URBAN AMERICA

AND ITS POLICE

FROM THE POSTCOLONIAL ERA

THROUGH THE TURBULENT 1960S

HARLAN HAHN AND JUDSON L. JEFFRIES

URBAN AMERICA
AND ITS POLICE
URBAN AMERICA
AND ITS POLICE
FROM THE POSTCOLONIAL ERA
THROUGH THE TURBULENT 1960S

Harlan Hahn and Judson L. Jeffries

U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s o f C o l o r a d o
© 2003 by the University Press of Colorado

Published by the University Press of Colorado

5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C
Boulder, Colorado 80303

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of

the Association of American University Presses.

The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by

Adams State College, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Mesa State College,
Metropolitan State College of Denver, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado,
and Western State College of Colorado.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI
Z39.48-1992

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hahn, Harlan, 1939–
Urban America and its police : from the postcolonial era through the turbulent 1960s /
Harlan Hahn and Judson L. Jeffries.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87081-726-4 (alk. paper)
1. Police—United States—History. 2. Police-community relations—United States—History. I.
Jeffries, J. L. (Judson L.), 1964– II. Title.
HV8138.H343 2003
363.2'0973'091732—dc21
2003007231
Design by Daniel Pratt

12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 From Judson L. Jeffries
To all my relatives who served in the U.S. Armed Forces
Preface

vi
 Preface

Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1

1 Police Functions in Urban America 17

2 Police and the Law 39

3 From the Viewpoint of the Police 69

4 From the Public’s Standpoint 97

5 Police and Racial Conflict 123

Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community 149

Index 171

vii
Preface

viii
 Preface

Preface

A
LTHOUGH A WEALTH OF LITERATURE EXISTS on urban law enforcement, only
a handful of books examine the subject from a national historical per-
spective. Studies that address the specific history of urban areas exist for
New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, to name a few.
One of their shortcomings is that they address only the experience of police
officers in a single city and lack a comparative perspective. Another short-
coming is that the period of investigation for each study is usually limited.
The studies by James Richardson,1 Eric Monkkonen,2 Roger Lane,3 and Rob-
ert Fogelson4 provide the most comprehensive analyses. Richardson and Lane
are especially valuable because of the insight they provide about the history of
policing in Boston and New York, respectively. Monkkonen’s and Fogelson’s
works are important because of their comparative approach. All, however,
have a limited period of investigation.
In this study we reinterpret and synthesize some of the findings from
these and other earlier studies with our own research to present a broad,
comparative analysis of the police experience from a national perspective. We
have relied extensively on numerous underused government documents, re-
ports by organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, mono-
graphs from think tanks, and myriad other unpublished works.
Also unique about this work is the focus on police perceptions of the public
and public perceptions of the police. Consequently, we rely heavily on survey
data, especially those that focus on the 1960s. The reason for this is twofold.
First, the 1960s represented a watershed period in the development of Ameri-
can police. Police officers were confronted with a host of seemingly unantici-
pated problems such as growing public anxiety about crime, the eruption of

ix
Preface

collective violence in urban neighborhoods, and increased expectations among

political leaders and citizens that the police seemed ill prepared to meet. Per-
haps even more important, although scarcely recognized at the time, was the
appearance of new research—especially in the social sciences—about police
activities and organizations. Although law enforcement had been a somewhat
neglected area of policy analysis, the events of the 1960s attracted a rather
unfamiliar group of researchers to study the subject. The relation between the
growth of new police responsibilities and the emergence of this research was
symbiotic. The renewed interest in the police was triggered by trends that
emerged during the 1960s or thereafter, and again perhaps more significant,
the research conducted about police policies—and the direction established
for future studies—was strongly influenced by the events of that decade.
Second, the 1960s were the first era in which extensive polling was con-
ducted about law enforcement. Thus social scientists were eager to ask numer-
ous detailed questions about subjects that had not been investigated previously
and that have been only briefly explored in subsequent surveys. This period
offers a rich pool of data that seemingly has not been equaled—or even ap-
proximated—in later years. Moreover, public opinion about police activities
and police attitudes toward the public appear to have changed little since that
decade. Except as noted in the references, basic attitudes on this topic have
been remarkably stable. As a result, the range of these questions provides an
opportunity not only to examine empirical associations between various is-
sues but also to offer additional speculation that can only be regarded as
hypotheses for further study. Ignoring the value of these data, therefore, seemed
to entail greater risks than relying on them extensively.
Unfortunately, scholars who have examined the role of police in urban
America have paid little attention to police perceptions of the public. This
omission is surprising when we note the huge literature on policing in Ameri-
can history. Most histories of the earliest formal police departments in U.S.
cities either ignore the issue or give slight attention to it. Our study not only
fills this gap but also shows how the law, race, and ethnicity have been important
aspects of American policing since the creation of the first U.S. police force.
This work makes extensive use of the literature on the urban revolts of
the 1960s provided by the fields of sociology and criminology. Unlike political
scientists, scholars and intellectuals in these fields have made great efforts to
examine the status and role of the police during violent uprisings. They have
proposed hypotheses about riot theory, and they have posed questions about
the role law has played in shaping the duties and responsibilities of the police
and about the role of police in a democratic society.

x
 Preface

In addition, scholars in these fields have gathered many anecdotal data

that, if brought together under one roof, would make a major contribution to
the literature on law enforcement in urban America. This book attempts to do
just that. The works of sociologists and criminologists, however, pose another
problem: they lack historical perspective. Many examine the problems and
issues faced by the police and the public in a historical vacuum. Our study
provides the historical analysis needed to tie together some of the theories
about the police in society from the postcolonial period through the turbulent
1960s. The introduction begins with an important discussion of the history of
law enforcement in the United States and the emergence of police forces in
the urban milieu.
Chapter 1 describes in some detail the duties of police officers. An in-
depth look at these functions, their relationship to one another, their effect on
the way police carried out their responsibilities, and their impact on the lives
of their clients are laid out. Chapter 2 examines the legal authority the courts
granted police officers to cope with crime, the impact of major court deci-
sions on police practices, and the problems officers encountered in enforcing
certain types of laws. We end with a discussion of the relationship between
police practices and local political characteristics. Chapter 3 gives a unique
look at police officers and their world. We discuss several issues critical to
successful policing, such as the exercise of discretion and the recruitment and
socialization of police officers. The chapter concludes with an examination of
the impact of order, authority, protection, and service on police relationships
with the public.
Chapter 4 assesses the role of police departments in social and political
controversies, which were stimulated by the increasing fear of crime and by
perceived inequities in police practices. We also provide an in-depth appraisal
of minority (especially African American) attitudes toward the criminal jus-
tice process, as well as the implications of declining public confidence in the
police.
In Chapter 5 we explore the relationship between the police and ethnic
and racial minorities, the role of the police in urban disorders, and the re-
sponsibilities of law enforcement agencies in preventing or controlling civil
disorders. Because the outbreak of violence—especially during the 1960s—
created one of the most difficult and demanding times for police officers in
U.S. history, an examination of this topic is essential to understand the role of
police in urban America during the period of investigation.
Although one might be inclined to regard the role of the police in urban
disorders as seemingly irrelevant, there are several reasons for including this

xi
Preface

discussion. First, there is a need to preserve the data about these events and
their interpretation. This chapter serves, at least in part, as a compendium of
this information not only to prevent it from becoming lost but also to encour-
age other social scientists to include it in the accumulation of research litera-
ture. The mere fact that some observers might view this evidence as irrelevant
to research on law enforcement can be cited as an important justification for
including it here. Social scientists must heed the many familiar warnings about
the neglect of history and the vulnerability to repeat it.
Second, records indicate that urban violence has never completely ended.
One of the clearest examples of this fact is found in the Los Angeles and
Cincinnati uprisings in 1992 and 2001, respectively, that in many ways were
triggered by the police beating Rodney King and the shooting death of Timo-
thy Thomas.5 Both before and since the 1960s, collective violence has been
more sporadic and isolated than it was during that decade. Part of the expla-
nation for the relative neglect of urban uprisings on other occasions can likely
be traced to media coverage. Just as simultaneous outbreaks of collective
disturbances are more likely than individual acts of violence to receive media
attention, the eruption of massive disorders in scattered locations is less likely
to be reported by national news sources than is a series of violent incidents,
such as the events that occurred in the 1960s. As a result, it is difficult to
estimate accurately the amount—or the intensity—of collective violence that
has occurred in a particular geographic region or during a specific period of
time.
Third, the duties of police officers in urban uprisings involved funda-
mental theoretical issues about the function of law enforcement agencies in a
democratic society. To put it crudely and much too simply, the police may be
called upon to stop violence many citizens believe they had a role in starting.
The police may be called upon to impose order and exert authority after
other means of attempting to do so have failed. Moreover, massive violence
could signal a departure from the classic definition of government or the state
as a legitimate monopoly on the exercise of power. In an uprising, power is
transferred from government offices to crowds on the street. If police agen-
cies cannot be given official power by these crowds, the political process
would suffer irreparable damage.
In a basic sense, the eruption of extensive violence may be interpreted as
an indication that ordinary methods of accommodating conflict and resolving
grievances have collapsed. Hence police agencies must walk an extremely
perilous tightwire, especially in minority neighborhoods. If they are perceived
as imposing order or authority too aggressively, that perception could inter-

xii
 Preface

fere greatly with their mandate to quell violence when all other branches of
government have failed. Hence Chapter 5 concludes with a reassertion of the
argument that by successfully and routinely performing community service
activities, the police might have been able to acquire the favorable reputa-
tion—especially in black neighborhoods—they needed to fulfill a crucial mis-
sion in more trying times.
The Conclusion focuses on the relationship between police forces and
the community, police administration, and various reform proposals aimed at
improving the quality of police personnel.

NOTES
1. James Richardson, Urban Police in the United States (Port Washington, N.Y.:
Kennikat, 1974).
2. Eric Monkkonen, Police in Urban America 1860–1920 (London: Cambridge
University Press, 1981); Eric Monkkonen, Crime, Justice and History (Columbus: Ohio
State University Press, 2002).
3. Roger Lane, Policing the City: Boston, 1822–1885 (Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1967).
4. Robert M. Fogelson, Big-City Police (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1996).
5. Stephen Steinberg, Turning Back: The Retreat From Racial Justice in American
Thought and Policy (Boston: Beacon, 1995).

xiii
Preface

xiv
 Preface

Acknowledgments

I
OWE A DEBT OF GRATITUDE to many whose contributions undoubtedly
strengthened this work. I start by thanking Dean Margaret Rowe (now vice
provost for Academic Affairs) for providing me with a stipend during summer
of 2001 that allowed me to complete my part of the project in a timely fashion.
Appreciation is also extended to Professors Renford R. Reese of Cal Poly Pomona
and Steve Herbert of the University of Washington. Their insight into and
critical analysis of the study of police work and urban life proved invaluable.
This book also benefited immensely from the assistance of Carol Black, who
provided me with numerous sources on the history of the police in America. The
timeliness of this work results largely from the typing assistance of Michelle
Conwell and Betty Hartman, two trusty secretaries employed by the Department
of Political Science at Purdue University. Laura Schneider, my teaching assis-
tant during the spring 2003 semester, tracked down numerous page numbers
and titles of newspaper articles that I carelessly omitted in earlier drafts.
I am also grateful to Harlan Hahn, who thought enough of me to invite
me to coauthor a work of this magnitude. Last but certainly not least, I am
grateful to Kerry Callahan, former acquisitions editor at the University Press
of Colorado, who saw this project through to the end. She is without question
the most honest, professional, and efficient editor I have ever worked with.
Callahan always made herself accessible, returned phone calls promptly, kept
me abreast of goings-on even if there was nothing to report, and offered
valuable and insightful criticism. In my humble opinion she is the standard
against which other editors should be measured.
—JUDSON L. JEFFRIES
March 2003

xv
 Introduction

Introduction

D
ATING BACK TO 1829, when Sir Robert Peel1 organized the first modern
police force in London, to the industrialized twentieth-century Ameri-
can metropolis, the conditions of urban life have imposed increasing
demands on law enforcement agencies.2 As a result of growing concerns about
crime and social order, the police were thrust into the forefront of some of the
most significant public controversies of the day. For many policemen, these
social controversies were an unwelcome and uncomfortable development. In
addition, the growth and development of police forces as agents of public
authority produced marked changes in the distance between citizens and their
government.3 No longer was political power exercised exclusively by officials
who were geographically removed from the average citizen and who had little
direct contact with him or her. The complexity of urban life and its propensity
to attract people of varying characters changed all that. The increasing num-
bers of patrolmen in inner-city neighborhoods to some extent “personalized”
government and bore testimony to the rules and laws to which all members of
the society were compelled to abide.
For many people for whom government was a remote and impersonal
institution that had little apparent relevance to their lives, the police rep-
resented perhaps their only immediate and tangible symbol of govern-
ment. Since law enforcement agencies were one of few arms of govern-
ment required to interact regularly with the public, residents probably
encountered policemen more frequently than any other government offi-
cial. In addition, many tended to regard the locus of political power as resid-
ing with those who enforced the law rather than with government bodies
responsible for enacting the law. Hence for some citizens, government was

1
Introduction

probably personified more by the cop on the beat than by their elected
representatives.
Despite the salience of police for the general public, until the 1960s rela-
tively little scholarly attention had been devoted to law enforcement as an
integral part of the political process.4 The reason is twofold. Initially, other
social and political issues tended to overshadow the local and personal effects
of law enforcement activities. Not until the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury were studies of the police finally based on a perceived correlation be-
tween major social issues and practices in the administration of the law. This
awareness seemed to peak in the mid- to late 1960s when debates about local
policing reflected growing anxiety about crime and violence, demonstrations
for civil rights and peace, and campaigns in which slogans preserving “law
and order” rivaled economic and foreign policies as major issues even in
presidential elections. Christian Parenti put it best when he wrote: “Sure, the
Man Act of 1910, the Harris Act of 1914, the Wickersham Commission, and
the Hale Bogg’s mandatory minimums of 1951 had made crime a national
political issue. But the vast majority of criminal justice policy was local and
not the business of American presidents.”5 Barry Goldwater’s rhetoric during
his 1964 presidential campaign changed all that. As a result, a proliferation of
research by social scientists ensued on crime and police matters.6 Still, many
critical questions about the role of the police in society remained unanswered.
Second, a misperception, inspired perhaps by the media, existed regard-
ing the nature of police activities. Despite the images portrayed on television,
police officers did not spend most of their time investigating or solving seri-
ous crimes. By far the bulk of their duties involved what might be termed
personal and social services.7 Moreover, to the extent the police were engaged
in detecting and apprehending criminals, a large amount of their time was
consumed by relatively minor infractions involving social commerce or trans-
portation. During the era when most police officers walked a beat, their ef-
forts were aimed at keeping the streets clear and safe for pedestrians, but as
many residents became motorists, their most time-consuming law enforce-
ment tasks concentrated on traffic regulation. Far from the glamour depicted
in detective stories and movies, most police officers spent their time quietly
cruising city streets, writing reports, and responding to requests for services.
Perhaps the most significant feature of the police force was its crucial
position between the public and governmental authority. In the complex and
impersonal environment of urban America, the police probably constituted
not only the principal agent of social control but also a major vehicle for
bringing community resources to bear upon personal and social problems.

2
 Introduction

Police officers’ various roles promoted either tension or cooperation with the
citizens they encountered. As a result, this book focuses on the reciprocal
perceptions the public had of the police and police officers formed about the
public from the postcolonial era through the turbulent 1960s. This feature
distinguishes this work from others. By examining both sides of the police-
public relationship, the reader can gain a more expansive and a clearer under-
standing of the realities of community-police relations during this time period
than could be obtained by examining either side in isolation. To fully under-
stand police-citizen relations, it is important to be familiar with the history of
urban law enforcement in America.

THE BIRTH OF URBAN POLICE DEPARTMENTS

The emergence of U.S. police practices was strongly influenced by traditions
reflecting the dominant culture and the country’s prevailing sentiments. Origi-
nally, police duties were considered the private responsibility of local mer-
chants and property owners rather than the obligation of governments. W.
Marvin Dulaney maintains that in most U.S. cities, these formal watch or city
guard systems became the foundation for American policing.8 The belief that
the tasks of night watchmen could be performed informally or through volun-
tary participation by male residents of a community gradually gave way to the
concept that policing should be performed by paid government employees. A
possible reason for the increased organization of urban police departments
during this time was the unfavorable reaction of prominent residents to the
waves of immigrants from various ethnic backgrounds that left Europe after
the 1840s. Most police leadership at that time—and many would contend
subsequently—reflected the interests of local elites who were distressed by
these newcomers and the problems they introduced to Eastern cities. As a
result, police personnel frequently were ordered to carry weapons. Some evi-
dence, for example, indicates that the arming of police officers in Boston was
prompted by increasing ethnic conflict.
Not until the 1850s, however, was the system of privately sponsored night
watchmen replaced in most cities by a regular police force organized, autho-
rized, and subsidized by local governments.9 Boston, for example, had used a
city watch since 1634. The citizens there reorganized their government in the
nineteenth century and by 1838 had converted the watch into a full-time
police force similar to the Metropolitan Police Force of London.10 In 1844
New York City also reorganized its watch into a full-time police force.11 New
York began with 800 officers. They wore star-shaped badges made of copper,
which quickly gave rise to the nickname “copper” or “cop.” Other cities soon

3
Introduction

followed New York’s lead: police departments in Chicago and New Orleans
were established in 1851 and 1852, respectively,12 Philadelphia established a
force in 1854, Baltimore police came into being in 1857, and the Washing-
ton, D.C., force was formed in 1861.13
By the end of the Civil War, most American cities had begun to organize
formal police agencies. In part, this transfer of power reflected both the influ-
ence of the London model and the motives of the white ruling class that
sought to avoid reliance on the military, to avert the hostility of the masses,
and to legitimize oppression by creating a public police force.14 Nevertheless,
as a result of their private origins and orientations, common expectations
about the proper role of the police emerged from a tradition based largely on
the protection of property.
Because policing was initially regarded as a private rather than a public
responsibility, concerned citizens or vigilantes in many localities empowered
themselves to maintain social order.15 Occasionally, this type of law enforce-
ment activity produced direct conflicts with the state. For example, one re-
quest from a California governor for federal assistance to suppress domestic
violence was an 1856 petition beseeching the national government to prevent
the San Francisco Vigilance Committee “from usurping the authority of the
State.”16 Despite such controversies, however, the relatively unclear source of
the authority police agents exercised seemed to provide them with broad
discretionary power from the beginning.
Records from the nineteenth century indicate that police officers concen-
trated primarily on preserving public order and that they enjoyed relatively
wide latitude in performing this duty. For example, in Boston in 1856 the
largest number of arrests (44 percent) were for public intoxication, 18 percent
were for disorderly conduct, and 4 percent were made on the legally tenuous
grounds of “suspicion.” Nearly thirty years later in the same city, 59 percent
of arrests involved public intoxication, and 5 percent were for disorderly con-
duct and suspicion.17 Similarly, in New York in 1891, almost 30 percent of
arrestees were charged with drunkenness, 18 percent were arrested for disor-
derly conduct, and 5 percent were taken into custody on suspicion.18 These
statistics, which are not entirely unlike contemporary arrest records, may
have reflected the prevalent belief of nineteenth-century elites that many city
problems were caused by lower-class residents’ tendency to drink too much.
Since removing drunk and disorderly men from public streets was widely
regarded as a necessary but unpleasant duty, the implicit discretion entailed in
deciding who to put in jail and who to send home never evolved into a means
of reinforcing or justifying the performance of personal services by police

4
 Introduction

officers.19 In any event, a large portion of early police activities seemed to

involve patrolmen in the role of “peace officers” authorized to keep the streets
clear of drunks and other rowdy elements.
Perhaps the major reason for the accelerating growth and organization of
urban police forces in the nineteenth century, however, was the constant threat
of riots and civil disorders.20 Repeated ethnic conflicts as well as other violent
demonstrations prompted police forces to launch plans for rapid mobilization
and to acquire arms.21 In the 1863 New York City draft riots, the city police
superintendent was fatally wounded by a tumultuous mob that embarked on a
three-day rampage directed at free blacks and military conscription policies,
which permitted affluent white males to hire another man as a surrogate to
serve in his place in the Union Army.22 Although lawlessness in America has
usually been traced to the frontier, it may have emerged from a stronger
tradition of crime and violence that flourished in urban areas.23
The emergence of police departments in U.S. cities was also influenced
by powerful trends in urban areas prior to the Civil War. In a tradition born
in the Revolutionary War and the subsequent struggle to ratify the Constitu-
tion, many citizens—fearful of expanding government authority—simply “did
not want to be policed.”24 Public support for the protection of individual
liberties produced strong resistance to the creation of police forces. This re-
luctance was overcome by several factors. The decline of a rural or agrarian
society and the growth of industrialization and urbanization created increased
heterogeneity within communities. As a result, they could not remain self-
policing. Citizens were becoming less familiar with their neighbors, and they
found it increasingly necessary to rely on police personnel to maintain order
and provide protection from crime. This trend was amplified by urban elites’
growing fear of crime, violence, drunkenness, and the rise of the so-called
dangerous classes.25 Again, perhaps the most crucial determinant among these
influences was the accelerating threat of ethnic conflict and civil disorders. It
could be argued that the most lasting residual effect of the private origins of
policing was a strong emphasis on the protection of property and the exercise
of wide discretion to maintain public order.
Since most problems associated with urbanization played a pivotal role in
the formation of law enforcement agencies, the U.S. police began as and
remained an almost distinctively urban institution. Although the English sys-
tem of sheriffs and constables was transferred to rural America, the large
metropolis provided the principle base for the expansion and development of
police organizations.26 Increasing waves of immigrants, for example, created
new functions as well as new problems for urban police departments. In many

5
Introduction

cities, neighborhood police officers became an extension of the ethnic politi-

cal machines that dominated local governments in the nineteenth century.27
Thus police departments also emerged as a vehicle for patronage, bribery,
graft, and other “evils” that aroused reformers’ ire.

THE POLITICS OF POLICING

Jerry Bornstein argues that the close links between police and politicians in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries meant that law enforcement
agencies were often enmeshed in local political corruption.28 The big-city po-
litical machines and local party hacks often protected local criminals—for a
price. Police personnel often shared in the spoils. At the turn of the century, a
scandal in Minneapolis, Minnesota, showed how entrenched corruption could
become. When he was elected in 1901, Mayor Alfred Elisha Ames fired hon-
est police officers. Crooks around the country were granted “concessions” to
ply their trades in the city. Prostitution, gambling, and other criminal activi-
ties thrived under police protection. The problem was not unique to Minne-
apolis; it was national in scope.29
Along with politics and graft, police work seemed to offer immigrants an
opportunity for professional and social advancement.30 In fact, large city po-
lice forces were frequently portrayed as havens for ethnic patronage.31 The
Irish emerged as the most important immigrant group to occupy administra-
tive and rank-and-file positions. Other nationalities, such as the Germans,
competed with the Irish for police jobs, but the Irish eventually prevailed. Yet
initially, there appeared to be resistance to the admission of ethnic groups
into major police departments. In Boston, the first Irish police officer was not
hired until 1851, sixteen years after the department was created; by 1880,
Irish officers still comprised only 15 percent of the force.32 A similar pattern
existed in New York. In 1887 less than one-third of the force was foreign
born; only three captains had been born in Ireland, whereas twenty-five were
born in America.33 Through their numbers and political influence, however,
the Irish eventually dominated the police forces in many major U.S. cities,
including St. Louis, New Orleans, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia. H. Bruce
Pierce notes that the Irish so thoroughly dominated the police force in New
York City that the department was called the “Irish Mafia.”34 During the
antebellum period, the Irish tied police jobs to political patronage and made
the police a significant part of urban politics.
When the Irish and other ethnic groups finally achieved control of large
city police forces, they were called upon to assume new responsibilities. In
the bewildering environment of a strange city, the immigrant frequently relied

6
 Introduction

on police officers as well as politicians to obtain social services that were

either unavailable or inaccessible from other sources. Perhaps the clearest
justification for this role of policemen, as well as for the urban machine, was
provided by Martin Lomasny, the political boss of Boston, who told Lincoln
Steffens in 1915, “I think that there’s got to be in every ward somebody that
any bloke can come to—no matter what he’s done—and get help. Help, you
understand; none of your law and justice, but help.”35
Since the cop on the beat often lived among the people in his neighbor-
hood and shared their ethnic and class affiliations, he was in an especially
unique position to use his political and social connections to aid local resi-
dents. As a result, a new relationship flourished between urban policemen and
the ethnic enclaves they patrolled. Unlike earlier police traditions, the cus-
tomary association between police and the public during the era of old-style
political machines was not based primarily on the protection of property or
on the vigorous exertion of authority to quash disorders. Order seemed to be
maintained less by impersonal application of the law than by the enforcement
of what later observers called a lower-middle-class Irish Catholic moral con-
sensus.36 The policeman was fully integrated into the political system, and he
became, in effect, a kind of “social worker.”37
As a result of this rapport, relationships between patrolmen and residents
of inner cities during this era were not marked by the tension and hostility
that characterized later decades. Although few reliable data on early forms of
police brutality or misconduct exist, some support appears to exist for the
theory that police wrath in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
was primarily directed toward persons suspected of committing heinous crimes
in wealthy areas of Northern cities. Relations between the police and affluent
groups within the community, as well as residents who managed to avoid
suspicion, seemed relatively cordial. In 1900 a New York City police chief
issued an intriguing order that stated, “It is sometimes unavoidable for a
policeman to use force, and he should always assert his authority on proper
occasions, but there is no reason for his ever behaving in a discourteous
manner.”38 This emphasis on courtesy seemed to remain a feature of some
police activities during the early twentieth century. In 1928, New York police
commissioner Grover Whalen ordered every station house to post a placard
that stressed the need for courtesy and noted, “To the public our slogan must
always be: ‘At your service.’ ”39
Police courtesy, however, was not extended to all segments of the commu-
nity. In 1931 the Wickersham Commission revealed startling evidence of
police brutality and the pervasive use of third-degree techniques to extract

7
Introduction

confessions from suspects.40 The explanation for this apparent paradox was
probably embedded in the perceptions various groups in the city held of the
proper role of law enforcement. Police departments often remained under the
control of community influentials, and when crimes occurred in high-status
areas of the city, the police spared no effort or force to locate the culprit. The
cop in ethnic neighborhoods, on the other hand, maintained a paternal sur-
veillance of his beat; he had little incentive to vent his frustrations or aggres-
sions on his neighbors, except perhaps when community leaders demanded
that the police produce a suspect for crimes committed in affluent parts of the
city. Major instances of police brutality or misconduct probably occurred
after suspects were taken into custody at the station house rather than on the
streets in full view of the public. At the organizational level, extensive police
corruption existed. During the nineteenth century, investigative commissions
discovered reports of graft and favoritism in New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta,
Kansas City, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington,
D.C., Milwaukee, and Boston.41 Aside from the flagrant cases of police bru-
tality reported by the Wickersham Commission and other investigative groups,
however, common encounters between the police and the public reflected at
least a degree of civility and mutual respect.

