar crime, rather than geographiclocations. Smaller departments, which make up the bulk of local law enforcement agencies,rely almost exclusively on general patrol.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-2b Police on Patrol: The Backbone of the Department Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-2 Police on Patrol: The ackone of the Department

Every police department has a patrol unit, and patrol is usually the largest division in thedepartment. More than two-thirds of the sworn officers, or those officers authorized to

Learning Ojective 2

List the three primary purposes of policepatrol.

make arrests and use force, in local police departments in the United States have patrolduties.

“Life on the street” is not easy. Patrol officers must be able to handle any number ofdifficult situations, and experience is often the best and, despite training programs, theonly teacher. As one patrol officer commented:

You never stop learning. You never get your street degree. The person who says . . .they’ve learned it all is the person that’s going to wind up dead or in a verycompromising position. They’ve closed their minds.

It may take a patrol officer years to learn when a gang is “false flagging” (trying to trickrival gang members into the open) or what to look for in a suspect’s eyes to sense if he orshe is concealing a weapon. This learning process is the backdrop to a number of differentgeneral functions that a patrol officer must perform on a daily basis.

The Purpoe of Patrol

In general, patrol officers do not spend most of their shifts chasing, catching, andhandcuffing suspected criminals. The vast majority of patrol shifts are completed without asingle arrest. Officers spend a great deal of time meeting with other officers, completingpaperwork, and patrolling with the goal of preventing crime in general rather thanfocusing on any specific crime or criminal activity.

As police accountability expert SamuelWalker has noted, the basic purposes ofthe police patrol have changed verylittle since 1829, when Sir Robert Peelfounded the modern police department.These purposes include:

1. The deterrence of crime bymaintaining a visible police presence.

2. The maintenance of public order and a sense of security in the community.

3. The twenty-four-hour provision of services that are not crime related.

Given that most patrol shifts end without an officer making a single arrest, whatactivities take up most of a patrol officer’s time?

Rod Lamke Jr/AFP/Gett Image

The first two goals—deterring crime and keeping order—are generally accepted aslegitimate police functions. The third, however, has been more controversial.

Communit Concern

As noted in Chapter 5, the community era saw a resurgence of the patrol officer as aprovider of community services, many of which have little to do with crime. The extent towhich noncrime incidents dominate patrol officers’ time is evident in the Police ServicesStudy, a survey of 26,000 calls to police in sixty different neighborhoods. The study foundthat only one out of every five calls involved the report of criminal activity. (See Figure6.2 for the results of another survey of crime calls.)

There is some debate over whether community services should be allowed to dominatepatrol officers’ duties. The question, however, remains: If the police do not handle theseproblems, who will? Few cities have the financial resources to hire public servants to dealspecifically with, for example, finding shelter for homeless persons. Furthermore, thepolice are the only public servants on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,making them uniquely accessible to citizen needs.

Figure 6.2

Call for Service

Over a period of two years, the Project on Policing Neighborhoods gathered

information on calls for service in Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg,Florida. As you can see, the largest portion of these calls involved disputes whereno violence or threat of violence existed. Be aware also that nearly two-thirds ofthe nonviolent dispute calls and nearly half of the assault calls answered by policedealt with domestic confrontations.

Source adapted from: Stephen D. Matrofki, Jeffre . Snipe, Roger . Park, and Chritopher D. Maxwell, “The HelpingHand of the Law: Police Control of Citizen on Requet,” Criminolog 38 (Ma 2000), Tale 5, page 328.

Patrol Activitie

To recap, the purposes of police patrols are to prevent and deter crime and also to providesocial services. How can the police best accomplish these goals? Of course, each departmenthas its own methods and strategies, but William Gay, Theodore Schell, and Stephen Schackare able to divide routine patrol activity into four general categories:

1. Preventive patrol. By maintaining a presence in a community, either in a car or onfoot, patrol officers attempt to prevent crime from occurring. This strategy, which O.W. Wilson called “omnipresence,” was a cornerstone of early policing philosophy andstill takes up roughly 40 percent of patrol time.

2. Calls for service. Patrol officers spend nearly a quarter of their time responding to 911calls for emergency service or other citizen problems and complaints.

3. Administrative duties. Paperwork takes up nearly 20 percent of patrol time.

4. Officer-initiated activities. Incidents in which the patrol officer initiates contact withcitizens, such as stopping motorists and pedestrians and questioning them, accountfor 15 percent of patrol time.

The category estimates made by Gay, Schell, and Schack are not universally accepted.Professor of law enforcement Gary W. Cordner argues that administrative duties accountfor the largest percentage of patrol officers’ time. According to Cordner, when officers arenot consumed with paperwork and meetings, they are either answering calls for service

(which takes up 67 percent of the officers’ time on the street) or initiating activitiesthemselves (the remaining 33 percent).

“Noie, ooze, and Violence”

Indeed, there are dozens of academic studies that purport to answer the question of howpatrol officers spend their days and nights. Perhaps it is only fair, then, to give a policeofficer the chance to describe the duties patrol officers perform. In the words of AnthonyBouza, a former police chief:

[Patrol officers] hurry from call to call, bound to their crackling radios, which offerno relief—especially on summer weekend nights. . . . The cops jump from crisis tocrisis, rarely having time to do more than tamp one down sufficiently and leave forthe next. Gaps of boredom and inactivity fill the interims, although there aren’t manyof these in the hot months. Periods of boredom get increasingly longer as the nightswear on and the weather gets colder.

Bouza paints a picture of a routine beat as filled with “noise, booze, violence, drugs, illness,blaring TVs, and human misery.” This may describe the situation in high-crimeneighborhoods, but it certainly does not represent the reality for the majority of patrolofficers in the United States. Duties that all patrol officers have in common, whether theywork in Bouza’s rather nightmarish city streets or in the quieter environment of ruralAmerica, include controlling traffic, conducting preliminary investigations, making arrests,and patrolling public events.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-2c Detective Investigations Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-2c Detective Invetigation

Investigation is the second main function of police, along with patrol. Whereas patrol isprimarily preventive, investigation is reactive. After a crime has been committed and thepatrol officer has gathered the preliminary information from the crime scene, theresponsibility of finding “who dunnit” is delegated to the investigator, generally known asthe detective (The primary police investigator of crimes.) . The most common way forsomeone to become a detective is to be promoted from patrol officer. Detectives have notbeen the focus of nearly as much reform attention as their patrol counterparts, mainlybecause the scope of the detective’s job is limited to law enforcement, with less emphasisgiven to social services or order maintenance.

The detective’s job is not quite as glamorous as it is sometimes portrayed by the media.Detectives spend much of their time investigating common crimes such as burglaries andare more likely to be tracking down stolen property than a murderer. They must alsoprepare cases for trial, which involves a great deal of time-consuming paperwork.Furthermore, a landmark Rand Corporation study estimated that more than 97 percent of

Learning Ojective 3

Indicate some investigation strategies thatare considered aggressive.

cases that are “solved” can be attributed to a patrol officer making an arrest at the scene,witnesses or victims identifying the perpetrator, or detectives undertaking routineinvestigative procedures that could easily be performed by clerical personnel. Forexample, even though a task force of up to thirty-five Los Angeles detectives workedaround the clock for a week on the January 2012 murder of seventeen-year-old FranciscoRodriguez, it was an informant’s tip that finally directed police to two suspects in thekilling. “There is no Sherlock Holmes,” said one investigator. “The good detective on thestreet is the one who knows all the weasels and one of the weasels will tell him who did it.”

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-2d Aggressive Investigation Strategies Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-2d Aggreive Invetigation Strategie

Detective bureaus also have the optionof implementing aggressive strategies.For example, if detectives suspect that aperson was involved in the robbery of aMercedes-Benz parts warehouse, one ofthem might pose as a “fence”—orpurchaser of stolen goods. In what isknown as a “sting” operation, thesuspect is deceived into thinking that the detective ( fence) wants to buy stolen car parts.After the transaction takes place, the suspect can be arrested.

Undercover Operation

Perhaps the most dangerous and controversial operation a law enforcement agent canundertake is to go undercover, or to assume a false identity in order to obtain informationconcerning illegal activities. Though each department has its own guidelines on whenundercover operations are necessary, all that is generally required is the suspicion thatillegal activity is taking place. Today, undercover officers are commonly used to infiltratelarge-scale narcotics operations or those run by organized crime.

New York City Detective Debra Lawson has worked undercover as part of an eliteunit devoted to seizing illegal firearms. Recently, a New York state legislatorproposed a bill that would limit the amount of time that a law enforcement officerwould be allowed to go undercover. What might be the reasoning behind thislegislation?

eatrice de Gea/The New York Time

In some situations, a detective bureau may not want to take the risk of exposing an officerto undercover work or may believe that an outsider cannot infiltrate an organized crimenetwork. When the police need access and information, they have the option of turning to aconfidential informant (CI) (A human source for police who provides informationconcerning illegal activity in which he or she is involved.) . A CI is a person who is involvedin criminal activity and gives information about that activity and those who engage in it tothe police. As many as 80 percent of all illegal drug cases in the United States involveconfidential informants. “They can get us into places we can’t go,” says one policeadministrator. “Without them, narcotics cases would practically cease to function.”

Preventive Policing and Dometic Terrorim

Aggressive investigative strategies also play a crucial role in the federal government’sefforts to combat domestic terrorism. Because would-be terrorists often need help toprocure the weaponry necessary for their schemes, they are natural targets for well-placedinformants and undercover agents. According to the Center on Law and Security at NewYork University, about two-thirds of the federal government’s major terrorism prosecutionshave relied on evidence provided by informants.

Preventive Strike On February 17, 2012, a Moroccan immigrant named Amine El Khalifiwas arrested near the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. El Khalifi, who had braggedthat he “would be happy killing thirty people,” was carrying an automatic weapon andwearing a suicide vest packed with what he thought were explosives.

In Chapter 4, we saw that criminal law generally requires intent and action. A person must

have both intended to commit a crime and taken some steps toward doing so. In mostcases, criminal law also requires that a harm has been done and that the criminal actcaused that harm. According to federal officials, however, El Khalifi never managed tocontact an established terrorist group. His gun was inoperable, and his explosives wereinert. Both had been provided by an FBI undercover agent acting as an al Qaeda operative.Indeed, El Khalifi had been under FBI surveillance for more than a year.

The case of Amine El Khalifi provides a clear example of preventive policing. Withpreventive policing, the goal is not to solve the crime after it has occurred, but rather toprevent it from happening in the first place. Even though El Khalifi posed no immediatethreat to the public, federal authorities were not willing to take the risk that he mighteventually develop into a dangerous terrorist. Although some observers claim that lawenforcement officials are exaggerating the threat posed by many of these accused plotters,the government points to a record of successes to justify this new approach. From thebeginning of 2009 to 2012, preventive policing tactics aided in the arrests of nearly fortydomestic terrorism suspects similar to El Khalifi. (See Figure 6.3 for more examples ofpreventive policing.)

Figure 6.3

Preventive Policing: The Age of the Foiled Plot

When it come to potential dometic terrorit, the federal government hadecided to “Prevent firt, proecute econd.” Thi lueprint ha led to dozen of“quick trike” againt dometic terrorim upect, including the threeexample lited here.

Faceook Farce Famil Affair ridge Part

Decemer 2010 March 2011 Ma 2012

The Plot: AntonioMartinez, a recentAmerican convert toIlam, tried to low upa U.S. militarrecruitment center inCatonville, Marland.On hi Faceook page,Martinez wrote thatall he “think aout ijihad.”

The Plot: Lonnie andKaren Vernon,memer of anAlakan militia group,planned to kill federaljudge Ralph eitlineand everal of thejudge’ familmemer. The deathwere to e retaliationfor an unfavorale taxruling that cot thecouple their home.

