Policing:

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Chapter 6
Policing Roles, Styles, and Functions
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CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
After completing this chapter, you should be able
to

1. Identify characteristics of police work.
2. Distinguish among James Q. Wilsons three
   operational styles in policing.
3. List the three major functions of police
   departments.

3

1. Explain the main components of community
   policing.
2. Identify the four steps in a community policing
   approach to problem solving.

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6.1 Policing in America
Meeting a local police officer is the only
personal experience most Americans have with the
criminal justice system.
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The Roles of the Police

• What Americans expect from the police depends on
  how we view their role in society.

• Different people have different role expectations
  for the local police.

• When the publics expectations differ from the
  official police role, officers may suffer role
  conflict.

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role
The rights and responsibilities associated with a
particular position in society.
role expectations
The behavior and actions that people expect from
a person in a particular role.
continued
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role conflict
The psychological stress and frustration that
results from trying to perform two or more
incompatible responsibilities.
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The Roles of the Police
Not everyone views the role of the police in the
same way. The majority of perspectives consider
that the police

1. are community leaders in public safety.
2. possess broad discretion.
3. solve sociological and technological problems for
   people on a short-term basis.
4. occasionally serve in a hostile or dangerous
   environment.

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Characteristics of Police Work
Police work requires a combination of special
characteristics. Police work involves

• Quick decision-making
• Working independently
• Dirty work
• Danger

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Operational Styles
After police officers are trained and begin to
gain experience, it is believed they develop
operational styles.
If this is true, it means a department has not
been successful in its effort to systematically
train and deploy officers with the same
philosophy and practical approach.
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operational styles
The different overall approaches to the police
job.
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Operational Styles
One of the earliest scholars to report on the
existence of policing styles was James Q. Wilson.
He found three styles

• Legalistic an emphasis on violations of law, and
  the use of threats or actual arrests to solve
  disputes.
• Watchman an emphasis on informal means of
  resolving disputes.

continued
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Operational Styles

• Service an emphasis on helping the community, as
  opposed to enforcing the law.

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Operational Styles
A number of other scholars have tried to
categorize policing styles.
In practice, it is difficult to categorize police
officers, because each officer reacts differently
depending on the situation.
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CRITICAL THINKING

1. Which characteristics do you think are the most
   important for police officers to have? Why?
2. Is there an operational style of policing that
   you think is the most effective? If so, which one?

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6.2 Police Functions
The list of functions that police are expected to
carry out is long and varies from place to place.
There are some similarities in major police
departments.
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Patrol
Patrol is called the backbone of the department
by administrators. It is the most time-consuming
and resource-intensive task officers undertake.
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Patrol
Patrol duties include

• Responding to burglar alarms
• Investigating traffic accidents
• Caring for injured people
• Trying to resolve domestic disputes
• Responding to radio calls

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Preventive Patrol
Traditionally, police officers use the time
between radio calls to participate in preventive
patrol.
In the 1960s, people began to question the
usefulness of preventive patrol.
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preventive patrol
Patrolling the streets with little direction
between responses to radio calls, officers are
systematically unsystematic and observant in an
attempt to both prevent and ferret out crime.
Also known as random patrol.
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MYTH
FACT
Adding more police officers will reduce crime.
Short of having a police officer on every
corner, evidence indicates no relationship
between the number of police officers and the
crime rate.
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Directed Patrol

• Another strategy is directed patrol. Evidence
  shows directed patrol can reduce the incidence of
  targeted crimes such as thefts from autos and
  robberies.

• Directed patrol can be aided by crime mapping.

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directed patrol
Patrolling under guidance or orders on how to use
patrol time.
crime mapping
A technique that involves the charting of crime
patterns within a geographic area.
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Aggressive Patrol

• A strategy that can result in arrests for both
  minor and serious offenses is aggressive patrol.

• This strategy has drawbacks
• Innocent citizen are inconvenienced by random
  traffic stops and field interrogations.

• It is often difficult to get all officers
  motivated to use aggressive tactics.

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aggressive patrol
The practice of having an entire patrol section
make numerous traffic stops and field
interrogations.
field interrogations
A temporary detention in which officers stop and
question pedestrians and motorists they find in
suspicious circumstances.
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Foot Patrol
The practice of having officers patrol their
beats on foot has regained popularity recently.
While foot patrols have not been proven to be a
significant deterrent to crime, they have
significantly improved relationships between
citizens and officers.
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Investigation
Detectives may be the most glorified police
officers, but they are only one unit. There are
many forms of investigation in any police
department, from hit-and-run accidents, to
undercover vice investigations, to background
checks on potential police officers.
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What is Criminal Investigation?
Criminal investigation has been defined as a
lawful search for people and things to
reconstruct the circumstances of an illegal act,
apprehend or determine the guilty party, and aid
in the states prosecution of the offender.
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What is Criminal Investigation?
The criminal investigation process has two parts

• Preliminary investigation usually by patrol
  officers (except in the case of homicide, or
  other complex investigations).
• Follow-up investigation usually by plainclothes
  detectives.

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Investigative Functions
In any type of investigation, investigators must

• Locate witnesses and suspects
• Arrest criminals
• Collect, preserve, and analyze evidence
• Interview witnesses

continued
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Investigative Functions

• Interrogate suspects
• Write reports
• Recover stolen property
• Seize contraband
• Prepare cases and testify in court

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The Role of the Detective
Detectives enjoy several advantages over patrol
officers

• They do not have to wear uniforms.
• They have anonymity during work hours if they
  choose it.
• They have steady work hours, often during daytime
  hours with weekends off.
• They have offices and desks.

continued
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The Role of the Detective

• They enjoy the prestige associated with the
  position.
• In many agencies, detectives receive higher
  compensation and hold a higher rank.
• They have more freedom than patrol officers.

