Chapter 5

POLICING IN AMERICAN SOCIETY

I. History of the Police

Police as an organized force in the western world coincided with the creation of strong centralized governments. Early American policing based upon the English system.

    A.    The English Antecedents:

        1.    No police per se prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066
        2.    All people responsible for their neighbors. The "pledge system." All able bodied men hearing the "hue and cry" were obligated to respond.
        3.    A tithing - ten families bound by the pledge to cooperate in policing own problems.
        4.    The hundred - a grouping of 10 tithings. Headed by an appointed constable (Comes stabuli - non-uniformed mounted law enforcement officers)
        5.    In the 1200's, the hundreds were grouped into shires which are similar to our counties. Shires were led by an appointed Shire Reeve (leader of the county). Our Sheriff derives from this office.
        6.    Bailiffs, who had the primary duty of night watchmen, were primarily relied upon to detect fires and thieves. Larger towns might have a day ward as well as a night watch.
        7.    Statute of Winchester, 1285, codified early British police practices. It specified:

            a.    Creation of the watch and the ward in cities and towns;
            b.    Draft of eligible males to serve either force;
            c.    Institutionalized use of the "hue and cry", making citizens who disregarded this call for help subject to criminal penalties.
            d.    Citizens must maintain arms in homes for use in answering the "hue and cry".

        9.    The first effective British police organizations were developed in the 1700's because of the growth of cities due to the industrial revolution and changes in farming that created a surplus of manpower in the rural areas:

            a.    Henry Fielding and the Bow Street Runners. Fielding, a famous writer, after becoming the magistrate of the Bow Street area of London, created this organized force to enforce his court rulings.

        10.    Sir Robert Peel and the New Police (Metropolitan Police of London) (1829). First modern police force - 1,000 strong. Called "Peelers" , but more commonly know as "Bobbies" after their founder.

    B.    The American Colonial Era and Early Frontier

        1.    Generally followed English system of watch and ward in the villages and towns. The Sheriff was the major local officer. Paid on a fee system.
        2.    Southern colonies had slave patrols. Sought runaway slaves and enforced the "Black Laws".
        3.    The Frontier: Commonly policed by vigilantes. "Lynch Law", named after a Virginia farmer, Charles Lynch, was usually the order of the day.
        4.    Policing cities in early America: Began early in our history - watchmen in New York, 1658. First uniformed officer - New York again, 1693. Most cities used day watch and night watch concept until the first full-fledged, round-the-clock police department was established in New York, 1844. Boston established the first detective bureau in the mid 1800's.

    C.    According to Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, the history of American policing can be divided into three eras:

        1.    Political -(1840 - 1930's) - close ties between police and public officials. Police agencies tended to serve the interest of powerful politicians, while providing community order maintenance services as an afterthought. Called the Watchman Style. More emphasis on crime control than crime prevention. Makes considerable use of discretion. Order maintained through threats/persuasion/"roughing-up" potential offenders.

            a.    Northern Cities (pg, 122)
            b.    Continuing effects of slavery (pg, 123)
            c.    Early attempts at racial integration (pg, 123)
            d.    The "new" Frontier: (pg, 123)

                i.    U.S. Marshall's
                ii.    Pinkerton's
                iii.    Wells Fargo

        2.    Reform - (1930's - 1970's) - "professional crime fighting." Most police resources expended on solving tradition crimes - murder/rape/burglary - and in arresting offenders. Legalistic Style. Strict concern for letter of the law enforcement. Called laissez-faire policing. Hands-off approach to otherwise disruptive or problematic forms of behavior which are not violations of the criminal law.

                i.    Police departments were restructured in a quasi-military fashion - becoming hierarchical organizations with centralized authority which passed directives down a chain of command
                ii.    Officers were selected and promoted according to merit-oriented, civil service, competitive, impersonal procedures. (After WWII)
                iii.    Police work became routinized, impersonal and professional.
                iv.    Serious crimes were treated with new importance.

            e.    Incident Driven Policing

                i.    Reactive policing - police respond to incidents after they have occurred.

                    1.    A direct result of taking cops off of foot patrol and installing them in radio-cars.
                    2.    Relies heavily on the development of information from witnesses and other citizens to help solve the problem and the use of the power of arrest.

                ii.    Preventive patrol became the backbone of enforcement.