EMERGENCE OF THE REFORM MOVEMENT

The waves of reforms that affected American police departments and other
agencies of municipal government during the early twentieth century virtually
destroyed the connection between the police and political machines.42 One of
the major objectives of the reform movement was to abolish political patron-
age and introduce the civil service system. This change seemed to draw a
different type of person to the force. Although many ethnic groups had be-
come assimilated enough to master civil service exams, some were attracted
more by status or a desire to participate in police work than by political
motives.43 During prohibition the police were—at least partially—successful
in withstanding the temptations created by a nearly unenforceable law. In an
effort to counteract the organization of criminal enterprises, police forces
were also able to obtain additional resources to bolster their institutional struc-
ture. The depression of the 1930s and its aftermath continued to produce
policemen with better skills and training. In 1940, for example, more than
half of the 300 recruits in the New York City Police Department held college
degrees.44 After World War II, however, these numbers declined because of
increasing prosperity, the end of the manpower shortage, and the bonuses
granted returning veterans on civil service examinations. The foundation had

8
 Introduction

been laid, however, for the growth of a conventional form of police profes-
sionalization that reflected middle-class values.
In the decades after World War II, Americans became increasingly con-
cerned about a supposed “rising crime wave,” and they began to impose
stringent demands on law enforcement. The explanations for this develop-
ment were many and complex. They included improved methods of reporting
crime, growing urbanization, and the migration of poor blacks from the South
to the Northern industrial centers. But perhaps a major factor in this develop-
ment was the return of millions of young men from the war and the concomi-
tant “baby boom.”45 Since most crimes were committed by people under
twenty-five, what America was probably experiencing in the decades after
World War II was less a rising crime wave than a rising youth wave.
The perception of growing crime rates was compounded by new and
unfamiliar social problems and demands. Black and Latino city dwellers de-
clared that they were unwilling to accept police harassment as a condition of
urban life, and they became increasingly militant in their efforts to attain their
goal of equal treatment under the law. The conflicting social objectives repre-
sented by the desire to stop crime and the quest for equality thrust the police
into the center of controversy. Their response to this dilemma, and the reac-
tion of many political leaders, was reflected by an increased emphasis on
police professionalization. A primary goal of this trend was to increase police
officers’ education and training. Until the 1930s, most officers were poorly
educated; few had a high-school education. Pay was low, which allegedly
heightened the danger of corruption. As a result, efforts were made to recruit
better-educated officers, boost pay, and adopt modern investigative methods.
The principal goals of police professionalization focused on higher edu-
cational standards, improved management techniques, and professional au-
tonomy.46 Although professionalized policing was widely hailed as a novel
approach to problems of crime and violence, the policy created a community
ethos in which the impersonal application of the law was more highly prized
than the services police officers could provide for city residents. The cam-
paign against bootlegging and organized crime, as well as the need to patrol
highways, gave the police technological resources to enhance their efficiency,
and civil service requirements reinforced by the scarcity of alternative employ-
ment may have yielded changes in personnel. Moreover, the apparent growth
of a specialized body of knowledge about law enforcement practices, along
with training programs, seemed to give police officers an aura of expertise.47
Perhaps the major effect of municipal reformers on the growth of police
professionalization was embodied in the common objective of “getting the

9
Introduction

police out of politics.”48 This aspect of professionalization was somewhat spo-

radic and uneven. Whereas some communities quickly adopted all of the
attributes of a professional police force, others retained the characteristics of
earlier “peacekeeping” agencies.49 Many police departments underwent a
gradual transition from a loosely structured organization to a bureaucracy and
finally to a profession.50 The degree to which the move toward professional-
ization curbed corruption is debatable. Dishonest police did not need ties to
crooked political bosses to figure out how to take bribes or make deals with
organized crime. In 1961 a grand jury in Kansas City, Missouri, revealed the
existence of an eight-year-old arrangement between organized crime and the
police department. The agreement sanctioned gambling, prostitution, and fenc-
ing of stolen goods in exchange for a guarantee that no major burglaries would
occur within city limits. Eleven years later in New York, the testimony of
officer Frank Serpico before the Knapp Commission revealed widespread
police corruption and a look-the-other-way attitude on the part of high-ranking
police officials. As police problems mounted, however, the trend in most
cities was directed at increasing professionalization.
Efforts toward professionalization were stepped up after the Democratic
Party’s convention in Chicago in August 1968. Antiwar demonstrators con-
verged to protest the Vietnam War. Police, with the assistance of the National
Guard, moved forcibly on the activists. Live television coverage of young
demonstrators—most of them white, middle-class college students—revealed
that they were beaten savagely with nightsticks as they chanted “The whole
world is watching!” Progressive Democrats criticized the police on the con-
vention floor, triggering an angry response from Chicago mayor Richard Daley
who defended his police. Subsequently, a special panel assigned by the Na-
tional Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence concluded that
the officers had engaged in a “police riot.”51 Although there was obvious provo-
cation by some of the dissidents, the commission found that officers were
guilty of “unrestrained and indiscriminate police violence . . . often inflicted
upon persons who had broken no law, disobeyed no order and made no
threat.”52
These events instilled the belief that police who worked the streets had to
have a high degree of professionalism. They needed a level of expertise in
dealing with difficult situations that had never been demanded of their prede-
cessors. These trends were exacerbated by a mounting public fear of crime. In
late 1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Crime Control and Safe
Streets Act. This measure created the Law Enforcement Assistance Adminis-
tration (LEAA), which issued grants to upgrade and modernize local police

10
 Introduction

forces. The LEAA distributed nearly $8 billion to local police departments

until it was disbanded in 1982.53

PROFESSIONALIZATION AND ITS LIMITATIONS

Some argued that professionalization tended to emphasize technical compe-
tence or administrative efficiency rather than an improved relationship be-
tween police officers and the public.54 Like many other professionals, police
officers were frequently asked to handle personal crises in a routine and
confidential manner. Yet the major tenets of police professionalization seemed
to stress the importance of fighting crime rather than performing personal
services. In substituting a professionally oriented police force for the service-
oriented agencies maintained by political machines, the reformers—perhaps
inadvertently—created an agency of government that was relatively unrespon-
sive to public needs and demands. As a result, the police were ill equipped
for many of the events they subsequently encountered. At a time when many
police problems involved their relations with the community, law enforce-
ment agencies seemed to concentrate on activities that widened the gap be-
tween policemen and citizen relations and that failed to produce popular
support.
As the police became increasingly alienated from the public and from
political control, law enforcement practices emerged as an important aspect
of urban policy. The growing conflict surrounding police conduct arguably
demonstrated the failure of the reform ideal. One commentator offered this
analogy of the professionalized police officer: like doctors, lawyers, archi-
tects, and other professionals, police possess a body of knowledge and are
equipped with special skills that are necessary both to do and to understand
their work. Therefore it would be no more prudent for a politician to instruct
a police officer on how to do his or her work than it would be for a politician
to instruct a doctor on how to remove a gall bladder or an architect on how to
build a house. It followed from this analogy that to do the work of profes-
sional policing, administrators would require not only the highly sophisti-
cated technological tools of such policing but also extremely intelligent and
competent officers to employ them. Only in a police department thus equipped
and staffed and working in an environment free from political interference
could professional policing thrive.
Although the professional analogy proved effective in getting improved
personnel and technical resources as well as increasing autonomy for police,
the analogy was not without flaws. Although certainly no politician should have
a hand on a surgeon’s scalpel during an operation or calculate measurements

11
Introduction

for an architect, political involvement in medicine, landscaping, and other

professions is thoroughgoing, and by most accounts, it needs to be. Although
politicians do not dictate the manner in which a surgeon operates, they do
influence where hospitals are built, what health insurance programs can be
offered in a state, how and what forms of health care will be provided for
indigent patients, and to what extent the government will support clinics,
medical certification, education, and specialization. Unlike the role of gov-
ernment policy in health care, however, the supervision of police conduct is
complicated by the fact that the police, as representatives and an extension of
state authority, in fact are the state. The state cannot regulate itself, and the
police cannot be self-regulating. Nor can the police be entirely divorced from
politics. The issue becomes a conundrum that cannot readily be solved.
Less abstract facets of the problem, however, are revealed by the de-
mands for the professionalization of law enforcement that seemed to under-
mine the movement toward that goal. The argument appeared to be predicated
on the assumption that the police really possessed a body of knowledge that
could be used effectively. Most police officers wanted to rely primarily on
information they had gained from experience rather than from careful analy-
sis and investigations. In fact, many police leaders were even skeptical of
findings beginning to emerge from social science research. In addition, the
professionalism of law enforcement seemed to be unlike the connotations of
the word in other occupations. A distinctive common feature of the role of
professionals is the wide range of discretion afforded them in performing
their activities. By contrast, police professionalism emphasized centralized
control, a rigid command structure, extensive regulation, strict discipline,
and careful scrutiny. Although most advocates of police professionalism sought
highly qualified personnel, they did not attempt to recruit officers who would
exercise broad discretion.
Police administrators sought to repair their sagging public image by stressing
the function that was most consistent with professional objectives—detecting
and solving crimes. This also was the aspect of their duties least likely to
produce dramatic results. A study conducted in the mid-1960s indicated that
even by the most generous estimates, less than one in four of all serious
crimes known to the police resulted in an arrest or other action.55 Unlike
other activities, police efforts to fight crime seldom produced direct or imme-
diate benefits for many segments of the community. Simply put, the police
record in preventing crime was not demonstrably impressive. Yet because the
tenets of police professionalization gave that task the highest priority, it often
received the greatest amount of attention at the expense of cultivating, foster-

12
 Introduction

ing, and maintaining good relations with the people the police had pledged to
serve and protect.

NOTES
1. David Taylor, Crime, Policing and Punishment in England, 1750–1940 (New
York: St. Martin’s, 1998).
2. Robert M. Fogelson, Big-City Police (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1996); Anthony Pate and Edwin E. Hamilton, The Big Six: Policing America’s Largest
Cities (Washington, D.C.: Police Foundation, 1991).
3. Terence J. Fitzgerald, Police in Society (New York: H. H. Wilson, 2000); L. B.
Berg, Law Enforcement: An Introduction to Police in Society (Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
1992).
4. In 1968 the editor of a symposium on “The Police in a Democratic Society” was
able to identify only a few scattered articles on the police in the political science litera-
ture. See Jameson W. Doig, “Police Problems, Proposals, and Strategies for Change,”
Public Administration Review 28 (September-October 1968): 393–402. There were
indications, however, stimulated largely by the activities of the President’s Commission
on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice and the National Advisory Com-
mission on Civil Disorders, that this oversight was being rectified.
5. Christian Parenti, LockDown America (New York: Verso, 1999), 6.
6. See, for example, William K. Muir Jr., Police: Streetcorner Politicians (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1977); Peter K. Manning, Police Work: The Social Organi-
zation of Policing (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977); George L. Kelling, Police and Commu-
nities: The Quiet Revolution (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National
Institute of Justice, 1988).
7. Egon Bittner, Aspects of Police Work (Boston: Northeastern University Press,
1990).
8. W. Marvin Dulaney, Black Police in America (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1996).
9. Kenneth J. Peak, Policing America (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
1997).
10. Roger Lane, Policing the City: Boston, 1822–1885 (Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1967).
11. Bryan Vila and Cynthia Morris, The Role of Police in American Society (Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood, 1999).
12. Jerry Bornstein, Police Brutality: A National Debate (Hillsdale, N.J.: Enslow,
1993).
13. Kenneth G. Alfers, “The Washington Police: A History, 1800–1866,” un-
published PhD thesis, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 1975.
14. Allan Silver, “The Demand for Order in Civil Society: A Review of Some
Themes in the History of Urban Crime, Police and Riot,” in David J. Bordua, ed., The
Police: Six Sociological Essays (New York: John Wiley, 1967), 8–9, 11–12, 22–23;
Elaine A. Reynolds, Before the Bobbies: The Night Watch and Police Reform in Metropoli-
tan London, 1720–1830 (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1998).

13
Introduction

15. Jerome H. Skolnick and James J. Fyfe, Above the Law (New York: Free Press,
1993).
16. Letter from the Attorney General to the Governors, August 7, 1967, With
Attachments, in Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 292–293.
17. Lane, Policing the City, 230–235.
18. “Chronic Alcoholic’s Jailing for Intoxication Upheld,” New York Times, January
1, 1892, 1.
19. Harlan Hahn, “Alternative Paths to ‘Professionalization’: The Development of
Municipal Personnel,” in Charles H. Levine, ed., Managing Human Resources: A Chal-
lenge to Urban Governments (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1977), 37–56.
20. Silver, “Demand for Order,” 15–20; Lane, Policing the City, 26–38; James Q.
Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior (New York: Atheneum, 1973), 31–32.
21. Lane, Policing the City, 133–134, 203–204.
22. Adrian Cook, The Armies of the Street: The New York City Draft Riots of 1863
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1974).
23. Constance McLaughlin Green, The Rise of Urban America (New York: Harper
and Row, 1965), 79.
24. James Richardson, Urban Police in the United States (Port Washington, N.Y.:
Kennikat, 1974), 36.
25. For an interesting review of these trends, see Richard J. Lundman, Police and
Policing: An Introduction (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1980), 22–34.
26. Hereward Senior, Constabulary: The Rise of Police Institutions in Britain, the
Commonwealth and the United States (New York: Dundurn, 1997).
27. Fogelson, Big-City Police, 13–39.
28. Bornstein, Police Brutality.
29. Ibid.
30. See, for example, Daniel Bell, “Crime as an American Way of Life,” in his The
End of Ideology (Glencoe: Free Press, 1960), 115–136.
31. James Q. Wilson, “Generational and Ethnic Differences Among Career Police
Officers,” American Journal of Sociology 69 (March 1964): 522–528; Nathan Glazer
and Daniel P. Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1963), 261.
32. Lane, Policing the City, 75–76, 141, 197, 238.
33. “Nationalities of Policemen,” New York Times, March 28, 1888, 2.
34. H. Bruce Pierce, “Blacks and Law Enforcement: Toward Police Brutality Re-
duction,” Black Scholar 17 (May 1986): 50.
35. The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931), 618.
36. Kenneth Rexroth, “The Fuzz,” Playboy 14 (July 1967): 78, 118.
37. “The Police as Social Workers,” Outlook 108 (December 16, 1914): 861–862.
38. “Bage Riot Investigation: Two More Witnesses Examined by President Yonk,”
New York Times, September 22, 1900, 14.
39. “2,200 Police Ordered to Courtesy School,” New York Times, January 10,
1928, 2.
40. The Wickersham Commission (National Commission on Law Observance and
Enforcement) was chaired by George W. Wickersham, attorney general of the United

14
 Introduction

States under President Herbert Hoover. The commission investigated police corruption
and recommended that politics should be eliminated from police organizations. Na-
tional Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Report on Lawlessness in Law
Enforcement (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931).
41. Fogelson, Big-City Police, 1–39.
42. George L. Kelling and Mark H. Moore, “From Political to Reform to Commu-
nity: The Evolving Strategy of Police,” in Jack R. Greene and Stephen D. Mastrofski,
eds., Community Policing: Rhetoric or Reality (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1988), 2–25; I.
Gaines, M. Southerland, and J. Angell, Police Administration (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1991).
43. For speculation on how this change may have shaped the nature of contempo-
rary police departments, see Harlan Hahn, “Alternative Paths to ‘Professionalization’:
The Development of Municipal Personnel,” in Charles H. Levine, ed., Managing Hu-
man Resources: A Challenge to Urban Governments (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1977), 37–56.
44. Arthur Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield: The Police in Urban Society (Garden
City: Doubleday, 1967), 16.
45. Daniel Bell, “The Myth of Crime Waves,” in his The End of Ideology (Glencoe:
Free Press, 1960), 140–144.
46. O. W. Wilson and Roy Clinton McLaren, Police Administration (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1972). For a comparable although somewhat different account of devel-
opments, see Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior, 282; Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Police Orga-
nization in the Twentieth Century,” in Michael Tonry and N. Morris, eds., Modern Policing
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 51–98.
47. National Crime Commission, Task Force Report: The Police (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1967), 6.
48. See, for example, Raymond Fosdick, American Police Systems (New York: Cen-
tury, 1920).
49. James Q. Wilson, “The Police and Their Problems: A Theory,” in Carl J.
Friedrich and Seymour Harris, eds., Public Policy 12 (1963): 189–216.
50. Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield, 11–32; Michael Benton, The Policeman in the
Community (New York: Basic, 1964), 106–110.
51. Bornstein, Police Brutality.
52. Ibid.
53. Edward Jay Epstein, Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America
(London: Verso, 1990).
54. Jerome H. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial (New York: John Wiley, 1966), 235–
239.
55. National Crime Commission, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 247–248; Albert J. Reiss Jr. and
David J. Bordua, “Environment and Organization: A Perspective on the Police,” in
David J. Bordua, ed., The Police: Six Sociological Essays (New York: John Wiley, 1967),
35.

15
 Police Functions in Urban America

1 Police Functions
in Urban America

P
ERHAPS THE MOST CRITICAL NEED for the study of police activities entails
the formulation of a conceptual structure that can be adopted to organize
evidence from some initial investigations of the subject by social scien-
tists and to guide future research. Obviously, this endeavor could be consid-
ered both innovative and foolhardy. Although few serious students of law
enforcement would probably deny the value of advancing a theoretical con-
struct for such purposes, there is also little doubt that almost any proposed
conceptualization might be strongly criticized by other analysts who prefer a
different approach. In reviewing the results of research conducted by social
scientists in the 1960s and thereafter, we decided the imperative to develop a
new conceptual paradigm for organizing and guiding research seemed to over-
shadow the risk of criticism. Much of the research on law enforcement from
the 1960s and beyond has apparently been shaped more by ad hoc consider-
ations than by an informing theoretical legacy. Some of it scarcely seemed to
rise above the level of the descriptive to gain the status of the analytical, let
alone the realm of empirical validity. Hence the major purpose of this chapter
is to introduce a new conceptual framework for the analysis of these issues.
Other statements concerning the purpose of police work have directed
attention at the specific duties of law enforcement agencies.1 Most of the
tasks enumerated in the lists compiled by police administrators, however,
have emphasized the investigation and suppression of criminal conduct. In
fact, many readers might also complain about the omission of that role from
the conceptual framework presented in this chapter. Several reasons account,
however, for the absence of this mission in the analytical design. First, the
crime-fighting duties of the police can be derived directly from other functions

17
Police Functions in Urban America

included here, such as exerting authority, providing protection, and maintain-

ing order. (The association between authority and service poses a special
problem that will be discussed in greater detail later.)
Second, efforts to combat crime differ from other functions in another
way that might surprise some observers. In many respects, the role of the
police concerning crime seems primarily symbolic. Society needs demon-
strable evidence of police response to the problem of crime, even if that
response accomplishes little of substance. This evidence is manifested by the
presence of police officers patrolling commercial centers and residential neigh-
borhoods. The responsibility of controlling crime cannot be fulfilled by any
specific activity. Most police work consists of patrolling city streets without
apparent consequences. Although defenders of existing practices might con-
tend that the deterrent value of the mere presence of police officers has been
important in controlling crime, the burden of demonstrating the effects of
deterrence is similar to the impossible task of proving a negative. Since there
is no way of determining the amount of crime that might have occurred if the
police were not present, there is also no means of assessing the effectiveness
of local police in curbing or preventing crime. Hence an independent variable
that adequately measures the effect of police tactics on violations of the law
does not appear readily available.
Many analysts have also stressed the critical importance of having at least
some standard by which police intervention can be evaluated. Often they have
been tempted to adopt a dependent variable that does not represent a mean-
ingful dimension of the problems police encounter. As a result, attempts have
frequently been made to adopt crime statistics as dependent variables in stud-
ies of police work. The invalidity of these endeavors cannot be fully excused
by the lack of other comparable information. These attempts have also been
plagued by weaknesses intrinsic to crime date. Thus the analysis of the role of
urban police returns to the discussion of crime rates at the end of the chapter.
By stressing concrete police behavior, these reports have contributed to
an increased understanding of law enforcement practices, but they seem to
neglect the broader social implications of policing. Rather than concentrate
on the role of police officers in maintaining law and order or on their detailed
activities, this work pays special attention to four critical functions of police
officers in the urban milieu: protection, order, authority, and service.2

PROTECTION
Perhaps the function that has been given the greatest amount of attention by
police departments is the protection of life and property. In this regard, the

18
 Police Functions in Urban America

police have been able to exercise what they consider their basic prerogatives
in the prevention and detection of crime. Yet as was mentioned earlier, the
largest portion of police time devoted to this function was not consumed by
the investigation or repression of actual crimes. Police officers’ major contri-
bution concerning the protection of life and property was to maintain a con-
stant surveillance of the community. By cruising neighborhoods in marked
patrol cars, checking the locks of businesses and schools, and engaging in
related activities, policemen served as a constant reminder to law-abiding
citizens of their security and to potential offenders of their prospects for ap-
prehension. Although studies conducted in Kansas City raised serious ques-
tions about the effectiveness of police patrolling in deterring crime,3 many law
enforcement officials regard such practices as the principal means to protect
lives and property.
Protection has been the major justification for the existence of a police
force in a free society since the days when the police originated as private
watchmen rather than public officials. In subsequent years, few have denied
the need for policemen. Yet the effectiveness of police activities designed to
protect lives and property has been seriously questioned.
A review of various studies revealed that offenses that involve the police
in a protective capacity were often divided into “crimes against the person”
and “crimes against property.” This distinction has limited police success in
solving crimes. According to authoritative estimates, the proportion of crimes
that did not produce an arrest usually ranged from less than 10 percent for
homicide to more than 80 percent for larceny.4 Although most crimes against
the person involved offenses in which the victim knew the offender, crimes
against property were generally committed by strangers who left little trace of
their identity.5 The ability of the police to protect life and property, therefore,
has usually depended on information supplied by victims, witnesses, infor-
mants, and friends and acquaintances of the victim.6 Although both crimes
against the person and crimes against property increased substantially in secu-
lar as well as short-range terms, the sharpest gains were exhibited in burglary,
larceny, and other crimes against property. These trends, for the most part,
mounted steadily each year, and unfortunately the police were unable to dem-
onstrate their effectiveness in adequately protecting private property.7
As a natural corollary to their protective function, law enforcement agencies
assumed two major additional responsibilities. Initially, police departments
attempted to prevent the occurrence of crimes—particularly property crimes—
by reducing opportunities for the commission of such offenses. This tactic
involved not only the quiet patrol of city streets but also the aggressive detention

19
Police Functions in Urban America

and interrogation of persons in what were regarded as suspicious circum-

stances. Despite many police departments’ heavy reliance on this technique,
few efforts were made to assess the effects. In 1967, President Lyndon B.
Johnson’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice
noted, “About 200,000 policemen spend half of their time on ‘preventive’
patrol. Yet, no police chief can obtain even a rough estimate of how much
crime is thereby prevented.”8 The Kansas City study, which was supposed to
provide such evidence, failed to find any association between preventive pa-
trolling and crime rates.9 In fact, so-called aggressive preventive patrolling
may have produced negative ramifications by increasing the number of hos-
tile and abrasive contacts between police officers and the public.
Second, the police assumed a number of other responsibilities, such as
traffic regulation, as a consequence of their mandate to protect lives and
property. Such tasks accounted for a large share of police duties, and they
were indispensable to a society in which potentially lethal or destructive in-
struments such as cars and trucks were readily available. But they also had
dysfunctional ramifications. Each contact between police and the public in-
volving a suspected traffic violation is potentially explosive. Needless to say,
many law enforcement practices have not inspired public sympathy or good-
will. As a result, to some extent police departments still have not received the
extensive popular support some other social institutions enjoy.
Although the protection of life and property has historically been consid-
ered a function that could inspire general public approval, its effect has been
relatively limited. Protection may be enthusiastically endorsed by persons whose
property or life is being protected, but it has frequently brought the police
into conflict with some segments of the population. It is difficult, for ex-
ample, to convince a cynical pedestrian or an irate motorist that he or she is
receiving the same protection granted others in the community. In addition,
people tend to be most supportive of activities that produce direct, immedi-
ate, and tangible benefits for them. Since police protection is sometimes an
abstract and impersonal service that may be considered important only when
it has failed, the protection of life and property has probably led to the active
and sustained public support many law enforcement agencies need to face the
challenges of the future.

