Chapter 13: Police and
Delinquency
 Click here for a very
simple EC
assignment!
 Policing in the United States
 Police, Children, and the Law
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-Arrest
-Booking
-Interrogation
-Search and Seizure
-Lineups
 Police Discretion
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-Legal Factors
-Non-legal Factors
 Police Diversion
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-Internal Diversion
-External Diversion
 A. Policing in the United States
 1) A Brief History
 a. The type of police system the colonists from England utilized was known as watch
and ward, or a system of policing that allowed a constable to draft any male into
service to guard the town at night
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i. Also, the hue and cry, or a loud call for help shouted by colonial police when they were in
need of assistance, was used frequently
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ii. Though it worked fairly well in the beginning when there was little crime, this system soon
proved to be inadequate
 b. In the 19th century, a new style of policing was adopted, after large influxes of
immigrants made their way to America
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i. The fear of crime from the newcomers by 'old-time Americans' coupled with the feeling of
a decaying society set the stage for police reform
Champaign, IL
Youth Detention
Facility
 c. Looking to England for effective models of policing, the public endorsed the idea
that the government ought to provide for the social well-being and protection of its
citizens
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i. However, it was not until the 20th century that police departments created juvenile units
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ii. Also around this time, the first female officer (Lola Baldwin), was hired in Portland, Oregon
(1905)
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iii. Several years later, New York City and Washington D.C. began to hire women to 'look after'
delinquent children
 d. By 1924, most urban police departments had established juvenile bureaus, and
this trend continued with the outbreak of delinquent gang activity
 B. Police, Children, and the Law
 1) Pivotal Supreme Court Cases
 a. Perhaps the most important case to deal with juveniles and the law was Miranda
v. Arizona (1966), even though the plaintiff in this case wasn't a child
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i. Ernesto Miranda (23 years old at this time) was accused of sexually aggravated assault
after 18 year old Ann Johnson was kidnapped and violated on March 2, 1963
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ii. After Ann Johnson provided police with a description and other information, the police
picked up Ernesto Miranda and asked him whether he would voluntarily talk with them
about the incident, (he agreed)
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iii. During police interrogation, two Phoenix, Arizona police officers told Ernesto that the
victim had identified him as the suspect after Miranda voluntarily participated in a police
lineup
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iv. Miranda agreed to prepare and sign a written confession in which he described his
involvement in the incident, and acknowledged that he had given said confession with full
knowledge of his legal rights
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v. When the case went to trial, Alvin Moore (Ernesto's public defender) argued that the
police had never informed Miranda of his legal rights or of his right to an attorney
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vi. After an appellate court upheld the lower courts decision after an appeal, Miranda's new
attorney, John Flynn, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court where he was victorious by a 5-4
majority opinion
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vii. From this incident, we have the Miranda warnings (rights) that are required to be stated
by all federal, state and local police officers before questioning
Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
 b. In 1967, in the case of In re Gault, the court handed down the opinion that
juveniles may not be denied basic due process rights in juvenile adjudicatory
hearings (due process also applies to children)
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i. The outcome of this case was that the court extended to juveniles many of the same
protections that had been established for adults in Miranda, including the right against selfincrimination and the right to counsel
 c. In Mapp v. Ohio, the court decreed that the exclusionary rule, (evidence police
produce illegally is not admissible in court—as dictated by the fourth amendment),
applies to state courts
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i. Also, the one arm's length rule, (or the rule that states that once a suspect is arrested, police
may search the suspect and the immediate area he or she occupies), was established in Chimel
v. California
 d. To make a legal arrest, the police must have probable cause, or a set of facts that
would lead a reasonable person to believe a crime has been committed and the
person to be arrested committed it
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i. In a misdemeanor case, police can arrest a person only if the crime is committed in their
presence (called the in prescence requirement)
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ii. In felony cases, an arrest can be made if police either observe the crime in progress, or if they
have knowledge a felony crime has occurred and have probable cause to believe that a particular
person committed it
 e. During the booking of a juvenile (the official recording of a person into detention
after arrest) there are significant differences between a child and an adult