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JUSTICE ISSUE

• Do you think that police should score crimes
  according to their likelihood of being solved
  when deciding whether to investigate them further?

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Productivity
Despite the advantages, detectives often face
insurmountable obstacles and stressful work
conditions

• Crimes can be very difficult to solve.
• Witnesses who could help often dont want to get
  involved.
• Even with hard work, the success rate can be very
  low.

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MYTH
FACT
Improvements in detective work and criminal
investigation will significantly raise clearance
rates or lower the crime rate.
Cleared crimes generally solve themselves. The
offender either is discovered at the scene or can
be identified by the victim or a witness.
Investigation rarely solves cold or stranger
crimes.
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Recent Identification Developments in Criminal
Investigation
Two of the most significant advances in criminal
investigation have been the development of

• Fingerprinting
• DNA profiling

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DNA Profiling

• DNA profiling can identify a suspect or victims
  unique genetic profile from blood, hair, semen,
  or other bodily substances.

• DNA profiling is used for
• Linking or eliminating suspects to a crime.
• Identifying cold hits by matching a sample from
  a crime scene to a database.
• Clearing convicted rapists and murderers.

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Automated Fingerprint Identification System
An expensive but invaluable tool in criminal
investigation is the Automated Fingerprint
Identification System (AFIS).
This technology allows investigators to sort
through thousands of sets of fingerprints for a
match.
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MYTH
FACT
Fingerprints are crucial in solving crimes.
Although fingerprints are useful in cases
involving known suspects, they are rarely helpful
in solving crimes where the suspect is unknown
(the vast majority of criminal cases) because of
the difficulty of obtaining usable prints at the
crime scene.
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Cybercrime

• Cybercrime is of increasing concern to law
  enforcement officials, with related losses
  totaling 10 billion each year.

Cybercrime
The use of computer technology to commit crime.
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Cybercrime

• Cybercrime can be very easy to commit,
  particularly sex crimes and illegally accessing
  and destroying data.
• At present, most law enforcement agencies are ill
  prepared to detect, investigate, and prosecute
  cybercriminals.

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Traffic
Each year, nearly twice as many people are killed
in automobile accidents on the streets and
highways of America as are murdered.

• Many deaths are alcohol-related.
• Traffic enforcement and accident investigation is
  so important some agencies have traffic accident
  investigation crews.

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traffic accident investigation crews
In some agencies, the special units assigned to
all traffic accident investigations.
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CRITICAL THINKING

1. What do you think are the pros and cons of being
   an investigator/detective? Does this type of work
   sound attractive to you?
2. Do you think there are any ways to protect
   individuals and businesses from becoming victims
   of cybercrime? If so, what do you propose?

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6.3 Community Policing
Recently, the effectiveness of the professional
model of policing has been questioned

• Preventive patrol

Was shown not to reduce the incidence of crime.

• Quick response

Rarely leads to quick arrest.
Is not as important as the investigation done by
the officer on the scene.

• Follow-up investigation

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MYTH
FACT
Shorter police response time contributes to more
arrests.
For most crimes, police response time is
irrelevant. Approximately two-thirds of crimes
are cold the offender is gone long before the
crime is discovered.
continued
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FACT
In cases where time counts, the critical delay
often occurs in the time it takes the victim to
call the police.
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Community Policing
Foot patrols have proven to be better able to
deal with minor annoyancesrowdy youths,
panhandlers, abandoned carsthat irritate
citizens.
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Community Policing
The broken windows theory states that those
minor annoyances are signs of crime and that if
they are not dealt with early, more serious
problems are likely to occur.
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The Philosophy and Components of Community
Policing
With community policing, citizens share
responsibility for their communitys safety.
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The Philosophy and Components of Community
Policing

• Citizens and the police work collectively to
• Identify problems
• Propose solutions
• Implement actions
• Evaluate the results

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Community Partnership
The first component of community policing is
establishing and maintaining mutual trust between
citizens of a community and the police.
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Community Partnership
Building police-community partnerships involves

• Talking to local business owners
• Visiting residents in their homes
• Supporting neighborhood watch groups
• Ongoing communication with residents

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Problem Solving
For problem solving to work effectively, the
police need to devote time and attention to
discovering a communitys concerns, and they need
to recognize the validity of those concerns.
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Problem Solving
In community policing, a four-step process known
as SARA is often used

• Scanningidentifying problems
• Analysisunderstanding underlying problems
• Responsedeveloping and implementing solutions
• Assessmentdetermining the solutions effect

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Change Management
Community policing requires

• Flexible management styles
• An emphasis on the value of patrol officers
• Shifting decision-making and responsibility
  downward in the chain of command
• Patrol officers having the resources to solve the
  communitys problems

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Implementing Community Policing
Successful implementation of community policing
requires that both the community and law
enforcement understand the underlying philosophy
and have a true commitment to the community
policing strategy.
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CRITICAL THINKING

1. Can you think of ways to make community policing
   even more effective?
2. Do you think there is a certain operational style
   that is most appropriate for community policing?
   If so, which one?

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• End of Chapter 6