ORDER
Although the idea of order may be somewhat misleading when used in con-
junction with the concept of law, there seemed little doubt that the maintenance
of public order was another important duty assumed by police departments.10

20
 Police Functions in Urban America

This function has often been equated with the need to uphold generally ac-
cepted social norms or conventions, but it also encompasses a wide range of
other activities. In their celebrated 1982 Atlantic Monthly article, James Q.
Wilson and George L. Kelling noted that the order maintenance function of
the police involved taking care of disorderly behaviors—panhandling, solicit-
ing, loitering, and public intoxication—and disorderly people—vagrants,
drunks, and vandals.11 They noted that it is important to take care of such
things because they are presumed to play a key role in making communities
ripe for criminal invasion. Simply put, if disorderly conduct is not addressed,
more serious crimes will emerge. The original police mandate to preserve
public order, for example, arguably arose from the common threat of riots
and civil disturbances. In normal circumstances this duty required, among
other things, intervention in domestic arguments, boisterous congregations
of young people, street fights, noisy parties, and tavern brawls.
A major proportion of the arrests made by police officers have involved
crimes against public order. Since the earliest days of police history, for ex-
ample, public intoxication and disorderly conduct have been the two crimes
that produced the largest number of arrests. Moreover, many of the crimes
prosecuted as part of the police mission to preserve order had no immediate
victims except the rather remote abstraction known as “society.” As the
president’s Crime Commission noted in 1967, “Nearly 45 percent of all ar-
rests are for crimes without victims or against the public order [such] as
drunkenness, gambling, liquor law violations, vagrancy, and prostitution.”12
The extensive use of arrests to stop “crimes without victims” has pro-
voked widespread controversy regarding the wisdom or propriety of such a
policy. The argument frequently advanced has been that an act really cannot
be considered criminal unless it results in harm to another person, that it may
be impossible to eliminate some conduct because people are unwilling to
abandon personal vices for “the public good,” and that the continued prosecu-
tion of victimless crimes subverts respect for the law. In addition, some ob-
servers noted that the enforcement of laws concerning crimes without specific
victims has often had the potential to undermine proper police procedures.
The argument went as follows: police forces may be tempted either to accept
payments for the protection of illegal enterprises or to become overzealous by
making the entire state enforcement apparatus available to an indignant third
party.13
On the other hand, proponents of the practice argued either, abstractly,
that society should not surrender its right to prescribe appropriate forms of
social conduct or, pragmatically, that police activities designed to halt crimes

21
Police Functions in Urban America

without specific victims have frequently led to the prevention or resolution of

more serious offenses. The debate, which was generally confined to vice and
narcotics laws, perhaps could not be resolved without broad agreement on
underlying normative issues. The failure of police forces to administer many
laws against seemingly harmless but offensive conduct without prior legisla-
tive repeal might have produced arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement prac-
tices. But the more important questions probably revolved around whether
efforts to maintain order and to halt victimless crimes had the potential to
divert police resources from more important tasks or to hinder attempts to
stop more dangerous activities.
Although police actions in response to charges of assault and battery may
have been regarded as conduct aimed primarily at protection, the vast major-
ity of such crimes may also have involved law enforcement officers’ efforts to
maintain public order. Since assault was classified as a misdemeanor in most
states, a police officer could not make an arrest for that crime unless he either
obtained a sworn complaint from the victim or the assault occurred in his
presence. In many cases assaults were regarded as personal matters, and the
police were viewed as unwelcome intruders. A national survey published in
1967 revealed, for example, that more than half of the assaults that occurred
in the United States were not reported to the police primarily because the
victim did not want to harm the offender or because no one involved regarded
the incident as a legitimate concern of the police.14 Another study in Oakland,
California, disclosed that personal inconvenience was often a barrier to ar-
rests for assault and that in 70 percent of the battery cases in which the
offender was known, the victim decided not to press charges.15 Assault and
battery seem to have many of the characteristics of crimes without aggrieved
victims. Although targets of an assault frequently suffer major physical inju-
ries, they are unlikely to solicit the intervention of the police in what they
consider essentially a private affair. Perhaps even the most serious crimes—
such as assault and battery—that involve police officers in the function of
maintaining order may not be consistent with the need for public support.
The task of preserving order requires the identification of deviant behav-
ior, a stigma many offenders would tend to dispute. Although most people
recognize the need to enforce established norms of conduct, the duty of cur-
tailing socially unacceptable behavior and imposing order has not attracted
widespread approval in a society founded on personal freedom. Certainly, few
citizens detained for the commission of crimes without specific victims could
be expected to admit the need for their actions to be punished. Even the
victims of dangerous assault may be reluctant to acknowledge the necessity

22
 Police Functions in Urban America

for police intervention to stop what they regard as a private conflict. Again,
perhaps the most controversial aspect of maintaining public order has in-
volved the police role in preventing and squashing riots or civil demonstra-
tions, in which police intervention was anything but welcomed by rioters or
protestors.
Moreover, in each case, with the possible exception of civic disturbances
or violence, the interest of other members of society in suppressing illegal
activities was usually insufficient to provide firm support for police actions to
maintain order. The outbreak of the 1960s rebellions may have changed pub-
lic sentiment slightly by arousing the fears of the white community, but police
efforts to end the threat also seemed to provoke more criticism and ill will
than any other single police activity.

AUTHORITY
Perhaps the fundamental basis upon which all other police functions rest is
the exercise of authority. Without the formal authorization bestowed by pub-
lic institutions, police officers would be unable to command the deference
necessary to maintain social control. To enhance their power, local govern-
ments have invested police officers with the badge, gun, nightstick, and other
tools of coercion. In large measure the cop on the beat has been empowered
by the state to assert control over personal interactions in a world in which
other forms of social discipline are inadequate. As agents of public authority,
the police have been responsible for implementing community standards by
which the activities of residents are judged or evaluated.
Unlike the functions of providing protection and order, the exercise of
authority has not been associated with any specific form of illegal conduct. In
many circumstances, however, people have turned to the police officer as a
type of social arbiter to mediate conflict or prevent the disruption of normal
social conventions. Perhaps the most common influence of police on private
affairs has been produced by their intervention in domestic or marital quar-
rels, where the disputing parties have frequently been persuaded by the au-
thority of the badge to accept the officers’ decision regarding the conflict.
Even when a crime was committed, the major responsibility of the police
officers called to the scene has been to gain control of the encounter and to
structure the situation for themselves.16 Rather than searching for clues or
pursuing a culprit, police efforts have been devoted primarily to assessing the
motives and the testimony of victims or witnesses to the incident. In public
places, most contacts between police officers and the public may also involve
the exertion of authority. Although law enforcement officers have sometimes

23
Police Functions in Urban America

lacked firm legal grounds for such a command, few citizens are likely to ig-
nore a directive from a police officer to “come over here” or to “move along.”
Authority has been one of the most basic and frequently used powers available
to police officers in performing their duties.
Local governments have conferred a great deal of power upon police
departments, although few other methods of persuasion have been made avail-
able to them. Although the problem of securing compliance with law enforce-
ment directives may depend on social skills rather than on legal sanctions,
historically, police officers have not been equipped with the training or selection
procedures to develop those abilities. Moreover, the granting of broad discre-
tion to police forces has rarely been accompanied by more specific corre-
sponding guidelines regarding the exercise of their powers. As a result, in
many instances police have been likely to regard as illegal or provocative those
actions that interfered with what they considered their legitimate duties.
In fact, in many areas failure to respect the authority of a police officer,
although not explicitly recognized in the statutes, has been accorded the status
of a crime. A major study of police attitudes published in 1953 revealed that
showing “disrespect for the police” was the most frequently cited justification
for the use of excessive force in making an arrest.17 A subsequent investiga-
tion of “professionalized” police officers in the late 1960s by James Leo Walsh
found that the exercise of force was reserved primarily for “animals,” or known
troublemakers who looked and acted especially tough.18 Another study in two
separate communities revealed that more than 40 percent of arrests for “dis-
orderly conduct” resulted from a person resisting, disobeying, or verbally
abusing an officer.19 Although the act of imposing authority has frequently
been cloaked by statements about the need to establish order, evidence has
indicated that the exercise of authority may constitute a separate and distinct
police function. In some circumstances authority may be employed simply to
regulate behavior or to adjudicate a minor dispute, but under other condi-
tions the discretion available to police has apparently been expanded to include
the defiance of authority as an unwritten crime susceptible to punishment.
Since police departments have operated under the imposing formal auspices
of the state with little direct supervision, they have been in a unique position
to repel challenges to their authority.
The exertion of authority, like many other law enforcement activities,
commonly resulted in a negative or hostile encounter between police and
citizen. Although many reacted to the imposition of external controls with
resentment or annoyance, others responded favorably. To many persons who
recognized the inadequacy of personal restraints on human behavior, an aware-

24
 Police Functions in Urban America

ness of the presence of the police may have produced an aura of security and
a faith that public agencies were equipped to repress improper or threatening
conduct. This sense of personal safety and confidence in the police has possi-
bly been a principal source of popular approval. In general, however, the
exercise of authority by the police in the past has not yielded the active and
intense public support accorded other political institutions.

SERVICE
Unlike protection, order, and authority, another police duty has tended to
generate widespread public acceptance. As the history of law enforcement
indicates, the provision of community services evolved in a somewhat different
manner than the other police functions. Service activities may have flourished
in the somewhat tainted era of the old-style political machine. Subsequently,
however, increasing police professionalization tended to discourage this func-
tion, primarily on the grounds that it could interfere with “real” police work.
In fact, many police officers tended to consign service tasks to a large residual
category of “bullshit,” which was sharply differentiated from “real police work.”20
In fact, one expert, who later identified the “service style” as a major form of
police behavior, initially sought to exclude service functions from consider-
ation because they could be sold by profit-making organizations.21 Regardless
of debates about the merits or lack thereof implied by conservative proposals
to transfer critically needed services to private rather than public agencies, the
fact remained that a major proportion of police officers’ duties required them
to perform social services.
Numerous studies of popular demands on the police indicated that the
largest number of citizen requests for police intervention had nothing to do
with crime. Most involved what might be termed community services. A
study of calls to the Syracuse Police Department in 1961 disclosed that more
than half were requests for health services or assistance with children.22 A
partial replication of the study in 1966 confirmed that the largest proportion
of calls—37.5 percent—sought services, with health problems or accidents
still leading the list; 30.1 percent concerned the maintenance of public order;
22.1 percent were attempts to gather information; and only 10.3 percent were
related to crime.23 Comparable results were found in Chicago and Detroit.24
Nationally, a task force of the president’s Crime Commission estimated that
only about a third of police radio calls involved matters that could possibly
lead to an arrest, and only about 5 percent actually produced an arrest.25
As part of their service responsibility, police assistance has long been pro-
vided to diverse groups ranging from expectant mothers to stranded motorists.

25
Police Functions in Urban America

Despite the vast amount of time devoted to this work, police departments
have frequently believed it was necessary to legitimize their service activities
by relating them to supposedly more professional practices. As the National
Crime Commission concluded begrudgingly:
In the absence of conclusive proof to the contrary, the Commission believes
that the performance of many of the nonenforcement duties helps [the
police] to control crime, and that radically changing the traditional police
role would create more problems than it would solve—including the
problem of finding other people to perform the indispensable services the
police would be excused from performing.26

The phrasing of this conclusion seemed to imply that many law enforce-
ment agencies would have preferred to have found an excuse to avoid service
functions but were unable to do so. Police departments may have been the
sole local agency capable of providing vitally needed services, but there would
appear to have been little reason to make this function dependent upon tradi-
tion, the difficulty of replacing them, or their effectiveness in stopping crime.
In fact, the tendency to make service an extension of crime control could have
intensified mutual suspicion and distrust between police and the community.
Ironically, the duty that claimed the largest share of police time and atten-
tion was the task law enforcement agencies found most difficult to justify. In
general, police officers probably spent more of their active duty time provid-
ing services and writing reports than they did on any other single function.27
The extensive public reliance on police departments to provide critical ser-
vices is not difficult to explain. The police represent the only public agency
that continually circulates throughout the community and that can be sum-
moned on a nearly instantaneous around-the-clock basis. Moreover, many
citizens were not aware of services provided by other groups in the commu-
nity. Elaine Cumming, Dan Cumming, and Laura Edell noted in their study
that “poor, uneducated people appeared to use the police in the way that
middle-class people use family doctors and clergymen—that is, as the first
port of call in time of trouble.”28 Because of their ability to respond to emer-
gency calls quickly and effectively, the police were viewed as a natural source
of assistance in personal or family crises. Many persons—including some
members of minority groups who may have sought to avoid the social stigma
of becoming involved with the police—could have relied on private sources of
help, but for others who could not afford the economic or social costs of
private aid, the police were often their only option. The performance of ser-
vices offered police officers an unusual opportunity to become familiar with
the problems and personalities of the residents on their beat. Further, there

26
 Police Functions in Urban America

would seem to have been little reason to deny citizens the services available
from local police forces.
The heavy demands community services imposed on the police produced
intense strains and conflict. According to some observers, the time consumed
by service functions compelled the police to act in latent rather than overt
roles and to alter their status correspondingly from professionals to amateurs.29
This interpretation, however, seemed founded on the assumption that the
primary duty of the police was to prevent crime and that they already had
professional stature or expertise in that field. The vast amount of time de-
voted to public services, as well as the difficulties police encountered in their
highly publicized role of solving crimes, raised some doubts about this claim.
Although the idea might appear radical or novel, no intrinsic reason appears
to exist for assuming that narrowly defined law enforcement duties should
have been granted a higher priority than community services. Police officers
acquired a great deal of experience in providing personal assistance that could
have been enhanced by further training and a clearer recognition of their
responsibility for service.
An honest acknowledgment of the need for community services seemed
to require a thorough reappraisal of the police mission. Although service
activities formed a major—even a critical—part of police duties for many
years, they were allowed to develop without either a strong commitment to
their value or even more than a tacit admission of their existence. Police
professionalization, with its emphasis on battling crime, relegated services to
a position of secondary importance. Yet unlike other duties assigned to police
departments, service work involved the police in a positive rather than an
adversarial relationship with the public. In fact, the performance of services
may have been the only major police function that could have generated the
kind of widespread support these agencies needed. In the controversy result-
ing from the police entanglement in major social issues, public services could
have enabled law enforcement agencies to regain increased favor and approval.
Ironically, this is also the function subjected to the most vehement attacks by
the proponents of police professionalization.

CONFLICTING POLICE FUNCTIONS

The tendency to downgrade service functions was stimulated not only by the
growth of police professionalization but also by basic problems in the nature
of police work. Unlike most tasks, providing community services was often
regarded as inconsistent with other law enforcement goals. Although all police
functions—order, protection, authority, and service—may entail some overlap

27
Police Functions in Urban America

or duplication,30 service has probably produced more conflict with the re-
maining objectives than any of the other duties.
A prominent conflict in the occupational mandate of the police was cre-
ated by the simultaneous demand for services and the obligation to maintain
public order. In addition to the strain created by the staggering volume of
telephone calls police departments received,31 this tension was illustrated by
routine situations encountered by officers on the street. For the purpose of
preserving order, police were directed to intervene in victimless crimes, civil
disturbances, and private fights between friends or relatives; but as providers
of public service they were asked to help persons who had suffered serious
mishaps. As a result, the police were frequently forced, for example, to decide
whether they should arrest a staggering drunk or send him home. In other
circumstances they were often compelled to determine whether to attempt to
facilitate reconciliation between members of a couple engaged in a loud fam-
ily argument or to escort one of the parties to the station because of disorderly
conduct. Perhaps even more important, police officers were commonly faced
with the dilemma either of stopping a crowd of demonstrators to restore
order or of guarding the demonstrators’ right to protest from the threat of
troublesome onlookers. In many of those situations, the average police officer
had to make a choice between establishing order and providing aid to persons
in need. In many cases, however, cops on the beat were given little direction
or guidance regarding which of the two functions they should perform.
The needs to provide services and to exercise authority also forced the
police to act in different capacities. Their job usually required them simulta-
neously to offer assistance and impose their authority. In most circumstances
in which officers were summoned to a scene, they first asked if anyone was
injured and then sought to gain control of the situation. If offenders were
injured, the officer attended to their needs before applying the penalties of the
state as a result of their illegal conduct. The effect of this action, which arises
from the fact that police forces are both masters and servants of the people,
may have created confusion in the eyes of witnesses and uncertainty in the
minds of some police officers.
Although normally the obligation to provide services and protect lives or
property would not produce tension, the two functions may become inconsistent
if the performance of services is viewed as an additional opportunity to investi-
gate or scrutinize citizens’ activities. Tension between protection and service,
therefore, depends on the manner in which those functions are administered.
Although authority has often been viewed as a necessary condition for
public order, those two functions may also represent opposing responsibili-

28
 Police Functions in Urban America

ties. Perhaps the clearest example of this conflict might arise when a police
officer attempts to use force in arresting a person for disturbing the peace.
The force may be successful in subduing the suspect, but it might also pro-
voke him or her or a crowd of hostile observers to engage in even more
disruptive or violent behavior. The exercise of authority may be disruptive of
public order, and in large measure it may appear to exceed conventional or
socially accepted modes of conduct. The incipient flame of revolt that burns
in some individuals could be ignited by the firm imposition of authority in a
manner that could destroy public order.
Basic inconsistencies among the four principal police functions of order,
service, protection, and authority are illustrated in Figure 1.1. Conflicts are
represented by opposing arrows, and supportive functions are pictured as
straight lines. The tension between protection and service is depicted by bro-
ken lines.
As this analysis indicates, the police mission—like the objectives of many
organizations—encompasses many conflicting duties. For some, such appar-
ent inconsistencies may not represent a serious concern. Some public and
private institutions have embraced conflicting tasks, and they have operated
successfully. But the existence of numerous opposing responsibilities provides
a relatively clear picture of the ambiguous and loosely structured manner in
which the police mandate had been defined.
Again, the most inconsistent police function was community service. An
emphasis on providing services might conflict with maintaining order, estab-
lishing authority, and possibly protecting lives and property. Perhaps in an
effort to minimize this conflict, the doctrines of police professionalism tended
to deemphasize the importance of service activities. On the other hand, the
protective function produced the least conflict with other duties. Order, au-
thority, and possibly even service contributed to and supported the function
of protecting persons and property. Since protection was most closely related
to the norms of police professionalization and involved few conflicts with
other assignments, it probably received more emphasis and attention than
any other function.

INTERSECTION OF PROTECTION AND CRIME

Police usually interpreted the responsibility of protection as allowing them to
concentrate on fighting crime. Yet the largest proportion of police time was
devoted to other tasks, and most crimes that were reported to the police did
not result in an arrest of a suspect.32 As two close observers of police activity
submitted, “Only in a superficial sense may police be said to solve crime or to

29
Police Functions in Urban America

enforce the law.”33 Contrary to the impressions conveyed by detective stories

and television dramas, criminals were seldom identified by an incriminating
clue or a long series of logical deductions. More often, when law enforcement
officers arrived at the scene of a crime they asked, “Who did it?” And fre-
quently someone—the victim, a friend, a relative, or a witness—told them
who had done it. Silence, however, was a common response to property crimes
such as burglary, which were usually committed by a stranger. Studies of
police detectives generally concluded that their work was inefficient and un-
productive.34 As a result, the police were helpless in a large number of crimes
in which the offender could not be identified. In cases where the suspect was
known to the victim, the police were simply were left to make the arrest. In
most situations the crucial work in bringing a culprit to justice was performed
by private citizens rather than police forces.
Despite police departments’ heavy reliance on deterrent mechanisms, no
consistent correlation was discovered between the amount or type of police
activity and the prevention of crime in either a neighborhood or a commu-
nity. As the National Crime Commission observed, “Perhaps the best proof
that much remains to be discovered about police work is that the ratios of
policemen per thousand residents in cities of over 500,000 population range
from 1.07 to 4.04, while the incidence of reported crime in those cities shows
no such gross differences.”35 In fact, the Kansas City experiment, which was
expected to provide those data, failed to demonstrate any association between
patrolling practices and crime rates.36 Slight evidence suggested that increased
numbers of police officers may have reduced certain types of street crimes
such as muggings, purse snatchings, and related offenses; but such crimes
accounted for only a small portion of illegal activities, and a temporary reduc-
tion may have simply represented a displacement of crime to other areas of a
community.37
This point was underscored by the conclusions of another study, which
noted that police departments “cannot control crime any more than they can
alter the economic structure, the political system, the educational system, or
fundamentally affect the birth rate or patterns of migration. They have over-
sold themselves as crime fighters.”38 Overall, there was relatively little discus-
sion of the issue. Perhaps one of the most persuasive facts that could have
been offered to support these conclusions was the absence of a consistent
correlation between crime rates and police strikes. After reviewing the avail-
able information about the subject, Richard J. Lundman concluded that “strikes
help reveal what police otherwise feel obligated to obfuscate, that contempo-
rary police organizations can do little to prevent or control crime.”39

30
 Police Functions in Urban America

Service

Order Authority

Protection
Figure 1.1.

Perhaps the ideal form of deterrence might have been achieved by main-
taining a constant surveillance of civilian behavior or by placing a patrolman
in every block, but the first policy would not be tolerated in a free society and
the second is impractical. Moreover, most deterrent activities such as aggres-
sive preventive patrolling, the interrogation of suspicious persons, and the
saturation of high crime-rate areas often brought the police into hostile con-
flicts with the public. The prospects for police forces to represent an effective
deterrent against crime, therefore, seemed relatively limited.
Although some police officers were defensive about the issue, the fact
that many law enforcement agencies did not have proven means of preventing
or controlling crime should not be interpreted as a criticism of them. Police
officers have an enormously difficult job. If fault was to be found anywhere, a
major portion of the blame rested with policy analysts and social scientists
who failed to provide police departments with useful information about methods

31
Police Functions in Urban America

of reducing the crime rate.40 For many years police departments pointed to a
“rising crime wave” to justify their requests for increased appropriations from
local politicians. In this continuing dialogue, little was said to correct the
impression that increased funding would produce a reduction in the crime
rate. That argument, of course, was based on the erroneous assumption that
law enforcement agencies had developed practical and effective methods of
curbing crime.
Perhaps part of the problem that confronted both law enforcement agen-
cies and social scientists had to do with incomplete and inadequate data about
crime. Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) compiled an an-
nual volume of statistics known as the Uniform Crime Reports, the series was
of limited value in evaluating the effectiveness of police work. In fact, the
information made available by the FBI, which was usually interpreted as indi-
cating that crime had increased steadily since the end of World War II, was
probably a more sensitive measure of police departments’ increasing ability to
keep accurate records. In assessing the effects of improved reporting proce-
dures, a study by the National Crime Commission found that “cities that
significantly changed their reporting systems after 1959 accounted for nearly
25 percent of all reported Index crimes against the person and about 16 per-
cent of all reported Index property crimes.”41 Hence, ironically, a few major
cities that improved their reporting and record-keeping techniques probably
contributed disproportionately to the apparent increase in crime. In some
communities, methods of compiling crime rates may have changed for other
reasons. The available evidence suggested that many police organizations al-
tered their crime statistics to create a favorable image in the eyes of municipal
authorities and other outsiders.42
In addition, the actual volume of crime in the United States was greatly
obscured by people’s failure to report many crimes to the police. In 1966 a
national sample survey of approximately 10,000 U.S. households was under-
taken to determine the actual occurrence of crime. A comparison of so-called
Part I crimes (serious offenses such as homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated
assault, burglary, larceny, and vehicle theft) contained in the Uniform Crime
Reports and the statistics reported in the survey revealed that although the
ranking of each specific crime remained the same, the estimated rate of all
crimes except homicide and car theft was substantially higher in the survey.
The researchers concluded, “As a whole, there appears to be twice as much
major crime as is known to the police.”43 This finding was subsequently con-
firmed by several surveys conducted by the Law Enforcement Assistance Ad-
ministration. When people were asked why they did not report crimes, the

32
 Police Functions in Urban America

largest proportion replied, ”Realistically . . . there is not very much that the
police can do about them anyhow.”44 The lack of an accurate method of deter-
mining the actual rate of crime by calculating meaningful crime statistics
deprived informed observers of a basis for assessing the consequences of
police activity.45
Despite the inadequacy of existing information about crime, police were
continually pressed to develop a standard for measuring their effectiveness.46
The result of this tension was a measure known as “the clearance rate,” which
is the proportion of crimes known to police that law enforcement agencies
believe have been solved. Instead of defining the solution of crimes as an
arrest or a conviction, however, the meaning of the term expanded to include
confessions, the release of suspects to other agencies, and other actions that
removed the offense from the books. The number of crimes known to the
police was also reduced by labeling citizens’ complaints as “unfounded,” by
investigating officers’ tendency to submit a routine report on an incident rather
than filing it as an offense, and by the classification of many complaints as
“suspicious circumstances” rather than crimes.47 In most cases that were cleared
by an arrest, the suspect was named by the victim and was taken into custody
soon after the commission of the offense.48
Despite the inability of police to identify a suspect in many crimes, the
need to maintain a favorable public image prompted strong pressure to pro-
duce a relatively high clearance rate. Perhaps the most significant example of
this tendency was evident in efforts to obtain admissions to prior offenses
from suspects held on another charge. To secure information that could en-
able a department to increase its clearance rate, persons taken into custody
were frequently promised a reduction in charges, confidential handling of
confessions, or immunity from further investigation of earlier crimes.49 Al-
though reliable data on the use of such techniques were lacking, there was
good reason to claim that the second-largest proportion of all crimes cleared
by arrest was “solved” by arresting otherwise known violators.50 Even when a
suspect was arrested, the evidence was sufficient to sustain a formal charge in
60 to 80 percent of cases for various offenses, and a smaller proportion re-
sulted in a conviction.51 Clearance rates reported by local police departments,
therefore, failed to convey an accurate picture of their effectiveness in solving
crimes.