The Plot: Fivedigruntled memerof the OccupCleveland movementdecided to detro aridge in CuahogaValle National Park.Their goal wa totrike a violent lowagaint corporateAmerica.

How Far It Got:Martinez loaded anSUV with arrel ofexploive and parked

How Far It Got: TheVernon purchaed ailencer-equippedpitol and grenade,

How Far It Got: Thefive elf-decried“anarchit” pentmonth dicuing

the vehicle next tothe recruitmentcenter. He then dialeda cell phone numerthat he elievedwould detonate theom, ut the wereactuall fakeprovided an FIundercover agent.

telling the elleraout their criminalintention. A itturned out, the ellerwa a confidentialinformant, and theVernon werearreted on the pot.

potential target andpurchaed everaldevice that theelieved to e filledwith the powerfulexploive C-4. Inrealit, the fake C-4wa provided anFI informant whoalo recorded anumer of thegroup’ “ecret”converation.

The Reult: Martinezpleaded guilt toattempted ue of aweapon of madetruction, and inApril 2012, a federaljudge entenced himto twent-five earin prion.

The Reult: TheVernon pleadedguilt to charge ofconpiring to kill afederal judge. InJanuar 2013, Lonniewa entenced totwent-ix ear inprion and Karen totwelve ear in prion.

The Reult: In late2012, four of theplotter wereconvicted of variouattempted terroritact and receivedentence rangingfrom 6½ to 11½ earin prion. Sentencingfor the fifthparticipant wadelaed pending apchiatric evaluation.

ntrapment Iue The aggressive tactics employed by federal agents in preventingterrorist attacks have drawn criticism from some quarters. In February 2013, for example,American citizen Mohamed Osman Mohamud was convicted of attempting to use a weaponof mass destruction. Several years earlier, Mohamud had pushed a cell phone button in thebelief that he was detonating a car bomb that would kill thousands of people in downtownPortland, Oregon. In reality, the bomb was a fake, built by FBI technicians. FBI undercoveragents also provided Mohamud with $3,000 to purchase the fake bomb components, tookhim to a remote location to test the bomb, and helped him load the vehicle with six 55-gallon drums of explosives and diesel fuel.

During Mohamud’s trial, his defense attorney Stephen R. Sady asked, “Did the governmentcreate the crime? Did the FBI foil its own plot?” As you learned in Chapter 4,entrapment is a possible defense for criminal behavior when a government agent plantsthe idea of committing a crime in a defendant’s mind. Although the entrapment defensehas often been raised in domestic terrorism cases such as Mohamud’s involving informantsor undercover agents, it has yet to succeed. The law requires that the suspect show nopredisposition to commit the crime, and in most cases domestic terrorism suspects aregiven numerous opportunities to “back out” by the undercover government agents.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-2e Clearance Rates and Cold Cases Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-2e Clearance Rate and Cold Cae

The ultimate goal of all law enforcement activity is to clear a crime, or secure the arrest andprosecution of the offender. Even a cursory glance at clearance rates (A comparison of thenumber of crimes cleared by arrest and prosecution with the number of crimes reportedduring any given time period.) , which show the percentage of reported crimes that havebeen cleared, reveals that investigations succeed only part of the time. In 2011, just 65percent of homicides and 48 percent of total violent crimes were solved, while policecleared only 19 percent of property crimes. For the most part, the different clearancerates for different crimes reflect the resources that a law enforcement agency expends oneach type of crime. The police generally investigate a murder or a rape more vigorouslythan the theft of an automobile or a computer.

As a result of low clearance rates, police departments are saddled with an increasingnumber of cold cases (A criminal investigation that has not been solved after a certainamount of time.) , or criminal investigations that are not cleared after a certain amount oftime. (The length of time before a case becomes “cold” varies from department todepartment. In general, a cold case must be “somewhat old” but not “so old that there canbe no hope of ever solving it”. ) Even using various technologies we will explore in thenext section, cold case investigations rarely succeed. A recent RAND study found that onlyabout one in twenty cold cases results in an arrest, and only about one in a hundred resultsin a conviction.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-2f Forensic Investigations and DNA Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-2f Forenic Invetigation and DNA

Although the crime scene typically offers a wealth of evidence, some of it isincomprehensible to a patrol officer or detective without assistance. For that aid, lawenforcement officers rely on experts in forensics (The application of science to establishfacts and evidence during the investigation of crimes.) , or the practice of using science andtechnology to investigate crimes. Forensic experts apply their knowledge to items found atthe crime scene to determine crucial facts such as:

The cause of death or injury.

The time of death or injury.

The type of weapon or weapons used.

The identity of the crime victim, if that information is unavailable.

Photo

Courte of Martha lake

The identity of the offender (in the best-case scenario).

To assist forensic experts, many police departments operate or are affiliated withapproximately 400 publicly funded crime laboratories in the United States. As we noted inthe previous chapter, the FBI also offers the services of its crime lab to agencies withlimited resources. The FBI’s aid in this area is crucial, given that the nation’s crime labs areburdened with a backlog of nearly one million requests for forensic services.

Crime Scene Forenic

The first law enforcement agent to reach a crime scene has the important task of protectingany trace evidence (Evidence such as a fingerprint, blood, or hair found in small amountsat a crime scene.) from contamination. Trace evidence is generally very small—ofteninvisible to the naked human eye—and often requires technological aid for detection.Hairs, fibers, blood, fingerprints, broken glass, and footprints are all examples of traceevidence. A study released by the National Institute of Justice in 2010 confirmed that whenpolice are able to link such evidence to a suspect, the likelihood of a conviction risesdramatically.

Police will also search a crime scene for bullets and spent cartridge casings. These itemscan provide clues as to how far the shooter was from the target. They can also be comparedwith information stored in national firearms databases to determine, under somecircumstances, the gun used and its most recent owner. The study of firearms and itsapplication to solving crimes goes under the general term ballistics (The study of firearms,including the firing of the weapon and the flight of the bullet.) . Comparing shell casingsfound at three different crime scenes, New York City police ballistics experts were able todetermine that the same .22-caliber pistol was used to kill three Brooklyn-area merchantsover a five-month period in 2012.

Career in CJ

Martha lake: Forenic Scientit

In high school, I was interested in science, but didn’twant to end up being a technician doing the samething every day. I was looking in college cataloguesand came across criminalistics at U.C. Berkeley. Thecoursework included such courses as microscopy,instrumental analysis, trace evidence, criminal law,and statistics, and it sounded fascinating. I decided inmy senior year of high school to become a forensicscientist.

As quality assurance manager at the San FranciscoPolice Department’s crime lab, I am often called to criminal court to testify aboutevidence that has passed through our lab. I am always nervous when I testify, and Ithink it is healthy to be a little nervous. As an expert witness, the most challengingpart of my testimony is describing my findings to a jury of primarily nonscientists

in a way that will make my testimony understandable and credible. I’ve found thatjuries tend to understand evidence that is part of their lives. Everyone can identifythe writing of a family member or spouse, so describing how handwriting isidentified is not too hard. Explaining how DNA analysis works is more difficult.

Social Media Career Tip When people search for you online, they won’t click pastthe first page. Check to see where your material appears on a regular basis.

Fat Fact

Forenic Scientit, Jo Decription:

Examine, test, and analyze tissue samples, chemical substances, physicalmaterials, and ballistics evidence collected at a crime scene.

What kind of Training i Required?

Bachelor’s degree in science, particularly chemistry, biology,biochemistry, or physics.

Certification programs (usually 2 years’ additional study) can helpprospective applicants specialize as forensic consultants, fingerprinttechnicians, forensic investigators, laboratory technicians, andfingerprint examiners.

Annual Salar Range?

$25,100 – $65,000

For more than a century, the most important piece of trace evidence has been the humanfingerprint. Because no two fingerprints are alike, they are considered reliable sources ofidentification. Forensic scientists compare a fingerprint lifted from a crime scene with thatof a suspect and declare a match if there are between eight and sixteen “points ofsimilarity.” This method of identification is not infallible, however. It is often difficult to lifta suitable print from a crime scene, and researchers have uncovered numerous cases inwhich innocent persons were convicted based on evidence obtained through faultyfingerprinting procedures.

The DNA Revolution

The technique of DNA fingerprinting (The identification of a person based on a sample ofher or his DNA, the genetic material found in the cells of all living things.) , or using asuspect’s DNA to match the suspect to a crime, emerged in the mid-1990s and has now allbut replaced fingerprint evidence in many types of criminal investigations. The shift hasbeen a boon to crime fighters: one law enforcement agent likened DNA fingerprinting to

elkor/iStockphoto

randon Alm/iStockphoto

Learning Ojective 4

Describe how forensic experts use DNAfingerprinting to solve crimes.

“the finger of God pointing down” at a guilty suspect.

DNA, which is the same in each cell of aperson’s body, provides a “geneticblueprint” or “code” for every livingorganism. DNA fingerprinting is usefulin criminal investigations because notwo people, save for identical twins,have the same genetic code. Therefore,lab technicians, using the processdescribed in Figure 6.4, can compare the DNA sample of a suspect to the evidence found atthe crime scene. If the match is negative, it is certain that the two samples did not comefrom the same source. If the match is positive, the lab will determine the odds that the DNAsample could have come from someone other than the suspect. Those odds are so high—sometimes reaching 30 billion to one—that a match is practically conclusive.

Figure 6.4

Unlocking vidence in DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is the geneticmaterial that carries the code for all living cells.Through DNA profiling, a process explained here,forensic scientists test DNA samples to see if theymatch the DNA profile of a known criminal orother test subject.

1. DNA samples can be taken from a number ofsources, including saliva, blood, hair, or skin.These samples are labeled and shipped to aforensic lab.

2. The DNA is extracted from the cells of thesample using complex proteins known asenzymes. An electrical charge is thensent through the resulting DNAfragments to separate them accordingto size.

3. Another set of enzymes is added tothe now separate DNA fragments.These enzymes attach themselves todifferent categories of geneticmaterial within the DNA fragmentsand become distinct when exposed to photographic film. The “photograph” ofthis visible pattern is the DNA

Zmeel

Photograph/iStockphoto

fingerprint.

4. Crime lab technicians will look forthirteen points on the DNAfingerprint called “markers.” Thesethirteen markers are thencompared with a suspect’s DNA orwith DNA found at a crime scene. Ifa match is found for each of the thirteen markers, there is almost no chancethat the two DNA samples came from different persons.

The initial use of DNA to establish criminal guilt took place in Britain in 1986. The FBI usedit for the first time in the United States two years later. The process begins when forensictechnicians gather blood, semen, skin, saliva, or hair from the scene of a crime. Blood cellsand sperm are rich in DNA, making them particularly useful in murder and rape cases, butDNA has also been extracted from sweat on dirty laundry, skin cells on eyeglasses, andsaliva on used envelope seals. Once a suspect is identified, her or his DNA can be used todetermine whether she or he can be placed at the crime scene. Several years ago, forexample, investigators connected Aaron Thomas, the “East Coast Rapist,” to a series ofsexual assaults that took place from Rhode Island to Virginia by obtaining Thomas’s DNAsample from a discarded cigarette.

DNA in Action

The ability to “dust” for genetic information on such a wide variety of evidence, as well asthat evidence’s longevity and accuracy, greatly increases the chances that a crime will besolved. Indeed, police no longer need a witness or even a suspect in custody to solve crimes.What they do need is a piece of evidence and a database.

In 1985, for example, Saba Girmai was found strangled to death in a dumpster in MountainView, California. For nearly three decades, police were unable to establish any useful leadsconcerning Girmai’s murderer. This changed when technicians at the Santa Clara CountyDistrict Attorney’s Crime Laboratory developed a DNA profile of the suspect using evidencefound underneath Girmai’s fingerprints. Checking these results against the state’s crimedatabase, the technicians found a match with Daniel Garcia, who had been previouslyconvicted of a different crime. Twenty-eight years after the fact, in 2013, Garcia finally wasarrested in connection with Girmai’s death.

