Police Subculture

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CHAPTER 3

• Police Subculture

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Police Subculture

• Recruiting Qualified Applicants
• Those Who Walk on Water
• Applicants typically come from lower-middle-class
  or working-class backgrounds
• Generally have a high school education and a
  history of employment
• Different from the stereotype of the police
  officer as authoritarian and suspicious

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Police Subculture

• Police applicants are motivated by
• Helping people
• Job security
• Fighting crime
• Job excitement
• Prestige
• A lifetime interest

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Police Subculture

• Some research indicates that the typical police
  applicant is very similar to the average college
  student.
• Using the MMPI, police applicants differ from the
  general population in several ways
• Applicants are more psychologically healthy
• Less depressed and anxious
• More assertive
• Greater tendency to present a good impression of
  themselves
• They are a more homogenous group

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Police Subculture

• Female applicants
• Tend to be more assertive and nonconforming than
  male applicants
• Higher energy levels
• Less likely to identify with traditional sex
  roles
• Applicants should be free of emotional reactions
• Should not be impulsive or overly aggressive
• Need logically skills

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Police Subculture

• Recruiting Problems and Successes
• The state of the economy can have a strong
  influence on recruitment
• A low unemployment rate makes for more
  competition from the private sector
• Recruiting and retaining women in policing
• Gender bias
• Sexual harassment
• About 60 of female officers who leave their
  agency do so during their second to fifth years
  on the job

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Police Subculture

• Testing
• Written examinations
• Larger police departments and state police
  agencies use four types of written tests
• Cognitive tests
• Personality-type tests
• Interest inventories
• Biographical data inventories
• Psychological screening test
• Stability
• Suitability

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Police Subculture

• Physical agility test
• One test is based on the theory that police
  perform three basic functions
• Getting to the problem
• Resolving the problem
• Removing the problem
• The test should test for actual job requirements
• Does not discriminate on the basis of gender,
  race, height, age, and physical condition

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Police Subculture

• Oral interview
• Used by more than 90 of all agencies
• Looks at appearance of the candidate, ability to
  communicate, reason, and general poise

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Police Subculture

• Character investigation
• One of the most subjective yet most important
  factors an applicant may possess
• Involves talking to past and current friends,
  coworkers, teachers, neighbors
• Spare no expense
• Discover any bones buried in the applicants
  background

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Police Subculture

• Polygraph examination
• 62 of the nations 626 largest police agencies
  use the polygraph
• 90 of these agencies automatically reject
  applicants who refuse to take the polygraph
• Medical examination and drug screening

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Police Subculture

• Academy Training
• Types of academies
• Concern for well-trained officers and avoiding
  civil liability
• For many, it provides the bulk of the formal
  training
• In-house police academies

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Police Subculture

• State and regional academies
• Preservice model
• Becoming more popular
• Civilians attend police academies at their own
  costs
• Agencies do not incur any costs in this style

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Police Subculture

• The Curriculum
• Basic recruit academy provides training in
• Criminal justice system
• The law
• Human values and problems
• Patrol and investigative procedures
• Police proficiency

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Police Subculture

• John Broderick contended there are three types of
  academies
• The plebe system (or stress academy)
• Intended to emphasize physical, mental, and
  emotional activities
• Technical training model
• Similar to advanced military training
• Emphasis on operational skills and use of
  equipment
• Graduates are good at report writing, radio
  procedures, knowledge of the laws

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Police Subculture

• The College system
• Stresses professionalism
• Stresses discussion and problem analysis
• The curricula of basic training academies has not
  changed much since 1986
• There is a lack of congruence between the
  curriculum taught and the responsibilities of
  COPPS

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Police Subculture

• New Uniform and Demeanor
• The uniform sets the recruit apart from the rest
  of society
• Image
• Badge

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Police Subculture

• A Sixth Sense
• Suspicion
• Trained to be observant, develop knowledge of the
  territory, notice the normal

