| abuse of authority | Actions by a police officer, under the guise of his or her authority, that tend to injure, insult, trespass on human dignity, and/or violate a citizen's inherent civil rights.
|
 |
|
|
| accountability | Having to answer for one's conduct. Both police organizations and individual officers are distinctly accountable to the public, elected officials, and the courts for how well they control crime, maintain order, and perform these tasks while remaining in compliance with the law.
|
|
|
|
| accreditation | The process of voluntary professional self-regulation that serves as a final approach to establishing minimum national standards in policing.
|
|
|
|
| affirmative action | Originating in 1965, a court-ordered plan establishing specific goals and timetables for the employment of minorities and women for any private employer or government agency receiving federal funds.
|
|
|
|
| Alice Stebbins Wells | A leader of the policewomen's movement, organized the International Association of Policewomen in 1915.
|
|
|
|
| analysis | The second stage of the SARA model of problem-oriented policing, in which the police collect information about a problem to help identify its scope, nature, and cause.
|
|
|
|
| assessment | The fourth stage of the SARA model of problem-oriented policing, in which the effectiveness of the response is evaluated through rigorous feedback that allows for revision if the response is not successful.
|
|
|
|
| assessment center | A technique used in police departments to evaluate the ability of an applicant to handle the job being sought through promotion.
|
|
|
|
| August Vollmer | Chief of police in Berkeley, California, from 1905 to 1932, known as the father of police professionalism for advocating higher education for police officers and promoting organizational reform within departments.
|
|
|
|
| authorized strength | The maximum number of sworn officers any given law enforcement agency is authorized to employ.
|
|
|
|
| behaviorally arrested | Occurs when taking a suspect into custody involves a number of different actions, such as a stop (in which the officer tells the individual not to leave), a verbal statement that the person is "under arrest," or physically restraining a person.
|
|
|
|
| blue curtain | A code of silence among police officers whereby officers refuse to testify against corrupt officers, creating a veil of secrecy around police actions.
|
|
|
|
| blue-ribbon commissions | Commissions serving as a form of external accountability for police conduct that address a full range of police issues and bring together leading experts to help improve local departments.
|
|
|
|
| bona fide occupational qualification | Provides protection for employers who refuse to hire people not possessing established qualifications that are reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business.
|
|
|
|
| Boston Police Strike | Occurred in 1919 when 1,117 officers went on strike and formed a police union after having received no pay raise in nearly twenty years. After violence and disorder erupted throughout Boston, the strike quickly collapsed and the striking officers were fired.
|
|
|
|
| bribe | Something offered or given to a person in the hope of influencing that individual's views or conduct. Police bribes can include monetary payoffs to protect illegal activity, sell information on criminal investigations, remove criminal files, or alter testimony in court.
|
|
|
|
| broken windows hypothesis | Developed by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, argues that police should focus their resources on disorder problems that create fear of crime and lead to neighborhood decay.
|
|
|
|
| bureaucracy | A pyramidal model of government administration in which tasks are grouped into separate bureaus or departments and information flows up and down according to the hierarchical structure. Marked by diffuse authority, visible divisions of labor, and inflexible rules of operation, each employee answers to one supervisor, creating a uniform and clear chain of command.
|
|
|
|
| call girl | One who represents the upper end of the economic scale of prostitution by catering to a more affluent customer and generally making arrangements over the telephone. Since call girls do not actually walk the streets, their activities are not visible to either the public or the police.
|
|
|
|
| campus police | Special district police who serve college and university campuses.
|
|
|
|
| citizen oversight | An approach designed to provide independent citizen input for complaints filed against the police through agencies that independently review citizens' complaints, monitor the complaint process, scrutinize general police practices, review department policy and recommend policy changes, and audit the quality of complaint investigations.
|
|
|
|
| civilians | Those who follow the pursuits of civil life and are not employed as sworn officers or officials.
|
|
|
|
| civil service | A nearly universal set of formal and legally binding procedures governing personnel decisions in police organizations, ensuring that such decisions are based on objective criteria and not on favoritism, bias, or political influence.
|
|
|
|
| clearance rate | The traditional measure of success in criminal investigations for a police agency based on when the police have identified the offender, have sufficient evidence to charge him or her, and actually take the individual into custody.
|
|
|
|
| code of silence | Also known as the "blue curtain," a code of honor among police officers whereby officers refuse to testify against corrupt colleagues, creating a veil of secrecy around police actions.