Dataae and Cold Hit The identification of Daniel Garcia is an example of what policecall a cold hit (The establishment of a connection between a suspect and a crime, oftenthrough the use of DNA evidence, in the absence of an ongoing criminal investigation.) ,which occurs when law enforcement finds a suspect “out of nowhere” by comparing DNAevidence from a crime scene against the contents of a database. The largest and mostimportant database is the National Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). Operated by theFBI since 1998, CODIS gives local and state law enforcement agencies access to the DNAprofiles of those who have been convicted of various crimes. CODIS contains DNA records

of over 10 million people, and as of January 2013, the database had produced 200,300 coldhits nationwide.

How did “familial DNA” lead investigators to Lonnie Franklin, Jr., shown here in aLos Angeles courtroom? Why might privacy advocates criticize this method ofusing DNA to identify criminal suspects?

AP Photo/Irfan Khan, Pool

New Development The investigative uses of DNA fingerprinting are expanding rapidly.Taking advantage of a new technique known as “touch DNA,” investigators can collectevidence from surfaces that are not marked by obvious clues such as bloodstains orwellpreserved fingerprints. With this technique, forensic scientists can gather enoughmicroscopic cells to test for the presence of DNA by scraping a piece of food or an article ofclothing. In addition, although CODIS was designed to help police solve murders and rapes,it is becoming increasingly useful in identifying suspects in burglaries and other propertycrimes. A recent study funded by the National Institute of Justice found that twice as manysuspects were arrested when DNA fingerprinting was added to property crimeinvestigations.

Because relatives have similar DNA, law enforcement agents are now conducting “familialsearches” of parents, siblings, and other relatives to gain more information about suspects.One such search led to the 2010 arrest of Los Angeles’s “Grim Sleeper”—so called becausethere was a fourteen-year gap between the murders he committed in the 1980s and those inthe 2000s. Investigators were able to narrow their focus to Lonnie Franklin, Jr., after DNAevidence from various Grim Sleeper crime scenes exhibited similarities to the DNA of

Lonnie’s son Christopher, who had recently been convicted on a weapons charge (see thephoto above). Forensic experts are also raising the possibility that DNA will be able to act asa “genetic witness.” That is, a DNA sample taken from a crime scene soon may be able toprovide law enforcement with a physical description of a suspect, including her or his eye,skin, and hair color and age.

Privacy and civil rights advocates protest that DNA collection has gone too far. Specifically,authorities in many states now collect samples from those who have been convicted ofnonviolent crimes and, in some instances, from those who have merely been arrested for acrime but not convicted. We will examine the controversy surrounding that practice, whichwas the subject of a recent decision by the United States Supreme Court, in the CJ in Actionfeature at the end of the chapter.

Self Aement

Fill in the blanks and check your answers.

officers make up the backbone of a police department. One of theirprimary functions is to crime by maintaining a visible in thecommunity. , in contrast, investigate crimes that have alreadyoccurred. In the past two decades, , or the science of crimeinvestigation, has been revolutionized by the technique of , in whichcrime labs use samples of a person’s genetic material to match suspects tocrimes.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-3 Police Strategies: What Works Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-3 Police Strategie: What WorkIn October 2012, the Detroit Police Officers Association surprised and angered that city’spoliticians by warning visitors to stay away. Because of $75 million in law enforcementbudget cuts, the union declared that Detroit’s police force was “grossly understaffed” andthus unable to protect the public from violent crime. Bargaining tactics aside, Detroit’splight is not uncommon. Nearly two-thirds of local American law enforcement agencieshave faced budget cuts over the past five years.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that reducing the size of a police force, for whatever reason,leads to higher crime rates. In San Bernardino, California, for example, the homicide raterecently increased by 50 percent the first year after a large portion of the city’s police werelaid off for financial reasons. Similarly, in Sacramento, California, a reduction in thepolice force coincided with a 48 percent increase in gun violence. “You’ve got to figure out

within the new rules of the game how to [be] better,” admitted Sacramento Police ChiefRick Braziel. In this section, we will examine the most important law enforcementstrategies being implemented to ensure that the outcome of this “game” is an increase inpolice efficiency rather than an increase in crime.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-3a Calls for Service Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-3a Call for Service

Even as his department was being depleted by budget cuts, Sacramento Police Chief Brazielremained steadfast in his commitment to respond to 911 calls in a timely manner. Whilelaw enforcement officers do not like to think of themselves as being at the “beck and call”of citizens, that is the operational basis of much police work. All police departmentspractice incident-driven policing (A reactive approach to policing that emphasizes aspeedy response to calls for service.) , in which calls for service are the primary instigatorsof action. Between 40 and 60 percent of police activity is the result of 911 calls or othercitizen requests, which means that police officers in the field initiate only about half of suchactivity.

Repone Time and fficienc

The speed with which the police respond to calls for service has traditionally been seen as acrucial aspect of crime fighting and crime prevention. In incident-driven policing, the idealscenario is as follows: a citizen sees a person committing a crime and calls 911, and thepolice arrive quickly and catch the perpetrator in the act. Alternatively, a citizen who is thevictim of a crime, such as a mugging, calls 911 as soon as possible, and the police arrive tocatch the mugger before she or he can flee the immediate area of the crime.

Although such scenarios are quite rare in real life, response time (The rapidity with whichcalls for service are answered.) , or the time elapsed between the instant a call for service isreceived and the instant the police arrive on the scene, has become a benchmark for policeefficiency. If these times lag, as was the case in December 2012 when the Tucson, Arizona,police took nearly three hours to respond to a fight in a public library, local lawenforcement comes under criticism. Tucson Police Chief Robert Villanseñor explained hisdepartment’s sluggish reaction to the fight by pointing out that he had recently lost 150officers due to city budget cuts. Indeed, many police administrators believe thatmaintaining acceptable response times is primarily a function of the number of policeofficers available to respond.

Improving Repone Time fficienc

Many police departments have come to realize that overall response time is not as criticalas response time for the most important calls. For this reason, a number of metropolitanareas have introduced 311 nonemergency call systems to reduce the strain on 911operations. Another popular method of improving performance in this area is adifferential response (A strategy for answering calls for service in which response time is

Learning Ojective 5

Explain why differential response strategiesenable police departments to respond moreefficiently to 911 calls.

adapted to the seriousness of the call.) strategy, in which the police distinguish amongdifferent calls for service so that they can respond more quickly to the most seriousincidents.

Suppose, for example, that a policedepartment receives two calls forservice at the same time. The first callerreports that a burglar is in her house,and the second says that he hasreturned home from work to find hisautomobile missing. If the departmentemploys differential response, theburglary in progress—a “hot” crime—will receive immediate attention. The missing automobile—a “cold” crime that could havebeen committed several hours earlier—will receive attention “as time permits,” and thecaller may even be asked to make an appointment to come to the police station to formallyreport the theft. (See Figure 6.5 for possible responses to calls to a 911 operator.)

Figure 6.5

Putting the Theor of Differential Repone into Action

Differential repone trategie are aed on a imple concept: treatemergencie like emergencie and nonemergencie like nonemergencie. A ouee, call for ervice that involve “hot crime” will e dealt with immediatel,while thoe that report “cold crime” will e dealt with at ome point in thefuture.

“HOT” CALLS FOR SRVIC—IMMDIATRSPONS

Complaint to 911Officer

Rationale

“I jut got home fromwork and I can eeomeone in medroom through thewindow.”

Poiilit that theintruder icommitting a crime.

“M huand ha aaeall at, and hea he’ going to killme.”

Crime in progre.

“A woman in a greenjacket jut graedm pure and ranawa.”

Chance of catchingthe upect areincreaed withimmediate action.

“COLD” CALLS FOR SRVIC—ALTRNATIVRSPONS

“I got to m officeaout two hour ago,ut I jut noticed thatthe fax machine watolen during thenight.”

The crime occurred atleat two hourearlier.

“The gu in theapartment aove meha een elling potfor ear, and I’m ickand tired of it.”

Not an emergencituation.

“M huand camehome late two nightago with a lack ee,and I finall got himto admit that hedidn’t run into adoorkno. Larr Smithmacked him.”

Pat crime with aknown upect who iunlikel to flee.

Source: Adapted from John S. Dempe and Linda S. Fort, An Introduction to Policing, 6th ed.(Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning, 2011), 260–261.

Next Generation 911

The most pressing shortcomings of America’s 911 systems are not organizational, butrather technological. These systems were developed more than forty years ago, whencopper-wire landlines ran between telephones and a central switch. Today, more than 70percent of emergency calls for service come from mobile phones, and increasing numbersof consumers are taking advantage of VoIP (voice-over-Internet protocol) technology toturn their computers into telephones. Furthermore, by 2012, 35 percent of Americanhouseholds were wireless only—a percentage that is certain to increase in the near future.

This situation presents a problem for law enforcement. Standard 911 systems cannotpinpoint the exact location of a mobile phone or a computer. If a caller is unable to providethat information, then it can prove very difficult for police officers to determine the site ofthe emergency. To resolve this issue, law enforcement is making the slow transition to NextGeneration 911. This new system will rely on the Internet and will make it possible forofficers to receive text messages, videos, photos, and location data about crime incidents.For example, a store clerk who has just been robbed at gunpoint will be able to take a photoof the offender’s getaway car and send that photo to police along with the emergency callfor service.

A communications supervisor monitors 911 calls and police dispatches for theBoynton Beach, Florida, police department. What are some reasons that a 911caller might not be able to relate her or his exact location and the nature of theemergency?

Mark Randall/MCT/Landov

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-3b Patrol Strategies Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-3 Patrol Strategie

Although rapid response strategies are popular with the public, police experts have foundlittle evidence that they lead to the apprehension of suspects or decrease crime.Similarly, another traditional police strategy, random patrol, is increasingly felt to be aninefficient use of law enforcement resources. Random patrol (A patrol strategy thatrelies on police officers monitoring a certain area with the goal of detecting crimes inprogress or preventing crime due to their presence. Also known as general or preventivepatrol.) refers to police officers making the rounds of a specific area with the general goalof detecting and preventing crime. Every police department in the United States randomlypatrols its jurisdiction using automobiles. In addition, 53 percent utilize foot patrols, 32percent bicycle patrols, 16 percent motorcycle patrols, 4 percent boat patrols, and 1 percenthorse patrols.

Teting Random Patrol

Police researchers have been questioning the effectiveness of random patrols since theinfluential Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment of the early 1970s. As part of thisexperiment, different neighborhoods in the city were subjected to three different levels ofpatrol: random patrol by a single police car, random patrol by multiple police cars, and norandom patrol whatsoever. The results of the Kansas City experiment were somewhatshocking. Researchers found that increasing or decreasing preventive patrol had little or noimpact on crimes, public opinion, the effectiveness of the police, police response time,traffic accidents, or reports of crime to police.

For some, the Kansas City experiment and other similar data prove that patrol officers,after a certain threshold, are not effective in preventing crime and that scarce lawenforcement resources should therefore be diverted to other areas. “It makes about asmuch sense to have police patrol routinely in cars to fight crime as it does to have firemenpatrol routinely in fire trucks to fight fire,” said University of Delaware professor CarlKlockars. Still, random patrols are important for maintaining community relations, andthey have been shown to reduce fear of crime in areas where police have an obviouspresence.