CONCLUSION
Even by the most generous estimates, the performance of police departments
in coping with crimes or in reversing the allegedly growing crime wave of the

33
Police Functions in Urban America

1960s was not particularly impressive. Perhaps more important, the failure to
present an authentic or a realistic basis for evaluating law enforcement activi-
ties seriously undermined public confidence in the police. In large measure,
this problem resulted from police preoccupation with the detection and inves-
tigation of criminal conduct. If police departments prominently reported the
number of sick or injured persons they assisted or even the number of marital
disputes they helped reconcile, they might have been able to display a favor-
able record and to garner increased popular approval and support. By concen-
trating on the punitive aspects of law enforcement and on their role in battling
crime, the police exposed the weakest and the most negative facets of their
mission to public scrutiny.
In many respects this emphasis on crime control probably could not have
been otherwise. The origins of modern police were based on the need for
protection—the function most closely related to solving crimes—and that
focus was reinforced by the doctrines of police professionalization. As cities
faced the problem of increased discontent, police forces added the responsi-
bilities of maintaining order and exerting authority; additionally, the acceler-
ating waves of immigration prompted new needs for community services. But
this service function conflicted with other duties. Protection, however, was
supported by those duties. Hence protection emerged as police forces’ pri-
mary mandate. Since police had become intimately involved both in regulat-
ing criminal conduct and in corresponding debates about individual liberties,
a thorough reappraisal of police functions cannot be undertaken without a
careful examination of the relationship among the law, courts, and urban law
enforcement.

NOTES
1. Joseph D. Lohman and Gordon E. Misner, The Police and the Community, vol. 1
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), 25–26; Arthur Niederhoffer,
Behind the Shield (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), 11.
2. Geoffrey P. Alpert and Roger G. Dunham, Policing Urban America (Prospect
Heights, Ill.: Waveland, 1997).
3. Roy R. Roberg and Jack KuyKendall, Police in Society (Belmont, Calif.:
Wadsworth, 1993).
4. Robert H. Langworthy, The Structure of Police Organizations (New York: Praeger,
1986).
5. National Crime Commission, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (Washing-
ton, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 18–19.
6. Ibid., 23–24.
7. G. W. Cordner, “The Police on Patrol,” in D. J. Kenney, ed., Police and Policing:
Contemporary Issues (New York: Praeger, 1989), 60–71.

34
 Police Functions in Urban America

8. Cited in ibid., 247.

9. George L. Kelling, Tony Pate, Duane Dieckman, and Charles E. Brown, The
Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment—A Summary Report (Washington, D.C.: Po-
lice Foundation, 1974).
10. George L. Kelling, “Acquiring a Taste for Order: The Community and the
Police,” Crime and Delinquency 33 (1987): 90–102.
11. James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, “The Police and Neighborhood
Safety: Broken Windows,” Atlantic Monthly 127 (March 1982): 29–38.
12. National Crime Commission, Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, 20.
13. Jerome H. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial (New York: John Wiley, 1975), 209–
211.
14. Phillip H. Ennis, Criminal Victimization in the United States: A Report of a
National Survey (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 42, 46.
15. James Q. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1968), 23–24, 132–134.
16. Donald J. Black and Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Patterns of Behavior in Police and
Citizen Transactions,” in Studies in Crime and Law Enforcement in Major Metropolitan
Areas, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, n.d.), 27.
17. William A. Westley, “Violence and the Police,” American Journal of Sociology 59
(July 1953): 34–41.
18. James Leo Walsh, “Professionalism and the Police: The Cop as Medical Stu-
dent,” in Harlan Hahn, ed., Police in Urban Society (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1971), 225–
245.
19. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior, 130–131.
20. Marvin Cummins, “Police and Service Work,” in Harlan Hahn, ed., Police in
Urban Society (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1971), 279–290; John Van Maanen, “Kinsman in
Repose: Occupational Perspectives of Patrolmen,” in Peter K. Manning and John Van
Maanen, eds., Policing: A View From the Streets (Santa Monica: Goodyear, 1978), 115–
128.
21. Ibid., 4–5.
22. Elaine Cumming, Dan Cumming, and Laura Edell, “Policeman as Philoso-
pher, Guide and Friend,” Social Problems 12 (Winter 1965): 279.
23. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior, 18–19.
24. Herman Goldstein, “Police Response to Urban Crisis,” Public Administration
Review 28 (September-October 1968): 418. See also Thomas E. Bereal, “Call for Police
Assistance: Consumer Demands for Governmental Service,” in Harlan Hahn, ed., Police
in Urban Society (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1971), 267–277.
25. National Crime Commission, Task Force Report: Science and Technology (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 93. See Cummins, “Police and
Service Work,” 279–290.
26. National Crime Commission, Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, 98.
27. Richard J. Lundman, “Police Patrol Work: A Comparative Perspective,” in
Richard J. Lundman, ed., Police Behavior: A Sociological Perspective (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1980), 52–65.
28. Cumming, Cumming, and Edell, “Policeman as Philosopher,” 285.

35
Police Functions in Urban America

29. Ibid., 277.

30. The concepts of order, protection, authority, and service may not be entirely
mutually exclusive, but they would seem to be both analytically and empirically sepa-
rable. It is hoped that they might provide a basis for more detailed and quantitative
studies of police activities, perhaps employing the techniques offered by role theory. For
a discussion of this approach, see Jack J. Preiss and Howard J. Ehrlich, An Examination
of Role Theory: The Case of the State Police (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966);
S. Eitzen, In Conflict and Order (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1993).
31. Jonathan Rubinstein, City Police (New York: Ballantine, 1973), 74.
32. Peter K. Manning, Police Work: The Social Organization of Policing (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1977), 116.
33. Albert J. Reiss Jr. and David J. Bordua, “Environment and Organization: A
Perspective on the Police,” in David J. Bordua, ed., The Police: Six Sociological Essays
(New York: John Wiley, 1967), 41; Paul F. Lazarsfeld, William H. Sewell, and Harold L.
Wilensky, eds., The Uses of Sociology (New York: Basic Books, 1967).
34. Peter W. Greenwood, Jan M. Ckahen, Joan Petersilia, and Linda Prusoff, The
Criminal Investigation Process, Vol. III: Observations and Analysis. Rand Corporation
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1975); William B. Sanders, Detective
Work: A Study of Criminal Investigations (New York: Free Press, 1977).
35. National Crime Commission, Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, 96; see also
William W. Turner, The Police Establishment (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1968), 304.
36. Kelling et al., Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment.
37. National Crime Commission, Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, 95; James Q.
Wilson, “Dilemmas of Police Administration,” Public Administration Review 28 (Sep-
tember-October 1968): 408.
38. Manning, Police Work, 371–372.
39. Richard J. Lundman, Police and Policing: An Introduction (New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1980), 41–42.
40. Ibid., 106–107.
41. National Crime Commission, Task Force Report: Crime and Its Impact—an
Assessment (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 23.
42. Lundman, Police and Policing, 43.
43. Ennis, Criminal Victimization in the United States, 9.
44. National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals,
Criminal Justice System (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973), 199.
45. Perhaps if law enforcement agencies were able to develop an effective response
to crime, that fact might be noted by many people who failed to report offenses in the
past because they felt in some instances there was nothing the police could do. Thus
speculation suggests that they might be encouraged to report crimes to police depart-
ments. Ironically, improvements in police capabilities to deal with crime could prompt
the crime rate, or the number of offenses known to the police, to increase rather than
decline.
46. David H. Bayley, “Measuring Overall Effectiveness, or Police-Force Show and
Tell,” in Quantifying Quality in Policing (Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research
Forum, 1996), 37–54.

36
 Police Functions in Urban America

47. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 174–179.

48. National Crime Commission, Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, 247–248.
49. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 174–179.
50. Reiss and Bordua, “Environment and Organization,” 43.
51. National Crime Commission, Task Force Report: Crime and Its Impact—an
Assessment, 38.

37
 Police and the Law

2 Police
and the Law

B
ECAUSE CRIME DETECTION AND APPREHENSION had traditionally been re-
garded as the major focus of police departments, the regulation of law
enforcement activities created difficult and distinctive problems.1 The
power to impose the authority of the state on the behavior of citizens necessi-
tated especially close supervision by other government institutions. Unlike
many other administrative agencies, the police have a unique relationship not
only with executive and legislative bodies, which are responsible for establish-
ing general public policy, but also with the judiciary, which examines police
conduct in individual criminal cases.
Frequently, in the period studied the directives of political and judicial offi-
cials were inconsistent. Whereas elected officials have historically demanded in-
creasingly aggressive and stringent law enforcement, the courts have mostly been
more interested in protecting the rights of defendants and in the legal proprieties
of police behavior. In the midst of this conflict, police departments expressed
both a growing frustration over the failure of outside agencies to understand their
problems and a mounting professional interest in regulating their own affairs.
Many police officers believed the courts denied them the use of certain
techniques necessary to satisfy public interest in controlling crime. On the other
hand, they blamed the public for its unwillingness to appreciate the difficul-
ties of police work under rigid legal restrictions. As a result, the adequacy of
legal provisions for exerting police authority was the subject of great dispute.

THE POWER OF ARREST

Perhaps the most basic power available to the police is arrest. In some juris-
dictions private citizens are authorized to make an arrest without a warrant

39
Police and the Law

when a felony, or a serious crime usually punishable by more than one year in
prison, is committed in their presence.2 Police officers can generally arrest a
suspect in two additional circumstances. They may, under carefully specified
conditions, arrest a person accused of committing a felony, even though they
were not witnesses to the crime; and they may arrest someone committing a
misdemeanor, or a lesser offense, in their presence. To facilitate life in U.S.
society and to reduce the burdens of citizenship, certain authority was con-
ferred on law enforcement officers that does not extend to all people, but
those rights were relatively limited. In many respects, police officers are profes-
sional citizens; they are paid to discharge obligations that fall upon all citizens,
and their obligations are to the community as a whole.3
In general, police officers had the right to arrest a suspect without previ-
ously obtaining a warrant either when there were reasonable grounds to believe a
felony had been committed or when a misdemeanor had been committed in
their presence. Perhaps the most crucial element of this statement is the need
for reasonable grounds, commonly referred to as “probable cause.” Since the
use of arrest warrants had been confined to a relatively small number of of-
fenses that did not require prompt action, the vast majority of arrests were
governed by the criteria affecting action without warrants and by police officers’
instantaneous on-the-spot decisions.
The importance of this standard for arrests was underscored by the fact
that the largest proportion of criminal charges was not seriously contested in
court. Research conducted on this topic in the 1960s found that 90 percent of
all criminal charges in the United States were decided by the defendant’s guilty
plea.4 Pleading guilty was more common in misdemeanor than in felony cases,
but the proportion of felony convictions resulting from guilty pleas seldom fell
below 70 to 85 percent.
Although attorneys and judges subsequently played a critical role in shap-
ing the nature of the penalty, the fate of most defendants for all practical
purposes was probably established at the moment the police officer made the
initial arrest. After the suspect had been taken into custody, his or her guilt or
innocence was rarely examined by lawyers or the courts simply because the
issue was not placed in contention. Police officers, therefore, played a uniquely
critical role in the administration of criminal justice. Although an elaborate
legal superstructure had been created both to review the actions of law en-
forcement officers and to protect the rights of the accused, the largest number
of convictions seemed to have been determined by a police officer’s immedi-
ate decision to make an arrest rather than by the formal adjudication of pros-
ecutors, defense attorneys, judges, or juries.

40
 Police and the Law

The judgment by a police officer that a crime had been committed and
that an arrest should be made had important implications not only for the
defendant but also for society at large. In fact, such periodic decisions by
police officers probably had a more influential effect on common definitions
of acceptable and even legal conduct than the verdicts of lawmakers or judges.
Although the police had more latitude in felony than in misdemeanor cases,
the courts gave them relatively little guidance that might either clarify what
constituted “reasonable cause” for a felony arrest or to specify the conditions
under which an officer could conclude that a misdemeanor had been commit-
ted in his or her presence.5 Relatively few cases involving such issues were
reviewed by appellate courts, whose opinions were considered and followed
by other judges. Also, judicial officers often seemed reluctant to interfere
with police procedures. Persons who wanted to avoid the punitive conse-
quences of an arrest, therefore, were well advised to follow the orders of a cop
on the street rather than the dictates of legal codes or judicial decisions.
The vast amount of discretion given most police officers raised funda-
mental questions regarding the use of the power of arrest to restrain human
behavior. What may have been considered a crime in one instance might have
been tolerated in another situation. Moreover, acts that could have provoked
an arrest in one community may have been accepted or ignored in another
locality. To some extent, differences in law enforcement practices reflected
prevailing customs or a dominant consensus on moral values, but for persons
who failed to recognize those distinctions, ignorance of special local tradi-
tions or norms sometimes resulted in arrest. Since suspects had little reason
or incentive to challenge arrests, the decisions of police regarding appropriate
forms of conduct in specific social situations subsequently became binding.
As will be seen, however, the application of inconsistent law enforcement
standards against individuals aroused less concern than the possibility that
different criteria for arrest might be imposed on racial, economic, or social
groups in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner.
Although police discretion in the power of arrest undoubtedly produced
inequities in the administration of criminal justice, an even more significant
problem resulted from their failure to invoke this authority. Few would con-
tend that all laws were enforced equally or that all criminal offenders brought
to the attention of police were arrested. Yet statutes in most states explicitly
required that police fully enforce the law.6 Action to withhold punishment is
as arbitrary and unjust as an improper arrest. The dilemma produced by a
legal system that demanded complete and impartial law enforcement and that
gave police broad discretion was also compounded by other factors.

41
Police and the Law

Initially, police did not always clarify the motivation for the failure to
invoke the criminal process. Decisions not to arrest a suspect have been
made for a wide variety of reasons, including an unwillingness to enforce the
law, a lack of police resources, victims’ refusal to cooperate, or a belief that
the arrest would jeopardize efforts to convict other criminals and bring down
larger operations;7 but it was nearly impossible to determine accurately the
number or types of incidents encompassed by such decisions. Court deci-
sions, police manuals, and statements by public officials continued to main-
tain that the police sought total enforcement of the law without adequately
knowing or recognizing the extent to which criminal statutes had not been
invoked. As a result, police officers were given little direction regarding non-
enforcement of the law. Because legislators and police administrators failed to
assume the responsibility of defining circumstances in which an arrest should
be made, the obligation to determine what constitutes appropriate use of the
power of arrest was informally accepted by the cop on the beat.8
In addition, no effective means was developed for controlling police dis-
cretion concerning arrests. A variety of legal actions—including the use of
the constitutional equal protection of the law doctrine9 and the establishment
of Police Appraisal and Review Boards10—were proposed as methods of curb-
ing nonenforcement or selective enforcement of the law, but none of the
possible remedies was especially successful.11 Even if adequate grounds were
available to contest police officers’ failure or refusal to make some types of
arrests, the vast majority of such cases would have remained undetected.
Many police departments, for example, required their officers to prepare
both a criminal complaint report on all crimes and another record of all
encounters with the public, but there was no means of ensuring that all of-
fenses would be filed as criminal matters or that crimes would be reported at
all. Perhaps the basic problem concerning nonenforcement arose from the
fact that police decisions about whether to make an arrest had little visibility
to the public or the courts. In a relatively small proportion of serious or
controversial cases that did not yield a guilty plea, criminal defendants were
given the opportunity to expose the incident and the grounds for arrest to the
thorough scrutiny of the legal process. But if the event did not produce an
arrest, the actions of police officers were rarely subjected to judicial or ad-
ministrative review.
The lack of effective surveillance of police activities that did not result in
an arrest was exacerbated by the widespread occurrence of such practices.
Perhaps the largest proportion of police time was devoted to preventive pa-
trolling. Police officers frequently viewed it as their right or their duty to stop

42
 Police and the Law

and question persons suspected of a crime without necessarily invoking the

power of arrest. This procedure, commonly known as field interrogation,
provoked numerous encounters between police officers and citizens that were
inadequately investigated by the courts or other agencies. A study of police
operations in San Diego revealed that approximately 20,000 field interroga-
tion reports were submitted by officers each month and that an equal number
of such contacts were believed not to have been recorded.12
Despite the frequency with which field interrogations were employed to
investigate crimes, police departments gave their officers little guidance re-
garding the use of this tactic. An examination of police manuals from twenty-
six cities revealed that half made no reference to the questioning of suspicious
persons, six asserted the need for field interrogations but made no attempt to
define the circumstances in which they would be proper, and only seven made
any effort to indicate when the questioning should be conducted.13 Because
there were few legal appeals concerning cases in which a field interrogation
either produced an arrest or did not result in criminal charges being filed, the
courts were relatively silent on the propriety of the practice.
The policy of stopping to question numerous suspects without adequate
supervision created problems relating not only to nonenforcement but also to
accusations about the use of field interrogations as a method of harassment.
According to a 1967 task force report, the vast majority of field encounters
occurred in low-income urban areas with high crime rates, and they were
frequently directed at persons the police viewed with mistrust. As a report of
the Commission on Crime observed,
Misuse of field interrogations . . . is causing serious friction with minority
groups in many localities. This is becoming particularly true as more police
departments adopt “aggressive patrol” in which officers are encouraged
routinely to stop and question persons on the street who are unknown to
them, who are suspicious, or whose purpose for being in the United States
is not readily evident.14
One of the most difficult issues in determining the appropriate use of
field interrogations involved the problem of defining limits on the power of
arrest. Most field interrogations required that a suspect be detained at least
temporarily while he or she was questioned. Since arrest was usually defined
as the act of taking a person into custody so he or she could answer to charges
for the commission of a crime, a major controversy arose regarding the dis-
tinction—if any—between arrest and detention.15 Although many police of-
ficers retained the belief that a person had not been arrested until he had been
“booked” by entering his name on the police blotter at the station house, the

43
Police and the Law

legal definition of arrest encompassed many other circumstances and forms

of detection. As a result, large proportions of police arrests were of doubtful
legality.
Although mere “suspicion” has never constituted adequate grounds for
arrest, many police officers continued to make arrests for this charge or for
similarly vague reasons. For example, in the mid-1950s the Detroit police
investigated approximately 1.9 million persons, making 27,000 arrests—40
percent of all arrests—on the grounds of suspicion.16 Most of those charges
were subsequently dismissed or resulted in a guilty plea. Hence the judiciary
reviewed relatively few cases resulting from arrests based on field interroga-
tions. As the National Commission on Crime noted, a large number of criti-
cal legal issues were not fully resolved by statutes or court decisions, including
the issues of “when a person may be stopped, whether or how long he may be
detained, whether force may be used to detain him, what degree of force may
be used, whether a person may be searched, whether he may be compelled to
answer certain questions, and under what circumstances he must be advised
of his legal rights.”17
Perhaps a major reason a relatively small number of issues relating to
arrests were examined by appellate courts was the lack of available remedies
to ensure compliance with legal requirements. Two basic means were pro-
vided by the courts to prevent abuses of police authority. Initially, a private
citizen could file a civil suit against a police officer for an improper or unlaw-
ful arrest. The limited resources of the typical plaintiff, however, seemed to
prevent tort action from becoming an effective restraint on police conduct.
Although some commentators suggested that municipal governments could
assume liability for police actions, civil cases on this issue rarely succeeded.

THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE

Another legal control imposed on the police was the so-called exclusionary
rule.18 Under the Fourth Amendment doctrine prohibiting “unreasonable
searches and seizures” as interpreted by early Supreme Court decisions,19
defendants were able to suppress illegally obtained evidence in a criminal
trial. To protect the state from involvement in illegal activities and to prevent
the police from employing unconstitutional means of achieving a desired end,
judges held that the contents and findings of an improper search could not be
used as a basis for conviction. Although the effectiveness of the exclusionary
rule in restraining police behavior was a subject of immense controversy,20
courts relied on it extensively and applied its principles in circumstances ranging
from field interrogations to private dwellings.

44
 Police and the Law

The legal problems raised by stopping to question a subject were fre-

quently joined with the issue of police authority to “frisk” that subject, or to
search him or her for weapons, illegal substances, or stolen goods. Although
the practice of stopping and frisking suspicious persons generated strong re-
sentment among minority groups, police used it extensively for many years
without thorough judicial assessment of the procedure. A study of police
patrols in three major cities found, for example, that approximately one in
five encounters between a citizen and a police officer included a search, that
black civilians were more than twice as likely to be frisked as whites, that the
police seldom obtained permission to conduct a search, and that many of the
searches were questionable.21
The necessity for searches—like police discretion in arrests—in some
cases became arbitrary and subjective, but perhaps unlike arrests, the abuse
of the right to search could have conceivably been controlled by the specific
restrictions of the exclusionary rule. In related decisions narrowly confined to
the facts of the cases, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a narcot-
ics offender who had been found to possess heroin but upheld the sentences
of two robbery or burglary suspects who were frisked for concealed weapons,
apparently on the grounds that police officers had the right to search persons
if they were reasonably concerned about their personal safety.22 The police
apparently were granted a limited right to stop and frisk persons suspected of
committing a crime, but the scope or application of this ruling depended
upon the development of both case law and police procedures.
Although the practice of searching suspects had been extended to en-
counters on the street, searches were often viewed primarily as an opportu-
nity to seek additional evidence while arresting a person for another offense.
Specifically, a police officer armed with a proper search warrant issued by a
magistrate was frequently regarded as one of the few persons authorized to
breach the privacy of a citizen’s home, a boundary that constituted a formi-
dable barrier against the scrutiny of public authority.23
In reality, police were able to conduct searches with or without a warrant.
Even though the occasion for additional review made securing a warrant the
legally preferred method of procedure, many police searches seemed to have
been conducted without that document. An American Bar Foundation study
revealed that during one year only 29 search warrants were issued in Detroit
(all but 1 involved gambling cases), 17 were recorded in Wichita, Kansas, and
an estimated 30 were granted in Milwaukee.24 Those statistics may not have
been atypical; for example, from 1931 to 1965, the Los Angeles Police De-
partment obtained a mere 1,177 search warrants.25

45
Police and the Law

If the police did not acquire a valid search warrant, the admissibility of
evidence seized depended on a number of additional factors, including whether
the suspect’s consent was secured, whether the search accompanied a lawful
arrest, and whether the search was limited to appropriate evidence and to
premises over which the suspect had immediate control. Police officers nor-
mally did not force their way into a suspect’s residence without a warrant, nor
did they obtain consent to conduct a search through coercion or intimida-
tion. Similarly, the courts have sought to prevent the police from ransacking a
person’s home and from engaging in extensive “fishing expeditions.” Although
a suspect’s ability to influence a search—even when it was conducted in his or
her presence—might be questioned, the courts held that police searches must
be confined and “reasonable.”26
Perhaps the most important element affecting police searches without a
warrant was the requirement that an acceptable search must be incident to a
lawful arrest. Since the standards for arrest contained a distinction between
felonies and misdemeanors, that difference was also included in the rules
governing searches. Police officers were allowed to search a suspect while
arresting him or her when they had “reasonable grounds” to believe the sus-
pect had committed a felony, but they could search a person suspected of a
misdemeanor only when the offense had been committed in their presence.
As a result, police had frequently arrested a person for a felony, and if the
ensuing search proved fruitless, the charge could subsequently be reduced to
a misdemeanor.27 Edward L. Barrett Jr. found that in California, as many as a
fifth or more of all arrests were reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor.28
A basic reason for the controversy regarding searches was the stipulation
that a police officer had to have probable cause to make a felony arrest before
conducting a search. Many police officers believed their experience in law
enforcement had provided them with a basis for determining from a suspect’s
appearance or behavior whether a crime had been committed or was about to
be committed. The police often used the search to verify or rebut their suspi-
cions, and they applied seized evidence to justify the arrest after the search
was completed.29 Under the provisions of the exclusionary rule, police were
allowed to use the products of a search to supplement prior evidence that
formed reasonable grounds for making a felony arrest, but they were not
permitted to use such information as the sole basis for a conviction.

RESTRAINTS ON POLICE BEHAVIOR

Until 1960, the exclusionary rule applied only to federal crimes and to of-
fenses in about half the states. In the historic 1961 Mapp v. Ohio case,30

46
 Police and the Law

however, the Supreme Court held that the exclusion of illegally seized evi-
dence was encompassed by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment and that the rule had to be adopted in all state criminal trials. The Court
had previously ruled that evidence obtained from the use of a stomach pump
on an unwilling prisoner was inadmissible as an offense to “a sense of jus-
tice,”31 but Mapp signaled a major departure from prior rulings and law en-
forcement practices.32
Although many police leaders contended that the decision would severely
hamper their attempts to secure criminal convictions, the immediate effects
of broadening the exclusionary rule were not readily apparent. Perhaps the
major impact of the case was felt in the enforcement of narcotics laws where
police often lacked the necessary information to make a valid arrest and
where prompt action would be required to prevent suspects from disposing
of the evidence. The expansion of the exclusionary rule did not confirm the
dire predictions of many critics, but it probably affected police procedures.
A study of police operations in Boston, for example, revealed a striking rise
in the number of search warrants issued after Mapp and a steady increase in
the number of defense motions to suppress illegally obtained evidence as the
implications of the decision gradually became known.33 Since motions to
exclude illegally seized evidence were often more successful in relatively
minor offenses than in crimes police considered serious,34 the long-term
effects of Mapp hinged as much on careful police work as on the actions of
defendants.
The extension of the exclusionary rule had important implications for
many police efforts to obtain evidence with which to convict suspects. In
particular, the rule presented an obstacle to the use of eavesdropping and
electronic surveillance equipment. Although an early Supreme Court deci-
sion refused to apply the exclusionary doctrine to wiretapping cases,35 an
ensuing succession of court decisions and laws restricted the legality of the
technique. Nonetheless, the police continued to rely extensively on this method
of securing evidence. In New York City, for example, where police were
permitted to obtain a court order to install wiretaps, only 338 orders were
issued in 1952, but plainclothes officers made an estimated 13,000 to 26,000
wiretaps annually.36 Court rulings on some types of traditional law enforce-
ment practices posed major barriers to certain police actions, but their reluc-
tance to abandon those activities only seemed to exacerbate the problem.
Respect for the law and respect for law enforcement may be closely related,
but the persistence of illegal police conduct probably seriously undermined
their credibility.

