Day 6: Police Organization, Role and Function

1
Day 6 Police Organization, Role and Function

• Chapter deal with three related questions about
  police departments
• What are police supposed to do? (Mission
  Mandate)
• What do they actually do? (Police Role
  activities)
• What is the organization context of policing?
  (Organizational structure)

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1. Police Mission What are police supposed to do?

• Police work has multiple goals
• Law enforcement
• Order Maintenance
• Public Service
• Problem solving
• Protection
• Note
• Lack of agreement about goals
• Goals may be mutually conflicting
• Goals are broad diffuse

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1. Closely related to Police Mission ? the
Police Mandate

• Mandate Mission X Authority
• Authority to
• Use coercive methods
• Search and seizure
• Use force and weapons
• Demand compliance
• Use other extraordinary methods
• If Mission is inconsistent, then police mandate
  is impossible (a no-win task)

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2. Police Role What Police Do

• The Functions and Activities by which police
  seek to carry out their mission
• Patrol Function
• Investigation Function
• Support Function
• Special Services
• Other functions? -- Intelligence Interdiction
• Policing Styles refer to strategies by which
  police carry out the functions and define their
  roles

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2. Police Role

• Distinctive features of Police Role that
  influences nature of police work
• Need for quick decisions
• Discretion and independence
• Dirty work
• Conflict opposition
• Danger

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2. Police Role Styles

• Organizational Styles (J.Q. Wilson)
• Legalistic style arrest-oriented
• Watchman style problem-solving-oriented
• Service style service-provision-oriented
• Individual Officer Styles (J. Broderick)
• Enforcers emphasize order
• Idealists emphasize order due process
• Optimists emphasize due process
• Realists emphasize neither

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2. Police Role Styles

• What determines the style of policing?
• Individuals who fill the role
• Organizational format
• Community context
• Political/Legal context
• Technology
• Broader cultural setting

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2. Police Role (cont.)

• Patrol Function the most basic and universal
  part of policing (the heart of policing?)
• Almost all officers enter policing as patrol
• Small depts all officers are patrol
• Large depts largest number of officers patrol
• Different kinds of patrol activities
• General patrol
• Focused patrols
• Areas (hot spots)
• Activities (drug trade vice gangs special
  problems)
• Traditional patrol methods in-vehicle
• Advantages and disadvantages?
• Alternative methods foot bike boat horse

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2. Police Role -- Patrol (cont.)

• Proactive vs. Reactive Patrol?
• Reactive responding to reports of crime
• Most crimes identified through citizen calls
• Response time critical factor?
• Proactive efforts to prevent crime
• Aggressive patrols making arrests stops
• Deterrent patrols being visible
• Problem-solving patrols identifying troubles
• Outreach patrols connecting to community

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2. Police Role -- Patrol (cont.)

• Experiments and Research on Patrol Strategies
• Kansas City experiment (deterrent patrol)
• Other studies of aggressive and targeted patrol
  show more success (but not always)
• Avoid simple general conclusions (as text
  suggests)
• The results have been mixed and complex
• Drawing strong conclusions from New York results?
  Other cities?

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2. Police Role

• Investigative Function collecting information
• To solve crimes and identify suspected offenders
• To collect evidence and witnesses for prosecution
• General Investigation
• By patrol officers (first-responders) most
  critical?
• By detectives (following up on incident report)
• Half of cases are dropped not investigated
• Most investigations last only a few days
• Most crimes are not solved by detective work or
  crime scene analysis (robberies burglaries
  thefts arsons)
• What about CSI? combines confuses 3 different
  jobs detectives, evidence technicians, and
  scientific analysts

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2. Police Role -- Investigation (cont.)

• Focused or targeted investigations
• By detectives in special units or tasks
• Limited to specific types of crimes or problems
• Drugs vice financial crimes fraud cybercrimes
• Proactive investigations
• Undercover
• Stings
• Raise considerable legal and practical questions
  (e.g., entrapment corruption misconduct)

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2. Police Role -- Investigation (cont.)

• Research on Investigation tactics reveals
• Most cases unsolved
• Most investigations very brief
• Initial investigations by patrol officers
  critical
• Delay in calling police critical (greatly
  reduces chances of solving case)
• Technology is valuable in some cases but
  over-rated in most

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2. Police Role (cont.)

• The Traditional Policing Model Overview
• Quasi-military framework
• Strong emphasis on law enforcement (over service
  and order maintenance)
• Primary emphasis on reactive, coercive actions
• Police officers defined as detached professional
  crime-fighters
• Strong reliance on technology

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2. Police Role (cont.)

• Criticisms of Traditional Model
• Generates police agency as a closed system
  (leading to an us-versus-them orientation)
• Contrary to democratic traditions
• Authoritarian structure produces cynicism,
  either-or thinking, and informal evasions
  routine deviance
• Rigid rank structure undermines job satisfaction
• Warfare framework generates discrimination
  (profiling), coercion (brutality), community
  conflict
• Male-oriented and male-dominated
• Ineffective in protecting and serving community

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2. Police Role (cont.)