Directed Patrol

In contrast to random patrols, directed patrols (A patrol strategy that is designed to focuson a specific type of criminal activity at a specific time.) target specific areas of a city andoften attempt to prevent a specific type of crime. Directed patrols have found favor amonglaw enforcement experts as being a more efficient use of police resources than randompatrols, as indicated by the recent Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment. During thisexperiment, extra foot patrols were utilized in sixty Philadelphia locations plagued by highlevels of violent crime. During three months of directed patrols, arrests increased by 13percent in the targeted areas, and violent crime decreased by 23 percent. In addition, anestimated fifty-three violent crimes were prevented over the three-month period.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-3c Predictive Policing and Crime Mapping Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-3c Predictive Policing and Crime Mapping

In the previous chapter, we discussed how predictive, or intelligence-led, policing strategieshelp law enforcement agencies anticipate patterns of criminal activity, allowing them torespond to, or even prevent, crime more effectively. Predictive policing is increasinglyattractive to police administrators because, in theory, it requires fewer resources thantraditional policing. “We’re facing a situation where we have thirty percent more calls forservice but twenty percent less staff than in the year 2000,” says Zach Friend, a crimeanalyst for the Santa Cruz (California) Police Department. “So, we have to deploy ourresources in a more effective way.” Friend and his colleagues are doing so by usingcomputer models for predicting aftershocks from earthquakes to generate projectionsabout where property crimes are most likely to take place.

Finding “Hot Spot”

Predictive policing strategies are strongly linked with directed patrols, which seek toimprove on random patrols by targeting specific high-crime areas already known to lawenforcement. The target areas for directed patrols are often called hot spots(Concentrated areas of high criminal activity that draw a directed police response.) becausethey contain greater numbers of criminals and have higherthan- average levels ofvictimization. Needless to say, police administrators are no longer sticking pins in maps todetermine where hot spots exist. Rather, police departments are using crime mapping(Technology that allows crime analysts to identify trends and patterns of criminal behaviorwithin a given area.) technology to locate and identify hot spots and “cool” them down.Crime mapping uses geographic information systems (GIS) to track criminal acts as theyoccur in time and space. Once sufficient information has been gathered, it is analyzed topredict future crime patterns.

Why does hot spot policing work? Criminologists Lawrence Sherman and David Weisburdprovided a clue more than twenty years ago by observing the anti-crime impact of patrolofficers. Sherman and Weisburd observed that after a police officer left a certain high-crime area, about fifteen minutes elapsed before criminal activity occurred at that spot.Therefore, a police officer on patrol is most efficient when she or he spends a certainamount of time at a hot spot and then returns after fifteen minutes.

A recent experiment involving the Sacramento Police Department supports this hypothesis.Over a three-month period, twenty-one crime hot spots in the city received fifteen-minuterandomized patrols, while another twenty-one crime hot spots received normal randompatrols. Using calls for service as a measuring stick, the hot spots subject to fifteen-minutepatrols were found to experience much less criminal activity.

The Rie of CompStat

Computerized crime mapping was popularized when the New York Police Departmentlaunched CompStat in the mid-1990s. Still in use, CompStat starts with police officersreporting the exact location of crime and other crime-related information to departmentofficials. These reports are then fed into a computer, which prepares grids of a particularcity or neighborhood and highlights areas with a high incidence of serious offenses. (SeeFigure 6.6 for an example of a GIS crime map.)

Figure 6.6

A GIS Crime Map for a Neighorhood in New Orlean

This crime map shows the incidence of various crimes during a two-week period ina neighborhood near downtown New Orleans.

The Omega Group/ crimemapping.com

In New York and many other cities, the police department holds “Crime Control StrategyMeetings” during which precinct commanders are held accountable for CompStat’s data-based reports in their districts. In theory, this system provides the police with accurateinformation about patterns of crime and gives them the ability to “flood” hot spots withofficers at short notice. About two-thirds of large departments now employ some form ofcomputerized crime mapping, and Wesley Skogan, a criminologist at NorthwesternUniversity, believes that CompStat and similar technologies are the most likely cause ofrecent declines in big-city crime.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-3d Arrest Strategies Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-3d Arret Strategie

Like patrol strategies, arrest strategies can be broken into two categories that reflect theintent of police administrators. Reactive arrests (Arrests that occur because of concertedefforts by law enforcement agencies to respond to a particular type of criminal or criminalbehavior.) are those arrests made by police officers, usually on general patrol, who observea criminal act or respond to a call for service. Proactive arrests (Arrests that occur

because of concerted efforts by law enforcement agencies to respond to a particular type ofcriminal or criminal behavior.) occur when the police take the initiative to target aparticular type of criminal or behavior. Proactive arrests are often associated with directedpatrols of hot spots, and thus are believed by many experts to have a greater influence onan area’s crime rates.

The roken Window ffect

To a certain extent, the popularity of proactive theories was solidified by a magazine articlethat James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling wrote in 1982. In their piece, entitled“Broken Windows,” Wilson and Kelling argued that reformera policing strategies focusedon violent crime to the detriment of the vital police role of promoting the quality of life inneighborhoods. As a result, many communities, particularly in large cities, had fallen into astate of disorder and disrepute, with two very important consequences. First, theseneighborhoods—with their broken windows, dilapidated buildings, and lawless behaviorby residents—send out “signals” that criminal activity is tolerated. Second, this disorderspreads fear among law-abiding citizens, dissuading them from leaving their homes orattempting to improve their surroundings.

Thus, the broken windows theory (Wilson and Kelling’s theory that a neighborhood indisrepair signals that criminal activity is tolerated in the area. By cracking down onqualityof- life crimes, police can reclaim the neighborhood and encourage law-abidingcitizens to live and work there.) is based on “order maintenance” of neighborhoods bycracking down on “quality-of-life” crimes such as panhandling, public drinking andurinating, loitering, and graffiti painting. Only by encouraging directed arrest strategieswith regard to these quality-of-life crimes, the two professors argued, could American citiesbe rescued from rising crime rates.

Supporter and Critic

Like CompStat, the implementation of Wilson and Kelling’s theory as a police strategy hasbeen given a great deal of credit for crime decreases in American cities (particularly NewYork) over the past three decades. It has remained in favor among policeadministrators, despite debate in the academic community over whether the tactics haveany measurable impact on violent crime in blighted neighborhoods. Critics insist thatinstituting “zerotolerance” arrest policies for lesser crimes in low-income neighborhoodsnot only discriminates against the poor and minority groups but also fosters a strongmistrust of police.

Two Washington, D.C., police officers offer suggestions to a six-year-old during theannual “Shop with a Cop” event in the nation’s capital. How can establishingfriendly relations with citizens help law enforcement agencies reduce crime?

Andrew Harnik/Wahington Time/Landov

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-3e Community Policing and Problem Solving Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-3e Communit Policing and Prolem Solving

In “Broken Windows,” Wilson and Kelling insisted that, to reduce fear and crime inhighrisk neighborhoods, police had to rely on the cooperation of citizens. For all itsdrawbacks, the political era of policing (see Chapter 5) did have characteristics thatobservers such as Wilson and Kelling have come to see as advantageous. During thenineteenth century, the police were much more involved in the community than they wereafter the reforms. Officers performed many duties that today are associated with socialservices, such as operating soup kitchens and providing lodging for homeless people. Theyalso played a more direct role in keeping public order by “running in” drunks andintervening in minor disturbances. To a certain extent, community policing (Apolicing philosophy that emphasizes community support for and cooperation with thepolice in preventing crime.) advocates a return to this understanding of the police mission.

Return to the Communit

Community policing can be defined as an approach that promotes community-policepartnerships, proactive problem solving, and community engagement to address issuessuch as fear of crime and the causes of such fear in a particular area. Neighborhood watchprograms, in which police officers and citizens work together to prevent local crime and

Learning Ojective 6

Explain community policing and itscontribution to the concept of problem-oriented policing.

disorder, are a popular version of a community policing initiative. Under communitypolicing, patrol officers have the freedom to improvise. They are expected to developpersonal relationships with residents and to encourage those residents to become involvedin making the community a safer place. As part of Operation Heat Wave, for instance,Dallas detectives go door-to-door in neighborhoods plagued by burglary and auto theft.During these face-to-face meetings, the detectives are able to gather informationconcerning recent victimizations and encourage attendance at community crime-watchmeetings.

The Quiet Revolution The strategy ofincreasing police presence in thecommunity has been part of, in thewords of George Kelling, a “quietrevolution” in American lawenforcement. Today, nearly two-thirds of police departments mentioncommunity policing in their missionstatements, and a majority of thedepartments in large cities offer community police training for employees.Furthermore, the idea seems to be popular among law enforcement agents. A 2011 surveyof more than 1,200 officers in eleven police departments found that between 60 and 95percent agreed with the idea that “police officers should try to solve non-crime problemson their beat.” A majority of the officers also reported having positive relations withmembers of the public, who they felt generally appreciated community policing efforts.

Criticim of Communit Policing Nevertheless, despite, or maybe because of, its “feelgood” associations, community policing has been the target of several criticisms. First,more than half of the police chiefs and sheriffs in a survey conducted by the NationalInstitute of Justice were unclear about the actual meaning of “community policing,”leading one observer to joke that Professor Kelling’s revolution is even quieter thanexpected. Second, since its inception, community policing has been criticized—not theleast by police officials—as having more to do with public relations than with actual crimefighting.

Prolem-Oriented Policing

A drawback inherent in most police strategies can be summed up with the truism, “Catch athief, there will always be another one to take his [or her] place.” In other words, commonstreet criminals such as burglars, auto thieves, and shoplifters are so numerous thatarresting one seems to have little or no impact. By itself, community policing may notoffer much hope for solving this dilemma. But having law enforcement establish acooperative presence in the community is a crucial part of a strategy that focuses on long-term crime prevention. Introduced by Herman Goldstein of the Police Executive ResearchForum in the 1970s, problem-oriented policing (A policing philosophy that requires policeto identify potential criminal activity and develop strategies to prevent or respond to thatactivity.) is based on the premise that police departments devote too many of theirresources to reacting to calls for service and too few to “acting on their own initiative toprevent or reduce community problems.” To rectify this situation, problem-orientedpolicing moves beyond simply responding to incidents and attempts instead to control or

even solve the root causes of criminal behavior.

Goldstein’s theory encourages police officers to stop looking at their work as a dayto- dayproposition. Rather, they should try to shift the patterns of criminal behavior in a positivedirection. For example, instead of responding to a 911 call concerning illegal drug use bysimply arresting the offender—a short-term response—the patrol officers should also lookat the long-term implications of the situation. They should analyze the pattern of similararrests in the area and interview the arrestee to determine the reasons, if any, that the sitewas selected for drug activity. Then additional police action should be taken to preventfurther drug sales at the identified location. (For an example of problem-oriented policingin action, see Figure 6.7.)

Figure 6.7

“Pulling Lever” in Nahville

A form of prolem-oriented policing known a “pulling lever” ha gained a placein departmental trategie over the pat decade. Thi approach adminiter avariet of anction, or lever, to deter group of chronic offender fromcontinuing their criminal ehavior.

In Nahville, Tenneee, a “pulling lever” trateg wa applied to the prolem oftreet-level drug dealing. For ear, law enforcement’ repone to thi prolemwa to perpetuate a ccle in which drug dealer were arreted and proecutedonl to e replaced another group of drug dealer. The Nahville Drug MarketInitiative (NDMI) attempt to reak thi ccle with a four-tage proce ofprolem-oriented policing:

Stage 1:Identification

Analze crime data to determinewhich area of the cit have thehighet level of drug crime.

Stage 2: Preparation Coordinate with local lawenforcement, politician, ocial erviceprovider, and reident to enurethat the initiative will receivecommunit upport.

Stage 3: Notification Following a large-cale crackdown onknown drug dealer, thoe criminalare given the option of “turning theirlive around” with the help of ocialervice or eing convicted andimprioned.