|
|
|
|
| collective bargaining | A method of determining conditions of employment through bilateral negotiations according to the following principles: Employees have a legal right to form unions; employers must recognize employee unions; employees have a right to participate in negotiations over working conditions; and employers are required to negotiate with the union's designated representatives.
|
|
|
|
| community partnership | A collaborative partnership that stresses increased interaction between the police and the public to make the police more responsive to the community's needs and reduce community decay and disorder.
|
|
|
|
| community policing | A model of policing that stresses a two-way working relationship between the community and the police, in which the police become more integrated into the local community and citizens assume an active role in crime control and prevention.
|
|
|
|
| COMPSTAT | (Computer Comparison Statistics) An organizational model, first used by the New York City police in 1994, that allows police departments to blend timely intelligence, effective tactics, rapid deployment of personnel, and vigorous follow-up and assessment.
|
|
|
|
| constable | A peace officer who is empowered to serve writs and warrants but has a smaller jurisdiction than a sheriff.
|
|
|
|
| containment | A strategy used by police to confine the homeless problem to one area of a community to both minimize disorder and keep homeless people out of public view.
|
|
|
|
| contingency theory | A theoretical framework for understanding the structures and practices of police organizations based on the underlying premise that these organizations are created and structured to achieve specific goals, such as crime control, and will ultimately fail if unable to adjust to environmental contingencies.
|
|
|
|
| coroner | A medical examiner responsible for aiding criminal investigations by probing deaths not thought to be of natural causes.
|
|
|
|
| corruption | A form of misconduct or deviant behavior by police officers that involves the misuse of authority in a manner designed to produce personal gain for themselves or for others.
|
|
|
|
| counterpunching | Occurs when someone calls the police about another person to divert attention from his or her own behavior.
|
|
|
|
| county police | Municipal police that operate on a countywide basis and lack the non-law enforcement roles of the county sheriff. About 1 percent of local departments are county police.
|
|
|
|
| deadly force | The legal right of police officers to use force with the intent to kill if placed in a defense-of-life situation.
|
|
|
|
| decentralize | To place greater decision-making responsibility on rank-and-file officers at the neighborhood level and to become more responsive to neighborhood residents.
|
|
|
|
| decertification | The process of revoking a police officer's license to work in a given state; addresses the problem of an officer who is fired from one department for misconduct and is then hired by another, but does not prevent the fired officer from being hired in another state.
|
|
|
|
| defense-of-life rule | States that police officers are allowed to use deadly force only in situations where their own lives or the life of another person are in danger.
|
|
|
|
| deformalize | To eliminate many of the rules and policies that stifle creativity and discourage problem solving within police organizations.
|
|
|
|
| delayerize | To decrease the amount of social and administrative distance between the beat officer and the chief of police.
|
|
|
|
| despecialize | To replace specialized police units with neighborhood officers who are more knowledgeable about the problems their neighborhoods face.
|
|
|
|
| differential response | The screening of 911 calls by the police to provide responses appropriate to the nature and severity of the calls.
|
|
|
|
| discovery time | The interval between the commission of a crime and its discovery.
|
|
|
|
| discretion | The freedom to act on one's own judgment.
|
|
|
|
| discrimination | Differential treatment based on some extra-legal category such as race, ethnicity, or gender.
|
|
|
|
| disparity | Differences or inequalities that are not necessarily caused by differential treatment.
|
|
|
|
| domestic disturbance | A dispute requiring police response that involves two or more people engaged in an intimate relationship (married or divorced couples, live-in lovers, people on a first date, problems between adults and children, or adults and elderly parents).
|
|
|
|
| domestic violence | A disturbance between two or more people engaged in an intimate relationship that has escalated to a degree involving actual or threatened violence.
|
|
|
|
| early warning system | A management information system that systematically compiles and analyzes data on problematic police officer behavior, citizen complaints, police officer use of force reports, and other indicators to identify officers with recurring performance problems.
|
|
|
|
| ethnicity | The cultural differences existing that characterize a group of people.
|
|
|
|
| field training | A supplement to classroom training that allows for practical experience under the supervision of a training officer in on-the-job type situations.
|
|
|
|
| field training officer (FTO) | An experienced police officer assigned to supervise recruits during field training.
