Police in America. Steven G. Brandl
newspapers, or in person. The predominantly white police forces became viewed by many as an “occupying army” in the low-income, minority ghettos of urban cities, and suddenly the police were viewed as racists and as “pigs.” American society was in turmoil. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Later in the decade, senator and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were murdered. Helter Skelter and Charles Manson were making headlines, and fear of crime increased dramatically. America was in the grip of the Vietnam War and the attendant protests against it. Drug use, the hippie movement, and women’s liberation were prominent counterculture movements. The Beatles sang “Revolution.”
Figure 2.1 Representation of Minority Police Officers and Population in Select Cities, 1960s
These are estimates regarding the representation of minority officers in select police departments and the representation of minorities in those same cities late in the reform era. Minority officers were vastly underrepresented in police departments compared to their percentage of the general population.40
Source: Data from Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. 1968. Report of the Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Washington, DC: National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
The police were experiencing a crisis, yet they were supposed to have the knowledge and capabilities to control crime successfully. If the situation was not bad enough for the police, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered several landmark decisions during this decade, such as Mapp v. Ohio and Miranda v. Arizona, that were seen as “handcuffing” the police. In 1967, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice issued a report that represented the first systematic analysis of crime and how the criminal justice system could be made more effective. Especially significant was its call for the incorporation of technology, data collection and analysis, and federal resources in crime fighting.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several major research studies were conducted to examine the effectiveness of police operations. It was found that motorized patrols did not prevent crime,41 detectives contributed little to solving crimes,42 and fast police responses to crime scenes seldom led to the police making on-scene apprehensions. Given the conditions of society, many people were not surprised by these conclusions. By the end of the 1960s, it was clear that the current style of policing was not working well. The police were once again in the midst of a crisis as they struggled to deal with the demands of the new society.
Good Policing
What’s “Good” Changes Over Time
Throughout this book, in the “Good Policing” feature, certain police practices and strategies are highlighted as examples of good police work. It is important to understand, however, that what was thought of as good policing years ago may not be good today and what is recognized as “good” today may not be thought of in the same way in the future. Notions of “good policing” are always changing and can be influenced by many factors. In particular, human values and morality can influence what is thought to be good policing. As an example, slave patrols used to be considered good policing, as was the practice of torture (the “third degree”) to obtain confessions. As beliefs about human rights and values changed, so too did ideas about the best ways to conduct police work. Research findings can also influence notions of good policing. For instance, reliance on preventive patrol and fast police response time used to be considered the ultimate in good policing strategy. Subsequent research has strongly questioned this belief. Good policing is also dependent on technology. Use of police body-worn cameras is considered a good practice today, but because they were not yet invented, their use years ago was not even possible. Good policing may also be situational dependent; what is good policing in one community may not be considered as such in another. Good policing depends on the views and needs of citizens. As you read the “Good Policing” features in this book, remember that what is “good” is time and situation specific.
The 1970s to the Present: The Community Problem-Solving Era of Policing
In the face of these concerns, the police realized that the old ideas of professionalism no longer worked. The police needed to get closer to the community to enlist the support and assistance of its members in fighting crime. With this realization, the community problem-solving era of policing was born.43 As we will discuss in Chapter 13, early (and ineffective) attempts at getting closer to the community took the form of police-community relations bureaus and team policing.44
community problem-solving era: An era of policing that emphasizes the assistance and support of the community in fighting crime.
Figure 2.2 Four Eras of American Policing
Source: National Institute of Justice.
Community and Problem-Oriented Policing
Community policing and problem-oriented policing have a prominent place in the community problem-solving era of policing. Community policing represents many different things to many different people, but the core idea is that the police institute policies and practices that involve citizens in policing. The intent of community policing is to foster coproduction. With coproduction, the idea is that police and the community coproduce crime prevention. As such, community policing is about creating cooperative relationships with citizens; having officers be in direct, day-to-day contact with citizens as much as possible; and having officers be in a position to listen to citizens and address their concerns. In areas where community policing is practiced, community meetings, community surveys, neighborhood watches, and means of patrol other than automobile (e.g., foot, horse, bicycle, and in some places even rollerblades and skateboards) have become popular.
coproduction: A concept in which the police and the community work together to prevent crime.
Photo 2.6 The community problem-solving style of policing focuses on building relationships with citizens and citizens and police working together to prevent crime.
@Michael B. Thomas/AFP/Getty Images
Photo 2.7 Police work today requires officers to use many different technologies and tools.
@AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin
Closely related to community policing is problem-oriented policing. With problem-oriented policing, the police become more concerned with identifying and addressing community crime problems and do so with the input and assistance of citizens. Herman Goldstein introduced the concept of problem-oriented policing when he argued that the police had succumbed to the means over ends syndrome, meaning that the police were more concerned with how things were done than with the goals they were supposed to achieve. He argued that the police should become more problem oriented and less incident driven.45
means over ends syndrome: When police are more concerned with how things are done than with the goals they are supposed to achieve.
The community problem-solving era has been a time in which an extraordinary amount of research on police, crime, and criminal justice issues has been conducted. Prior to the 1970s, the number of major