Chapter 6

Summary:
When hiring patrol officers, agencies strive to get the most qualified and capable individuals. Once chose, these individuals go through an academy training as well as a field training.  Once through with the field training exercises, the individual is released to work on their own.  There are four different personalities associated with working as a patrol officer: enforcers, idealists, realists, and optimists.  There are also four basic tasks of the patrol officer: enforce the law, perform welfare tasks, prevent crime, and protect the innocent.  The three distinctive policing styles developed by James Q. Wilson are the watchman, legalistic, and service oriented individuals. The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment found that the deterrent effect of policing is not reduced when routine patrolling is reduced.  Traffic detail is an essential function of patrol officers and helps to reduce traffic deaths and injuries.  Police discretion is a controversial issue concerning the authority of officers to make decisions in enforcing the law based on one’s observations and judgment rather than the letter of the law.  Two important decisions must be made when defining discretion: whether to intervene in a situation and how to intervene.  Law, officer attitude, and citizen attitude are all variables that can change an officer’s decision in a situation. Community policing attempts to bring the police and citizens together to work on the problem of crime in the area.  The work of forensics and detectives is broad, including corpus delicti, modus operandi, linking suspect with the victim, linking a person to a crime scene, disproving or supporting a witness’s testimony, and identification of a suspect.  The steps of these investigations are as follows: preliminary investigation, continuing investigation, reconstructing the crime, and focusing the investigation.  DNA analysis is the most sophisticated and reliable type of physical evidence and allowed investigative personnel to exonerate people who were convicted in the past for crimes they did not commit.

Objectives:

• Describe the ideal traits typically sought among people who are hired into policing
   
• Explain the kinds of topics that are taught in the recruit academy and overall methods for preparing recruits for a career in policing
   
• Delineate the methods and purposes of the FTO concept
   
• Describe the several basic tasks and distinctive styles of policing
   
• Explain what is meant by a police working personality, including how it is developed and operates
   
• Clarify how the work of policing can be perilous in nature
   
• Discuss the nature of the police traffic function
   
• Define police discretion, how and why it is allowed to function, and some of its advantages and disadvantages
   
• Explain the current era of policing, the community era, and the prevailing philosophy and strategies of community policing and problem solving
   
• Review the qualities, myths, and methods that involve investigative personnel

Outline:

• From Citizen to Patrol Officer
   
  • Recruiting the Best
     
  • Recruit Training
     
  • Field Training Officer
     
• Having the “Right Stuff”: A Working Personality
   
  • Enforcers        
     
  • Idealists          
     
  • Realists
     
  • Optimists
     
  • Traits That Make a “Good” Officer
     
• Defining the Role
   
  • Four Basic Tasks
     
  • Three Distinctive Styles
     
  • Perils of Patrol
     
• A Study of Patrol Effectiveness
   
  • Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment
     
• The Traffic Function
   
  • Traffic function
     
• Police Discretion
   
  • Discretion
     
  • The Myth of Full Enforcement
     
  • Attempts to Define Discretion
     
  • Determinants of Discretionary Actions
     
  • Pros and Cons of Discretion
     
• Community Policing and Problem Solving
   
  • Public has a vested interest in addressing neighborhood crime and disorder
     
  • Peel’s principle: the 2 should work together
     
  • Problem-oriented policing
     
  • Try to be less reactive and more proactive
     
  • 3 elements must exist for a crime to occur
     
• The Work of Forensics and Detectives
   
  • Forensic Science and Criminalistics: Defining the Terms
     
  • Investigative Stages and Activities
     
  • Myths and Attributes of Detectives
     
  • Using DNA Analysis