47
Police and the Law

As a means of restraining police behavior, the courts adopted the exclu-

sionary rule to protect citizens from several improper methods of eliciting
evidence in addition to unreasonable searches. After a suspect was arrested,
the individual normally had to be brought before a magistrate either to be
arraigned or to answer an indictment by pleading guilty or not guilty and then
to fix the conditions under which he or she would be released or remain in
custody. In a series of decisions applying to federal jurisdictions—including
Washington, D.C.—the Supreme Court held that a coerced confession may
be inadmissible and that a suspect had to be promptly arraigned before a
magistrate.37 Although the decisions provoked accusations that the courts were
deliberately placing law enforcement agencies at a disadvantage in capturing
criminals,38 the rulings sought to prevent the police from detaining persons
for extended periods without adequate legal justification.
The practice of bringing a suspect before a magistrate was developed in
part to ensure that police officers had reasonable grounds for the initial arrest.
In many communities the police arrested persons to provide additional time
or opportunity for interrogation without a definite intention to prosecute.
Caleb Foote’s 1950 study of several major cities, published in 1957, disclosed
that a large number of arrests each year were made for “suspicion” or “inves-
tigation” and that more than 80 percent of the suspects arrested on those
charges were released.39 In some areas that had not adopted the McNabb-
Mallory rule (which held that evidence obtained from a suspect during a pe-
riod of unreasonable delay before arraignment can be excluded from the trial),
a high proportion of arrests was regularly made for “investigation,” and the
prosecutor’s decision regarding the issuance of an indictment often resulted
in the suspect’s release.40 Not all releases resulted from insufficient evidence.
In a few cases, charges were dropped because the complainant refused to
prosecute. But the volume of both arrests for investigation and releases indi-
cates that the police frequently used the power of arrest without probable cause.
The District of Columbia was covered by the McNabb-Mallory rule, and
as a result many lawyers and police officials expected that fewer arrests for
investigation would be made in Washington than in other localities. Yet after
the Mallory decision, arrests for suspicion continued to constitute 40 percent
of felony arrests made by the Washington Police Department. An examina-
tion of a large number of those cases revealed that 48 percent of the arrests for
investigation lacked the probable cause necessary for a legal arrest.41 Even
under the restrictions of the Supreme Court ruling requiring prompt arraign-
ment, the police apparently had often regarded arrests as a method of acquir-
ing evidence rather than a means of initiating criminal prosecution.

48
 Police and the Law

In addition, arrests to facilitate investigation often not only involved a

temporary loss of freedom for the suspect, they sometimes involved extended
periods of detention under trying physical or psychological circumstances.
Research on felony charges in Chicago in 1956 revealed that as many as half
of the defendants were held for seventeen hours or longer between arrest and
booking.42 A similar study in two California cities found that more than half
of the suspects were held without charge for more than a day before they were
indicted or released.43 The Washington, D.C., survey also reported that per-
sons held for the longest period of time were less likely to be charged than
those who were detained briefly.44 Some persons taken into custody by the
police served nearly the equivalent of a light sentence for a petty offense, even
in the absence of sufficient evidence for a formal arrest.
A basic reason for the extended detention of suspects without adequate
cause was police reliance on securing confessions as evidence of guilt. Mod-
ern police officers rarely resorted to the physical beatings and third-degree
tactics that may have characterized an earlier era of law enforcement, but they
developed relatively sophisticated psychological techniques of extracting con-
fessions and incriminating statements from suspects.45 Despite some persons’
demonstrated proclivity to confess compulsively, as reflected in the countless
admissions of guilt prompted by famous crimes, the police continued to re-
gard confessions as highly prized items of evidence and to work assiduously to
obtain them.
To prevent the abuse of police efforts to encourage confessions, judges
consistently held that admissions could be excluded as trial evidence unless
they were made voluntarily. Although such cases often raised difficult legal
issues, the Supreme Court invalidated numerous coerced confessions.46 In
spite of the legal limitations imposed on them, many police spokespersons
have continued to maintain that the extended detention of suspects and re-
peated attempts to secure confessions are necessary and valuable aspects of
criminal investigation.
Although limited studies have been conducted on this subject, some find-
ings suggest that prolonged interrogations rarely yield critical confessions. A
study of field contacts conducted by Fred Inbau and John Reid (note 45)
between police and citizens indicated that most suspects who confessed did so
“voluntarily at the outset of the encounter . . . without prompting or probing
by the officers.” Another examination of felony arrests in two California cit-
ies disclosed that most confessions in one of the communities were made
after the suspect had been in custody for one hour or less, whereas in the
other town most confessions were made in eight hours or less. When suspects

49
Police and the Law

did confess, they were usually motivated by considerations unrelated to the

duration or skill of police questioning. A 1964 survey of 359 prisoners in
New Jersey and Pennsylvania revealed that although only 24 percent believed
they were required to furnish the police with all the information they re-
quested, 44 percent had actually answered all the questions asked by the police,
including signing a statement. The major reasons given for the confessions
included either a belief that they would be convicted anyway or a feeling of
guilt. Only 10 percent blamed a lack of resistance as a result of intoxication,
narcotics, long detention and questioning, or psychological pressure; and 21
percent claimed they had experienced actual or threatened violence by the
police.47 In light of these findings, it would seem that extended interrogations
may have been of limited value to the police.

COUNSEL
In a series of landmark decisions during the 1960s, the Supreme Court ap-
peared to restrict the freedom of police to secure confessions by introducing
another regulation designed to shield the rights of the accused. In addition to
barriers to conviction posed by the exclusionary rule, the Court sought to
inject some of the protections of the courtroom into preliminary investiga-
tions by providing suspects with legal counsel. After declaring that all persons
had the right to be represented by counsel in felony cases even if they could
not afford the cost,48 the Court extended this ruling to the detention and
interrogation of persons before they were brought to trial. In the famous 1964
case Escobedo v. Illinois,49 the Supreme Court reversed the murder conviction
of a suspect who had confessed to the police after he had been denied permission
to consult his attorney. Henceforth, the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment would prohibit police from interrogating a suspect without giv-
ing him or her the opportunity to confer with a lawyer.
Perhaps the principal objection of most police critics of the Escobedo
ruling was the view that permitting a suspect to hold a conference with an
attorney would foreclose possibilities of securing a confession or other evi-
dence that might be necessary for conviction. In most circumstances a lawyer’s
advice to a suspect in police custody is simply to remain silent. Yet confes-
sions have played a relatively minor role in the successful prosecution of many
criminal cases. Most defendants have been convicted because they pleaded
guilty, but most guilty pleas have not been entered because of prior confes-
sions. A sample survey of 724 persons who pleaded guilty in a major metro-
politan court indicated that fatalism and pragmatism were the major reasons
for the failure to contest the charges. In 57 percent of the cases, the suspect’s

50
 Police and the Law

decision to plead guilty was affected most by his or her lawyer’s suggestions;
the police were influential in under 1 percent of the guilty pleas.50 In terms of
the ultimate goal of securing convictions, defense attorneys engaged in plea
bargaining may have contributed more to that objective by urging their cli-
ents to plead guilty than did the efforts of police to elicit confessions and other
incriminating evidence.
The guarantee of legal assistance to all felony suspects may not have been
the ultimate solution to the problem of protecting the rights of the accused.
Surveys of prisoners who pleaded guilty in several cities indicated that lawyers
assigned by the courts or supplied by Legal Aid were most apt to propose a
guilty plea in their first meeting with the suspect, whereas privately retained
attorneys did not tend to make this suggestion until their second, third, or
subsequent interview.51 In many urban jurisdictions the crowded dockets of
criminal courts and the heavy burdens on publicly supported counsel pre-
vented a careful scrutiny of police practices and effective representation of the
accused. Still, the constitutionally protected right to consult a lawyer probably
offered the suspect an important measure of support and assistance in facing
the imposing authority of the law.
In the case of Miranda v. Arizona,52 the Supreme Court reached a major
culmination of the doctrine that suspects must be furnished counsel. As a
result of this decision, police officers were required to inform persons at the
time of their arrest that anything they said could be held against them, as well
as of their rights to remain silent and to obtain an attorney—who would be
provided by the state if they could not afford one. The ruling recognized that
an arrest usually marked the initiation of an adversarial relationship between
the suspect and police and that arrestees should at least be aware of the
ground rules of such an encounter if they were to protect their own interests
adequately.
These requirements were strongly resisted by police officers. An investi-
gation of police contacts with citizens prior to Miranda in Chicago, Boston,
and Washington, D.C., disclosed that persons were informed of their rights
in less than 3 percent of encounters. In addition, there were few indications
of increased police compliance with this standard after the Miranda decision
was announced.53 The rule also seemed to have little effect on police work. A
study by a Los Angeles County district attorney, for example, reported that
among 790 suspects duly informed of their rights, nearly 55 percent made
confessions to the police anyway. Even considering the failure of Miranda to
limit admissions of guilt, the analysis concluded that confessions were essen-
tial for successful prosecution “in only a small percentage of criminal cases.”54

51
Police and the Law

The stipulation that a suspect must be informed of his or her rights probably
necessitated some major changes in arrest procedures, but it did not have the
disastrous effect on law enforcement activities that many critics of Miranda
had predicted.
Supreme Court cases affecting searches and seizures, interrogations, ac-
cess to counsel, and informing suspects of their rights probably stirred more
controversy than most other judicial decisions in the history of law enforce-
ment. Many police leaders found the rules especially offensive not only be-
cause they threatened to seriously disrupt established routines but also because
they seemed to reject or undermine law enforcement officers’s expertise. As
part of the mission to solve crimes, police officers had gradually acquired a
body of information and experience regarded as particularly appropriate or
successful in their work, and the Supreme Court seemed to be attacking
precisely those customs. In some areas such as searches and confessions, the
importance or value of traditional police practices may have been exagger-
ated. But a repudiation of what were regarded as “proven” procedures would
have implied serious doubts about police competency. At the very time the
police were anxiously attempting to achieve the status of a profession, their
most commonly accepted and recognized methods were being subjected to
the strongest challenges from the courts.
Despite the vigorous protests the Supreme Court decisions provoked
from many police officers, the rulings apparently had little effect on their
ability to solve crimes.55 Although the specific effects of the rulings were often
difficult to discern, law enforcement efforts to solve crimes probably contin-
ued much as they had before the police became embroiled in a bitter conflict
with the courts.
Perhaps more important than police opposition to Supreme Court deci-
sions were the policies and procedures that had initially inspired the judiciary
to impose additional restrictions on law enforcement activities. In large mea-
sure, increased supervision of police activities by the courts probably resulted
from the failure of police to respect existing regulations.56 To prevent im-
proper or illegal practices, the courts sought to reduce police discretion and
to strengthen the requirement that arrests had to be based on “reasonable
grounds.” Then, as alluded to earlier, in 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court did an
about-face. In Terry v. Ohio the court expanded rather than limited the power
of the police.57 The petitioner, John Terry, had been convicted along with
another man, Richard Chilton, of carrying a concealed weapon. The weapon
had been discovered by a Cleveland police detective, Martin McFadden, who
had noticed the two men acting suspiciously—walking back and forth in front

52
 Police and the Law

of the same store window numerous times, looking inside repeatedly, and
conferring with each other and a third man periodically. Detective McFadden—
convinced that the men were “casing” the store—approached the men, in-
formed them that he was a police officer, and asked their names. The men
mumbled something in return; McFadden subsequently grabbed Terry, turned
him around, and patted him down. Feeling a pistol in the pocket of Terry’s
coat, he ordered the three men inside the store, where he removed Terry’s
coat and retrieved a gun. A pat-down search revealed a revolver in Chilton’s
coat also. The third man had no gun. Terry and Chilton were arrested, charged,
and convicted of carrying concealed weapons.
On appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Terry claimed Officer McFadden’s
“stop and frisk” search had violated the Fourth Amendment right against un-
reasonable search and seizures; therefore, the revolver should not have been
admissible as evidence against him in court. The Court disagreed, ruling that
if a police officer has reasonable suspicion that a person may be armed and
dangerous or about to commit a criminal act, the officer may stop the person
and make reasonable inquiries of that person. If those inquiries do not dis-
abuse the officer’s reasonable fear for his or her safety or that of others, the
officer may conduct a limited search of the person’s outer clothing for weap-
ons—regardless of whether the officer has probable cause for arrest—without
violating that person’s Fourth Amendment rights.
The Court’s ruling established for the first time the legal right of police to
stop, question, and frisk a person who is behaving suspiciously as long as the
police officer has reasonable grounds for perceiving the person’s behavior as
suspicious.58 Kenneth J. Peak submits, “This case instantly became, and re-
mains, a major tool for the police.”59

CRIMES WITHOUT VICTIMS

In our research the police often employed the power of arrest to harass sus-
pects and alleged criminals rather than to solve crimes or pursue criminal
prosecution. The use of arrests for the extra-legal purpose of deterring crimi-
nal activity or for disrupting the operations of organized crime were probably
most common in offenses involving vice, or so-called crimes without vic-
tims. In one Detroit precinct studied by the American Bar Foundation, for
example, prosecutions were initiated in only 75 of 3,047 arrests for prostitu-
tion and in 24 of 606 arrests for gambling. In some cases police attempts to
harass suspects even extended beyond the inconvenience of an arrest. Law
enforcement officers often routinely destroyed or confiscated liquor and money
as well as automobiles used in gambling operations.60 Although countless

53
Police and the Law

other cases of improper arrests have occurred, many police departments

have adopted an unofficial policy of utilizing arrests to achieve purposes not
legally mandated.
Another tactic commonly employed in the absence of legal authority was
the “raid.” Acting frequently without the benefit of either arrest or search
warrants, police officers sometimes broke down doors and smashed windows
to discover prostitution, narcotics, gambling, and liquor violations. Normally,
suspects were released immediately after the raids. A 1967 American Bar
Foundation study revealed that although eighty-three gambling raids resulted
in the confiscation of $8,810.31 and 582 arrests, only 24 suspects were pros-
ecuted.61 Although illegal searches and raids were often designed to discour-
age organized criminal operations, they were conducted in some localities
merely to eliminate undesirable persons or unwelcome businesses. Despite
the apparent virtue of the social objectives the police sought to accomplish,
indiscriminate arrests and invasions of private dwellings introduced an unsa-
vory element of lawlessness into police work.
The police also frequently usurped legal authority by delegating unusual
privileges to private citizens who cooperated in certain types of law enforce-
ment activities. To probe crimes such as burglary and narcotics trafficking,
which did not usually spark citizen complaints, police relied on an elaborate
network of informants who supplied information in return for police favors.
Frequently, this arrangement enabled such individuals, or special employees,
both to acquire concessions in prosecution or sentencing and to continue
their illegal habits and activities while they were working for the police. The
official tolerance of criminal conduct supported by the informer system occa-
sionally produced paradoxical results. In one police department, “Burglary
detectives permitted informants to commit narcotics offenses, while narcot-
ics detectives allowed informants to steal.”62
Estimates indicated that in narcotics violations, which imposed strong
penalties and heavy punishment for prior convictions, nearly 50 percent of all
persons arrested by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics over its entire history
had been converted to the status of special employees.63 The hiring of a large
number of informers often reflected a deliberate police decision to neglect
some petty offenses in the hope of stopping large, well-organized narcotics
operations. Yet this technique was apparently less successful than many police
officers assumed. In one city, out of 508 narcotics cases, less than 9 percent
cited the use of an informant.64 In addition to raising doubts about the mo-
tives or trustworthiness of informants, extensive use of the informer system
compromised the legal and moral position of the police by compelling them

54
 Police and the Law

not only to condone some forms of criminal behavior but also to attach pri-
orities to crimes they were most anxious to prosecute.
The use of informants, unauthorized searches, and arrests for harassment
often constituted significant features of police practices because they repre-
sented formal department policies rather than isolated or sporadic incidents.
Because the courts had to limit their supervision to cases and issues brought
before them, they were unable to exercise effective control over many police
activities that never reached trial. Relatively broad discretion and vague stan-
dards for arrest permitted the police to adopt procedures that were either
patently unlawful or that hovered on the boundaries of legality. As a result,
police department policies varied widely for different types of crimes and in
different communities.
Some of the most flagrant abuses of legal authority probably occurred
during the investigation of vice crimes such as prostitution, gambling, and
narcotics violations that required the police to display independent initiative
rather than rely on citizen complaints. Since illegal vice enterprises usually
operated in private and were carefully protected by their supposed victims,
police officers were compelled to resort to questionable practices, such as
hiring special employees or impersonating potential clients, to gather infor-
mation about such crimes. Moreover, even when the police gained sufficient
evidence to prosecute, severe punishment was rare for most vice crimes ex-
cept narcotics offenses, which often imposed stiff statutory penalties. In 100
prostitution and solicitation cases tried in a California city, for example, only
21 of the defendants were jailed, 34 were fined, 24 were dismissed by the
judge, and 5 were found not guilty.65 Police usually considered narcotics crimes
to be particularly serious because they could produce other forms of criminal-
ity, but—as with most other vice crimes—police interest in narcotics had
been focused primarily on large, well-organized criminal operations rather
than on petty offenders. As a result, the bulk of police attention was devoted
to attempts, either through informers or through methods of harassment, to
maintain constant supervision of vice activities.
The persistence of vice in most cities did not necessarily reflect police
corruption, but it was encouraged by the difficulties of securing evidence
needed for conviction and the lack of citizen complaints. The existence of
vice traditionally reflected public demands for goods and services that could
not be obtained legally, and the police were faced with the awkward dilemma of
recognizing those desires while enforcing the moral standards of the legal code.
In seeking to control rather than eliminate vice crimes, the exercise of police
discretion was shaped both by popular wishes and by the nature of the offenses.

55
Police and the Law

JUVENILE CRIMES, DISORDERLY CONDUCT,

TRAFFIC OFFENSES, AND OTHER MINOR INFRACTIONS
Juvenile Crimes
Perhaps the most extensive latitude granted the police involved dealing
with juvenile offenses.66 Since greater emphasis was placed on prevention or
deterrence than on apprehension in handling minor juvenile crimes, law en-
forcement officers had to rely on their personal judgment in determining the
disposition of many cases. As a result, the outcomes of many police encoun-
ters with youths were determined more by factors such as the suspect’s race,
demeanor, and cooperation than by the character of the offense.67 In addi-
tion, the treatment of juveniles was influenced by the professionalism of po-
lice departments. For example, a comparison of two cities revealed that the
rate of juvenile arrests was 50 percent higher in the community with a profes-
sional police force, but the probability of arrest for young black men was
three times greater in the community where police officers were not profes-
sional.68 In localities that had not established neutral or impersonal standards
for evaluating adolescent conduct, the disposition of juvenile cases often de-
pended upon the subjective and sometimes biased perceptions of the cop on
the beat. Although police practices that imposed uniform criteria for arrests
in all juvenile offenses may have been more impartial than procedures that
granted individual police officers wider latitude, little conclusive evidence had
been compiled to indicate which policy was more effective in discouraging
further criminal behavior.69
Since young people accounted for a large proportion of crimes such as
petty theft, police policies regarding juveniles also had a critical impact on
general patterns of law enforcement in the community. As a result of their
emphasis on youths, for example, cities with specialized juvenile divisions
usually recorded higher arrest rates for larceny than communities that had no
specific units for handling young people.70 The outcome of crimes involving
juveniles, therefore, was often shaped both by suspects’ demeanor or appear-
ance and by the characteristics of city police departments. In allowing those
factors to affect police discretion, administrators introduced significant dis-
parities and inequities into the standards that regulated juvenile conduct.

Disorderly Conduct
The adult equivalent of the discretion granted police officers in juvenile
crimes may have been reflected in the offense known as disorderly conduct,
or disturbing the peace. One of the major problems associated with this crime
was the difficulty of defining orderly conduct. In the absence of a clear, uni-

56
 Police and the Law

form understanding of what constituted normal or acceptable social behavior,

the classification of unlawful conduct became the responsibility of individual
police officers. In many cases police officers apparently made arrests for dis-
orderly conduct to repel or block challenges to their personal authority.71 The
ambiguity of disorderly conduct made this crime a convenient and tempting
device for restricting actions police regarded as disrespectful, upsetting, or
undesirable.
Although the charge of disorderly conduct was probably imposed in a
random or capricious manner, the pattern of arrests for this crime varied by
types of communities. A study in Nassau County, New York, revealed that
small, locally controlled police departments produced more arrests for breaches
of the peace and related offenses than large, detached law enforcement agen-
cies did.72 Since disorderly conduct accounted for the second-largest number
of all arrests in Nassau County, personal decisions by police and community
characteristics that influenced the offense may have had an important impact
on the general character of law enforcement activities. By failing to specify the
meaning of disorderly conduct, lawmakers expanded police discretion and
created opportunities for the arbitrary or discriminatory use of this charge.

Other Minor Infractions

The largest number of arrests made by the police in most cities we stud-
ied was for public intoxication. Although many of these arrests resulted from
citizen complaints rather than the initiative of police officers, the offense of
drunkenness gave police great discretion in their encounters with the public.
In the twentieth century the charge of public intoxication was apparently re-
served for persons who became involved in major disturbances such as fights,
neighborhood disturbances, or attacks on police officers. A sample of cases in
Syracuse reported by James Q. Wilson, for example, revealed that at least 55
percent of drunken arrests resulted from some type of aggressive behavior
rather than from mere drunkenness.
In other communities simple intoxication was considered sufficient
grounds for arrest—frequently accounting for 70 to 80 percent of persons
taken into custody. Again, differences in police procedures were apparently
influenced by community characteristics and departmental policies. Some
evidence suggested that police in middle-class suburbs made more arrests for
drunkenness than their counterparts in working-class communities. In addi-
tion, the volume of arrests was influenced by administrative regulations that
required police officers to formally process, book, and jail all persons arrested
for drunkenness or by policies excusing them from court appearances unless

57
Police and the Law

the suspect pleaded not guilty. In Oakland, California, the number of persons
detained for this offense more than doubled after the police began arresting all
drunks in an effort to reduce forcible robberies in the city.73
Other cities adopted a somewhat different approach to drunks commonly
known as the “golden rule.” Under this procedure, persons were detained by
the police until they regained sobriety. The Detroit police held more than
6,000 persons on this basis in one year.74 The major difficulty with the golden
rule policy, as with most other criteria affecting arrests, arose from the fact
that the police were given little guidance or direction regarding the exercise of
this authority. The inconsistent pattern of arrests that resulted from personal
judgments based on suspects’ actions or appearance and from differing de-
partmental policies expanded police discretion, but it also impeded the adop-
tion of uniform standards for assessing criminal conduct. As a result, the
classification of behavior as either illegal or acceptable was often relegated to
police decisions that varied widely in different localities.
Although many offenses that produced a large proportion of arrests had
been vaguely defined in the statutes, perhaps the most ambiguous laws the
police were required to enforce concerned vagrancy, which differed from
other crimes in several major respects. In most state codes vagrants were
defined as persons who possessed no visible means of support or who could
not give a satisfactory account of themselves or their business at the location
where they were found. As a result, the ordinary obligations of the burden of
proof were reversed for people accused of vagrancy, so they had to demon-
strate both their solvency and a satisfactory reason for their presence before
they could be considered innocent of the charge. Furthermore, vagrancy was
one of few crimes that made poverty or purposeless activity a blatant element
of illegality. Although the enforcement of vagrancy statutes was usually justi-
fied by the assumption that a lack of support and unaccountable movement
may be associated with other forms of criminality, the distinguishing charac-
teristics of the offense granted the police broad discretion to restrict conduct
that would otherwise be considered proper or acceptable.
Police usually used the charge of vagrancy either to remove undesirable
persons from certain areas of the city or to arrest citizens suspected of com-
mitting some other crime. The latter use of vagrancy and related offenses was
especially important because it frequently enabled the police to make arrests
for investigation without sufficient evidence to support another charge. When
police attempted to secure a conviction for vagrancy, the relatively vague ele-
ments of the offense made it difficult for defendants to rebut the accusation.
The outcome of vagrancy cases probably depended more on the judge’s sense

58
 Police and the Law

of noblesse oblige than on other factors.75 Although convictions for vagrancy

may have imposed punishments of one or more years in prison, the judicial
determination of cases was characterized by a great deal of laxity and infor-
mality. An investigation of vagrancy offenses in the Philadelphia courts re-
vealed that most cases were decided within a few seconds without either a
clear statement of the charges or the presence of witnesses, testimony, counsel,
adequate records, and other protections normally available to the defendant
to ensure a fair trial.76 Since vagrancy laws were primarily directed at the most
indigent and defenseless people in the community, the wide latitude afforded
the police in administering those laws probably provoked serious inequities
that were inadequately reviewed by the courts and other public agencies.

