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

2. 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

3. Learning objectives Discuss four major problems of policing
Distinguish between deadly and non deadly force—and methods for controlling each
Explain the importance of less-lethal weapons
Be familiar with the Supreme Court’s involvement with the police through its effort to control search and seizure, interrogation, and the establishment of the exclusionary rule.

4. 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

5. 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

6. Who Are the Police? Minority Police Officers: 1861 1872
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.

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Policing Style
Crime Fighter
Social Agent
Law Enforcer
Watchman

16. 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

17. 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

18. Problems of Policing
Job Stress
Fatigue
Violence
Corruption

19. 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)

20. Four Varieties of Corruption
Internal corruption
Selective or non-enforcement
Active criminality
Bribery and extortion

21. Causes of Corruption No single explanation
Wide discretion by police coupled with low public visibility
Unenforceable laws governing moral standards promote corruption

22. (public review boards) Strengthen Internal Administrative Review
Control of Corruption
External controls
(public review boards)
Strengthen Internal Administrative Review

23. 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

24. 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

25. Controlling Deadly Force
Fleeing-Felon rule
Tennessee v. Garner
Review State-controlled firearms policies
Department internal reviews

26. 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

27. Use of Force

28. 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

29. 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
Suspect’s arrest
Case presentation to the prosecutor’s office with sufficient evidence to convict

30. 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

31. 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

32. Discussion Questions Why are search warrants required?
What information is required for a search warrant?
What exceptions are there to the search warrant requirement?

33. Warrants

34. Police and the Rule of Law
Warrantless Searches:
Under certain circumstances a valid search may be conducted without a search warrant

35. Six Valid Warrantless Searches
Search incident to a valid arrest
Stop and frisk
Automobile search
Consent Search
Plain view search
Exigent circumstances

36. 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

37. 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