Police in America

1
Police in America

• Chapter Five
• Peacekeeping and Order Maintenance

2
Calling the PolicePublic Expectations in
non-crime situations

• Why do citizens call?
• To maintain a social boundary
• To relieve unpleasant situations
• Counterpunching
• To obtain an emergency service
• Typical police response
• Informal handling with no official action

3
Types of non-criminal calls for service

• Traffic enforcement
• Most common type of order maintenance
• Low-level but significant friction between
  citizens and the police
• Risk of injury or death to officer
• Drunk Driving
• Question over whether crackdowns reduce drunk
  driving
• Risk of arrest for drunk driving is low
• Arrest is very time consuming

4
Domestic Violence

• 1 million violent domestic violence crimes in
  1998
• Victims call only about 50 of the time
• Lower income victims call more often than upper
  or middle class victims
• Danger to police
• Ranks low for death
• Controversy over assaults

5
Domestic violence

• Police response
• Arrest
• Mediation
• Separating the parties
• Referral to social service agencies
• No action

• Factors influencing arrest
• Seriousness of crime
• Preference of victim for arrest
• Relationship between victim and suspect
• Disrespect to police

6
Other order maintenance crimes

• Vice
• Prostitution
• Street walkers
• Ancillary crime
• Call girl
• Gambling
• victimless crime
• Narcotics
• Homeless
• Old
• New

• Alcoholics
• Detoxification programs
• Mentally ill
• Hospitalization
• Arrest
• Informal disposition
• AIDS
• High concern of infections, buy relatively low
  number of cases
• Juveniles
• Strict enforcement versus counseling and advising