Police subculture, discretion, duty

1
Police subculture, discretion, duty

• Pollock, Chp. 7

\Officer murders, shootings\Texas
DPS.wmv\Cincinnati officer shot.wmv\SMPD
officer shot gang.wmv\5 CHP killed 5
mos.wmv\NYPD Blues.wmv, NYPD Blues2.wmv\Use of
force\Shootout.wmv\Grandma shocked.wmv\Baton
Rouge police accused.wmv\Undercover\LAPD reverse
drug.wmv
2
Police workingenvironment

• Identify and arrest criminals
• Deter crime through patrol and othermeasures
• Promote civil order
• Provide emergency services
• Help those at risk of being victimized
• Facilitate movement of traffic
• Resolve conflicts
• Promote a feeling of community security

3
A routine punctuatedby moments of terror

• Many routine duties (e.g., trafficenforcement,
  neighbor disputes, familyfights) involve
  considerable risk
• Working factors
• Force and coercion
• Violence, danger
• Uncertainty
• Excitement
• Availability of firearms
• Police tools limited
• Legal, social, political constraints
• Probable cause standards
• Restrictions on use of force

4

• February 22, 1994 LAPD OfficerChristy
  Hamilton, Devonshire Division
• Officers Hamilton and others respondedto a
  family disturbance with shots fired in a
  residential neighborhood. As she stood by her
  patrol car a 17-year old youth who had just
  murdered his father fired a.223 caliber assault
  rifle, striking officer Hamiltonabove her
  ballistic vest. The assailant committed suicide.

5
Who is drawn into policing?

• Police applicant characteristics
• Working class and lower-middle class, white, male
• Conservative political and social views
• Assertiveness and physicality
• Wants steady work with good pay and benefits
• Idealistic, desires to help others
• Taste for risk and excitement
• Friends and relatives in law enforcement
• Some desirable characteristics
• Logical skills and intelligence
• People oriented, free of bias
• Tolerates stress and risk
• Self-insight, emotionally stable, not impulsive
• Courage, not overly aggressive
• Command presence
• Works well as a team member, accepts direction

6
Police personality

• Hard lesson badge gun ¹ compliance
• Recruits learn caution at the academy
• Police work can be dangerous
• Stories of officers hurt and killed
• Persons identified by habit or attire as
  symbolic assailants
• Almost anyone can prove dangerous
• Cynicism and morbidity
• Personality ?? environment
• Justice not always possible
• Reality ?? Altruistic, helping orientation of
  new officers
• Cynicism may peak right after the academy and
  decrease mid-career

7
Typology of police personality(John Broderick)

• Enforcers Keep beat clean, arrest
  evil-doers,help good people
• Distinction between good and bad persons
• Frustrated by legalities and the CJ process
• Idealists Duty to keep the peace and protect
  citizensfrom criminals.
• High value on individual rights
• Many college graduates (?)
• Realists Focus on the process reports,
  procedures
• Not concerned with greater issues (e.g. social
  order)
• Narrow definition of the job leaves them less
  frustrated than others
• Optimists See their job as people rather than
  crime-oriented
• Enjoy service aspects of policing and solving
  problems
• Lowest amount of job resentment and conflict

8
Officer discretion

• Wilsons policing styles
• Watchman
• Focus on order maintenance
• Ignore minor infractions
• Prefer to resolve issues informally
• Legalistic
• Eager to invoke formal sanctions (arrests and
  citations)
• Disorderly persons viewed as a criminal threat
• Reluctant to intervene when legal authority is
  unclear
• Service
• Blend of the above styles, with less emphasis on
  making arrests
• Emphasis on quality of life issues
• Prefer to resolve situations through conciliation
  and referrals

9
Discretion and duty

• Officer issues
• Attitude toward ambiguous situations
• Self-image as servant or crime-fighter
• City and agency policies
• Constraint discretion
• Different orientations in affluent and modest
  areas
• Loss of discretion in domestic violence
  situations
• Failure to act resulted in mandatory arrest
  policies
• In many other areas officers have retained
  discretion
• Paradigm for ethical decision-making
• What does the law require?
• What does departmental policy require?
• And, if there is discretion
• What do individual ethics require?
• Officers influenced by individual and
  environmental variables
• May define situations differently

10
Profiling

• Profile variables
• Race and ethnicity
• Social class
• Time and place
• Appearance and behavior
• Profiling as a preventive tool
• Effectiveness and efficiency
• Some criminal activity is ethnically-based
  (e.g., street gangs)
• Historical abuse of minorities and poor
• Less able to fight back
• Other variables
• Demographics (rich/poor, urban/rural)
• Local crime and violence
• Government and public pressures
• Police subcultural issues

11
Officer behavior has complex causes
INDIVIDUAL VARIABLES
ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES

• Intelligence
• Aggressiveness/assertiveness
• Impulsivity
• Adventurism (stimulus seeking)

• Local demographics
• Crime and violence
• Authority/power
• Danger / unpredictability
• Temptations

POLICE PERSONALITY
SUBCULTURAL VALUES

• Enforcers
• Idealists
• Realists
• Optimists

• Autonomy
• Solidarity
• Cynicism
• Use of force and coercion
• Neutralizers, justifications

(Just one example)
12
Ethical dilemma

• You stop a vehicle that has been speeding and
  cutting people off. It is technically reckless
  driving, a misdemeanor, which authorizes a
  physical arrest. But normally you would write a
  ticket for speeding and give a brief lecture.
• This driver gives you a lot of lip. He does not
  have other recent tickets.
• Identify the most relevant values and concepts
• Identify the most immediate dilemma that the
  officer faces
• Apply the most appropriate ethical theory and
  resolve the dilemma
• Identify factors discussed in Chapter 7 that
  might influence how police officers might
  perceive this dilemma, and how they might resolve
  it

13
Ethical dilemma

• You are looking for a vehicle thought to be
  involved in a gang-related drive-by shooting
  several days ago. There is no license plate
  number, only a brief description of the vehicle
  and of three unidentified suspects.
• In the same general area you spot a car that is
  similar in appearance. It is occupied by two
  persons of the same ethnicity, gender and
  approximate age as the suspects. They glance
  over at your car but do not do anything else.
• Identify the most relevant values and concepts
• Identify the most immediate dilemma that the
  officer faces
• Apply the most appropriate ethical theory and
  resolve the dilemma
• Identify factors discussed in Chapter 7 that
  might influence how police officers might
  perceive this dilemma, and how they might resolve
  it