Stage 4: ReourceDeliver

Thoe drug dealer who o chooe areprovided with aitance uch a drugtreatment, education and killtraining, and jo-interview kill.

According to city officials, NDMI brought about a significant to moderate reductionin violent crime, property crime, drug offenses, and calls for service in the affectedareas. As we noted in Chapter 2, DMI initiatives have found success in other citiesas well.

Self Aement

Fill in the blanks and check your answers.

Without exception, modern police departments practice -drivenpolicing, in which officers respond to calls for such as 911 phone callsafter a crime has occurred. Along the same lines, most patrol officers work

patrols, in which they cover designated areas and react to theincidents they encounter. patrols, which often focus on “hot spots” ofcrime, and arrest policies, which target a particular type of criminalbehavior, have both been shown to be very effective. policing is apopular strategy in which officers are encouraged to develop partnershipswith citizens to prevent and combat crime.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-4 “Us versus Them”: Issues in Modern Policing Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-4 “U veru Them”: Iue in Modern PolicingThe night after two police officers shot and killed Jaime Gonzalez, described in the openingto this chapter, the Brownsville police received several death threats. Apparently, somemembers of the community were unconvinced by the argument that the officers’ actionswere justified because Gonzalez appeared to be in possession of an actual handgun. Indeed,there seems to be a public perception, fueled by heavy coverage of police shootings, thatAmerican law enforcement agents are “trigger happy” when it comes to using theirweaponry. The reality is that such fatal shootings are quite rare. According to oneestimate, the average New York City police officer would have to work 694 years to shootand kill someone, and the likelihood is more remote in most other cities.

The question of when to use lethal force is one of many on-the-job issues that make lawenforcement such a challenging and often dangerous career. When faced with a scenariosuch as the one in the halls of Brownsville’s Cummings Middle School, sometimes policeofficers make the right decisions, and sometimes they make the wrong ones. Often, it isdifficult to tell the two apart.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-4a Police Subculture Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-4a Police Suculture

As a rule, police officers do not appreciate being second-guessed when it comes to theirsplit-second shooting decisions. To officers, it often seems that civilians believe thatsuspects with weapons should be given a “free shot” before being fired at by lawenforcement. Feelings of frustration and mistrust toward civilians are hallmarks ofpolice subculture, (The values and perceptions that are shared by members of a policedepartment and, to a certain extent, by all law enforcement agents.) a broad term used todescribe the basic assumptions and values that permeate law enforcement agencies andare taught to new members of a law enforcement agency as the proper way to think,perceive, and act. Every organization has a subculture, with values shaped by theparticular aspects and pressures of that organization. In the police subculture, those valuesare formed in an environment characterized by danger, stress, boredom, and violence.

The Core Value of Police Suculture

From the first day on the job, rookies begin the process of socialization (The processthrough which a police officer is taught the values and expected behavior of the policesubculture.) , in which they are taught the values and rules of police work. This process isaided by a number of rituals that are common to the law enforcement experience. Policetheorist Harry J. Mullins believes that the following rituals are critical to the police officer’sacceptance, and even embrace, of police subculture:

Attending a police academy.

Working with a senior officer, who passes on the “lessons” of police work and life tothe younger officer.

Making the initial felony arrest.

Using force to make an arrest for the first time.

Using or witnessing deadly force for the first time.

Witnessing major traumatic incidents for the first time.

Each of these rituals makes it clear to the police officer that this is not a “normal” job. Theonly other people who can understand the stresses of police work are fellow officers, andconsequently law enforcement officers tend to insulate themselves from civilians.Eventually, the insulation breeds mistrust, and the police officer develops an “us versusthem” outlook toward those outside the force. In turn, this outlook creates what sociologistWilliam Westly called the blue curtain (A metaphorical term used to refer to the valueplaced on secrecy and the general mistrust of the outside world shared by many policeofficers.) , also known as the “blue wall of silence” or simply “the code.” This curtain

separates the police from the civilians they are meant to protect.

Police Cnicim

A cynic is someone who universally distrusts human motives and expects nothing but theworst from human behavior. Police cynicism is characterized by a rejection of the ideals oftruth and justice—the very values that an officer is sworn to uphold. As cynical policeofficers lose respect for the law, they replace legal rules with those learned in the policesubculture, which are believed to be more reflective of “reality.” The implications forsociety can be an increase in police misconduct, corruption, and brutality.

Police cynicism is exacerbated by a feeling of helplessness—to report another officer’swrongdoing is a severe breach of the blue wall of silence. As one officer said:

As one officer told a columnist for the New York Times, the prevailing attitude amonglaw enforcement officers is that, as long as one’s supervisors accept a certain form ofquestionable behavior without comment, there is no reason to curtail that behavior.Indeed, according to the officer, any hint of disapproval can lead to accusations ofbeing a “rat.” “You’ve gotta work with a lot of these guys,” the officer explained. “Yougo on a gun job, the next thing you know, you got nobody following you up thestairs.”

Social Media & CJ

Officer.com advertises itself as the “leading news and information source for thepolice and law enforcement community.” To access its very active Twitter feed, goto www.officer.com and click on the Twitter icon.

The officer’s statement highlights one of the reasons why the police subculture resonatesbeyond department walls—he has basically admitted that he will not report wrongdoing byhis peers. In this manner, the police subculture influences the actions of police officers,sometimes to the detriment of society. In the next sections, we will examine two areas ofthe law enforcement work environment that help create the police subculture and must befully understood if the cynical nature of the police subculture is ever to be changed:

1. the dangers of police work and

2. the need for police officers to establish and maintain authority.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-4b The Physical Dangers of Police Work Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-4 The Phical Danger of Police Work

At 9:28 a.m. on February 28, 2013, Sergeant Gary Morales of the St. Lucie County (Florida)Sheriff ’s Office pulled over a driver for a traffic violation. At some point during the stop,the suspect grabbed a gun that was hidden in the car and opened fire on Morales, killinghim. As this incident shows, there is no such thing as a “routine” traffic stop. For thatmatter, police officers learn early in their careers that nothing about their job is “routine”—they face the threat of physical harm every day.

Officer Killed and Aaulted

According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, Gary Morales was one of 147 lawenforcement agents who died in the line of duty from January 2012 to February 2013, andone of fifty-seven who were killed by hostile gunfire. In addition, about 55,000 assaultswere committed against police officers in 2011, with 27 percent of these assaults resultingin an injury. These numbers are hardly surprising. As police experts John S. Dempseyand Linda S. Forst point out, police “deal constantly with what may be the most dangerousspecies on this planet—the human being.”

At the same time, Dempsey and Forst note that according to data compiled by the federalgovernment, citizens and the police come into contact about 40 million times a year.Given this figure, the police have relatively low death and injury rates. The statistical safetyof police officers can be attributed to two factors. First, police academies emphasize officersafety, focusing on areas such as self-defense, firearm proficiency, arrest tactics, andnonlethal weapons (which will be addressed later in the chapter). Second, policeofficers take extraordinary precautions to protect their physical safety, including wearingprotective body armor (Protective covering that is worn under a police officer’s clothingand designed to minimize injury from being hit by a fired bullet.) underneath theirclothing. The body armor most widely used by American police officers is made ofKevlar, a high-strength fiber discovered in 1964 by a chemist named Stephanie Kwolek.Low-level Kevlar can stop .357 and .9mm shots, while high-level “tactical armor” candeflect rifle and machine gun bullets. Ninety-two percent of all police departments requiretheir officers to wear body armor, which has saved at least 3,000 law enforcement livessince 1987.

Accidental Death

Despite perceptions to the contrary, a high percentage of deaths and injuries suffered bypolice officers are not the result of assaults by criminal suspects. Generally speaking, half ofall law enforcement officer injuries are due to accidents, and about two-thirds of thoseinjuries occur when officers are doing something other than making an arrest. Inparticular, traffic accidents cause as many line-of-duty deaths as do firearms. Onereason for the fatalities is that a number of law enforcement officers do not take simpleprecautions when behind the wheel. A recent study conducted by the National HighwayTraffic Safety Administration found that 42 percent of police officers killed in vehiclecrashes were not wearing seat belts.

Also, as Craig Floyd of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund points out,nearly every police officer will be involved in a high-speed automobile response or chaseduring her or his career, but only 10 percent will be involved in a gunfight. Yet firearmstraining is common, while driver training is not. Furthermore, although great strides have

been made in protective body armor for police officers, the same cannot be said for safetymeasures in patrol cars.

A fellow officer pays his respects during the funeral of Chattahoochee Hills,Georgia, police officer Mike Vogt, who was shot and killed while on patrol. Besidesphysical violence, what are some of the other occupational threats that policeofficers face on a daily basis?

AP Photo/rant Sanderlin

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-4c Stress and the Mental Dangers of Police Work Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-4c Stre and the Mental Danger of Police Work

In addition to physical dangers, police work entails considerable mental pressure andstress. Professor John Violanti and his colleagues at the University at Buffalo havedetermined that police officers experience unusually high levels of cortisol, otherwiseknown as the “stress hormone,” which is associated with serious health problems such asdiabetes and heart disease. “Intervention is necessary to help officers deal with thisdifficult and stressful occupation,” says Violanti. “[Police officers] need to learn how torelax, how to think differently about things they experience as a cop.”

Police Streor

The conditions that cause stress—such as worries over finances or relationships—areknown as stressors (The aspects of police work and life that lead to feelings of stress.) .Each profession has its own set of stressors, but police are particularly vulnerable tooccupational pressures and stress factors such as the following:

The constant fear of being a victim of violent crime.

Exposure to violent crime and its victims.

The need to comply with the law in nearly every job action.

Lack of community support.

Negative media coverage.

Police face a number of internal pressures as well, including limited opportunities forcareer advancement, excessive paperwork, and low wages and benefits. Theunconventional hours of shift work can also interfere with an officer’s private life andcontribute to lack of sleep. Each of these is a primary stressor associated with police work.

The Conequence of Police Stre

Police stress can manifest itself in different ways. The University at Buffalo study citedabove found that the stresses of law enforcement often lead to high blood pressure andheart problems. Other research shows that police officers are three times more likely tosuffer from alcoholism than the average American. If stress becomes overwhelming, anofficer may suffer from burnout, (A mental state that occurs when a person suffers fromexhaustion and has difficulty functioning normally as a result of overwork and stress.)becoming listless and ineffective as a result of mental and physical exhaustion. Anotherproblem related to stress is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Often recognized in warveterans and rape victims, PTSD is a reaction to a stressor that evokes significant stress. Forpolice officers, such stressors might include the death of a fellow agent or the shooting of acivilian. An officer suffering from PTSD will:

1. Re-experience the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks.

2. Become less and less involved in the outside world by withdrawing from others andrefusing to participate in normal social interactions.

3. Experience “survival guilt,” which may lead to loss of sleep and memory impairment.

To put it bluntly, law enforcement officers are exposed to more disturbing images— ofviolent death, bloody crime scenes, horrible accidents, and human cruelty—in their firstfew years on the job than most people will see in a lifetime. Though some studies suggestthat police officers have higher rates of suicide than the general population, it appears that

most develop an extraordinary ability to handle the difficulties of the profession andpersevere.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-4d Authority and the Use of Force Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-4d Authorit and the Ue of Force

If the police subculture is shaped by the dangers of the job, it often finds expressionthrough authority. The various symbols of authority that decorate a police officer—including the uniform, badge, nightstick, and firearm—establish the power she or he holdsover civilians. For better or for worse, both police officers and civilians tend to equateterms such as authority and respect with the ability to use force.

Near the beginning of the twentieth century, a police officer stated that his job was to“protect the good people and treat the crooks rough.” Implicit in the officer’s statementis the idea that to do the protecting, he had to do some roughing up as well. This attitudetoward the use of force is still with us today. Indeed, it is generally accepted that not only ispolice use of force inevitable, but that police officers who are unwilling to use force incertain circumstances cannot do their jobs effectively.

