Principles of Law Enforcement

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Principles of Law Enforcement

• Chapter 5
• The Police Role and Police Discretion

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Chapter Goals

• To explore the police role and its many
  interpretations
• To teach students about the goals and objectives
  of policing
• To look at various operational styles of the
  police
• To introduce students to the concept of police
  discretion

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Introduction

• The police role and how they use discretion are
  among the most important issues in policing.
• Who are the police?
• What do they do?
• What should they do instead?
• This chapter will look at the crime fighting role
  and the order maintenance role. It will also
  look at police discretion and how and why
  discretion is exercised. It will also focus on
  what administrators can do to control police
  discretion.

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The Police Role

• There are 2 major views of the police
• The police are crime fighters concerned with
  enforcement of the law (Crime Fighting)
• The police are maintainers concerned with keeping
  the peace and providing social services to the
  community (Order Maintenance)

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Crime Fighting Role

• Movies and television shows about the police
  emphasize the police-crime fighting role.
• Here police engage daily in shootouts, car
  chases, and acts of violence as they arrest
  people everyday
• Newspapers and TV news shows dramatize exciting
  arrests

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Crime Fighting Cont.

• Police themselves also emphasize their role as
  crime fighters and play down the role as
  peacekeepers.
• The reason is that society seems to reward crime
  fighting and cares little for peace keeping and
  providing services

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Crime Fighting Cont.
From these arrest we can see that the majority of
arrests are not serious index crimes but rather
crimes of disorder
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Order Maintenance Role

• Social Service tasks and administrative duties
  account for 55 of the officers time and 57 of
  their calls
• Activities for crime fighting took up only 17 of
  patrol time and amount to 16 of the total calls
• Most studies indicate that police maintain order
  or provide services

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Ambiguity of the Police Role

• Robert Peel started the 1st paid police
  department and conceived the role of an officer
  to be more for prevention and deterrence instead
  of enforcement
• As the US began to pass more statutory laws the
  police role expanded from peacekeeping to law
  enforcement
• This combination of role expectations generates
  controversy

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Ambiguity of the Police Role

• Actually the police role is what the community
  expects the police to be
• Communities all have different expectations of
  the police
• Older people may want the police to hassle
  teenagers
• Parents in a community may want the police to
  detect and arrest drug dealer

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Ambiguity of the Police Role

• Good police officers have the qualities of
• Common sense
• Mature judgment
• Must react quickly and effective to situations

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Goals and Objectives of Policing

• There are two primary goals and objectives to
  policing
• Maintaining Order
• Protecting life and property
• During earlier times citizens were expected to
  make arrests and keep the peace. Today we leave
  that up to the police

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Secondary Goals and Objectives

• There are 6 secondary goals
• Preventing crime
• Arresting and prosecuting offenders
• Recovering stolen and missing property
• Assisting the sick and injured
• Enforcing non-criminal regulations
• Delivering services not available anywhere else
  in the community

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Secondary Goals and Objectives

• Police are generally the only government office
  open round the clock
• When everything else closes the police become
  moving representatives of the government
• They are called when no one else is available to
  handle the call such as dogs barking, power
  outages, broken water main

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Police Operational Styles

• There are 4 types
• Enforcers- Officers who believe in maintaining
  order on their beat by arresting criminals.
• Enforcers give less value to the US Constitution
  and individual rights
• Enforcers do not like their job
• Enforcers lose a lot of court cases on
  technicalities
• Enforcers are resentful, cynical, and distrustful

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Police Operational Styles

• Idealists-Are similar to enforcers by place more
  emphasis on the constitution and individual
  rights
• Idealists believe it is their responsibility to
  keep the peace, protect citizens from crimes, and
  preserve social order
• Idealists are cynical and feel powerless

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Police Operational Styles

• Realists are more secure within themselves and
  less frustrated with their role in life
• They see due process as an obstacle
• They believe maintaining order and protecting
  life and property are impossible
• They think departments have too many politicians,
  offenders and citizens who dont understand so
  to hell with it

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Police Operational Styles

• Optimists are officers who place a high value on
  individual rights
• They see the job as problem and people oriented
• They like to help people who are in trouble
• They like their jobs and are not cynical

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Police Discretion

• What exactly is it?
• Discretion means the availability of choice of
  options or actions one can take in a situation
• As ordinary citizens we use discretion on the
  cars we buy, the food we order, and the videos we
  watch
• The criminal Justice system involves a tremendous
  amount of discretion
• Judges use discretion in sentencing
• Prosecutors raise and lower charges
• Parole boards decide who they will release

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Police Discretion

• Policeman are usually the first decision makers
  and they may have to make a split-second decision
• They exercise discretion when they
• Arrest, stop, question, or frisk
• Use physical force
• Use deadly force
• Write traffic citations
• Use enforcement tactics (giving warnings)
• To take a report or investigate a crime

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Factors that Influence Discretion

• The seriousness of the crime
• There is less freedom to exercise discretion with
  a murder than shoplifting
• Relationship between the victim and the offender
• Police tend to avoid arrests if the offender and
  victim have a close relationship

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Factors that Influence Discretion

• Respectful mannerly complaints tend to get the
  complainant better treatment from the officers
• Department policies can guide and direct the
  actions of the officers in certain situations

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Controlling Discretion

• Discretion should be narrowed so that most
  officers do the same thing the same way
• Establish a good comprehensive policy and
  procedures manual
• Instill a proper value system within the
  department

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The End