Traffic Offenses
Whereas vagrancy and other offenses involving public order were a con-
cern of the poorest and least influential groups in the population, the largest
number of encounters between police officers and all members of society
probably involved traffic violations. Ironically, even though minor parking or
moving violations were frequently considered some of the least serious crimi-
nal offenses, they were among the crimes most likely to be cleared or success-
fully prosecuted. Most traffic cases were resolved by the simple payment of
fines, reflecting a forfeiture of bail; but the remaining unpaid citations were
usually sent to state data-processing facilities where license numbers were
matched with names and addresses, resulting in the issuance of warrants and
a search for motorists that continued until they were found.77
The technical resources offered by automated equipment enabled the
police to develop more successful methods of identifying and locating sus-
pects in traffic cases than was the case in major crimes such as robbery,
burglary, and other felonies. Once a traffic citation was issued, police officers
also had less discretion regarding the continuance or termination of investiga-
tions for traffic violations than for most other types of crime. Although comput-
ers seemed to eliminate many prior forms of “ticket fixing,” they apparently
did not have a similar impact on police procedures involving other offenses.
Yet police officers retained a substantial amount of discretion in traffic cases.
Since no strategy could likely ensure the full enforcement of all traffic laws or
the prosecution of all traffic violations, the establishment of standards for
traffic regulation remained the primary responsibility of the patrol officer in
the squad car.
Traffic policies also varied widely by community. A study of 503 Ameri-
can cities revealed that the volume of citations issued per 1,000 registered

59
Police and the Law

vehicles in a one-year period ranged from fewer than 100 in 24 percent of the
communities to more than 300 in 18 percent of the towns. In part, those
differences were shaped by practical considerations—such as whether patrol-
men were required to appear in court when the motorist pleaded not guilty—
and population mobility, with lower ticketing rates in communities with stable
populations than in cities with large resident turnover.78
But perhaps the major factor affecting the issuance of traffic tickets was
administrative pressure within police departments. Local policies encourag-
ing a high number of traffic tickets were apparently more influential in deter-
mining the total output of citations than community characteristics or the
establishment of specialized traffic units.79 Although many police administra-
tors vigorously denied their existence, department policies regarding traffic
cases were often reinforced by the adoption of a quota system that specified a
minimum number of tickets all officers were expected to write within a given
period. To comply with the requirements of this system, some police officers
resorted to patrolling “duck ponds,” or roads and intersections where a large
number of violations were known to occur.
Extensive variations in ticketing rates by community and the adoption of
quota systems illustrated the general problem of defining the appropriate lim-
its of police discretion governing offenses involving a large number of con-
tacts between police officers and the public. Because of the low visibility of
most encounters between citizens and police officers, as well as the lack of
extensive litigation of minor crimes, the courts were unable to exercise the
supervision that might otherwise produce universal criteria for assessing the
illegality of different types of behavior. As a result of legal inattention, the
nature of police practices in communities were shaped by widely divergent
policies and customs. To obtain uniform and impartial standards for evaluat-
ing criminal conduct, the judiciary likely needed the assistance and support of
other government agencies.

POLICE PRACTICES AND THE POLITICAL PROCESS

One method of securing improved supervision of police activities was offered
by increased political control of police departments. Although this concept
was often associated with the fear of corruption or with local violations of
civil liberties, substantial evidence indicated that police forces actually devel-
oped differing styles and procedures in response to civic demands. For ex-
ample, one study of law enforcement in eight communities identified three
major types of police behavior: (1) a “watchman style” that tended to be
relatively tolerant of legal infractions but not of offenses against the public

60
 Police and the Law

order, with cities in which it was used normally imposing light penalties un-
less the crime was unusually serious; (2) a “legalistic style” that sought vigor-
ous and impersonal law enforcement, was intolerant of disorderly behavior,
and frequently invoked the power of arrest and other severe restrictions on
public conduct; and (3) a “service style” that displayed many features of the
“legalistic” department but that was inclined to administer punishment in the
form of stern warnings or lectures.80 In addition, an analysis of 146 American
cities indicated that a correlation may have existed between arrest rates for
certain types of offenses and the form or professionalization of local govern-
ments.81 In many unexpected and subtly communicated ways, the prevailing
attitudes or ethos of a community was probably reflected in local law enforce-
ment patterns.
The impact of political characteristics on police practices probably pro-
duced significant inequities, but the available evidence seemed to demonstrate
that law enforcement procedures had been highly amenable to the influence of
political considerations. The complete attainment of universal norms for judging
criminal conduct would have required regulations that were national in scope.
Without necessarily sacrificing the local administration of police functions,
however, city governments fully representative of all segments of the popula-
tion might have been able to exercise sufficient direction and control to prevent
the arbitrary or discriminatory use of police discretion within communities.
By devising remedies for specific local problems, the political process could
have become an important instrument for promoting changes in police prac-
tices that may have brought them into conformity with generally accepted
standards of conduct.
Increased police involvement in community affairs might have contrib-
uted, in many important respects, to the fulfillment of their mission. By engaging
in activities that did not require them to play a punitive or an authoritative
role, the police could have sought to significantly alter adversarial relation-
ships with the public. Growing participation in service activities, therefore,
might have gained the police public respect and support that could also have
increased the effectiveness of their law enforcement functions.
To some observers, the suggestion to increase the emphasis on service
roles at the expense of duties implied by concepts such as authority, order,
and protection that might enhance the universality of law enforcement poli-
cies could be heretical. Many citizens might not purposefully choose to en-
dorse a function that could inspire wide variations in other police activities.
Yet an analysis of police efforts to curb a divergent range of crimes in different
cities in different periods of time failed to disclose significant prior evidence

61
Police and the Law

of uniform police practices. Perhaps local police agencies’ growing involve-

ment in the political process would only enhance this variability. In a demo-
cratic society, where changes in government actions can be expected to reflect
fluctuations in public opinion, law enforcement policies are not immune to
such influences.
Yet persuasive arguments could be made that police organizations should
devote increased attention to local citizens’ needs and wishes. Extensive evi-
dence indicates that statutory requirements concerning “full enforcement” are
not likely to be achieved in any event. Law enforcement agencies informally
prioritize the targets of their actions, even though such priorities are never
officially released to the general public. Perhaps more important, another
significant inequity is present in the handling of criminal incidents. Data have
demonstrated that a substantial proportion of all crimes is never reported to
the police. There are undoubtedly many reasons for this failure to disclose the
commission of crimes, including the complicity of victims and confidence in
law enforcement agencies. Police forces are known primarily for their nega-
tive and punitive roles. This reputation is not likely to inspire a high level of
support or cooperation, especially among segments of society that may have
the most extensive information about criminal activities. Although the argu-
ment may not rise above the level of speculation, there seem to be strong
reasons to believe the effective performance of service activities might pro-
mote heightened public approval that could eventually be translated into in-
creased willingness to cooperate with the police by giving them information
that would assist in the identification or apprehension of a suspect. The propo-
sition might receive further verification or refutation through some type of
experimental setting, but such evidence would require the participation of a
police department that would be willing to undertake—and to publicize—an
increased emphasis on service functions.
One of the major difficulties law enforcement agencies faced was the
problem of determining the actual extent of criminal behavior. Various stud-
ies that asked respondents to report crimes they had personally committed
revealed much higher rates of criminal conduct at all social levels than had
been commonly acknowledged. A survey of 1,700 adults in New York re-
ported that 91 percent admitted committing crimes for which they might
have received a prison sentence.82 A national survey of criminal victimization
also indicated that many crimes such as rape, aggravated assault, burglary,
and larceny of more than fifty dollars’ value were substantially underreported
in crime statistics, whereas other offenses such as homicide and vehicle theft
were adequately reported.83 By learning more about the factors associated

62
 Police and the Law

with the occurrence of different types of offenses, the ability of police to cope
with crimes might have been greatly facilitated.
Police efforts to deal with crime, however, were also seriously hampered
by the absence of important data about crime. Although some evidence sug-
gested that the commission of illegal acts may have been correlated with tem-
poral factors and with personal characteristics such as age,84 even such basic
questions as the association between socioeconomic status and crime seemed
to remain at least partially unresolved.85

CONCLUSION
Although some police spokespersons sought to fix responsibility for their prob-
lems on Supreme Court rulings, many of the issues surrounding law enforce-
ment outcomes probably resulted from the relatively limited range of techniques
the police used to stop crime. Instead of becoming too restrictive, judicial
control of law enforcement activities was likely most often characterized by its
inability to effectively supervise many aspects of police behavior. For many
years, questions associated with broad police discretion remained dormant
because they did not directly affect the most articulate and influential mem-
bers of society. Both the legal guarantees afforded by court decisions and the
administration of vaguely defined crimes were particularly relevant to the
poorest and least privileged segments of the population, but those same groups
displayed increasing hostility and resistance toward the police.
To restore their prestige and respect, the police needed more advice and
guidance from all sectors of the community than they had received previously.
In large measure this consultation could have been channeled through the
political process, which provided one of few available means of promoting
democratic accountability and responsiveness. The police officer’s job has
always been difficult and demanding, but in the circumstances created by
expanding controversy, perhaps law enforcement should have considered
modifying traditional methods of policing.

NOTES
1. Steven M. Cox, Police: Practices, Perspectives, Problems (Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
1996).
2. Donald M. McIntyre Jr., Law Enforcement in the Metropolis (Chicago: American
Bar Foundation, 1967), 54; Elizabeth Watson, Alfred R. Stone, and Stuart M. Deluca,
Strategies for Community Policing (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1998).
3. Michael Benton, The Policeman in the Community (New York: Basic, 1964), 6;
David Carter and Louis A. Radelet, The Police and the Community (New York: Prentice-
Hall, 1999).

63
Police and the Law

4. Abraham S. Blumberg, Criminal Justice (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1967), 28–30;

Donald J. Newman, Conviction: The Determination of Guilt or Innocence Without Trial
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), 3; Jerome H. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial (New York:
John Wiley, 1994), 13.
5. Wayne R. La Fave, Arrest: The Decision to Take a Suspect Into Custody (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1965), 231–264.
6. Joseph Goldstein, “Police Discretion Not to Invoke the Criminal Process: Low-
Visibility Decisions in the Administration of Justice,” Yale Law Journal 69 (1960):
557–560.
7. Wayne R. La Fave, “The Police and Nonenforcement of the Law—Part II,”
Wisconsin Law Review (March 1962): 179–239.
8. Frank J. Remington and Victor G. Rosenblum, “The Criminal Law and the
Legislative Process,” University of Illinois Law Forum (Winter 1960): 481–499. See also
Harlan Hahn, “Local Variations in Urban Law Enforcement,” in Peter Orleans and
William Russell Ellis Jr. eds., Race, Change, and Urban Society, issue of Urban Affairs
Annual Review, vol. 5 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1971), 373–400.
9. M. Glenn Abernathy, “Police Discretion and Equal Protection,” South Carolina
Law Quarterly 14 (Summer 1962): 472–486.
10. Goldstein, “Police Discretion,” 572–589.
11. Wayne R. La Fave, “The Police and Nonenforcement of the Law—Part I,”
Wisconsin Law Review (January 1962): 104–137.
12. Joseph D. Lohman and Gordon E. Misner, The Police and the Community, vol.
I (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), 127.
13. Frank J. Remington, “The Law Relating to ‘On the Street’ Detention, Question-
ing and Frisking of Suspicious Persons and Police Arrest Privileges in General,” in Claude
R. Sowle, ed., Police Power and Individual Freedom (Chicago: Aldine, 1962), 14–15.
14. National Commission on Crime, Task Force Report: The Police (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 184.
15. Caleb Foote, “The Fourth Amendment: Obstacle or Necessity in the Law of
Arrest?” in Claude R. Sowle, ed., Police Power and Individual Freedom (Chicago: Aldine,
1962), 29–36.
16. McIntyre, Law Enforcement in the Metropolis, 19, 80.
17. National Commission on Crime, Task Force Report: The Police, 184.
18. Bryan Vila and Cynthia Morris, eds., The Role of Police in American Society: A
Documentary History (Greenwood, Conn.: Praeger 1999).
19. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886); Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S.
383 (1914).
20. Monrad G. Paulsen, “The Exclusionary Rule and Misconduct by the Police,”
in Claude R. Sowle, ed., Police Power and Individual Freedom (Chicago: Aldine, 1962),
87–98; Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 218–225. See also Dallin H. Oaks, “Studying
the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure,” University of Chicago Law Review 37
(Summer 1970): 665–757.
21. Donald J. Black and Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Patterns of Behavior in Police and
Citizen Transactions,” in Studies of Crime and Law Enforcement in Major Metropolitan
Areas, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, n.d.), 80–90.

64
 Police and the Law

22. Terry v. Ohio, 88 S. Ct. 1968; Sibron v. Ohio, 88 S. Ct. 1889 (1968).
23. Arthur Stinchcombe, “Institutions of Privacy in the Determination of Police
Administrative Practice,” American Journal of Sociology 69 (September 1963): 150–
160.
24. McIntyre, Law Enforcement in the Metropolis, 33.
25. American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Police Malpractice and
the Watts Riot (Los Angeles: American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California,
n.d.), 57.
26. United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56 (1950).
27. McIntyre, Law Enforcement in the Metropolis, 53–54.
28. Edward L. Barrett Jr., “Police Practices and the Law: From Arrest to Release or
Charge,” California Law Review 50 (March 1962): 33.
29. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 213.
30. 367 U.S. 643 (1961).
31. Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 (1962).
32. Jerry Bornstein, Police Brutality: A National Debate (Hillside, N.J.: Enslow,
1993).
33. Ibid.
34. “Search and Seizure in Illinois: Enforcement of the Constitutional Right to
Privacy,” Northwestern University Law Review 47 (1952): 497–499; cited in Paulsen,
“Exclusionary Rule,” 94–95.
35. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).
36. Samuel Dash, Robert E. Knowlton, and Richard F. Schwartz, The Eavesdroppers
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1959), 68–69.
37. McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332 (1943); Mallory v. United States, 352
U.S. 449 (1957).
38. Alan Barth, The Price of Liberty (New York: Viking, 1961), 7–9.
39. Caleb Foote, “Safeguards in the Law of Arrest,” Northwestern University Law
Review 52 (March-April 1957): 29–30.
40. Barrett, “Police Practices and the Law,” 30–33, 38–39.
41. Report and Recommendations of the Commissioners’ Committee on Police Arrests for
Investigation (Washington, D.C.: District of Columbia, 1962), 10–11, 58.
42. American Civil Liberties Union, Illinois Division, Secret Detention by the Chi-
cago Police (Glencoe: Free Press, 1959), 25.
43. Barrett, “Police Practices and the Law,” 40–41.
44. Report and Recommendations of the Commissioners’ Committee, 39.
45. Fred E. Inbau and John E. Reid, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions (Bal-
timore: Williams and Wilkins, 1962).
46. See, for example, Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278 (1936); Chambers v.
Florida, 309 U.S. 227 (1940); Ashcroft v. Florida, 332 U.S. 143 (1944); Watts v.
Indiana, 338 U.S. 49 (1949); Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U.S. 191 (1957); Payne v. Arkan-
sas, 356 U.S. 560 (1958).
47. Arnold S. Treback, The Rationing of Justice (New Brunswick: Rutgers Univer-
sity Press, 1964), 250–252.
48. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).

65
Police and the Law

49. 378 U.S. 478 (1964).

50. Blumberg, Criminal Justice, 90–93.
51. Ibid., 93–94; Treback, Rationing of Justice, 260.
52. 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
53. Black and Reiss, “Patterns of Behavior,” 124–131.
54. Cited in William W. Turner, The Police Establishment (New York: G. P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1968), 249–250.
55. Arthur Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967),
162–164.
56. Herbert L. Packer, “Two Models of the Criminal Process,” University of Penn-
sylvania Law Review 113 (November 1964): 3.
57. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968); Bryan Vila and Cynthia Morris, The Role of
Police in American Society (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1999).
58. Robert M. Regoli and John D. Hewitt, Criminal Justice (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1996), 300.
59. Kenneth J. Peak, Policing America, 2d ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-
Hall, 1997), 278.
60. McIntyre, Law Enforcement in the Metropolis, 44–46, 84–88.
61. Ibid., 41–43.
62. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 129.
63. McIntyre, Law Enforcement in the Metropolis, 11.
64. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 133.
65. Ibid., 190–191.
66. David Bryan Wolcott, “Cops and Kids: The Police and Juvenile Delinquency
in Three American Cities, 1890–1940.” PhD diss., Carnegie Mellon, 2000.
67. Irving Piliavin and Scott Brier, “Police Encounters With Juveniles,” American
Journal of Sociology 70 (September 1964): 206–214.
68. James Q. Wilson, “The Police and the Delinquent in Two Cities,” in James Q.
Wilson, ed., City Police and Public Policy (New York: John Wiley, 1968), 173–195.
69. David Wolcott, “The Cops Will Get You: The Police and Discretionary Juve-
nile Justice, 1890–1940,” Journal of Social History 35 (2001): 349–371.
70. James Q. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1968), 111–114.
71. Ibid., 130–131.
72. Ibid., 212–215.
73. Ibid., 121–128.
74. McIntyre, Law Enforcement in the Metropolis, 94.
75. Stinchcombe, “Institutions of Privacy,” 150–160.
76. Caleb Foote, “Vagrancy-Type Law and Its Administration,” University of Penn-
sylvania Law Review 104 (1956): 603–650.
77. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 71–90.
78. John A. Gardiner, Traffic and the Police (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1969).
79. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior, 95–99; ibid., 111–165.

66
 Police and the Law

80. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior, 95–99.

81. Gardiner, Traffic and the Police, 140–277.
82. James S. Wallerstein and Clement J. Wylie, “Our Law-Abiding Law Breakers,”
Probation 25 (March-April 1947): 107–112.
83. Phillip H. Ennis, Criminal Victimization in the United States: A Report of a
National Survey (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 8–14.
84. Bruce Smith, Police Systems in the United States (New York: Harper and Broth-
ers, 1960), 25–52.
85. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior, 40–41.

67
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

3 From the Viewpoint

of the Police

A
LTHOUGH LEGAL AND JUDICIAL REGULATIONS HAD AN EFFECT on police behav-
ior in cases that resulted in an arrest or a trial, most contacts between
police officers and private citizens were influenced more by the informal
norms and traditions surrounding police work than by the decisions of law-
makers or judges.1 The supervision exercised by the courts and other admin-
istrative agencies did not provide law enforcement with a full set of clearly
defined standards for invoking the power of arrest or for governing their
relations with the public. In defining appropriate conduct, police officers
were usually compelled to rely on the collective experiences of other law en-
forcement officers or on their personal judgment.
Since law enforcement agencies regarded efforts to investigate serious
crimes as their primary responsibility, the most salient incidents for police
officers tended to involve segments of the community that were particularly
susceptible to criminal behavior. By concentrating solely on the fight against
crime and failing to stress contacts with the public in less hostile or strained
circumstances, the police may have acquired a distorted and unfavorable im-
age of the people they purportedly served. The ordinary relationship between
police officers and citizens was viewed with anxiety or antagonism. In many
police locker rooms, as a new shift left for patrol the cry often heard was,
“Let’s go face the enemy.”2
In the investigation of major crimes, the police sometimes faced an un-
usual dilemma. Law enforcement’s prospects of apprehending criminals often
depended upon the reports and cooperation of witnesses or victims. Yet the
police were taught to assume a posture of suspicion toward and to maintain
their distance from all persons. Police officers traditionally regarded themselves

69
From the Viewpoint of the Police

as “the thin blue line” separating civilized groups from unruly elements that
threatened to devastate society.3 In their everyday routines, however, they
were not always in opposition to the general public; nor did they occupy a
position exclusively on the other side. A panoramic view of police behavior
would probably have revealed a more nuanced picture than some of their
harshest critics would have predicted. Many observers also have noted that
law enforcement officers sometimes approached incidents without much force,
even in situations where they could have reacted more strongly. As a major
repository of coercive power in a democratic form of government, the public
may have frequently wanted police agencies to assert authority and to back up
that authority with force if necessary. Hence the role of the police in exerting
authority, maintaining order, and providing protection often overshadowed
their service activities. And yet the performance of services could have been
essential to secure the trust and cooperation police departments needed to
fulfill their other responsibilities.
The philosophy of the police to some degree seemed to reflect a disparag-
ing view of human nature. Police officers were commissioned to impose moral
judgments on behavior, and their experience to some extent encouraged them
to regard human beings as weak and corrupt. As William H. Parker, former
chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and a leading police spokesper-
son, once remarked, “I look back over almost . . . thirty-five years of dealing
with the worst that humanity has to offer. I meet the failures of humanity
daily, and I meet them in the worst possible context. . . . I think I have to
conclude that this civilization will destroy itself, as others have before it.”4
Such pessimism regarding the nature of society and the progress of mankind
may be a natural product of numerous encounters with the criminal public,
but it also may have had an unfavorable effect on the performance of many
police duties. Conditioned by the belief that people are fundamentally im-
moral or depraved, some police officers may have found it difficult to grant
civilians the respect that may have been necessary to establish a relationship
of mutual trust and cooperation. Again, the dividing line between the police
and the public was often marked by antagonism and distrust.
Police distrust of human nature was not reserved solely for criminals; it
pervaded their dealings with many segments of the population. Police officers
confronted evidence of human frailties in many types of situations. Estimates
suggested, for example, that a large proportion of police fatalities resulted
from their intervention in marital disputes.5 As a result, it has been argued
that police officers felt justified in approaching all persons with the same
detachment and authority they displayed toward dangerous criminals.

70
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

The principal police response to disturbing and distasteful tasks was to

adopt a posture of cautious suspicion. In fact, suspicion probably became the
trademark of police officers in their relations with other segments of society.
In 1963, Thomas F. Adams published an article that advised police officers to
investigate and question persons in twenty common circumstances, including
people who were casual, nervous, or evasive when approached by an officer.6
A literal interpretation of that list and similar rules probably brought almost
all members of the public under police surveillance in most circumstances.
The police mission required officers to place great emphasis on public con-
duct that adhered closely to accepted social conventions, and the uncertain-
ties of their work prompted them to view even a slight departure from ordi-
nary behavior as a significant concern.

POLICE DISCRETION
A partial explanation for the failure of police to stop all persons who ap-
peared suspicious or unusual had to do with their discretionary authority.
The wide latitude granted police officers, coupled with their general suspi-
cion and defensiveness, created major problems. In many encounters police
officers took action primarily to preserve and protect their authority rather
than to secure compliance with the law or to promote respect for law en-
forcement. Although the discretion afforded police officers may have been
necessary to provide sufficient flexibility to deal effectively with specific prob-
lems and circumstances, it produced the potential for serious abuses in law
enforcement practices that undoubtedly affected members of the public. Since
some police generally held the public in low esteem, concerns were provoked
that discretion would be administered in an arbitrary or overly restrictive
manner.
A study of police perspectives about the society surrounding them, there-
fore, must encompass the organizational impact of the agencies within which
they operate as well as the opinions of their personnel. Structural or systemic
sources of the distinctive attitudes that characterize institutions such as police
departments frequently provide a more parsimonious explanation than opin-
ions revealed by surveys of their members. As a result, this analysis seeks to
combine both influences in assessing police perceptions.
Police encounters with the public generally originated from three major
sources. Most contacts between police and citizens were so-called dispatched
mobilizations launched at the initiative of citizens seeking police assistance.
Occasionally, police officers on the beat or in patrol cars were summoned
directly by citizens in “field complaints or mobilizations.” When police officers

71
From the Viewpoint of the Police

took the initiative, the incident was often termed an “on-view mobilization.”
Significantly, police officers enjoyed the greatest freedom of action in on-view
situations that were seldom monitored by police supervisors or witnessed by
complainants and bystanders. The absence of citizen requests for aid and the
ability of persons to undermine or subvert police authority in on-view inci-
dents also made them the most likely type of encounter to produce conflict.7
In other words, the probabilities of both the exercise of discretion and the
outbreak of conflict were highest in the type of encounter that was least effec-
tively supervised or regulated by police department superiors.
In addition, most contacts between police officers and suspects or arrestees
occurred in on-view mobilizations. A study in Washington, D.C., Boston,
and Chicago revealed that although the largest number of police-citizen inter-
actions were produced by complaints or requests of city residents, one of
every three transactions with suspects or offenders resulted from the initiative
of police officers.8 Police officers often tended to exercise their legal powers
largely in isolated circumstances of their own choosing when they were least
susceptible to the scrutiny or control of police administrators.
The structure and organization of local police departments exhibited im-
portant characteristics that distinguished them from other social or political
institutions. Unlike most groups, in which the range of available actions is
constricted as status decreases and subordinates work primarily to fulfill the
directives of upper-echelon executives, in law enforcement agencies discre-
tion increases “as one moves down the hierarchy.”9
The options available to the heads of police departments may have been
somewhat limited by political and legal pressures, but most important, they
were restricted by the inability of leaders to influence the conduct of subordi-
nates. Police chiefs often encountered imposing obstacles in their efforts to
alter or even to gain needed information about their forces’ activities. As a
result, the usual processes of implementing organizational standards were greatly
complicated in police departments.
In many communities police administrators responded to this dilemma
by neglecting to adopt explicit policies regarding law enforcement practices,
but this inaction led mainly to expanded discretion for the cop on the beat. By
avoiding the policy-making aspects of police work, law enforcement agencies
tended to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the problems created by the broad
discretion available to lower-ranking officers. Even the limited number of
specific guidelines provided by statutes and legal codes were liberally inter-
preted by law enforcement agencies, and, unfortunately, little effort was made
to communicate their meaning to rank-and-file police officers.

