CJ 204 Chapter 7 - Summary The Police in America: an Introduction PDF

Preview

Summary

chapter 7 outline, needed for quizzes and tests for the online course...

Description

Chapter 7 Patrol: The Backbone of Policing I. The Central Role of Patrol A. The majority of police officers are assigned to patrol, and in that capacity, they deliver the bulk of police services to the public. B. The marked patrol car and the uniformed patrol officer are the visible symbols of the police. C. Patrol officers are the most important decision makers in policing and gatekeepers of the entire criminal justice system. D. Police officers make decisions that affect people lives they are “street-level bureaucrats.” E. Experience on patrol is a formative part of a police officers career. F. In virtually all American police departments, assignments are based on seniority. G. The patrolman is usually the lowest-paid, least-consulted, most taken-for-granted member of the force. His duty is looked on as routine and boring. II. The Functions of Patrol A. Functions of patrol are: 1. To deter crime 2. To enhance feelings of public safety 3. To make officers available for service B. Patrol seeks to deter crime by creating “an impression of omnipresence” that will eliminate “the actual opportunity (or belief that the opportunity exists) for successful misconduct. III. The Organization and Delivery of Patrol A. Factor Affecting the Delivery of Patrol Services 1. Not all police departments are efficient in organizing and delivering patrol to the public. 2. Efficiency depends on: a) The number of sworn officers b) The percentage of officers assigned to patrol c) The distribution of patrol officers by time of day and area d) The type of patrol used (automobile versus foot) e) One-officer versus two-officer patrols f) The work styles of patrol officers B. Number of Sworn Officers 1. Police-population ratio- the traditional measure of the level of police protection in a community; usually calculated as the number of officers per 1,000 population. 2. Cities with high crime rates often have more police officers, because high crime rates produce public demand for more police. C. Assignments to Patrol 1. Some departments place as many as 80% of all of their officers on patrol

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

(including traffic units), whereas others are able to place only 50 or 65%. The Distribution of Patrol Officers 1. Most serious crimes occur at night, as do the majority of disturbances (family disputes, bar fights, and so on) 2. Crime and disorder are not evenly distributed throughout the community. 3. Crime is more prevalent in poorer neighborhoods, and low-income people are the heaviest users of police services for order maintenance and general assistance. Assignment of Patrol Officers. 1. Many experts favor keeping officers in the same assignment for long periods of time. This allows patrol officers to get to know the people and the problems of their area. 2. As an anti corruption measure, some experts recommend frequent assignment changes to keep officers from developing too close relations with potentially corrupting influences. 3. Problems include loss of sleep, cardiovascular and other health problems, on-the-job accidents, disrupted family lives, and low morale. 4. Steady shift assignments, based primarily on seniority, but with some managerial discretion in assignment based on performance and workload is recommended. “Hot Spots” 1. Hot spot- an area that receives a disproportionate number of calls for police service and/or has a very high crime rate. 2. Hot spots remain hot for years or several decades. Types of Patrol 1. Most police patrol in the United States today involves automobile patrol 2. 4% of all patrol is on foot 3. 5% is done on motorcycle 4. 5% on bicycle 5. The efficiency of the patrol car in this regard is the reason police departments converted from foot patrol to car patrol between the 1920s and the 1950s. 6. An officer loses direct contact with most citizens, resulting in people seeing police as an occupying force. Foot Patrol 1. Involves a difficult trade-off between efficiency and community relations. 2. An officer on foot cannot cover as much territory as an officer in a patrol car. 3. The Newark Foot Patrol Experiment, meanwhile, found that a number of foot-patrol officers in an area resulted in people having less fear of crime and more positive attitudes toward the police.

IV.

V.

VI.

