Law and Order Unit V
 The Police: Organization, Role and
Function
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Police organization
 Most municipal police departments are
independent agencies
 They rarely work with other departments
 They have their own budgets, rules, policies,
procedures
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Police Department Rank system
 Patrolman
 Bureau Chief
 Sergeant
 Chief of Department
 Lieutenant
 Deputy Commissioner
 Captain
 First Deputy
 Deputy Inspector
Commissioner
 Police commissioner
 Inspector
 Deputy Chief
 Assistant Chief
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Time in Rank system
 A system to promote officers based on their
time in a particular rank
 An officer accrues points based on time in
rank, awards, citations, and test scores
 when the accumulate enough points they get
promoted
 No officer is allowed to skip a rank, an officer
cannot leave a department and assume a
higher rank in another department
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Patrol Function
 Deter crime by maintaining a visible police
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presence
Maintain public order (peacekeeping) within
the patrol area
Enable the police department to respond
quickly to law violations or other emergencies
Identify and apprehend law violators
Aid individuals and care for those who cannot
help themselves
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Patrol Function
 Facilitate the movement of traffic and people
 Create a feeling of security in the community
 A patrol officers responsibilities are immense
they must make split second decisions
 They may face a suicidal teen, angry mob,
armed felon, domestic dispute
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Patrol Function
 Most of the time they are peacekeeping, this
is where the officer must use discretion
 Discretion is vital, officers must decide if a
noisy neighbor complaint can be handled
with just talking to the people or making
arrests
 They are looked as community problem
solvers
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Does Patrol Deter crime?
 A visible police presence was once considered
vital to deterring crime
 The 1970’s experiment on patrols was
designed to shed some light on the
effectiveness of patrols
 They divided the 15 districts into 3 groups, on e
group retained the normal patrols, the second
group increased the number of patrols and the
third eliminated patrols
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K.C. patrol experiment
 The results of the experiment showed that
patrols had little effect on crime patterns
 And had little impact on the citizens attitude
towards the police
 Displacement might be a reason for the crime
rates not changing
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Improving patrols
 Proactive policing: an aggressive law
enforcement style that take the initiative
against crime instead of waiting for criminal
acts to occur
 Aggressive patrol: jurisdictions that have
patrol officers issue citations, aggressively
arrest, detain suspects and actively enforce
minor infractions have lower crime rates
 NY city took an aggressive approach in the
90’s and greatly reduced their crime rate
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Improving Patrols
 Targeting specific crimes in specific areas
 Patrols are increased in areas that have high
crime rates, officers are told what crimes
have been the biggest problems and they
look for that type of activity
 Kansas City gun experiment, police targeted
a problem area for guns. Prior to the gun
patrol there where 169 gun crimes in 29
weeks, after they had 86 in 29 weeks
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Improving Patrols
 Evidence shows that more arrests reduces
the number of crimes
 Aggressive police activity reduces the
number of crimes
 Technology: NYPD introduced Compstat, a
computer program that takes input on crime
and shows where patrols should target
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Detectives
 They investigate the cause of crime and
attempt to identify the individuals
responsible
 Sometimes they go undercover and try to
infiltrate a criminal organization
 They can pose as victims to capture predatory
criminals
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Broken Window Model
 George Kelling and James Q. Wilson created
the Broken Window Model
Their three points are
1) neighborhood disorder creates fear. Urban
areas filled with street people, youth gangs,
prostitutes, and the mentally disturbed are the
ones most likely to maintain high degrees of crime
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Broken Window Model
 2) neighborhoods give out crime-promoting
signals. A neighborhood filled with
deteriorated housing, unrepaired broken
windows and untended disorderly behavior
gives out crime promoting signals. Honest
citizens live in fear in these areas and
predatory criminals are attracted to them
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Broken Window Model
 3) Police need citizen cooperation. If police
are to reduce fear and successfully combat
crime in these urban areas they must have
the cooperation, support and assistance of
the citizens
 This approach requires a change in the entire
department , not just a small department
located in a traditional police department
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Community Policing
 Programs designed to bring police and the
public closer together and create a more
cooperative working environment between
them
 The federal government has encouraged the
growth by providing millions in aid for the
hiring and training of officers for this program
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Community Policing
 Early attempts to improve relationships
between the community and the police had
been handled by the Police-community
relations or PCR unit
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Community Policing
 Foot patrols took officers out of the cars and on
to the streets was one of the first steps to
implementing community policing
 It gave police a face and formed a bond between the
community and the police
 The first foot patrol experiments were conducted
in Michigan and New Jersey
 Residents in the area perceived greater safety and
were less afraid of crime even though crime rates did
not drop
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Community Policing
 Community-oriented policing: programs
designed to bring police and the public closer
together and create a more cooperative
working environment
 Feature a bottom-up approach to community
problem solving, decision making involves
the officer on the scene not directives from
headquarters
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Community Policing
 Neighborhood policing: problem solving is
best done at the neighborhood level,
 police take the initiative in identifying issues
and actively treating the cause
 Efforts are made to decentralize
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Community Policing
 Police have to share power with community
organizations
 Citizens must be active
 Patrol officers become managers of their
beats
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Community Policing
 Police departments have to alter their
recruitment and training
 Officers must be problem solvers, along with
their normal police duties
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Problem oriented Policing
 They focus on the problems of the
community and find ways to solve them
 They will develop tactical units to combat the
crimes of the community
 Gang units
 Drug units
 Car theft units
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Internal affairs
 investigates allegations of police misconduct
 When there is an allegation they investigate
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