72
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

The growing complexity of legal regulations made it almost impossible

for anyone to be familiar with the many forms of conduct that had been
declared criminal. Many of the offenses that produced a large portion of
arrests had been so vaguely written as to give police virtually unlimited oppor-
tunities for selective enforcement of laws.
The discretion granted the police by loosely drafted and inadequately
understood legislation, however, did not necessarily promote excessive zeal in
law enforcement. In fact, police forces’ normal tendency was probably to
underenforce the law. An investigation of police-citizen encounters in three
cities found that a majority of persons who confessed to illegal behavior were
not taken into custody.10 Police officers’ hesitancy to invoke the power of
arrest also seemed to increase with experience. A survey of 220 police officers
showed that whereas only 6 to 13 percent of newly appointed recruits believed
arrests were made because “the officer could not avoid it without getting into
trouble,” 21 to 24 percent of patrolmen who had served for more than two
years and 18 percent of their superior officers chose that justification.11
Because law enforcement personnel have always valued a “good arrest,”
police officers seldom aroused intense criticism by producing a large volume
of arrests or adopting harsh enforcement policies. Police decisions were usually
based on popular concepts of morality rather than legalistic rules. In addition,
they often revealed a reluctance to impose seemingly unfair or unnecessary
hardships on others. Many police officers developed a cynical and bemused
approach to human foibles that viewed humans as corrupt beings but that
tried to at least somewhat tolerate their weaknesses. The effect of this atti-
tude, although it perhaps constitutes a major safeguard against the oppression
of a police state, was compounded by the absence of clear standards for the
exercise of police power. In their contacts with the public, police officers
were frequently required to make instantaneous decisions that subsequently
became the objects of lengthy legal analyses and arguments. Neither legisla-
tive guidelines nor the training most cops received adequately equipped them
for their responsibilities. To protect themselves from judicial criticism, they
often failed to enforce the law, or they based their judgments on other criteria.
In their encounters with ordinary citizens, police officers relied not only
on legal definitions of criminal conduct but also on other clues such as indi-
viduals’ appearance, demeanor, or location. Police decisions to investigate,
and perhaps the ultimate disposition of many criminal cases, depended upon
relatively superficial characteristics such as a person’s age, race, clothing, be-
havior, and reactions to police officers. An unconventionally dressed black
male walking or driving through a white suburb late at night probably escaped

73
From the Viewpoint of the Police

police attention or scrutiny less often than a white male wearing a suit and
walking or driving through an inner-city neighborhood. Personal and physical
attributes are unrelated to illegal activities, but police officers have been condi-
tioned by the media and taught by their colleagues to attach major significance
to such traits.
Although no accurate method had been devised for measuring the preva-
lence of cases involving harassment or the use of excessive force, both the
volume and documentation of charges of “police brutality” indicated that
such incidents occurred with some frequency. In making a lawful arrest,
police officers have the right to use reasonable force when necessary to se-
cure the cooperation of a suspect. The amount of force that is unnecessary or
excessive to make an arrest, therefore, has usually been a matter of sharp
dispute. Since the appropriate use of force would depend upon the circum-
stances of individual cases, which have seldom been effectively supervised or
subjected to judicial analysis, no comprehensive, accurate estimates exist of
the total number of instances of police brutality. Despite the dramatic impact
of well-publicized cases of police brutality and the controversies they gener-
ated, both the volume and the distribution of encounters involving physical
mistreatment by police officers were to some degree difficult to investigate
or validate.
The use of force has always been a particularly critical issue because
police officers, unlike virtually any other group, have been formally granted
the right to carry and use guns and other potentially lethal weapons. The use
of firearms was seldom adequately investigated by public agencies, and it was
effectively supervised in only a few communities. A study of coroners’ records
in Los Angeles revealed that of 319 persons killed by the police between 1947
and 1966, over half were members of minority groups. Also, 313 of the deaths
were ruled justifiable homicide; 5 were considered accidental, excusable, in-
voluntary, or undetermined; and only 1 was classified as unjustifiable.12 Equally
interesting, another investigation of 30 police killings in Los Angeles reported
in newspaper clippings during a three-month period indicated that 10 of the
victims may not have been engaged in conduct that would have legally permit-
ted the use of deadly weapons.13 Another study suggested that approximately
500 traffic deaths in the United States in both 1966 and 1967 may have
resulted from the “hot pursuit” of persons suspected of committing traffic
offenses.14 The potentially lethal implications of many police activities raise
critical questions about the legitimate use of force.
Some evidence indicated that intense but not fatal force was directed
most frequently at persons accused of assaulting or resisting a police officer. A

74
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

study of police practices in Philadelphia noted “a significant number of ar-

rested parties who incurred ‘scalp lacerations.’ ”15 Police officers probably dis-
played the strongest hostility toward uncooperative persons who seemed to
threaten their status or authority. An investigation by a Colorado state com-
mission on brutality charges in Denver in the late 1960s revealed that in
thirteen of twenty-two cases, the only charge leveled against the suspect was
resisting arrest.16
Police brutality was not always confined to physical brutality. Perhaps
more numerous were incidents involving the harassment of minority groups
and the use of insulting or degrading language and gestures. Some police
officers regularly engaged in such tactics without explicit intent to invoke the
power of arrest. This practice, reinforced by the policy of conducting numer-
ous field interrogations in high crime-rate areas, was perceived by many as a
discriminatory and objectionable form of police abuse. A survey conducted
in New Orleans in the early 1960s revealed that 34 percent of white and 41
percent of black arrestees stated that they had been “harassed” by the police.
Many of the grievances apparently arose from the policy of arresting large
groups of patrons in bars located in predominantly black sections of the city.
Twenty-two percent of the blacks but only 6 percent of the whites were ar-
rested in groups of four or more.17 Substantiated cases of physical coercion,
as well as the intimidation created by the badge and the gun, tended to lend
plausibility to the complaint that harassment had been a marked feature of
law enforcement practices in many areas of the country.
Despite the efforts of many departments to stress courtesy in their rela-
tions with civilians, verbal abuse was a pervasive characteristic of police
behavior. The same New Orleans study found that one-third of the black
arrestees were the targets of racist language by police officers, and a similar
proportion of whites complained about “tough” or abusive talk.18 Indeed, an
examination of police-citizen interactions in three cities discovered that more
encounters were characterized by police brusqueness or acrimony than by
courtesy or tactfulness.19 Although police officers frequently adopted the ra-
cial slurs and epithets that pervaded their social milieu, some evidence re-
vealed that contacts between the police and minority groups typically did not
involve the use of such terms. In New Orleans, most white arrestees reported
that their treatment by the police was “gentle or easy,” whereas most black
suspects stated that they were handled in a “professional” or neutral manner.
However, 21 percent claimed police officers had physically abused them.20
Studies in Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., also concluded that most
black residents were approached in a “businesslike” or “bureaucratic” style,

75
From the Viewpoint of the Police

but more whites than blacks were treated in a “personal” or “good-humored”

manner.21 Some officers were probably reluctant to deal with black residents
in essentially human or personal terms, and fear of reprisal for discriminatory
behavior may have prevented them from displaying the most blatant forms of
prejudice.
The discretion available to most police officers enabled them not only to
engage in selective law enforcement but also to treat certain groups preferen-
tially. In addition to the racial implications of harassment and verbal abuse,
some evidence indicated that civilians’ social and economic status influenced
the type of treatment they received from the police. When policemen in three
cities were asked which group was the most difficult to handle, they tended to
mention blacks.22 For years, many law enforcement officers made no secret of
the fact that they preferred contacts with high-status whites and disliked those
aspects of their job that forced them to interact with persons on the lower
rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, especially blacks. As a result, middle- and
upper-class citizens probably enjoyed a decided advantage in their contacts
with the police.
The study of police-citizen interactions in Boston, Chicago, and Wash-
ington, D.C., found that both dispatched and on-view encounters were more
likely to involve contacts with blue-collar individuals than with white-collar
persons, and white-collar citizens enjoyed the lowest probability of arrest.23
Interestingly, white-collar persons were more apt to be released after field
interrogations and less likely to be threatened by the police than were their
blue-collar counterparts.24 The survey of arrestees in New Orleans also indi-
cated that police officers were twice as likely to speak courteously to high-
status persons than they were to unskilled workers, and they were seven times
more apt to handle a laborer roughly than they were persons in white-collar or
professional jobs. Furthermore, 54 percent of the white-collar arrestees spent
no time in jail, and none was kept in custody longer than overnight; but an
identical proportion of blue-collar workers (54 percent) remained in jail over-
night or longer.25 In nearly all phases of law enforcement—from the initial
encounter to the ultimate disposition of the case—socioeconomic status had
an important impact on police practices.
In part, the preferential treatment accorded white-collar and professional
workers may have reflected the common inclination of persons from work-
ing-class and lower-middle-class backgrounds—including police officers—to
display deference toward those they regarded as their social superiors. Per-
haps the tendency of middle- and upper-class people to dominate many areas
of civic activity inspired a fear or a hesitancy among some police officers

76
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

about taking punitive action against those citizens. Police forces were sub-
jected to numerous community pressures; hence the average police officer
was probably reluctant to incur the real or imagined displeasure of his or her
supervisors in the department or in city hall.
Police officers often faced incompatible community demands or direc-
tives. On one hand, for example, police officers confronted intense popular
desires to fulfill broad social objectives, such as eliminating all forms of orga-
nized gambling in a community. On the other hand, the same persons who
expressed those sentiments were probably highly offended or critical when the
police interfered with specific activities, such as placing a bet with a bookie
and other petty vices.26 To many middle-class citizens, the fight against crime
was apparently defined or interpreted as a battle against disorderly or poten-
tially violent forms of illegal behavior engaged in by disreputable or objection-
able elements of the population. The normal reaction of police officers to this
dilemma was growing cynicism. In addition, police officers had often en-
forced laws against criminal activities that had the least political support in
the community and neglected illegal operations that enjoyed the greatest local
approval or acceptance. Since upper-status residents possessed disproportionate
political influence, the forms of illegality those citizens sustained or tolerated
were commonly granted the greatest amount of police protection. Socioeco-
nomic factors in law enforcement, as in many other aspects of police behav-
ior, simply reflect the fact that police forces are public agencies; hence they
are susceptible to the same influences that affect the actions of other govern-
ment bureaus.
Although law enforcement agencies shared many traits of other political
bodies, police departments also developed distinctive organizational struc-
tures and personal characteristics that shaped the performance of their duties.
Unlike civilian units, police forces are organized in a hierarchical pyramid as
quasi-military institutions designed to ensure that subordinates will promptly
obey the orders of commanding officers. Yet those in the lowest police ranks
probably enjoy more discretion and immunity from control by superiors than
most minor bureaucrats do. In fact, many studies have indicated that patrolmen’s
behavior may be affected more by the influence of colleagues in comparable
ranks than by the actions of their supervisors.

POLICE RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

By a variety of indicators, numerous studies revealed that most police recruits
tended to emerge from working- and lower-middle-class backgrounds. Two
separate surveys of the graduates of the New York City Police Academy, for

77
From the Viewpoint of the Police

example, found that nearly 80 percent of the police officers’ fathers had been
employed as laborers or service workers.27 In addition, questions about the
highest prior position attained by police recruits revealed that few had ad-
vanced beyond the status of clerical or sales worker.28 Despite the relatively
low pay and seemingly unfavorable working conditions connected with police
duty, joining the force usually constituted an advancement over the occupa-
tion of the patrolmen’s fathers, as well as over most other jobs with which the
police officers had been associated. For many recruits, the prospect of be-
coming a police officer represented both an opportunity for upward social
mobility and a chance to improve their economic position.
Although many departments required examinations that eliminated a siz-
able number of applicants, an unusually large proportion of police officers
had relatives who worked in law enforcement. Studies in Chicago, New York,
and elsewhere revealed that one-third or more of police officers in those cities
had relatives who were employed in police work or related fields.29 Perhaps
the association between generational decisions to enter police jobs partially
explained the predominance of some ethnic groups—especially the Irish—in
many departments. For example, an investigation of Chicago police sergeants
found that two-thirds of the Irish officers had relatives who were police officers,
and three-fourths of those were members of the immediate family.30 Preferences
for police work were often transmitted directly from one generation to the
next, thereby perpetuating a common body of police values and traditions.
One of the most serious consequences of the relatively restricted sources
of police recruitment was the difficulty of hiring minority police officers.31
For many years in most urban departments, the proportion of black police
officers was substantially below the percentage of black residents in the city,
and relatively few black officers were promoted to high police ranks.32 Will-
iam G. Lewis notes that the continuing absence of blacks on police forces as
employment opportunities for minorities were expanding in other occupa-
tions created a strong suspicion that efforts were being made in many cities to
prevent them from becoming police officers.33 Police work, like many other
occupations influenced by generational succession or narrow recruitment pat-
terns, appeared to develop institutional norms and expectations that carefully
regulated the characteristics of persons allowed to join the profession.
In addition to the predominantly white lower-middle-class characteristics
of police recruits, initially, law enforcement agencies attracted few recruits
with advanced educations. By the late 1960s, 70 percent of all U.S. police
departments required a high-school degree or its equivalent. Fewer than 30
percent of police officers, however, attended college.34 Moreover, most top

78
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

police administrators earned high-school diplomas, but few had college edu-
cations. To the extent that higher education became a necessary indicator of
status in middle-class America, police jobs seemed to lag behind the rising
standards of other occupations. As a result, police officers probably found
themselves at a disadvantage in dealing with better-educated and more re-
spected members of the community.
Somewhat ironically, citizens were very reluctant to grant esteem or give
deference to those entrusted with enforcing the norms and rules of society. A
national survey of the prestige of ninety occupations conducted in 1947 and
published in 1962 found that police ranked fifty-fifth.35 A replication of that
study in 1963 revealed that police officers had climbed to forty-seventh.36
Apparently, public regard for the police did not climb steadily. A pilot study of
college students suggested that higher police ranks may have been rated more
favorably than the average patrolman,37 but popular respect for those respon-
sible for law enforcement was not a marked feature of U.S. culture. In many
communities police salaries failed to match the wages of semiskilled laborers.
In general, the public was apparently unwilling to grant police forces respect
and resources commensurate with their powers to regulate social conduct.
Although the allure of the badge and other symbols of authority may have
been a persuasive inducement for many police recruits, the opportunity to
obtain public status or respect was not a major motivating factor in the deci-
sion to join the force.
Police officers themselves seemingly shared the popular perceptions of
the prestige of police work. A survey of the New Orleans Police Department,
for example, found that most officers considered their job to be more presti-
gious than those of furniture mover, auto mechanic, or bus driver but less
prestigious than high-school teacher, pharmacist, or business executive.38 Most
police officers’ working-class backgrounds and limited educational attainments
may have prevented them from aspiring to many white-collar jobs they viewed
as more lucrative and prestigious.
Perhaps a major attraction of police work was the security offered by
public employment. Police officers in Boston, Washington, D.C., and Chi-
cago disclosed that “job security” and “interest” were their primary reasons
for becoming police officers.39 In responding to questions about which as-
pects of their position they liked most, the largest proportion also cited job
security and retirement benefits.40 When officers considered leaving the force,
they tended to mention salary and economic considerations, but nearly half
said financial security and retirement benefits were the principal reasons they
remained in the department.41 Although economic considerations probably

79
From the Viewpoint of the Police

played a major role in both preventing and encouraging police resignations,

the survey revealed that most police officers had relatively modest goals and
expectations. The largest group of officers endorsed $6,500 to $7,500 annu-
ally as an acceptable starting wage.42 In determining career choices and plans,
limited earnings were probably of greater significance to police officers than
to persons in most other occupations.
The tendency of most police officers to emphasize job security and to
attach major importance to their salaries raised serious questions about the
motivation and satisfaction they derived from their jobs. A survey of New
York patrolmen revealed that a majority agreed with the statement that any
“recruit who thinks he is going to get much personal satisfaction just from
performing police duties is due for a rude awakening.”43 Nearly three-fourths
of those who had two years’ experience also believed it would be difficult to
prevent officers from resigning “if it weren’t for the salary and other benefits
connected with the job.”44 Many police officers apparently found little enjoy-
ment in the aspects of their work that involved serving others. Despite the
critical nature of their obligation to impose social controls on human con-
duct, police officers continued to regard their jobs almost exclusively as a
means of securing economic rewards.
Many police also seemed to recognize and accept a relatively low assess-
ment of their qualifications and their ability to make significant social in-
roads. The New Orleans survey reported that most police officers considered
themselves moderately dependable and extroverted, but many ranked them-
selves low on other characteristics. Only 9 percent regarded themselves as
highly ambitious, 4 percent ranked themselves as highly intellectual, and no
one rated himself or herself highly sophisticated.45 A lack of self-esteem prob-
ably had an important effect on the performance of police work. In deciding
to join the police force, many recruits seemed to abandon lofty individual or
social goals. Confirmation of this finding was obtained from a survey of po-
lice officers in a department on the West Coast, which asked respondents to
select the qualities that best described their present feelings, their probable
attitudes in ten years, and their personal goals. In all three circumstances the
most highly valued characteristic was “good health and relative freedom from
worry,” whereas “social prestige” and being “financially well-to-do” ranked at
the bottom of the list.46 Apparently, police forces were seldom successful in
recruiting persons with a commitment to strong personal ambitions or broad
social objectives.
After police officers joined the force, they normally underwent a training
period before being assigned to patrol duty. Most of the time recruits spent in

80
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

police academies or similar institutions was consumed by practical matters

such as studying routine procedures for patrolling and handling suspects,
working on physical conditioning, and learning the uses of firearms. Only a
limited number of hours, if any, were devoted to courses in human relations
or similar subjects that affected police encounters with the public.
Despite the highly pragmatic and applied nature of police training, many
rookies and their more experienced colleagues developed the belief that the
average patrol officer had to be “reeducated” before venturing onto the streets.
A survey conducted in New York City indicated that a majority of experi-
enced police officers believed academy training “cannot overcome the contra-
dictions between theory and practice,” and most police recruits believed they
would have to learn everything over again when they were assigned to pre-
cincts.47 This disdain for academy training probably reflected not only a reluc-
tance to think abstractly about law enforcement experiences but also pointed
to significant and unusual features of the working relationships between po-
lice officers.

POLICE SOLIDARITY
One of the most striking and peculiar aspects of the police vocation has been
the high degree of solidarity among most officers. United by the shared objec-
tive of fighting crime and by a common attitude toward the public, police
officers have displayed a degree of cohesion unmatched by many other occu-
pational groups.48 This fraternal loyalty and support not only was designed to
encourage cooperation in the performance of police duties, but it influenced
many other aspects of law enforcement. When rookie patrolmen emerged
from academy training to become active members of the force, they were
commonly exposed to the values and traditions of police work perpetuated by
experienced officers. Most recruits found it difficult to violate those bonds of
departmental camaraderie by rejecting advice offered by senior colleagues.
Despite the efforts of many academy instructors and superior officers to pro-
mote new law enforcement practices, solidarity in police ranks often made
established or habitual procedures resistant to change.
Police cohesion was not only characterized by mutually reinforcing atti-
tudes about work and organizational goals; it was also reflected in officers’
off-duty activities. Since many civilians seemed uncomfortable having police
officers as close acquaintances, observers often noted the tendency of police
officers and their families to restrict their social contacts to other members
of the force.49 A study of police sergeants in Chicago reported that one-
fourth said they spent off-duty time with other officers once or twice a week.50

81
From the Viewpoint of the Police

Again, solidarity has been a widespread and distinctive characteristic of

police forces in many cities. For example, when the members of a West Coast
department were asked to name their three closest friends, 35 percent of the
persons mentioned were other police officers. The natural tendency to de-
velop personal loyalties among fellow workers was promoted and accentuated
by strong organizational ties within the ranks of police forces. Indeed, organi-
zations such as the Fraternal Order of Police and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent
Association were formed in many departments to promote and protect police
officers’ common interests.51
The strong personal cohesion and organized activity that existed among
police officers undoubtedly had a major impact on the operation and admin-
istration of police departments. The effects of police solidarity were especially
evident in attitudes toward departmental rules and regulations. A survey of
patrolmen revealed that most officers viewed the Rules and Procedures, the
officially prescribed policies of the New York City Police Department, as “a
guide for patrolmen and not something to be followed to the letter.” More
than 80 percent thought it would be “impossible to always follow the Rules and
Procedures to the letter and still do an efficient job.”52 Another survey con-
cluded that three-fourths of police officers in New York were “resigned to the
necessity of violating rules in order to perform an active tour.”53 Prevailing
attitudes toward departmental regulations were a major barrier to efforts to
limit the discretion of the officer on the beat. Since many patrolmen accepted
the guidance of fellow officers rather than adhering to the rules promulgated
by their superiors, the cohesion of police forces formed a serious obstacle to
the effective restriction of police conduct.
In addition, some evidence indicated that police officers expected super-
visors to support or protect officers charged with violating department rules.
Most police administrators advanced to higher positions from within the de-
partment, and they frequently found it difficult to divest themselves of the
fraternal loyalties that comprised an important part of police work. The sur-
vey of New York patrolmen disclosed that from one-half to two-thirds agreed
with the statement “Most supervisors are careful to fit the Rules and Proce-
dures to the situation rather than insisting the Rules and Procedures have to be
followed regardless of the situation.”54 More than 80 percent thought patrol
officers were “officially entitled to all the help” they needed from supervisors,
and a comparable proportion believed supervisors were “expected to give help
without any reservations to patrolmen who need help.”55 From the perspec-
tive of many police officers, superiors were not expected to enforce depart-
mental rules to the detriment of patrol officers, but they were obligated to

82
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

protect their subordinates from the restrictions imposed by political authori-

ties and the public.
When police officers were disciplined, the source of the complaint was
usually attributed either to external or civilian influences. A survey in New
York found that more than 75 percent of patrol officers and 56 percent of
superior officers thought an “average departmental complaint was a result of
the pressure on superiors from higher authority to give out complaints.”56
Disciplinary action against police was usually ascribed to impersonal or vaguely
defined sources and not to superiors within the department.
Police solidarity, which perhaps obscured common internal distinctions
between organizational supervisors and employees, also had a profound im-
pact on attempts to curb police discretion. In one New York study, fewer than
one-third of police officers agreed with statements such as “patrolmen are not
given enough latitude by their supervisors to handle the police problems in
their area” and they “often fail to take necessary police action due to a feeling
that supervisors will disapprove of their actions.” Most believed “supervisors
almost never instruct a patrolman to reverse his plans when he has planned to
make an arrest or to issue a summons.”57 Even police officers assigned to bad
neighborhoods in eleven cities ranked supervisors and fellow officers almost
equally regarding the most satisfactory aspects of their work.58 Perhaps de-
partment superiors were relatively ineffective at curbing the vast discretion of
the average patrolman. The bonds of occupational loyalty and friendship that
prevail in law enforcement agencies, as well as officers’ natural propensity to
stress the perceived antagonism between the department and the outside com-
munity, probably impeded supervisors’ ability to discipline or regulate the
activities of their subordinates.
As a result of their dependence on superior officers for protection from
unjustified criticism, police personnel often displayed great anxiety at the
threat of disciplinary action. Interestingly, many police officers, for example,
believed the mere issuance of a charge against them would inevitably produce
a guilty verdict. More than 50 percent of the patrolmen in New York and 41
percent of their superior officers thought any officer summoned to appear
before a disciplinary hearing would “probably be found guilty even when he
has a good defense.”59 The source of this fatalism was reflected in many as-
pects of police behavior. Law enforcement officers usually considered them-
selves to be in conflict with political and community influences, and they
protected themselves from the “hostile” forces by developing a form of soli-
darity that encompassed all members of the force. The filing of a complaint
against an individual police officer was often perceived as destroying those

83
From the Viewpoint of the Police

standards. Deprived of the support of supervisors and fellow officers, the

police officer accused of misconduct sometimes felt at the mercy of alien
influences. As a result, even the most temperate criticisms of police conduct
were frequently met with unexpected resistance and defensiveness.
The belief that officers lose their departmental protection in disciplinary
procedures left a residue of bitterness. A survey of New York patrol officers
revealed that 63 percent believed “the department’s handling of civilian com-
plaints” was unfair, and 54 percent thought “disciplinary action in the depart-
ment” was unfair.60 This sense of unwelcome martyrdom, particularly as a
result of grievances originating outside the department, was probably exacer-
bated both by the salience of threats to employment in an occupation that
placed a premium on job security and by the fear of political interference in
police work. But perhaps most important, police attitudes toward disciplinary
action illustrated the difficulty of imposing regulations on an organization that
had developed unified and effective methods of ensuring the mutual protec-
tion of its members.
Despite the high degree of unity in police departments, some evidence
indicated that top administrators may have had an important impact on the
morale and performance of law enforcement organizations. Police officers
displayed more concern about internal relations than did employees of other
municipal agencies,61 and they were particularly apt to personalize authority
in departmental superiors.62 Public officials also tended to defer to police
expertise concerning law enforcement problems, but they frequently became
impatient about the inability of police to solve vexing or sensational crimes.
As a result, police chiefs were often compelled to rely on their personal cha-
risma in getting programs adopted by civilian political leaders as well as de-
partmental employees.63
One study of Chicago police sergeants conducted in 1960, when the
department was embroiled in a major scandal, and followed up on five years
later, after “reform” superintendent O. W. Wilson had assumed control, found
a substantial increase in favorable attitudes about how the department was
being run.64 In large measure, the new superintendent produced this change
by promoting younger officers and introducing professional law enforcement
practices. The professionalization of police forces usually required centralized
authority, but it was often resisted by subordinates.65 The professionalization
of police departments, therefore, tended to undermine the stature of indi-
vidual police officers by limiting their discretion in the community.66
Although the professionalization of departments by police administrators
probably had a temporary effect on the morale of law enforcement officers,