I. One-Officer versus Two-Officer Cars 1. Many rank-and-file officers have opposed one-officer patrol assignments on the grounds that this approach endangers their safety. 2. Most patrol units- 89%- involve single police officers. 3. One-officer patrols are more efficient than two-officer patrols: two oneofficer cars can patrol twice as much area and be available for twice as many calls as one two-officer car. J. Staffing Patrol Beats 1. Robert Peel's original ideal called for a patrol officer (or more than one) on every beat. 2. In practice police departments are often short handed and have a difficult time fully staffing patrol beats. Style of Patrol A. Individual Styles 1. The amount of police work done by patrol officers depends on their works styles 2. Officer-initiated activity- stopping, questioning, and frisking suspicious citizens; making informal contacts with law-abiding citizens; stopping vehicles for possible violations; writing traffic tickets; checking suspicious events; and making arrests. B. Supervisors Styles C. Organizational Styles 1. Watchman style- emphasizes peacekeeping, without aggressive law enforcement and with few controls over rank-and-file officers. 2. The legalistic style- emphasizes aggressive crime fighting and attempts to control officer behavior through a rule-bound, by-the-book administrative approach. 3. The service style- emphasizes responsiveness to community expectations and is generally found in suburban police department where there is relatively little crime. Patrol Supervision: The Role of the Sergeant A. standard police management texts call for close supervision of patrol officers by their sergeants B. community policing generally involves less direct supervision and more discretion and control over time for officers on the street. The Communications Center A. The Nerve Center of Policing 1. The communications center receives incoming calls from citizens, makes a series of discretionary decisions about how to handle those calls, and in many but not all cases dispatches police cars to the scene of the incident. B. 911 Systems

VII.

VIII.

IX.

1. today, almost all police departments participate in a 911 system. 2. because of their convenience, 911 systems have contributed to the great increase in calls for service. C. Processing Calls for Service 1. the communications center operators, dispatchers, and patrol officer are “information brokers” who receive citizen calls and translate them into official bureaucratic responses. 2. only about half of all calls received by 911 communication centers result in the dispatch of a police officer. 3. the dispatcher also exercises tremendous discretion in making important decisions. 4. the basic decision involves which patrol unit to dispatch. D. Operator-Citizen Interactions 1. Obtaining information from a caller is one of the most important aspects of the 911 communications system. 2. Some questions can be perceived as threats to a callers trustworthiness, intelligence, or personal character. The Systematic Study of Police Patrol A. Standards for Systematic Social Observation 1. Systematic social observation of police patrol work is accomplished by trained observers who accompany police officers at work in their cars, on foot, or even on bicycles. The Call Service Workload A. The Volume of Calls 1. Even though the basic technology of 911 systems is the same, the resulting workloads vary tremendously B. Types of Calls 1. Only 20 to 30 percent of all Calls for service involve criminal law enforcement 2. Order maintenance calls3. Service calls4. The vast majority of crime-related calls involve property crimes 5. Most police work involves order maintenance, or conflict management, and service. 6. Many situations are ambiguous and require the officers to exercise discretion 7. Many of the order maintenance and service calls involve family problems that occur in private homes. 8. Calls for service do not come from a representative sample of the community. Aspects of Patrol Work

X.

A. Response Time 1. Quick response time to Calls is a part of the folk wisdom of policing. 2. Both police and citizens believe that quick response time will increase the probability of an arrest and increase public satisfaction. 3. Discovery time: the interval between the commission of the crime and its discovery 4. Reporting time: the interval between discovery and when the citizen calls the police 5. Processing time: the interval between the call and the dispatch of a patrol car 6. Travel time: the length of time it take patrol officers to reach the scene. 7. The police cannot control discovery time, reporting time, or processing time. 8. Citizens delay calling the police for several different reasons: a) To verify that a crime has actually occurred b) To regain their composure c) To call a friend or family member first d) To decide whether they want to involve the police e) Because a telephone is not immediately available 9. Satisfaction dropped steadily as response time increased from 5 to more than 15 minutes B. Officer Use of Patrol Time 1. Patrol officers spend only 20 percent of their time in encounters with citizens. C. Evading Duty 1. Officers create free time by delaying the completion call to the dispatcher D. High-Speed Pursuits 1. Until recently patrol officers had complete discretion to initiate a pursuit. 2. About 60% of all departments have restrictive policies limiting discretion by specifying the conditions under which pursuits may or may not be initiated. 3. 7% have discouraging policies that advise officers against pursuits in certain situations but are not as limiting as restrictive policies. 4. 23% of all departments have discretionary or judgemental policies that give officers broad discretion about whether to engage in pursuits The Effectiveness of Patrol A. Initial Experiments 1. Initial experiments designed to test the effectiveness of patrol in the 1950s and 1960s did not meet contemporary standards of scientific research. B. The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment 1. It was the first experiment testing the effectiveness of patrol that met