Ue of Force in Law nforcement

In general, the use of physical force by law enforcement personnel is very rare, occurringin only about 1.4 percent of the 40 million annual police-public encounters mentionedearlier. Still, the Department of Justice estimates that law enforcement officers threaten touse force or use force in encounters with 770,000 civilians a year, and nearly 14 percent ofthose incidents result in an injury. Federal authorities also report that about 690 deathsoccur in the process of an arrest on an annual basis. Of course, police officers are oftenjustified in using force to protect themselves and other citizens. As we noted earlier, theyare the targets of tens of thousands of assaults each year. Law enforcement agents are alsousually justified in using force to make an arrest, to prevent suspects from escaping, torestrain suspects or other individuals for their own safety, or to protect property.

At the same time, few observers would be naïve enough to believe that the police arealways justified in the use of force. A 2009 survey of emergency room physicians found that98 percent believed that they had treated patients who were victims of excessive policeforce. How, then, is “misuse” of force to be defined? To provide guidance for officers inthis tricky area, nearly every law enforcement agency designs a use of force matrix. As theexample in Figure 6.8, such a matrix presents officers with the proper force options fordifferent levels of contact with a civilian.

Figure 6.8

The Orlando (Florida) Police Department’ Ue of Force Matrix

Like most local law enforcement agencies, the Orlando Police Department has apolicy to guide its officers’ use of force. These policies instruct an officer on how to

react to an escalating series of confrontations with a civilian and are oftenexpressed visually, as shown here.

Source: Michael . Miller, “Taer Ue and the Ue-of-Force Continuum,” Police Chief (Septemer 2010), 72.

Tpe of Force

To comply with the various, and not always consistent, laws concerning the use of force, apolice officer must understand that there are two kinds of force: nondeadly force and deadlyforce. Most force used by law enforcement is nondeadly force. In most states, the use ofnondeadly force is regulated by the concept of reasonable force, (The degree of force thatis appropriate to protect the police officer or other citizens and is not excessive.) whichallows the use of nondeadly force when a reasonable person would assume that such forcewas necessary. In contrast, deadly force (Force applied by a police officer that is likely orintended to cause death.) is force that an objective police officer realizes will place thesubject in direct threat of serious injury or death.

The United State Supreme Court and Ue of Force

The United States Supreme Court set the limits for the use of deadly force by lawenforcement officers in Tennessee v. Garner (1985). The case involved an incident in

Learning Ojective 7

Determine when police officers are justifiedin using deadly force.

which Memphis police officer Elton Hymon shot and killed a suspect who was trying toclimb over a fence after stealing ten dollars from a residence. Hymon testified that he hadbeen trained to shoot to keep a suspect from escaping, and indeed Tennessee law at thetime allowed police officers to apprehend fleeing suspects in this manner.

In reviewing the case, the Supreme Court focused not on Hymon’s action but on theTennessee statute itself, ultimately finding it unconstitutional:

When the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others,the use of deadly force is unjustified. . . . It is not better that all felony suspects diethan that they escape.

The Court’s decision forced twenty-three states to change their fleeing felon rules, but it didnot completely eliminate police discretion in such situations. Police officers still may usedeadly force if they have probable cause to believe that the fleeing suspect poses a threat ofserious injury or death to the officers or others. (We will discuss the concept of probablecause in the next chapter.)

In essence, the Court recognized that police officers must be able to make split-seconddecisions without worrying about the legal ramifications. Four years after the Garner case,the Court tried to clarify this concept in Graham v. Connor (1989), stating that the use of anyforce should be judged by the “ reasonableness of the moment.” In 2004, the Courtmodified this rule by suggesting that an officer’s use of force could be “reasonable” even if,by objective measures, the force was not needed to protect the officer or others in the area.

(See the feature You Be the Sheriff’s Deputy—Threat Level below.)

You e the Sheriff’ Deput

Threat Level

The Situation You receive a callfrom dispatch telling you that LeeDylan, a mentally unstable man,has just escaped from a local jailwhere he was being held onsuspicion of committing anonviolent felony. Driving towardthe jail, you see a man matching Dylan’s description running down a back alley.Jumping out of your car, you and your partner follow on foot. Eventually, you andyour partner corner the man, who is indeed Dylan, in a construction site. Dylan,who is of average height and build, grabs a loose brick and makes threateningmotions with it. You pull your gun and, along with your partner, move towardDylan. You yell, “Drop the brick!” He screams, “You’re going to have to kill me!” andrushes at you.

The Law The use of force by a law enforcement agent—even deadly force—is based

on the concept of reasonableness. In other words, would a reasonable police officerin this officer’s shoes have been justified in using force?

Your Deciion Does Dylan pose a threat of serious bodily harm to you or yourpartner? How you answer this question will determine the type of force you useagainst him. Keep in mind that almost all police officers experience an adrenalinerush in stressful situations, and this may influence your reaction.

[To see how a law enforcement officer in Cincinnati reacted in similarcircumstances, go to Example 6.2 in Appendix B.]

Le Lethal Weapon

Regardless of any legal restrictions, violent confrontations between officers and suspectsare inevitable. To decrease the likelihood that such confrontations will result in death orserious injury, many police departments use less lethal weapons, which are designed tosubdue but not seriously harm suspects. The most common less lethal weapon is OleoresinCapsicum, or OC pepper spray, which is used by 97 percent of all local police departments.

An organic substance that combines ingredients such as resin and cayenne pepper, OCcauses a sensation similar to having sand or needles in the eyes when sprayed into asuspect’s face. Other common less lethal weapons include tear gas, water cannons, andconducted energy devices (CEDs), (A less lethal weapon designed to disrupt a target’scentral nervous system by means of a charge of electrical energy.) which rely on anelectrical shock to incapacitate uncooperative suspects.

The best-known, and most controversial, CED is the Taser—a handheld electrical stun gunthat fires blunt darts up to 21 feet at speeds of 200 to 220 feet per second. The darts deliver50,000 volts into the target for a span of about five seconds. Nationally, more than 15,000law enforcement agencies deploy Tasers, and, when properly used, the devices increase thesafety of both officers and suspects. According to a study conducted by researchers atWake Forest University, 99.7 percent of people shocked by Tasers had minor or no injuries.

Nevertheless, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International, as of2012 more than 500 people have died after being Tasered by police. Often, these deathsoccurred because the target had a weakened heart or was in ill health because of drug use.

Self Aement

Fill in the blanks and check your answers.

Like any organization, a police department has a that determines thevalues of its employees. In law enforcement, these values are shaped by the

dangers, such as assault, and mental dangers, such as high levels of , that officers face every day. Laws regulating police use of force rely

on two concepts: force, which is the amount of force that a rational

person would consider necessary in a given situation, and force,which is a level of force that will place the subject in grave bodily danger.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-5 Police Misconduct and Ethics Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-5 Police Miconduct and thicIf police culture is, as we noted earlier, marked by a certain mistrust of the public, it is onlyfair to note that the reverse is often true as well. Police are held to a high standard ofbehavior that can be summarized by the umbrella term professionalism (Adherence to aset of values that show a police officer to be of the highest moral character.) . A professionallaw enforcement agent is expected to be honest, committed to ideals of justice, respectful ofthe law, and intolerant of misconduct by his or her fellow officers. When police actunprofessionally, or are perceived to have done so, then their relationship with thecommunity will inevitably suffer.

Indeed, Yale University professor Tom Tyler believes that the public’s perception of policelegitimacy is the basis of law enforcement–community relations. That is, if citizens fail tosee their moral and social norms reflected in police behavior, then they will be less likely torespect criminal law themselves or aid the police in fighting crime.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-5a Racial and Ethnic Biases in Policing Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-5a Racial and thnic iae in Policing

According to research conducted by sociologists Matthew S. Crow and Brittany Adrion ofthe University of West Florida, police officers are more likely to use Tasers againstmembers of minority groups than against whites. Such statistics contribute to theperception among minorities that they do not receive equal treatment from the criminaljustice system. When polled, African Americans consistently express less confidence in thepolice than do whites (see Figure 6.9 on the right). Consequently, the legitimacy of thepolice for many minorities is compromised by the specter of bias.

Figure 6.9

Racial Attitude toward the Police

As these polls conducted by the federal government show, members of minoritygroups are more likely than whites to have negative views of the police.

Source: U.S. Department of Jutice.

Perceived ia

In the next chapter’s discussion of racial profiling, we will see that many African Americansbelieve that they are often targeted for a particular “offense”—DWB, or “driving whileblack.” To a certain extent, statistics bear out these suspicions. A recent Justice Departmentstudy reports that although police pull over black, white, and Hispanic drivers at similarrates, blacks and Hispanics are almost three times more likely to be searched following thestop.

The same study found that police officers are more than three times more likely to useforce when coming into contact with African Americans than with whites and slightly morelikely with Hispanics than with whites. Furthermore, criminologists Tammy RinehartKochel, David B. Wilson, and Stephen Mastrofski recently published a study concludingthat, “consistent with what most of the American public perceives,” racial minority suspectsare more likely to be arrested than whites for similar wrongdoing. These data reinforcethe notion that police bias is responsible for the disproportionate numbers of minorities inAmerican prisons and jails discussed throughout this textbook.

Police Attitude and Dicretion

Although everyone would agree that some individual officers may be influenced byprejudice, the greater police presence and arrest rates in minority neighborhoods shouldnot be accepted as automatic evidence of law enforcement discrimination. As we learned

earlier in the chapter, the primary operational tactic of all metropolitan police forces isresponding to calls for service. According to research by law enforcement expert Richard J.Ludman, the greater police presence in these communities is mainly the result of calls forservice from residents, which, in turn, are caused by higher local crime rates. Indeed,Randall Kennedy believes that such “selective law enforcement” should be, and for themost part is, welcomed by those who live in high-crime areas and appreciate the addedprotection.

Furthermore, as several experts point out, cultural differences often exist between policeofficers and the residents of the neighborhoods they patrol. One survey found that policeworking in minority areas perceived higher levels of abuse and less respect from thosecitizens than from those in nonminority areas. In looking at police abuse in Inglewood,California, the Los Angeles Times found that most of the victims claimed they wereassaulted after “contempt of cop” incidents, such as not immediately following orders orverbally challenging the officer. Judging someone’s demeanor is often a subjective taskand can be influenced by a lack of communication between two people of differentbackgrounds—another reason why it is so important for police departments to attractmembers of minority groups, as noted in our discussion of recruiting strategies in theprevious chapter.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-5b Police Corruption Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-5 Police Corruption

Police corruption has been a concern since the first organized American policedepartments. As you recall from Chapter 5, a desire to eradicate, or at least limit,corruption was one of the motivating factors behind the reform movement of policing. Forgeneral purposes, police corruption (The abuse of authority by a law enforcement officerfor personal gain.) can be defined as the misuse of authority by a law enforcement officer“in a manner designed to produce personal gain.”

In the 1970s, a police officer named Frank Serpico went public about corruption in the NewYork Police Department. City authorities responded by establishing the Knapp Commissionto investigate Serpico’s claims. The inquiry uncovered widespread institutionalizedcorruption in the department. In general, the Knapp Commission report divided corruptpolice officers into two categories: “grass eaters” and “meat eaters.” “Grass eaters” areinvolved in passive corruption—they simply accept the payoffs and opportunities thatpolice work can provide. As the name implies, “meat eaters” are more aggressive in theirquest for personal gain, initiating and going to great lengths to carry out corrupt schemes.

Tpe of Corruption

Specifically, the Knapp Commission’s investigation identified three basic, traditional typesof police corruption:

Learning Ojective 8

Identify the three traditional forms of policecorruption.