|
|
|
|
| fleeing-felon rule | Declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1985 (Tennessee v. Garner), allowed police the legal right to use deadly force in apprehending a felon attempting to escape.
|
|
|
|
| foot patrol | Officers within a department who make neighborhood rounds on foot. While extremely expensive and able to cover only limited ground, foot patrol allows for enhanced police-community relations.
|
|
|
|
| force factor | A framework for examining a police officer's use of force in relation to the actions of a citizen to help determine if the officer's actions were reasonable.
|
|
|
|
| Fourteenth Amendment | Guarantees equal protection under the law by stating that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens therein, and no state shall make or enforce laws that deprive citizens of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
|
|
|
|
| fragmented | Broken down into separate, decentralized parts.
|
|
|
|
| functional specialization | A form of organizational structure in which employees are assigned specific duties based on their areas of expertise, thereby allowing less critical tasks to be delegated to paraprofessionals.
|
|
|
|
| Garrity ruling | States that a police officer can be disciplined and even dismissed for refusing to answer questions by internal affairs, but the information disclosed cannot then be used against him or her in a criminal prosecution.
|
|
|
|
| grass eater | A police officer who passively accepts gratuities offered to him or her.
|
|
|
|
| gratuities | The most common form of police corruption, gifts or favors given to police officers, sometimes out of a sincere effort to thank the officers but often out of self-interest with an expectation of better police service.
|
|
|
|
| hackers | Individuals who crack into computer networks for either the thrill of the experience, to make an illegal financial transaction, or to create computer viruses that have the potential to destroy computer data.
|
|
|
|
| hate crime | A criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic/national origin, or sexual orientation.
|
|
|
|
| high-speed pursuit | A situation where a police officer attempts to stop a vehicle and the suspect knowingly flees at a high rate of speed.
|
|
|
|
| honest law enforcement | An approach representative of low expectations for law enforcement that states police would continue to patrol neighborhoods, answer calls for service, intervene in problem situations, and try to apprehend offenders, but would not make unjustified claims that they are preventing crime.
|
|
|
|
| hot spot | An area that receives a disproportionate number of calls for police service and/or has a very high crime rate.
|
|
|
|
| human disorder | A form of societal neglect resulting from the disorderly actions of individuals in a neighborhood; examples include public drinking, street corner gangs, street harassment, street-level drug sale and use, noisy neighbors, and commercial sex.
|
|
|
|
| injunctions | Court orders that prohibit a specified group from a specific course of action.
|
|
|
|
| insiders | Current or former employees of a company with knowledge about the company's computer infrastructure, which allows them to steal proprietary data such as intellectual property, marketing strategies, client lists, and so on.
|
|
|
|
| institutional theory | A theoretical framework for understanding the structures and practices of police organizations based on the premise that police organizations are social institutions that operate in relation to their external social and political environment.
|
|
|
|
| J. Edgar Hoover | Former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924 to 1972; increased the size and scope of the bureau's capabilities, but is best known for systematically misusing his power and exaggerating the bureau's effectiveness.
|
|
|
|
| job stress | Conditions associated with one's work environment that are mentally or physically disruptive; the major cause of job dissatisfaction.
|
|
|
|
| job stress coping mechanisms | Confidential assistance programs that utilize health professionals and/or peer support groups to help employees cope with personal or work-related problems.
|
|
|
|
| Kansas City Gun Experiment | Designed to reduce gun-related crimes by removing guns from the streets of a high-crime precinct in Kansas City, represented a combination of problem-oriented policing (by focusing on a particular problem) and "hot spots" (by concentrating on particular areas of high criminal activity).
|
|
|
|
| Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment | Conducted from 1972 to 1973, measured the impact of different levels of patrol on criminal activity, community perceptions, police officer behavior, and police department practices, while being the first independent and objective experiment to test the effectiveness of patrol that met the minimum standards of scientific research.
|
|
|
|
| Kerner Commission | Created in 1967 to study issues of race relations; found that hostility between the police and ghetto communities was a major cause for disorder. Officially known as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.
|
|
|
|
| lateral entry | Moving from one police department to another at either the same rank or a higher rank.
|
|
|
|
| Lautenburg Amendment | A federal law passed in 1996 prohibiting anyone with a conviction for domestic violence from owning a firearm.