minimum standards of scientific research 2. Beats were assigned one of three levels of Patrol a) Reactive beats received “no preventative patrol” as such, police vehicles assigned to these beats entered them only in response to calls for service, and non committed time was spent patrolling other beats b) Proactive beats received two or three times the normal level of patrol c) Control beats were assigned the normal level of patrol (one car per beat) 3. The experiment measured the impact of different levels of Patrol in criminal activity, community perceptions and attitudes, and police officer behavior and police department practices. C. Findings and Implications of the Kansas City Experiment 1. The major findings were: a) Variations in the level of patrol had no significant impact on crime b) Variations in the level of patrol had no significant impact on citizen feelings of safety c) There were no significant changes in behavior of lifestyle because of perceived changes in police protection d) Variations in the level of patrol did not affect attitudes toward the police 2. More patrol did not reduce crime, and lower levels of Patrol did not lead to an increase in crime. 3. The experiment did not prove that routine patrol has no effect on crime. 4. Patrol is spread so thin under normal conditions that doubling it is not likely to have any measurable impact 5. Many crimes are not likely to be deterred by patrol because they occur indoors and are often impulsive acts 6. Many of the offenders in theses crimes do not rationally calculate the rush of arrest and punishment and, in particular, do not assess the level of police patrol in the area. 7. People did not perceive the different levels of Patrol coverage in Kansas City in part because of the “phantom effect” or what criminologists call residual deterrence. Most people believe that police are present even when there is no patrol in the area. 8. The Kansas City experiment tested only the level of police patrol. 9. It did not study what patrol officer actually do-what activities they engage in. D. The Newark Foot Patrol Experiment 1. Design similar to Kansas City experiment/ sane beats received additional

XI.

foot patrol, others received less foot patrol, and others served as control beats. 2. Tested the effect of different levels of foot patrol in crime, arrest rates, and community attitudes. 3. Found that additional foot patrol did not reduce serious crime. 4. Different levels of foot patrol did have a significant effect on citizen attitudes. 5. Reduced fear of crime, more positive attitudes about citizens. E. New Questions, New Approaches 1. Led to the idea of community policing Improving Traditional Patrol A. Differential Response to Calls 1. Differential response involves classifying calls according to their seriousness 2. Calls receive a) An immediate response by a sworn officer b) A delayed response by a sworn officer c) No police response with reports taken over the phone, by mail, or by having the person come to the police station in person. 3. Both police officers and citizens were satisfied with differential response 4. The new procedures a) Increased the amount of information obtained from callers b) Provides callers with more accurate information on what to expect in terms of response to their calls c) And provided patrol officers with more detailed information on calls prior to arrival at the scene B. Telephone Reporting Units 1. Handle calls by taking reports over the phone 2. Almost half of all reported crimes are larcenies and almost all of those were cold crimes in which the patrol officer would no nothing more than take a report. C. 311 Non Emergency Numbers 1. Calls routed to the 311 system include calls about crimes not in progress, removing a dead animal, rodent problems, problems with traffic signs or signals, graffiti removal, sanitation problems, and other non emergency situations. D. Non-English 911 Call Services 1. Police departments can subscribe to 24-hour interpreter services, which are offered for a fee by private companies E. Reverse 911 1. A reverse 911 system allows the police to call citizens

F. Computers and Video Cameras in Patrol Cars 1. Field computers allow officer to both obtain information and file reports efficiently 2. Police departments are also placing video cameras in patrol cars and on police officers, primarily as an accountability measure. G. Police Aides or Cadets 1. Used in calls for service that do not require a sworn officer. H. Directed Patrol and Hot Spots 1. Directed patrol gives patrol officers specific duties to perform during a specified time period while they are freed from normal 911 dispatches 2. Most police agencies today rely on directed patrol focused on hot spots, or those areas that receive a high volume of calls for service. I. Customer Feedback J. Beyond Traditional Patrol 1. The police should be more proactive and, working closely with community residents, focus on underlying problems....