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i. In most states, minors are forbidden from being fingerprinted and/or photographed without a
court order
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ii. When a child reaches the age of 18, they can have their prior juvenile record
destroyed through an expungment order, which must be issued by a judge to a
police department
 f. During interrogation, (police questioning), juveniles have the right to
remain silent and have the right to an attorney
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i. In People v. Lara (1967), the court decided that whether or not children are
capable of waiving their rights during interrogation will be determined by
examining the 'totality of the circumstances in the case‘
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ii. In Fare v. Michael C., the court held that a child asking to speak to a probation
officer is not equivalent to requesting to see an attorney (requesting to speak to
an attorney invokes the child's Miranda rights)
 g. Children have a right to counsel at lineups after they are charged with a
crime
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i. If this right is violated, any information produced at the pretrial identification stage of the process
will most likely be inadmissible in court due to fourth amendment protections (the exclusionary
rule)
 C. Police Discretion
 1. Legal Factors - Police are able to exert a fair amount of discretion in society, and
there are several ways in which law enforcement officers can deal with juveniles
 a. Although police should make decisions based on legal criteria, sometimes they are
influenced by non-legal factors
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i. Doug Smith found that suspects in lower-class neighborhoods were more likely to be arrested
than those police stopped in middle- or upper-class areas, in his 1986 study
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ii. In 1972, 45% of juveniles taken into police custody were handled informally within the
department and released, while in 1999 this number dropped to 23%
 b. Legal Factors have great influence over the arrest decision: offense seriousness,
presence of evidence, and prior arrest record
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i. The more serious the offense, the more likely it will be for the police officer to arrest the juvenile,
according to a study conducted by Robert Terry
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ii. Generally speaking, police determine how they will handle a case based on 3 specific
criteria: was the offense sophisticated, malicious, or premeditated?
 c. Robert Terry's study concluded that a juveniles' prior arrest record was a very
strong predictor of police action
 d. Donald Black and Albert Reiss found that there are two ways that police determine
whether a suspect was connected with a crime:
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i. did police see the suspect commit the crime?
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ii. Informants
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iii. In summary, police exercise an enormous amount of discretion when dealing with
juveniles
 2. Non-legal Factors
 a. There are several non-legal factors that influence the decisions police officers
make when dealing with juveniles: Race, offender's attitude, social class, sex, age,
and structure of police departments
 b. Race has received much more attention than any other non-legal factor, especially
when officers engage in racial-profiling
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i. Proportionally, more black than white juveniles are arrested, and this may be related to
racial profiling
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ii. For example, many police departments may assign more patrol officers to black
neighborhoods than to white ones
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iii. In addition, negative attitudes about statistics related to race and criminal activity may
generate flawed, stereotypical views among police officers regarding race
 c. Howard Becker noted in 1963 that citizens who were disrespectful to police
officers were more likely to be arrested (this should go without saying!)
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i. Several studies have shown that most police decision were based on character
cues or social cues by the suspect (such as the juveniles age, race, grooming,
dress, and demeanor)
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ii. Researcher Aaron Cicourel examined the role of demeanor (which is alleged to
be a principal predictor of outcome in police-citizen relations) and determined that
police initially try to establish a 'trust' relationship with the suspect
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iii. If a police officer feels that this trust relationship is violated or tarnished, the
officer is much more likely to arrest the individual
 d. In contrast to these other researchers, David Klinger argued that the
suspects' demeanor does not exert an independent impact on the arrest
decision because the problem with earlier studies is that they did not control
for hostile behavior that occurred after the arrest; therefore they could not
have influenced the arrest decision
 e. There has also been a dispute as to whether or not social class played
any significant role in police-civilian relations
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i. Terence Thornberry found that social class had a strong effect on police dispositions that
did not go away when controlling for offense seriousness or prior record
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ii. Aaron Cicourel found that social class was related to police referrals of juveniles to court,
but explained that social class operated indirectly on the likelihood of court referral (i.e.