|
|
|
|
| Law of Equal Employment Opportunity | Designed to eliminate employment discrimination by making it illegal to refuse employment to, discharge, or deny benefits and compensation to anyone on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, or sex.
|
|
|
|
| legalistic style | An organizational style used in police departments that emphasizes aggressive crime fighting and attempts to control officer behavior through a rule-bound, "by-the-book" administrative approach.
|
|
|
|
| legally arrested | Occurs when an individual is deprived of his or her liberty by legal authority and is under arrest or simply taken into custody. A police officer must have the intent to arrest, must communicate that intent to the person, and must actually take the person into custody.
|
|
|
|
| local political control | A tradition, inherited from England during the colonial period, that places primary responsibility for public protection with local governments, both city and county.
|
|
|
|
| local political culture | Values and traditions, communicated informally in a particular department, town, or community, that influence the organizational structure of policing and officer discretion in that area.
|
|
|
|
| London Metropolitan Police | Created in 1829, represents the first example of an efficient, proactive police force. Introduced three important elements of policing: the mission of crime prevention, the strategy of preventative patrol, and an organizational structure similar to the military.
|
|
|
|
| Mapp v. Ohio | A controversial Supreme Court decision that established Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures by the police.
|
|
|
|
| meat eater | A police officer who actively and aggressively demands gratuities.
|
|
|
|
| Minneapolis Domestic Violence Study | A study conducted from 1981 to 1982 to determine the relative deterrent effect of arrest, mediation, and separation in misdemeanor domestic violence incidents; found that arrest produced lower rates of repeat violence than separation or mediation.
|
|
|
|
| municipal police | Also known as city police, denote the most important component of American law enforcement. Representing the majority of all law enforcement agencies and sworn officers, municipal police are responsible for dealing with serious crime, difficult order maintenance problems, and a wide range of emergency services.
|
|
|
|
| Newark Foot Patrol Experiment | Conducted from 1978 to 1979 to test the effect of foot patrol on crime and public perception, concluded that added foot patrol did not affect serious crime, but did have a positive impact on public perception of the police.
|
|
|
|
| O. W. Wilson | Leader of the police professionalization movement from the late 1930s through the end of the 1960s. Developed a formula for efficient management of personnel by assigning patrol officers on the basis of a workload formula that reflected reported crime and calls for service.
|
|
|
|
| occupational deviance | Criminal and improper noncriminal behavior committed during the course of normal work activities or under the guise of a police officer's authority.
|
|
|
|
| officially arrested | Occurs only once the police make an official arrest report.
|
|
|
|
| order maintenance | Police intervention in incidents that do not involve actual criminal activity but often entail "interpersonal conflict" or "public nuisance."
|
|
|
|
| organizational culture | Values and traditions, communicated informally, that influence the organizational style of policing within a police department.
|
|
|
|
| peace officer | A status granted to individuals who have certain powers and providing certain legal protections not available to ordinary citizens. A peace officer can be a probation, parole, or corrections officer.
|
|
|
|
| physical disorder | A form of societal neglect resulting from physical decay within a neighborhood; examples include vandalism, dilapidation and abandonment of buildings, and trash buildup.
|
|
|
|
| police aides | Nonsworn personnel used by police departments to handle low-priority calls and routine assignments, freeing sworn officers for more critical tasks.
|
|
|
|
| police brutality | The use of excessive physical force by the police.
|
|
|
|
| police-community relations | Relations between the police and racial and ethnic minority communities.
|
|
|
|
| police officer | A nonmilitary person who is employed by a government agency and has the authority to use coercive force when carrying out his or her duties.
|
|
|
|
| police-to-population ratio | The standard measure for the level of police protection in a community; usually expressed as the number of sworn officers per thousand population.
|
|
|
|
| political patronage | The power a politician holds to appoint governmental or political positions based on friendship instead of merit.
|
|
|
|
| preliminary investigation | The first stage of investigating a crime, consisting of five steps: identifying and arresting any suspects, providing aid to any victims in need of medical attention, securing the crime scene to prevent loss of evidence, collecting all relevant physical evidence, and preparing a preliminary report.
|
|
|
|
| proactive crime strategies | Anticrime strategies initiated by the police themselves, as opposed to occurring in response to a citizen request for service.
|
|
|
|
| problem-oriented policing | A model of policing that stresses increased police response to identified crime problems.
|
|
|
|
| promotion | Advancement in rank or responsibility usually based on merit, but sometimes the result of personal favoritism.