• Alternatives to the Traditional Model?
• Change police officers selection education
• Change policing styles patrolling uniforms
  coworking
• Change management styles TQM
• Change police-community relations DARE
• Change police-management relations civil
  service unionization
• Change organizational structures hierarchy,
  centralization, communication, divisions

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2. Police Role (cont.)

• Many tweaks variations have been tried (but
  none have been permanent)
• Most likely alternative Community Oriented
  Policing (C.O.P.)
• Different model of social control policing
• Redefinition of focus of good policing
• Focus on (a) community collaboration (b)
  problem-solving
• Implies a different model of police organization
  and operation?

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2. Police Role (cont.)

• Implementation of C.O.P.
• Initial promotion and acceptance of COP
• Academic and professional advocates
• Cynics and Critics view it as LGT
• Federal COPS program created in 1996
• Widespread adoption of elements of COP
• Few full implementations of COP (exception in
  limited, favorable situations)
• Very little meaningful research on COP
• Future of COP? At odds with Homeland Security
  shift?

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2. Police Role (cont.)

• Other notable (popular?) approaches
• Zero-tolerance policing suppression and
  order-maintenance enforcement
• COMPSTAT statistics and data-driven policing ?
  policing through MIT

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3. Organizational Structure

• Agency size as major dimension
• Military framework as dominant feature
• Hierarchical rank structure
• Closed system
• Impersonality
• Formalization
• Professionalization
• Military culture group cohesion use of force
• Bureaucratic organization as a key variable
• Division of labor specialization
• Emphasis on standardization accountability

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4. Legal Limitations on Police behavior Major
Issues

• Search and seizure
• 4th Amendment concerns
• Interrogation and Incrimination
• 5th Amendment concerns
• The Exclusionary Rule

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a) Legal Searches Seizures

• Key issue 4th Amendment
• The right of the people to be secure in
  their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
  against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall
  not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but
  upon probable cause, supported by oath or
  affirmation, and particularly describing the
  place to be searched, and the persons or things
  to be seized.

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a) Legal Searches Seizures

• Searches with a Warrant
• Obtaining a legal warrant ? probable cause
  specificity (what where)
• Executing a warrant ? some limits on where when
• Warrantless Searches
• Searches incident to lawful arrest
• Consent searches most common type of search
• Plain view searches
• Stop and Frisk
• Automobile searches
• Open fields abandoned property
• Seizures refer to the evidence obtained may
  be people or things

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b) Interrogations

• Key issue 5th amendment protection against
  self-incrimination
• No person . . . . shall be compelled in any
  criminal case to be a witness against himself,
• For police, this applies to interrogations where
  person may supply self-incriminating info (or to
  voluntary biological/physical tests)

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b) Interrogations (cont.)

• Two major forms of interrogation
• Custodial (in-custody) interrogation
• Physical or Constructive custody
• Miranda v. Arizona (1963) the key
• Field interrogation ? lesser degree of intrusion
  (stop-and-frisk actions)
• Reasonable suspicion applies here
• Self-identification requirement as an evolving
  issue
• Also applies to physical/medical tests
• Depends on degree of intrusion
• DUI ? implied consent

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b) Interrogations (cont.)

• Is Miranda always required?
• When is it not required?
• General on-the-scene questioning
• Statements volunteered
• Questioning of witnesses
• Field stops (stop and frisk cases)
• Routine questions of drunk-driving suspects
• During line-ups and photo-ID sessions
• Statements to private persons
• Suspect appearing before grand jury
• A situational threat to public safety

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c) What happens if search/seizure are illegal
?The Exclusionary Rule

• Exclusionary Rule means Evidence seized
  illegally (as result of illegal search) cannot be
  used to gain conviction
• ER was introduced in 1914 (Weeks v. U.S.) to
  apply only to federal police actions
• Extended to local police Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
• Has been subsequently moderated in later
  decisions (see discussion in the text)
• Exceptions to Exclusionary Rule?
• Impact of Exclusionary Rule on enforcement?

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c) Exceptions to Exclusionary Rule

• Good Faith exception
• Inevitable Discovery exception
• Harmless Error exception

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d) Exclusionary Rule Evaluated

• Reasons for the rule?
• Argument against the rule?
• Actual effects of Exclusionary Rule on policing?
• Substantial impact on standardization of police
  practices
• Little impact on enforcement outcomes
• Effects appear to be largely symbolic

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Evolving legal context of policing?

• 20th Century
• Explication of federal limits on policing
• Application of federal restrictions to local
  police (Warren Court)
• Moderation reduction in restrictions (Berger
  Court Rehnquist Court)
• 21st Century
• Continued moderation of restrictions on police
  (Roberts Court)
• Impact of anti-terrorism legislation has further
  reductions in legal restrictions
• Future changes?

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