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Police Subculture

• Situations that may cause suspicion
• People who do not belong where they are observed
• Automobiles that do not look right
• Businesses open at odd hours
• People that appear visibly rattled
• Solicitors in a residential neighborhood
• Hitchhikers
• A lone male sitting in a car near a shopping
  center or school paying unusual attention to
  women or children
• A person wearing a coat on a hot day

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Police Subculture

• A major tool is the recruits body
• Gain a physical advantage
• Hands-on training
• Hogans Alley
• Computer-based training
• Virtual reality

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Police Subculture

• Postacademy Field Training
• Field Training Officer Concept
• Most FTO programs consist of four phases
• Introductory phase
• Recruit learns agency policy and laws
• Training and evaluation phases
• Recruit is introduced to the more complicated
  tasks
• Final phase
• The FTO acts as an observer while the recruit
  performs all the functions of a patrol officer

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Police Subculture

• New Technology
• Automated Daily Observation Report and Evaluation
  (ADORE)
• Pursuit simulation

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Police Subculture

• A Working Personality
• Developing and Using a Police Personality
• Jerome Skolnick
• Danger a constant feature of police work
• Authority must be established by the officer

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Police Subculture

• Niederhoffer
• Study of police cynicism in 1967
• Cynicism spikes after the recruit leaves the
  academy
• From about 2 to 6 years of service, cynicism
  levels increase but at a slower rate
• From about 8 to 13 years of service, cynicism
  actually begins to decline
• Toward the end of the career, the degree of
  cynicism levels off

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Police Subculture

• John Broderick
• Four types of police personalities
• Enforcer
• Keep the beats clean, make good arrests, sometime
  help people
• Sympathy for vagrants, elderly, working poor
• High job dissatisfaction and an attitude of
  resentment

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Police Subculture

• Idealists
• High value on individual rights and due process
• Keep the peace, protect citizens, preserve social
  order
• Commitment to the job is the lowest among the
  four groups
• Less likely to recommend the job

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Police Subculture

• Realists
• Little emphasis on either social order or
  individual rights
• Seem less frustrated
• Found a way to come to terms with a difficult job
• See many problems in policing

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Police Subculture

• Optimists
• High value on individual rights
• See the job as people oriented instead of crime
  oriented
• Opportunities to help people
• Have lowest amount of resentment
• Committed to the job
• Would choice policing as a career again

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Police Subculture

• What Traits Make a Good Cop?
• Enthusiasm
• Good communication skills
• Good judgment
• Sense of humor
• Creativity
• Self-motivation
• Courage

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Police Subculture

• Roles, Functions, and Styles of Policing
• Defining and Understanding the Police Role
• Who defines the policed role?
• Private citizens
• Legislative bodies
• Courts
• Executives
• Police officers themselves

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Police Subculture

• Role Conflicts
• Need to be explicit about the police role
• Recruit and select competent personnel when we
  have a clear vision of what the police are
  supposed to accomplish
• Evaluation for retention and promotion
• Budgetary decisions
• Public cooperation

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Police Subculture

• Policing Functions and Styles
• Four basic functions
• Enforcing the laws
• Performing services
• Preventing crime
• Protecting the innocent
• James Q. Wilson saw different functions

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Police Subculture

• Maintaining order
• Constitutes most of the activities of the police
• Peacekeeping
• Law enforcement
• Upholding statutes

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Police Subculture

• Wilsons three distinctive policing styles
• Watchman
• Involves the officer as the neighbor
• Primary function is order maintenance
• People are going to occasionally act up
• Letter of the law versus the spirit of the law
• Legalistic style
• The officer as the soldier
• Takes a much harsher view of the law
• The purpose of the law is to punish

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Police Subculture

• Service style
• The officer as the teacher
• Falls between watchman and legalistic styles
• Protect public order
• Less likely to respond by making an arrest
• Frequently use informal sanctions