|
|
|
|
| race | A group of people classified together on the basis of physical and biological similarities.
|
|
|
|
| racial profiling | The practice of making police stops solely on the basis of one's race or ethnicity and not because of criminal activity.
|
|
|
|
| reactive crime strategies | Anticrime strategies used by police when responding to a civilian's request for service.
|
|
|
|
| reality shock | The astonishment a new police officer experiences when encountering the unpleasant aspects of dealing with the public, the criminal justice system, and the department during the first weeks and months on the job.
|
|
|
|
| residual deterrence | Also called the phantom effect, involves assuming the police are patrolling an area from having seen them at another time or place, leading to the presumption that the police are present when there is no patrol in the area.
|
|
|
|
| resource dependency theory | A theoretical framework for understanding the structures and practices of police organizations based on the premise that such organizations must obtain resources to survive, and that to obtain these resources they must engage in exchanges with other organizations in their environment.
|
|
|
|
| response | The third stage of the SARA model of problem-oriented policing, in which data collected during the analysis stage are used to develop a strategy to address the problem and, ultimately, implement a response.
|
|
|
|
| response time | The total amount of time between the commission of a crime and the moment a police officer arrives on the scene.
|
|
|
|
| reverse discrimination | Discrimination focused on whites and/or males; in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
|
|
|
|
| Robert Peel | Credited as the father of modern policing, fought to improve the basic structure of law enforcement and persuaded the English Parliament to establish the London Metropolitan Police in 1829.
|
|
|
|
| scanning | The first stage of the SARA model of problem-oriented policing, in which officers take steps to identify possible problems and expose their underlying causes.
|
|
|
|
| selective contact | A lack of cross-sectional contact and communication between police officers and a community that leads to misperceptions about public attitudes toward the police.
|
|
|
|
| selective perception | The likelihood that police officers will remember traumatic or unpleasant incidents with citizens, even though only 2 to 5 percent of contacts involve hostility or conflict.
|
|
|
|
| sheriff | Elected on a countywide basis in all but two states, an official serving all three components of the criminal justice system: law enforcement, courts, and corrections. Usually is directly involved in partisan politics in ways that municipal police chiefs are not.
|
|
|
|
| social control | The capacity of a society to regulate itself according to desired principles and values without the use of repression or coerced conformity.
|
|
|
|
| special district police | Police agencies designed to serve only specific government agencies. Examples include the Los Angeles School District police force and the Metropolitan Transit Police Force in the Washington, DC, subway system.
|
|
|
|
| streetwalker | One who represents the lower end of the social and economic scale of prostitution by soliciting on the streets, thus being highly visible to both the police and the general public.
|
|
|
|
| subjectively arrested | Occurs when someone having an encounter with the police believes he or she is not free to go, leading to the perception of having been arrested.
|
|
|
|
| The Watch | A policelike group, established in colonial times, requiring all adult males to patrol the city for crimes, fires, and disorder.
|
|
|
|
| Title VII, 1964 Civil Rights Act | Makes it illegal to refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or to otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
|
|
|
|
| turnover | The number of employees hired by a company or department to replace workers who have left their jobs in a given period of time.
|
|
|
|
| unfounding a crime | Occurs when a citizen reports a crime but a police officer fails to complete an official crime report.
|
|
|
|
| verbal abuse | The use of inappropriate language, particularly racial and ethnic slurs, by police officers.
|
|
|
|
| vice | Victimless crimes with no complaining party involving prostitution, gambling, or narcotics.
|
|
|
|
| victimless crime | A crime that has no complaining party and often involves behavior that many people regard as legitimate, resulting in conflicting public attitudes about how vigorously the laws should be enforced.
|
|
|
|
| watchman style | An organizational style used in police departments that emphasizes peacekeeping without aggressive law enforcement and few controls over rank-and-file officers.
|
|
|
|
| Wickersham Commission | Created in 1929 by President Herbert Hoover as the first national study of the American criminal justice system. Officially the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement.
|
|
|
|
| zero-tolerance policing | Based on the belief that aggressive enforcement of disorder will motivate residents to better care for their community, a policy that calls for the police to focus primarily on disorder, minor crime, and the appearance of crime through interventions that vigorously enforce criminal and civil laws and are conducted for the purpose of restoring order to communities.
|
2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education