1. Bribery, in which the policeofficer accepts money or otherforms of payment in exchange for“favors,” which may includeallowing a certain criminalactivity to continue or misplacinga key piece of evidence before a trial. Related to bribery are payoffs, in which anofficer demands payment from an individual or a business in return for certainservices.

2. Shakedowns, in which an officer attempts to coerce money or goods from a citizen orcriminal.

3. Mooching, in which the police officer accepts free “gifts” such as cigarettes, liquor, orservices in return for favorable treatment of the gift giver.

Additionally, corrupt police officers have many opportunities to engage in theft or burglaryby taking money or property in the course of their duties. Vice investigations, for example,often uncover temptingly large amounts of illegal drugs and cash. Several years ago, aWake County (North Carolina) sheriff ’s deputy was arrested after she improperly “confiscated” a package of marijuana and $6,435 in cash seized during an arrest.

In the wake of the Majestic Body Shop scandal, then Police CommissionerFrederick H. Bealefeld III, left, hired former federal counternarcotics chiefGrayling G. Williams, right, to run the Baltimore City Police Department’santicorruption division. What steps can police administrators take to lessen thelikelihood of such scandals?

Matt Roth/The New York Time

Another scenario involves police misconduct that becomes pervasive, infecting a group ofofficers. In 2012, dozens of Baltimore police officers were implicated in a $1 millionkickback scheme. For years, the officers had been diverting autos damaged in trafficaccidents to the Majestic Body Shop in return for a payoff of several hundred dollars percar (see photo alongside). Sometimes, the officers themselves would cause further damageto the cars to increase the portion of the insurance payout that went into their own pockets.

Corruption in Police Suculture

There is no single reason why police misconduct occurs. Certain types of officers do,however, seem more likely to engage in corruption— the young, the relatively uneducated(lacking a college degree), those with records of prior criminality and citizens’ complaints,and those unlikely to be promoted. Lawrence Sherman has identified several stages inthe moral decline of these “bad cops.”

In the first stage, the officers accept minor gratuities, such as the occasional free meal froma restaurant on their beats. These gratuities gradually evolve into outright bribes, in whichthe officers receive the gratuity for overlooking some violation. For example, a law officermay accept pay from a bar owner to ensure that the establishment is not investigated forserving alcohol to minors. In the final stage, officers no longer passively accept bribes butactively seek them out. The officers may even force the other party to pay for unwantedpolice services. This stage often involves large amounts of money and may entail protectionof or involvement in illegal drug, gambling, or prostitution organizations.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-5c Police Accountability Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-5c Police Accountailit

Even in a police department with excellent recruiting methods, state-of-the-art ethics anddiscretionary training programs, and a culturally diverse workforce that nearly matchesthe makeup of the community, the problems discussed earlier in this chapter are bound tooccur. The question then becomes—given the inevitability of excessive force, corruption,and other misconduct—who shall police the police?

Internal Invetigation

“The minute the public feels that the police department is not investigating its own allegedwrongdoing well, the police department will not be able to function credibly in even themost routine of matters,” says Sheldon Greenberg, a professor of police management atJohns Hopkins University. The mechanism for these investigations within a policedepartment is the internal affairs unit (IAU) (A division within a police department thatreceives and investigates complaints of wrongdoing by police officers.) . In many smallerpolice departments, the police chief conducts internal affairs investigations, while midsizedand large departments have a team of internal affairs officers. The New York PoliceDepartment’s IAU has an annual budget of nearly $62 million and consists of 650 officers.

As much as police officers may resent internal affairs units, most realize that it ispreferable to settle disciplinary matters in house. The alternatives may be worse. In 2012,after conducting a ten-month investigation that uncovered widespread corruption,excessive use of force, and discrimination against minority civilians, the U.S. Department ofJustice ordered a reorganization of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD). As part ofthis reorganization, federal officials required the NOPD to implement hundreds of newpolicies in areas ranging from the treatment of women victims to the identification of crimesuspects. These changes are expected to cost the city nearly $60 million.

Citizen Overight

Many communities also rely on an external procedure for handling citizen complaintsagainst the police, known as citizen oversight. (The process by which citizens reviewcomplaints brought against individual police officers or police departments.) In thisprocess, citizens—people who are not sworn officers and, by inference, not biased in favorof law enforcement officers—review allegations of police misconduct or brutality.According to data gathered by police accountability expert Samuel Walker, nearly onehundred cities now operate some kind of review procedure by an independent body.For the most part, citizen review boards can only recommend action to the police chief orother executive. They do not have the power to discipline officers directly. Police officersgenerally resent this intrusion by civilians, and most studies have shown that civilianreview boards are not widely successful in their efforts to convince police chiefs to takeaction against their subordinate officers.

One form of citizen oversight that has been highly successful in curbing police misconductis cheap digital video. Every week, it seems, recordings taken by citizens using a handheldcamera, smartphone, or some other device go “viral” online, flooding the Internet withexamples of police brutality or some other form of misbehavior. In 2012, a Philadelphiapolice lieutenant lost his job after a cell phone video captured him punching a woman in

the face during the city’s annual Puerto Rican Day parade. Four days after the incident, 1.3million people had viewed the video online. “All of our people should be conductingthemselves like they are being recorded all the time,” says Robin Larson of the BrowardCounty (Florida) Sheriff’s Department.

CJ & Technolog

Self-Surveillance

AP Photo/The Topeka Capital Journal, Thad Allton

Law enforcement agents may soon be under constant surveillance—by their ownsuperiors. At least 1,100 police agencies in the United States are using body-mounted video cameras to document traffic stops, arrests, and other encounterswith suspects. These small, selfcontained units clip to the officer’s uniform, andinclude tiny radio microphones to record sound.

Some departments are also using head-worn video systems that “look” wherever anofficer moves his or her head. Law enforcement agents hope that these devices willhelp protect them against unfounded charges of misconduct. “In this job we’refrequently accused of things we haven’t done, or things that [were] kind ofembellished,” says Bainbridge Island (Washington) police officer Ben Sias. “And thecameras show a pretty unbiased opinion of what actually did happen.”

Thinking aout Self-Surveillance

Dennis Kenney, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice,warns that this technology “raises tremendous privacy concerns.” What are someof those concerns?

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-5d Ethics in Law Enforcement Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

Learning Ojective 9

Explain what an ethical dilemma is andname four categories of ethical dilemmasthat a police officer typically may face.

6-5d thic in Law nforcement

Police corruption is intricately connected with the ethics of law enforcement officers. Asyou saw in Chapter 1, ethics has to do with fundamental questions of the fairness, justice,rightness, or wrongness of any action. Given the significant power that police officers hold,society expects very high standards of ethical behavior from them. These expectations aresummed up in the Police Code of Conduct, which was developed by the InternationalAssociation of Chiefs of Police in 1989.

To some extent, the Police Code of Conduct is self-evident: “A police officer will not engagein acts of corruption or bribery.” In other aspects, it is idealistic, perhaps unreasonably so:“Officers will never allow personal feelings, animosities, or friendships to influence officialconduct.” The police working environment—rife with lying, cheating, lawbreaking, andviolence—often does not allow for such ethical absolutes.

thical Dilemma

Some police actions are obviously unethical, such as the behavior of the police officers whoreceived kickbacks from the Baltimore auto body shop, described in a previous section. Themajority of ethical dilemmas that a police officer will face are not so clear cut.Criminologists Joycelyn M. Pollock and Ronald F. Becker define an ethical dilemma as asituation in which law enforcement officers:

Do not know the right course of action;

Have difficulty doing what they consider to be right; and/or

Find the wrong choice very tempting.

Because of the many rules that governpolicing—the subject of the nextchapter— police officers often findthemselves tempted by a phenomenoncalled noble cause corruption.(Knowing misconduct by a policeofficer with the goal of attaining whatthe officer believes is a “just” result.)This type of corruption occurs when, inthe words of John P. Crank and Michael A. Caldero, “officers do bad things because theybelieve the outcomes will be good.” Examples include planting evidence or lying incourt to help convict someone the officer knows to be guilty and the situation discussed inthe feature A Question of Ethics—The“Dirty Harry” Problem.

A Quetion of thic

The “Dirt Harr” Prolem

The Situation A young girl has been kidnapped by a psychotic killer namedScorpio. Demanding a $200,000 ransom, Scorpio has buried the girl alive, leaving

her with just enough oxygen to survive for a few hours. Detective Harry Callahanmanages to find Scorpio, but the kidnapper stubbornly refuses to reveal thelocation of the girl. Callahan comes to the conclusion that the only way he can getthis information from Scorpio in time is to beat it out of him.

The thical Dilemma The U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the United StatesSupreme Court, forbids the torture of criminal suspects. Following properprocedure, Callahan should arrest Scorpio and advise him of his constitutionalrights. If Scorpio requests an attorney, Callahan must comply. If the attorney thenadvises Scorpio to remain silent, there is nothing Callahan can do. Of course, afterall this time, the girl will certainly be dead.

What i the Solution? What should Detective Callahan do? According to the lateCarl B. Klockars of the University of Delaware, “Each time a police officer considersdeceiving a suspect into confessing by telling him that his [or her] fingerprints werefound at the scene or that a conspirator has already confessed, each time a policeofficer considers adding some untrue details to his [or her] account of a probablecause to legitimate a crucial stop or search [that police officer] faces” the sameproblem as Detective Callahan. Are police ever justified in using unlawful methods,no matter what good may ultimately be achieved?

lement of thic

Pollock and Becker, both of whom have extensive experience as ethics instructors for policedepartments, further identify four categories of ethical dilemmas, involving discretion,duty, honesty, and loyalty.

Discretion. The law provides rigid guidelines for how police officers must act andhow they cannot act, but it does not offer guidelines for how officers should act inmany circumstances. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, police officersoften use discretion to determine how they should act, and ethics plays an importantrole in guiding discretionary actions.

Duty. The concept of discretion is linked with duty, (The moral sense of a policeofficer that she or he should behave in a certain manner.) or the obligation to act in acertain manner. Society, by passing laws, can make a police officer’s duty clearerand, in the process, help eliminate discretion from the decision-making process. Butan officer’s duty will not always be obvious, and ethical considerations can oftensupplement “the rules” of being a law enforcement agent.

Honesty. Of course, honesty is a critical attribute for an ethical police officer. A lawenforcement agent must make hundreds of decisions in a day, and most of themrequire him or her to be honest in order to properly do the job.

Loyalty. What should a police officer do if he or she witnesses a partner using

excessive force on a suspect? The choice often sets loyalty against ethics, especially ifthe officer does not condone the violence.

On February 20, 2013, Vice President Joseph Biden presented Kitsap County(Washington) Deputy Sheriff Krista McDonald with the Public Safety Officer Medalof Valor. McDonald earned the honor for placing herself in the line of fire to rescuetwo fellow deputies who had been wounded in a shootout with a suspected sexoffender. What role does the concept of duty play in a law enforcement agent’sdecision, regardless of her or his own safety, to protect the life of another person?

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Gett Image

Although an individual’s ethical makeup is determined by a multitude of personal factors,police departments can create an atmosphere that is conducive to professionalism.Brandon V. Zuidema and H. Wayne Duff, both captains with the Lynchburg (Virginia)Police Department, believe that law enforcement administrators can encourage ethicalpolicing by:

1. Incorporating ethics into the department’s mission statement.

2. Conducting internal training sessions in ethics.

3. Accepting “honest mistakes” and helping the officer learn from those mistakes.

4. Adopting a zero-tolerance policy toward unethical decisions when the mistakes arenot so honest.

Self Aement

Fill in the blanks and check your answers.