middle and upper class families were able to mobilize and utilize better resources after their
juvenile had come into contact with law enforcement)
 f. Thomas Monahan reported that police were more likely to arrest girls than boys for
sex offenses, also mentioning that police treated female suspects more leniently
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i. Ruth Horowitz, Ann Pottiger found that girls who committed serious felonies were less
likely to be arrested than boys, but were more likely than males to be arrested for less
serious crimes
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ii. There is also evidence that shows that once female delinquents are arrested, they are
more likely to be referred to juvenile court and are treated more harshly than male
delinquents (early research conducted by Meda-Chesney Lind and Randall Shelden)
 g. Criminologists have also studied the relationship between an offender's age and
police disposition, with Nathan Goldman finding that older youth were more likely to
be arrested and referred to juvenile court
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i. Goldman concluded that the offenses of very young children were typically less serious,
and that some police officers considered the offenses of young children as normal childish
'mischief‘
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ii. Also, Goldman postulated that some police officers felt as though formal system
processing would do more harm than good, especially if they believed that the child did not
fit the stereotypical mold of a 'menace to society‘
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iii. George Bodine found that for both first-time and repeat offenders, the percentages of
children referred to court were smaller for younger juveniles than for older ones
 h. The structure and organization of a police department can also have a profound
impact on how police deal with juveniles
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i. In James Q. Wilson's comparative study of juvenile Bureaus in a Western City (highly
bureaucratized) and an Eastern City (lacked systematic rules), he found that juveniles were
either treated all the same or on a differential basis, respectively
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ii. Wilson's study suggest that when there is both centralized management and close
supervision, departmental policy will more likely be adhered to by officers in the field
 D. Police Diversion
 1. Through Internal and External Diversion, officers are able to look at several
different options when taking a juvenile into custody
 a. The most common form of internal diversion is diversion without referral in which
police warn, counsel and release the child without taking any formal action
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i. Contrarily, diversion with referral is when a youth is referred to a program administered by
an agency other than the juvenile justice system
 b. Internal diversion often takes one of the four following forms
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i. an internal referral or an in-house diversion is the referral of a case from one branch of the
police department to another branch that is better equipped to handle it
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ii. Community volunteer programs identify and recruit citizens to provide assistance to
problem youth (i.e. Big Brothers/Big Sisters Club)
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iii. Recreational programs are utilized in many police departments across the nation and are
based on the assumption that if youths are exposed to the benefits of sportsmanship, they
will internalize these values and apply them to the other spheres of life (i.e. Police Athletic
League programs)
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iv. Probation programs are designed to teach children that they must stay out of trouble,
and juveniles in such programs must often report to police officers on a regular basis
 c. External diversion programs serve as an alternative to processing the child
through the juvenile justice system, and police officers often use four criteria to
determine whether or not to refer a youth to a community service agency:
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i. Acceptability – Police officers often have a tendency to stereotype certain service
agencies (such as free clinics) as soft and coddling and typically view them with suspicion
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ii. Suitability – Some agencies may only accept certain cases, and may have policies that
inadvertently make them difficult to utilize by law enforcement
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iii. Availability The availability of resources is no guarantee of quality and there is often a low
level of resource awareness among police
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iv. Accountability – By actively soliciting comments from referral agencies, police are better
able to make future referrals and to improve communication with service agencies
 d. In summary, there are several conclusions that can be reached when it comes to
law enforcement-juvenile relations
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i. Police departments vary considerably in their policies with respect to juveniles
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ii. The handling of serious offenses by police is often based on legal criteria
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iii. For misdemeanor crimes, the decision on whether or not to arrest an individual is based
primarily on the preference of the complainant
Click here for an assignment worth up to 30 Miscellaneous points
DUE: NLT Sunday, April 11
Length: 800 words
-end of chapter 13 notes