Chapter 6 Issues in Policing: Professional, Social, and Legal

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Chapter 6 Issues in Policing Professional,
Social, and Legal
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Learning Objectives

• Summarize demographic trends in policing
• Explain how minority and female officers act and
  are treated
• Explain police culture and personality
• Identify distinct policing styles
• Describe factors that affect police discretion

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Learning objectives

• Discuss four major problems of policing
• Distinguish between deadly and non deadly
  forceand methods for controlling each
• Explain the importance of less-lethal weapons
• Be familiar with the Supreme Courts involvement
  with the police through its effort to control
  search and seizure, interrogation, and the
  establishment of the exclusionary rule.

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Who Are the Police?

• Traditionally, police officers have been while
  men with a high school education
• Now, an increasing number of police officers have
  attended college
• Affirmative action programs have helped to change
  the racial and gender composition to reflect the
  community makeup

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Who Are the Police?

• Demographic Makeup
• For more than 30 years departments have recruited
  women and minority officers
• Women are now 13 percent of police personnel
• Minority groups are now 25 percent of police
  personnel
• Police departments are more heterogeneous, using
  skills (such as language skills) to gain the
  confidence of the community

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Who Are the Police?

• Minority Police Officers
• 1861
• First African American police officer,
  Washington, D.C.
• 1872
• Chicago hired its first African American police
  officer
• By 1890 an estimated 2000 African American police
  officers were employed in the U.S.

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Who Are the Police?

• Minority Police Officers
• Historically, African American officers were
  assigned to patrol African American communities
• Early on, racial prejudice was common within
  police departments, and as late as the 1950s,
  some white officers refused to ride with African
  American officers in patrol cars

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Who Are the Police?

• Women in Policing
• 1910 Alice Stebbins, first woman to hold title
  of police officers (Los Angeles)
• Women endured separate criteria for selection,
  were given menial tasks and were denied
  opportunity for advancement
• Relief of bias with 1964 Civil Rights Act

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Who Are the Police?

• Women in Policing
• Research indicates that female officers are
  highly successful police officers
• Relationship strained by tensions and dilemmas
  associated with
• Sexuality
• Competition for desirable assignments and
  promotions

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Who Are the Police?

• Education Characteristics
• Today about one-third of police agencies require
  some type of college requirement
• More than three times the number than in 1990
• Police departments are the benefactors of police
  officers with higher education

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The Police Profession

• The Police Culture
• Policing has unique characteristics, which
  separates it from other professions
• So-called blue curtain characterized by
• Cynicism
• Clannishness
• Secrecy
• Insulation from others in society

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The Police Profession

• The Police Culture
• Joining police subculture means
• Having to stick up for fellow officers against
  outsiders
• Maintaining a tough, exterior personality
• In response to their insulated, and dangerous
  lifestyle, officers develop a distrust or
  suspicion of others motives and behaviors

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Core Beliefs of the Police Subculture

• Police are the only real crime fighters
• No one else understands the real nature of police
  work
• Loyalty to colleagues counts above everything
  else
• It is impossible to win the war on crime without
  bending the rules
• Members of the public are basically unsupportive
  and unreasonably demanding
• Detective work is better than patrol

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The Police Profession

• The Police Personality
• Some describe the police personality as dogmatic,
  authoritarian, and suspicious
• Cynicism is found at all levels
• Negative values and attitudes are believed to
  cause officers to be secretive and isolated

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Policing Style
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Police Discretion

• Use of personal decision making and choice in
  carrying out operations in the criminal justice
  system
• Critical aspect of professional responsibility is
  the personal discretion each officer has in
  carrying out daily activities
• Discretion can involve selective enforcement of
  the law

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Factors that Influence Police Discretion

• Legal factors
• Discretion is inversely related to severity of
  offense
• Environmental factors
• Community expectations impact the amount of
  discretion expected
• Departmental factors
• Organizational policies, practices, customs, and
  supervision
• Peer factors
• Situational factors
• Demeanor and behavior of person encountered
• Extralegal factors
• the age, gender, income, or race of the person
  encountered

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Problems of Policing

1. Job Stress
2. Fatigue
3. Violence
4. Corruption

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Problems of Policing-Corruption

• Categories of Corruption
• Meat eaters
• Aggressive misuse of police power for personal
  gain
• Grass eaters
• Accepting some benefit during their everyday
  duties (ex accepting gratuity)

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Four Varieties of Corruption
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Causes of Corruption

• No single explanation
• Wide discretion by police coupled with low public
  visibility
• Unenforceable laws governing moral standards
  promote corruption

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Control of Corruption
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Use of Force

• National Survey
• 9 out of 10 subjects who had police contact
  reported that officers acted properly
• 2 had force used or threatened during contact
• Black and Hispanics experienced police use of
  force at higher rates than whites

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Deadly Force

• Refers to the actions of a police officer who
  shoots and kills a suspect under justifiable
  circumstances
• Factors Related to Police Shootings
• Exposure to violence
• National crime rates
• Community threat levels
• Administrative factors
• Lack of proper training and preparation

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Controlling Deadly Force

• Fleeing-Felon rule
• Tennessee v. Garner
• Review State-controlled firearms policies
• Department internal reviews

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Use of Force

• Graham v. Connor
• Supreme Court case establishing the Objective
  Reasonableness standard for use of force
• Issues of force to be judged from the standpoint
  of a reasonable officer at the time the force was
  used

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Use of Force
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Less Lethal Weapons

• Wide Variety of Weapons
• Close distance
• Mid range distance
• Other Technologies
• New weapons being developed in the field
• Nonlethal weapons may help reduce police use of
  force

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Police and the Rule of Law

• In the courses of police duties the Rule of Law
  applies to the
• Investigation
• Search, seize and gathering of evidence
• Interviews and interrogations conducted
• Suspects arrest
• Case presentation to the prosecutors office with
  sufficient evidence to convict

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Police and the Rule of Law

• Interrogations and Confessions
• Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
• The Miranda Warning
• Right to remain silent
• Any statements may be used in court of law
• Right to consult with an attorney and have
  present during interrogation
• If a person cannot afford an attorney, one will
  be appointed
• Improperly gathered confessions and statements
  are generally inadmissible

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Police and the Rule of Law

• Search and Seizure
• Manner in which police seize evidence governed by
  search-and-seizure requirements of the Fourth
  Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
• Search warrant
• A court order authorizing and directing the
  police to search a designated place for evidence
  of a crime

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Police and the Rule of Law

• Warrantless Searches
• Under certain circumstances a valid search may be
  conducted without a search warrant

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Six Valid Warrantless Searches
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Police and the Rule of Law

• The Exclusionary Rule
• Weeks v. United States, 1914
• All evidence obtained by unreasonable searches
  and seizures, coerced confessions or other
  violations of Constitutional rights is
  inadmissible in criminal trials
• Supreme Court decision created guidelines that
  control misconduct by police officers

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Police and the Rule of Law

• The Exclusionary Rule
• Mapp v. Ohio, 1961
• Exclusionary rule applicable to states
• The good faith exception (to the exclusionary
  rule)
• Evidence is admissible in court if the police
  officers acted in good faith by first obtaining
  court approval for their search even if the
  warrant they received was deficient or faulty