Police officers are held to high standards of , meaning that they areexpected to be honest and respectful of the law. Misconduct such as acceptingbribes or shaking down citizens is known as , and such behavior isinvestigated by units within police departments. In matters of ethics, apolice officer is often guided by his or her sense of , or the obligation toact in a certain manner, and a feeling of toward fellow officers.

CJ in Action

The DNA Juggernaut

In August 2003, Katie Sepich, a graduate student at the University of New Mexico,was raped and strangled to death. Using a tiny amount of skin tissue from underSepich’s fingernails, the police were able to recover the DNA of her attacker.Authorities did not find a match until four years later, when Gabriel Avila wasfound guilty of burglary and was forced to provide a DNA sample. As it turned out,Avila had been arrested for other crimes just weeks after killing Sepich, and if hisDNA had been taken at that point, he would quickly have been identified as hermurderer. Collecting DNA from a person who has been arrested but not convictedof a crime is controversial, however, as we discuss in this chapter’s CJ in Action.

xpanding DNA Sampling

Today, nearly every state collects DNA from all persons convicted of a felony. Inaddition, sixteen states gather DNA from those found guilty of a misdemeanor, andthirty-five do the same for juvenile felony offenders. Twenty-eight states—including New Mexico, in the wake of the Katie Sepich situation—and the federalgovernment are taking the process one step further. They have passed legislationthat allows for DNA fingerprinting of those who have not been convicted of a felonybut have merely been arrested. Supporters of this strategy see it as similar, ifnot identical, to the common practice of recording the actual fingerprints of allarrestees.

The Cae for Collecting DNA from Arretee

The more comprehensive our DNA data banks, the higher the number of coldhits and other matches by law enforcement agencies. As a Virginia prosecutorputs it, “enhanced databases increase the chances of solving crimes.”

Such measures are preventive, as they increase the odds that individuals whohave committed violent crimes and are subsequently arrested on separate,less serious charges will wind up behind bars. One study conducted inChicago identified fifty-three murders and rapes that could have beenprevented by DNA fingerprinting of arrestees.

The public interest in law enforcement is more important than the privacyinterests of individuals who have been arrested for criminal behavior.

The Cae againt Collecting DNA from Arretee

Our criminal justice system is based on the premise that someone is innocentuntil proven guilty. An arrest does not equal guilt, and a person should notsuffer the consequences of guilt until it has been proved in court. InCalifornia alone, approximately 420,000 people are arrested each year andnever found guilty of wrongdoing.

Unlike fingerprints, DNA samples provide a wealth of personal informationabout a person, including genetic conditions and predisposition to disease.The government should not have access to this information following anarrest that does not lead to conviction.

Forty percent of DNA profiles in the federal database belong to AfricanAmericans, and, given a greater law enforcement emphasis on immigrationoffenses, Hispanics could dominate such databases in the future.Consequently, the system will exacerbate the perception by many that ourcriminal justice system is inherently biased.

Your Opinion—Writing Aignment

During a 2013 case involving the issue of DNA and arrestees, Supreme Court JusticeElena Kagan asked, “Why don’t we [take DNA samples from] everybody who comesin for a driver’s license?” Taking into account that Kagan was being sarcastic,what point is she trying to make? What is your opinion of collecting DNA fromarrestees, in general? Given what you learned about family DNA searching in thischapter, how might taking DNA from arrestees give police officers an incentive toact unethically? Before responding, you can review our discussions in this chapterconcerning:

Proactive arrest strategies (Forensic Investigations and DNA).

DNA fingerprinting (Arrest Strategies).

Learning Objective 1

Learning Objective 2

Learning Objective 3

Learning Objective 4

Police ethics and noble cause corruption (Ethics in Law Enforcement).

Your answer should include at least three full paragraphs.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-6 Chapter Review Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

6-6 Chapter Review

6-6a Chapter Summar

For more information on these concepts, look back to the Learning Objectives throughoutthe chapter.

Explain why police officers are allowed discretionarypowers.

Police officers are considered trustworthy and able to make honest decisions.They have experience and training. They are knowledgeable in criminalbehavior. Finally, they must have the discretion to take reasonable steps toprotect themselves.

List the three primary purposes of police patrol.

a. The deterrence of crime,

b. the maintenance of public order, and

c. the provision of services that are not related to crime.

Indicate some investigation strategies that are consideredaggressive.

Using undercover officers is considered an aggressive (and often dangerous)investigative technique. The use of informants is also aggressive, but involvesdanger for those who inform.

Describe how forensic experts use DNA fingerprinting tosolve crimes.

Law enforcement agents gather trace evidence such as blood, semen, skin, orhair from the crime scene. Because these items are rich in DNA, which providesa unique genetic blueprint for every living organism, crime labs can create aDNA profile of the suspect and test it against other such profiles stored indatabases. If the profiles match, then law enforcement agents have found a

Learning Objective 5

Learning Objective 6

Learning Objective 7

Learning Objective 8

Learning Objective 9

strong suspect for the crime.

Explain why differential response strategies enable policedepartments to respond more efficiently to 911 calls.

A differential response strategy allows a police department to distinguish amongcalls for service so that officers may respond to important calls more quickly.Therefore, a “hot” crime, such as a burglary in progress, will receive moreimmediate attention than a “cold” crime, such as a missing automobile thatdisappeared several days earlier.

Explain community policing and its contribution to theconcept of problem- oriented policing.

Community policing involves proactive problem solving and a community-policepartnership in which the community engages itself along with the police toaddress crime and the fear of crime in a particular geographic area. Byestablishing a cooperative presence in a community, police officers are betterable to recognize the root causes of criminal behavior there and apply problem-oriented policing methods when necessary.

Determine when police officers are justified in usingdeadly force.

Police officers must make a reasonable judgment in determining when to useforce that will place the suspect in threat of injury or death. That is, given thecircumstances, the officer must reasonably assume that the use of such force isnecessary to avoid serious injury or death to the officer or someone else.

Identify the three traditional forms of policecorruption. The three traditional forms are bribery, shakedowns, andmooching.

Explain what an ethical dilemma is and name fourcategories of ethical dilemmas that a police officer typically may face.

An ethical dilemma is a situation in which police officers

a. do not know the right course of action,

b. have difficulty doing what they consider to be right, and/or

c. find the wrong choice very tempting.

The four types of ethical dilemmas involve

a. discretion,

b. duty,

c. honesty, and

d. loyalty.

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-6b Questions for Critical Analysis Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

Chapter Review

6-6 Quetion for Critical Anali

1. Mandatory arrest laws regarding domestic violence have had two unintendedconsequences. First, more women are being arrested for assault. Second,more dual arrests are occurring, in which police officers arrest both partiesin a domestic violence incident. Why are these trends a natural consequenceof limiting police discretion in this area?

2. In speaking with a domestic terrorism suspect, a paid FBI informant said,“Allah has more work for you to do,” adding, “Revelation is going to come inyour dreams that you have to do this thing.” The “thing” was to shoot downAmerican military airplanes with handheld missiles. If you were defendingthe terrorism suspect in court, how would you use this evidence? Why wouldyour efforts be likely to fail?

3. Criminologists John and Emily Beck suggest that crime reduction strategiesshould treat crime as if it were a form of pollution. How does this comparisonmake sense in the context of predictive policing and crime mapping?

4. Relate the concept of “broken windows” to high-crime neighborhoods andpotential ways to combat crime in such neighborhoods.

5. How might cultural differences between police officers and residents of theneighborhoods they patrol contribute to increased use of officer force inthose neighborhoods?

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-6c Key Terms Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

Chapter Review

6-6c Ke Term

ballistics (The study of firearms, including the firing of the weapon and the flight of thebullet.)

blue curtain (A metaphorical term used to refer to the value placed on secrecy and thegeneral mistrust of the outside world shared by many police officers.)

body armor (Protective covering that is worn under a police officer’s clothing anddesigned to minimize injury from being hit by a fired bullet.)

broken windows theory (Wilson and Kelling’s theory that a neighborhood in disrepairsignals that criminal activity is tolerated in the area. By cracking down on qualityof- lifecrimes, police can reclaim the neighborhood and encourage law-abiding citizens to liveand work there.)

bureaucracy (A hierarchically structured administrative organization that carries outspecific functions.)

burnout (A mental state that occurs when a person suffers from exhaustion and hasdifficulty functioning normally as a result of overwork and stress.)

citizen oversight (The process by which citizens review complaints brought againstindividual police officers or police departments.)

clearance rate (A comparison of the number of crimes cleared by arrest andprosecution with the number of crimes reported during any given time period.)

cold case (A criminal investigation that has not been solved after a certain amount oftime.)

cold hit (The establishment of a connection between a suspect and a crime, oftenthrough the use of DNA evidence, in the absence of an ongoing criminal investigation.)

community policing (A policing philosophy that emphasizes community support forand cooperation with the police in preventing crime.)

conducted energy device (CED) (A less lethal weapon designed to disrupt a target’scentral nervous system by means of a charge of electrical energy.)

confidential informant (CI) (A human source for police who provides informationconcerning illegal activity in which he or she is involved.)

crime mapping (Technology that allows crime analysts to identify trends and patternsof criminal behavior within a given area.)

deadly force (Force applied by a police officer that is likely or intended to cause death.)

delegation of authority (The principles of command on which most police departmentsare based, in which personnel take orders from and are responsible to those in positionsof power directly above them.)

detective (The primary police investigator of crimes.)

differential response (A strategy for answering calls for service in which response timeis adapted to the seriousness of the call.)

directed patrol (A patrol strategy that is designed to focus on a specific type of criminalactivity at a specific time.)

DNA fingerprinting (The identification of a person based on a sample of her or his DNA,the genetic material found in the cells of all living things.)

duty (The moral sense of a police officer that she or he should behave in a certainmanner.)

forensics (The application of science to establish facts and evidence during theinvestigation of crimes.)

hot spots (Concentrated areas of high criminal activity that draw a directed policeresponse.)

incident-driven policing (A reactive approach to policing that emphasizes a speedyresponse to calls for service.)

internal affairs unit (IAU) (A division within a police department that receives andinvestigates complaints of wrongdoing by police officers.)

mandatory arrest law (Requires a police officer to detain a person for committing acertain type of crime as long as there is probable cause that he or she committed thecrime.)

noble cause corruption (Knowing misconduct by a police officer with the goal ofattaining what the officer believes is a “just” result.)

police corruption (The abuse of authority by a law enforcement officer for personalgain.)

police subculture (The values and perceptions that are shared by members of a policedepartment and, to a certain extent, by all law enforcement agents.)

policy (A set of guiding principles designed to influence the behavior and decisionmaking of police officers.)

proactive arrests (Arrests that occur because of concerted efforts by law enforcementagencies to respond to a particular type of criminal or criminal behavior.)

problem-oriented policing (A policing philosophy that requires police to identify

potential criminal activity and develop strategies to prevent or respond to that activity.)

professionalism (Adherence to a set of values that show a police officer to be of thehighest moral character.)

random patrol (A patrol strategy that relies on police officers monitoring a certain areawith the goal of detecting crimes in progress or preventing crime due to their presence.Also known as general or preventive patrol.)

reactive arrests (Arrests that occur because of concerted efforts by law enforcementagencies to respond to a particular type of criminal or criminal behavior.)

reasonable force (The degree of force that is appropriate to protect the police officer orother citizens and is not excessive.)

response time (The rapidity with which calls for service are answered.)

socialization (The process through which a police officer is taught the values andexpected behavior of the police subculture.)

stressors (The aspects of police work and life that lead to feelings of stress.)

trace evidence (Evidence such as a fingerprint, blood, or hair found in small amounts ata crime scene.)

Chapter 6: Problems and Solutions in Modern Policing: 6-6c Key Terms Book Title: Criminal Justice in Action Printed By: Ronald Suchy (rsuchy@mayfieldschools.org) © 2015, 2012 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

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