                    1.    Patrol, in all forms, has 3 primary purposes:

                        a.    Answering calls for assistance
                        b.    Maintaining a police presence in the community
                        c.    Probing suspicious circumstances

        2.    Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment - Focused on the effectiveness of police patrol. This study done in two parts:

            a.    Patrol Study - Divided south Kansas City into 15 areas and further subdivided this into 3 groups of 5 each. One group patrolled normally; the second group doubled the patrols; the third group had no patrols at all.

                Findings: No significant differences in the rate of occurrence of preventable crimes - burglary/auto theft/robbery/etc. in any of the areas; citizens apparently unaware of the changes in patrol in the two areas where this was changed; and, no difference among citizens in the three areas as to their fear of crime before and after the study.

            b.    "Response time" study- found even the fastest police response not effective as most reports came considerably after the event. Also, consistently fast response had little effect on citizen satisfaction or on the arrest of suspects.

               iii.    Response to Kansas City Findings:

                    1.    Patrolling known Hot Spots (Directed Patrolling)
                    2.    Aggressive Preventive Patrol - makes use of field interviews of suspicious persons to deter criminal activity
                    3.    Prioritized calls for service - quick response only to crimes in progress or where serious crimes occurred. Example: Fairfax County, Va. accepted reports of routine thefts/burglaries over the telephone.

        3.    Community-Oriented/Problem Solving Policing - 1970's to present - stresses the service role of police; envisions a partnership between police and the communities. Service Style: Concern with helping rather than strict enforcement. Uses all of the community resources in order to prevent crime and solve problems. Seeks to meet the needs of the citizens.

            a.    Police increasingly see crime as a problem to be solved. This change began in the 70's as police administrators increasingly saw that the traditional policing methods no longer were truly effective.

            b.    Team policing was a first effort to bring officers closer to the communities they served. Officers assigned on a semi-permanent basis to particular neighborhoods, usually to mini-precincts in storefronts. This enhanced the officers knowledge of the people and problems - the old beat cop idea. In Wash D.C. and Baltimore, Md., the cities subsidize the purchase of homes by officers in their neighborhoods. Beat officers also allowed to handle complaints from receipt through resolution. Crimes, unless major, are worked on the beat level. Although not widely successful due to police resistance to change, 3 of its components have proved to be successful:

            c.    Community-Oriented Policing

            d.    Problem Solving Policing

                i.    Police are trained to approach a call for service as a problem to be solved rather than approaching policing as self-contained service calls in which officers address only the immediate concern of the complainant.
                ii.    A problem is defined as a group of incidents that are related because they are similar, or occur in the same location, or involve the same person or victims.
                iii.    By analysis of the problem the police can involve the citizens in the solution.
                iv.    The problem solving process:

                    1.    Identifying the problem
                    2.    Analyzing the problem
                    3.    Developing an effective response to the problem.

II.     WOMEN IN POLICING (see, pgs 134\36)

    A.    The Detective's Function

        1.    They work a variety of details - vice/drugs/homicide - usually in plain clothes - sometimes in disguises.
        2.    They visit crime scenes to look for leads; interview witness and victims; and record the nature of offense.
        3.    Most evidentiary gathering is usually performed by trained evidence technicians.
        4.    They identify suspects; develop sufficient probable cause for searches and/or arrests; make arrests; assist the prosecutor in preparing the case for indictment and trial; and testify at trial.
        5.    Interrogation is the most common tool of the detective.

    B.    The Rand Study and the Romanticized View of Detectives.

            a.    Writing and reviewing reports
            b.    Documenting files
            c.    Attempting to locate and interview victims in cases that experience indicates will never be solved.
            d.    In solved cases, investigator's spend much more time in post-clearance processing than in actually determining the perpetrator.
            e.    The public and juries expect application of scientific methods to crime solving, whereas Rand determined that in more than half of all serious reported crimes these methods were rarely employed.
            f.    The study showed that determinants of whether a case is solved are the amount of time between the commission of the crime and police notification, and the completeness of information given by the victim to the patrol officers who initially responded to the complaint.
            g.    Another scholar, Carl Klockers, reported that about 95% of crimes are solved because a patrol officer caught the offender at the scene; or, because a witness identifies the witness; or, due to routine clerical work such as tracing a license tag.