84
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

the trend produced growing dissatisfaction. Unlike other professional groups

that developed an expanded range of responsibilities to and personal relation-
ships with the public, the particular brand of professionalism that arose in
many police departments seemed to engender the centralization of authority
and a lessening of police ties with the community.
The effects of this kind of professionalization were evident in the atti-
tudes of Chicago sergeants. Before the “reform” administration came to power,
perceptions of relations with the public were much more significant than
assessments of internal administration in shaping the department’s morale.
After the new superintendent had initiated his professionalization program,
however, perceptions of citizen respect had a strong impact on the morale of
officers who thought the department was being run well, but citizen attitudes
had only a limited effect on the morale of employees who remained dissatis-
fied with departmental management.67 The increasingly positive evaluation of
the police force was not accompanied by a growing feeling of public respect
or an increased reliance on community support as a basis for judging the
department. Most sergeants maintained the view that the department had
improved but that cooperation with the public had not reflected correspond-
ing gains. The reference group that was especially salient in police attitudes
seemed to shift from the public to the department itself. The introduction of
professional norms and practices apparently increased the importance of in-
ternal control and loosened the bonds between police and the community.
As police departments became increasingly professionalized, they tended
to become self-contained rather than to rely more on the cooperation or assis-
tance of the public. The growing specialization of police duties seemed to
reduce the importance of information or contacts officers established during
their tour of duty on the streets. One of the principal means by which the
police maintained their separation from the community was through a strict
policy of secrecy. In part to protect themselves from public interference and
to prevent criticism of their professional or expert status, many departments
rigidly enforced a policy of refusing to discuss police business with civilians.68
As a result of their defensiveness and disaffection, many police departments
attempted not only to separate themselves from the public but also to insulate
themselves from both public support and disapproval.
The increasing gap between the public and the police was also reflected in
the attributes of law enforcement officers. Modern city police officers who
lived outside the area they patrolled, whose acquaintances were largely re-
stricted to other members of the force, and who surveyed the beat from the
windshield of a squad car usually developed few contacts with residents of the

85
From the Viewpoint of the Police

neighborhood to which they had been assigned. This estrangement was par-
ticularly pronounced in crime-ridden and potentially volatile urban enclaves.
Several studies indicated that only a small proportion of police officers had
become familiar with or involved in the communities they patrolled. Not only
had patrolmen failed to gain extensive information about the neighborhood,
but most of their existing contacts were confined to relatively unrepresenta-
tive groups. A survey of police who patrolled the inner city in eleven major
urban areas, for example, revealed that they were most likely to be acquainted
with store owners and merchants in the area. Patrol officers were more apt to
be familiar with the organizers of unlawful enterprises than with “important
teenage and youth leaders.”69 The limited relationships police developed in
ghetto areas probably did not enable them to gain a critical understanding of
problems in the neighborhoods.
Some evidence demonstrated, however, that black policemen were able
to establish a better rapport with urban residents than their white counter-
parts were.70 Whereas fewer than one-sixth of the white police officers who
patrolled the ghettos of eleven major cities reported any involvement in the
neighborhoods, 37 percent of the African American officers either lived in
the area or attended local meetings there regularly, and 57 percent had rela-
tives living on their beats.71 Another survey found that 41 percent of black
police officers stated that they liked their assignments because they knew the
local residents well, but only 26 percent of their white counterparts concurred.72
In addition, 89 percent of the African American patrol officers but only 48
percent of the whites claimed it was easy to get to know people on their
beats.73 Although a lack of public support was the most common complaint
about police work in inner-city neighborhoods, most police officers—white
as well as black—stated that they would prefer not to be transferred to another
assignment.74 Whereas the largest proportion of African American officers
cited their familiarity with local residents as the major reason they liked their
assignments, the majority of white police officers said they liked their patrols
primarily because they were “active.”75
Perhaps an indication of the relationship between the public and the
police was illustrated by a question posed to police officers in Boston, Chi-
cago, and Washington, D.C., asking if people on their beats ever complained
to them about police practices. Seventy-eight percent of the black police
officers, as opposed to only 46 percent of their white counterparts, reported
that they had heard such complaints.76 The findings, therefore, suggested that
the insulation of police might have been largely restricted to white officers.
They also seemed to imply that the policing of urban areas by black officers

86
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

might offer an important means of improving communication between law

enforcement agencies and that community. In responding to complaints from
local residents about the police department, however, sharp differences be-
tween all police officers and the outside community seemed to reassert them-
selves. The survey revealed that nearly all police officers—white as well as
black—“feel obligated to defend the department when it is criticized.”77 Black
police officers seemed to enjoy a particularly close rapport with inner-city
residents, but in the face of strong popular criticism, the usual suspicion and
animosity toward the public became evident among almost all members of
the force.

POLICE CHARACTERISTICS
In addition to the loyalty and defensiveness that separated them from the
community, law enforcement officers were influenced by restrictions on their
political and social affiliations. These restraints tended to shield the police
from involvement in public issues that have crucial importance to society. As
civil servants, police officers were often proscribed by local regulations not to
participate actively in political controversies. In many areas this policy was
apparently based on an uncritical acceptance of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s
famous dictum in a Massachusetts State Supreme Court case that upheld a
municipality’s right to fire a police officer for discussing political issues by
asserting that the man “may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he
has no constitutional right to be a policeman.”78 Furthermore, police tradi-
tionally displayed strong antipathy toward political intervention or pressures
that might affect their law enforcement activities. As a result, police not only
tended to reject the guidance and leadership of government officials and commu-
nity leaders, but they also failed to acquire extensive experience with political
processes.
Many features of police work perhaps tended to promote markedly con-
servative and anti–civil libertarian beliefs among law enforcement officers.
One researcher concluded after a careful investigation of a large West Coast
police department that “a Goldwater type of conservatism was the dominant
political and emotional persuasion of police.”79 A survey of New Orleans
police officers found that 42 percent would prohibit a Communist from being
employed as a retail clerk, and 50 percent would remove any novel written by
a Communist from the public library.80 The strong conservative bias of most
police officers often translated into departmental policies. In Philadelphia, for
example, it was reported that investigations were regularly conducted to de-
termine if recruits were members of the Nation of Islam, but no similar

87
From the Viewpoint of the Police

inquiries were undertaken to identify membership of white police in the John

Birch Society or the Ku Klux Klan.81
Although such generalizations are fraught with numerous hazards as well
as countless exceptions, the personality profile of the average police officer
drawn from many studies suggested that he or she possessed several attributes
that distinguished him or her from both the general public and members of
other occupational groups. Not only were police officers more conservative
and defensive than other segments of the population, but they also seemed to
display high levels of cynicism, insecurity, suspicion, aggressiveness, and pes-
simism about human nature. Some of those characteristics were probably
derived as much from popular stereotypes as from careful research, but dis-
cussions of the “police personality” have been a feature of numerous studies
of law enforcement. Even among general observers, the mention of police
work often brought memories of high-school classmates—more renowned for
their toughness or physical prowess than for their intellectual acumen or sen-
sitivity—who joined the police force. These remarks raised difficult and im-
portant empirical problems not only regarding the psychological attributes of
police officers but also about the origins and impact of such characteristics.
Perhaps the police force was an especially attractive avenue of employment to
persons possessing particular attributes, or perhaps the nature of police work
was primarily responsible for producing those characteristics. The resolution
of this dilemma clearly has important implications for the evaluation of police
conduct.
Since police officers are almost constantly exposed to incidents that could
result in unexpected physical injury or even death, many observers posited
that this threat was instrumental in shaping police officers’ beliefs about and
conduct toward the public. Yet a survey of police officers in three cities re-
vealed that only 2 percent cited danger as an undesirable feature of their
work, although 37 percent stated that their wives or families were concerned
about that aspect of their job.82 Police departments either tended to recruit
persons who displayed little concern about their personal safety, or perhaps
over time police officers became relatively immune to the threat of danger. In
any event, the perceptions of patrol officers themselves seemed to suggest that
fear for personal safety was less influential in molding police attitudes than
was commonly supposed.
Police officers’ aggressive and even adventuresome characteristics probably
derived in part from their predominantly working- and lower-middle-class
origins. One prominent means by which personal backgrounds manifested
themselves was in the persona and language police officers often used in ap-

88
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

proaching the public. Not only did the association between police officers
and criminals perhaps cause police to use more slang and epithets than would
be used by members of most other occupational groups, but police officers
also used this nomenclature both among themselves and with the public. In a
survey of persons arrested in New Orleans in the early 1960s, for example, 26
percent of respondents reported that police officers used obscenities when
making the arrest.83
The socioeconomic source of this language, which was more common in
working-class than in middle-class enclaves, was also reflected in the fact that
police officers’ vocabulary varied according to the race, sex, and occupational
level of the person arrested. One-third of the white arrestees, for example,
mentioned that the police used “tough talk” in making the arrest, whereas a
similar proportion of black arrestees cited that racial slurs and epithets were
used. Moreover, white-collar arrestees were more than twice as likely as la-
borers to report that police had been courteous or polite and that they had not
used vulgar or obscene language.84 The language used by police officers in
making an arrest, therefore, not only seemed to reveal a strong pattern of
deference in which police were reluctant to use certain terms among higher-
status citizens that they adopted with social peers, but it also appeared to reflect
an emphasis on masculinity that some argue was prevalent among working-
class persons.
Police officers’ emphasis on both virility and conventional behavior bred
a particular distaste for sexual deviance. A survey of New York officers found
that homosexuals were rated second to cop fighters as the group most disliked
by police officers, outranking other despised elements such as drug dealers
and known criminals.85 Interestingly, in New Orleans most police officers
considered homosexuality more serious than bribing or assaulting an officer
but less serious than burglary, drug peddling, or miscegenation.86 A police
officer’s position probably provided many men with a means of asserting their
masculinity that was supported by the working-class ethos from which many
were recruited.
The conditions and circumstances of police work also probably had a
major impact on the personalities of police officers. In the normal perfor-
mance of their duties, many officers were brought into a close and continuing
association with criminals and other elements of the population that rejected
society’s moral codes. As a result, police officers were exposed to more temp-
tation than many other occupational groups. Although no accurate estimates
can be provided concerning the amount of corruption that exists in police
forces, periodic scandals in major cities have indicated that at least some

89
From the Viewpoint of the Police

policemen may have entered law enforcement to obtain personal gains or

favors.
The unique experiences of police officers probably had an effect on their
ethical values. The survey of New Orleans officers revealed, for example, that
two-thirds or more considered such acts as taking graft, accepting bribes so a
suspect could avoid being issued a ticket, and cheating on an examination for
promotion to be highly immoral; but 46 percent saw nothing seriously wrong
with discriminating against minority groups, and 57 percent had no serious
objection to overestimating damages for an insurance report.87 In a study of
patrols in Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., 16.5 percent of police-
men were observed engaging in misconduct that amounted to a felony, and an
additional 10.5 percent admitted that they had engaged in similar practices.88
According to a former Denver police officer who was involved in a major
scandal, police corruption often resulted from police solidarity and their ani-
mosity toward the public, which produced the sentiment “nobody likes us, so
the hell with them.” In the investigation of a burglary, for example, before the
final amount of theft was determined, new officers were encouraged to pocket
remaining items, as an additional loss would be almost impossible to detect.
After such promptings by fellow officers, rookie cops felt the pressure to
belong so strongly that they picked up something. Then they were “in,” and
the others could do what they wished.89
Some aspects of police work contributed to police officers’ unique per-
sonal characteristics, but many of their attributes such as aggressiveness and
toughness also derived from their working- or lower-middle-class origins. In
fact, many of the qualities that differentiate police recruits from persons who
selected other avenues of employment were probably reinforced by the daily
experiences and activities of law enforcement officers. In most encounters
with the public, for example, the principal responsibility of police officers
was to reconstruct and gain control of the social situation with which they
were confronted. Police officers were equipped, therefore, both by their back-
grounds and by the nature of their duties to engage primarily in the exercise
of authority.

EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY
The opportunity to wield authority over the lives and conduct of other people
undoubtedly appealed to many police recruits. Some departments made ef-
forts to screen or eliminate recruits who displayed excessive interest in gain-
ing a dominant position over other persons. For example, between 1953 and
1956, 11 percent of applicants for jobs in the Los Angeles Police Department

90
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

were rejected because they failed to meet minimum psychiatric standards.90

Despite the attempts to remove persons who were unqualified or unfit for
police work, many were drawn to the force primarily by the lure of the badge,
the gun, and other symbols of authority rather than by the opportunities for
public service.
In addition, police officers often reinterpreted rules governing the exer-
cise of authority to provide themselves with increased latitude and status.
Perhaps the ultimate means of demonstrating police authority has been the
use of physical force or violence. A classic study by William A. Westley found
that someone showing “disrespect for police” was mentioned most frequently
by police as the reason for using force. This reason was cited by 37 percent of
the officers interviewed, as opposed to 23 percent who viewed violence as
appropriate only when it was impossible to avoid, 19 percent who employed
force to obtain information, 10 percent who used it against hardened crimi-
nals or sex offenders, and 11 percent who used it to make an arrest or when
they knew a suspect was guilty.91 Although the law has never recognized “dis-
respect for the police” as a legitimate justification for the use of force or
violence, some police officers adopted the attitude that force could be applied
to gain deference, impose punishment, and the like. The instruments of force—
symbolized by the gun and the nightstick—conferred on police officers by the
state were frequently used to enhance their own authority. Since law enforce-
ment officers had a great deal of discretion in low-visibility situations, effec-
tive control over the exercise of authority was difficult to impose. In addition,
the consensus police forces developed regarding prerogatives perceived as
necessary in the performance of their duties intensified the problem of limit-
ing police authority.

CONCLUSION
In the past, police officers believed they had to deal with a hostile and unco-
operative public; consequently, they felt compelled to emphasize authority in
confronting members of the public. Of all the functions performed by the
police, authority was perhaps the principal means by which officers could
gain a strategic advantage over persons they encountered. As the experience
of many police officers demonstrated, protection against crime—because of
its relatively passive and undemonstrable character—was of limited value in
generating public support for the police. Similarly, maintaining public order
was seldom regarded as a sufficient reason for granting police officers defer-
ence or respect. In fact, many officers apparently believed the exertion of
authority was necessary for establishing order.

91
From the Viewpoint of the Police

Service might have provided the police with a basis for securing the re-
spect of the community. Many public agencies have developed mutually satis-
factory and cooperative relationships with people solely through the provision
of services. Yet the police continually neglected or downgraded this aspect of
the job. The survey of officers in three cities found that at least 40 percent
wanted to allocate less time to supervising school crossings, making hospital
and sick calls, and providing other service activities. On the other hand, when
they were asked about the duties on which they wanted to spend more time,
most police officers mentioned investigating or preventing crimes. Only 7
percent cited improving police-community relations.92
Authority, therefore, was the principal means by which police offic-
ers attempted to deal with the public. Since the exercise of police author-
ity usually implied a subordinate position for civilians, it was often met
with begrudging acceptance by the community. As a result, popular attitudes
toward law enforcement officers often reflected significant hostility and
conflict.
For many police officers, growing indications of disapproval or resent-
ment only reinforced their basic suspicions about the public. Furthermore,
the solidarity that existed among police officers tended to make their judg-
ments about the public both a self-fulfilling and a self-sustaining prophecy.
Suspicion and distrust were perpetuated not only by the officers’ personal
experiences but also by the attitudes and beliefs that prevailed within many
police departments.
The defensiveness, insecurity, conservatism, aggressiveness, and cynicism
many observers have identified as major attributes of police behavior prob-
ably developed as a result of their experience. Nonetheless, major difficulties
were encountered in efforts to reduce or eliminate some of the relatively
undesirable aspects of police interactions with the public. Since the greatest
discretion was granted to police officers who had the lowest rank and the
most frequent contacts with the community, few effective means were identi-
fied for limiting or controlling the exercise of police authority.
A major conflict developed between the police and the public. In their
encounters with most citizens, police officers tended to rely on the exercise
of authority to the neglect of other functions. This approach provoked in-
creasing public resistance and bitterness toward the police. The outcome of
this struggle arguably had a more significant impact on the nature of the
police role in exerting authority than on any other role in the field of law
enforcement.

92
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

NOTES
1. Eric H. Monkkonen, Crime, Justice and History (Columbus: Ohio State Univer-
sity Press, 2002).
2. Joseph D. Lohman and Gordon E. Misner, The Police and the Community (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), vol. 1, 31; vol. 2, 171.
3. Jerome H. Skolnick and David H. Bayley, The New Blue Line: Police Innovation
in Six American Cities (New York: Free Press, 1986).
4. The Police: An Interview by Donald McDonald With William H. Parker (Santa
Barbara: Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1962), 25.
5. Samuel Walker, The Police in America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992).
6. Thomas F. Adams, “Field Interrogation,” Police (March-April 1963): 28.
7. Donald J. Black and Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Patterns of Behavior in Police and Citizen
Transactions,” in Studies of Crime and Law Enforcement in Major Metropolitan Areas
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, n.d.), vol. 1, 4–13.
8. Ibid., vol. 2, 74–80.
9. James Q. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1968), 7.
10. Black and Reiss, Studies of Crime and Law Enforcement, vol. 2, 111–112.
11. Arthur Niederhoffen, Behind the Shield (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967),
208.
12. Ed Cray, Testimony Before the Assembly Interim Committee on the Judiciary.
Los Angeles: State of California, October 16, 1967.
13. Ed Cray, The Big Blue Line (New York: Coward-McCann, 1967), 157–158.
14. Richard D. Lyons, “Car Deaths Laid to Hot Pursuit: Physicians Say 500 a Year
Died in Police Chases,” New York Times, June 18, 1968, 19.
15. Lohman and Misner, Police and the Community, vol. 2, 175.
16. Cited in Cray, The Big Blue Line, 125.
17. Joseph H. Fichter and Brian Jordan, Police Handling of Arrestees (New Orleans:
Loyola University of the South, 1964), 6–7.
18. Ibid., 28–29.
19. Black and Reiss, Studies of Crime and Law Enforcement, vol. 2, 97.
20. Fichter and Jordan, Police Handling of Arrestees, 49, 52.
21. Black and Reiss, Studies of Crime and Law Enforcement, vol. 1, 56–59.
22. Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Career Orientations, Job Satisfaction, and the Assessment of
Law Enforcement Problems by Police Officers,” in Studies in Crime and Law Enforce-
ment in Major Metropolitan Areas (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
n.d.), vol. 3, 81–83.
23. Black and Reiss, Studies of Crime and Law Enforcement, vol. 1, 78–80.
24. Ibid., 105, 115.
25. Fichter and Jordan, Police Handling of Arrestees, 21–22.
26. James Q. Wilson, “The Police and Their Problems: A Theory,” Public Policy 12
(1963): 189–216.
27. Arthur Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967),
36–37; John H. McNamara, “Uncertainties in Police Work: The Relevance of Police

93
From the Viewpoint of the Police

Recruits’ Backgrounds and Training,” in David J. Bordue, ed., The Police: Six Sociological
Essays (New York: John Wiley, 1967), 192–193.
28. McNamara, “Uncertainties in Police Work,” 193–194.
29. Ibid., 193; Gilmore Spencer and Keith Jewell, “Police Leadership: A Research
Study,” Police Chief (March 1963): 40–45.
30. James Q. Wilson, “Generational and Ethnic Differences Among Career Police
Officers,” American Journal of Sociology 69 (March 1964): 522–528.
31. Larry D. Stokes and James F. Scott, “Affirmative Action Policy Standard and
Employment of African Americans in Police Departments,” Western Journal of Black
Studies 17 (1993): 135–142.
32. W. Marvin Dulaney, Black Police (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1996).
33. William G. Lewis, “Toward Representative Bureaucracy: Blacks in City Police
Organizations, 1975–1985,” Public Administration Review 49 (May-June 1989): 257–
267.
34. National Commission on Crime, Task Force Report: The Police (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 10, 126–127.
35. Paul K. Hatt and C. C. North, “Prestige Ratings of Occupations,” in Sigmund
Nosow and William H. Form, eds., Man, Work, and Society (New York: Basic, 1962),
277–283.
36. Robert W. Hodge, Paul M. Siegel, and Peter H. Rossi, “Occupational Prestige in
the United States, 1925–1963,” American Journal of Sociology 70 (1964): 268–302.
37. Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield, 21–23.
38. Fichter and Jordan, Police Handling of Arrestees, 23.
39. Reiss, “Career Orientations,” 18–19.
40. Ibid., 27–29.
41. Ibid., 36–38.
42. Ibid., 44–46.
43. Ibid., 45.
44. McNamara, “Uncertainties in Police Work,” 242–243.
45. Fichter and Jordan, Police Handling of Arrestees, 15.
46. Jerome H. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial (New York: John Wiley, 1994), 269–
270.
47. Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield, 211–213; quote on 212.
48. McNamara, “Uncertainties in Police Work,” 246.
49. Michael Banton, The Policeman in the Community (New York: Basic, 1964),
188–219.
50. James Q. Wilson, “Police Morale, Reform, and Citizen Respect: The Chicago
Case,” in David J. Bordue, ed., The Police: Six Sociological Essays (New York: John Wiley,
1967), 157.
51. Justin E. Walsh, The Fraternal Order of Police, 1915–1976: A History (Paducah,
Ky.: Turner, 2001).
52. McNamara, “Uncertainties in Police Work,” 240–241.
53. Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield, 217–218.
54. McNamara, “Uncertainties in Police Work,” 241–242.

94
 From the Viewpoint of the Police

55. Ibid., 232–233.

56. Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield, 207.
57. McNamara, “Uncertainties in Police Work,” 210–211.
58. Peter H. Rossi, Richard A. Berk, David P. Boesel, Bettye K. Eidson, and W.
Eugene Groves, “Between White and Black: The Faces of American Institutions in the
Ghetto,” in Supplemental Studies for the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 104–105.
59. Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield, 178, 214–216.
60. McNamara, “Uncertainties in Police Work,” 235–236.
61. Robert L. Peabody, “Authority Relations in Three Organizations,” Public Ad-
ministration Review 23 (June 1963): 87–92.
62. Charles R. Swanson and Leonard Territo, Police Administration: Structures,
Processes and Behavior (New York: Macmillan, 1983); R. R. Rober and J. Kuykendall,
“Police Professionalism: The Organizational Attribute,” Journal of Contemporary Crimi-
nal Justice 6 (1990): 49–59.
63. David J. Bordue and Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Command, Control, and Charisma:
Reflections on Police Bureaucracy,” American Journal of Sociology 72 (July 1966): 68–
76.
64. Wilson, “Police Morale, Reform, and Citizen Respect,” 139–149.
65. Wilson, “The Police and Their Problems,” 205–207.
66. David J. Bordue and Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Law Enforcement,” in Paul F. Lazarsfeld,
William H. Sewell, and Harold L. Wilensky, eds., The Uses of Sociology (New York: Basic,
1967), 288–293.
67. Wilson, “Police Morale, Reform, and Citizen Respect,” 151–155.
68. William A. Westley, “Secrecy and the Police,” Social Forces 34 (March 1956):
254–257.
69. Rossi et al., “Between White and Black,” 112–113.
70. Stokes and Scott, “Affirmative Action Policy Standard,” 135–142.
71. Reiss, “Career Orientations,” 60–61.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid., 64–67.
74. Ibid., 58–59; Rossi et al., “Between White and Black,” 104.
75. Reiss, “Career Orientations,” 59–60.
76. Ibid., 76–78.
77. Ibid., 78.
78. McAuliffe v. New Bedford, 155 Mass. 216, 220 (1892).
79. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 61.
80. Fichter and Jordan, Police Handling of Arrestees, 15.
81. Lohman and Misner, Police and the Community, vol. 2, 160.
82. Reiss, “Career Orientations,” 38–39.
83. Fichter and Jordan, Police Handling of Arrestees, 30.
84. Ibid., 28, 31.
85. Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield, 122–123.
86. Fichter and Jordan, Police Handling of Arrestees, 24.
87. Ibid., 36.

95
From the Viewpoint of the Police

88. David Burnham, “Misconduct Laid to 27% of Police in 3 Cities’ Slums,” New
York Times, July 5, 1968, 1.
89. J. M. Pollock-Byrne, Ethics in Crime and Justice (Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/
Cole, 1989).
90. J. H. Rankin, “Psychiatric Screening of Police Recruits,” Public Personnel Review
20 (July 1959): 191–196.
91. William A. Westley, “Violence and the Police,” American Journal of Sociology 59
(July 1953): 36–41; see also James Lao Walsh, “Professionalism and the Police: The Cop
as Medical Student,” in Harlan Hahn, ed., Police in Urban Society (Beverly Hills: Sage,
1971), 225–245.
92. Reiss, “Career Orientations,” 117–122.

96
 From the Public’s Standpoint

4 From the
Public’s Standpoint

T
HE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLICE OFFICERS AND LOCAL CITIZENS is a joint
product of police perceptions of the public and public perceptions of the
police. Perhaps as a result of their training and experience, police officers
often viewed civilians as both a hostile force and a hindrance to the effective
performance of their duties. For example, a survey of 284 officers in a West
Coast police department revealed that 70 percent rated the prestige with which
others regarded the police as only fair or poor and believed “relations with the
public” was the most important problem police officers faced.1 This feeling
seemed especially prevalent in the poorest areas of major cities. A study of
officers in eight lower-class precincts in three large cities found that “lack of
public respect” was regarded as a major problem; nearly one-fourth of the
officers cited this as the factor they disliked most about their jobs.2 Similarly,
a survey of police officers who patrol the ghettos of eleven cities disclosed that
48 percent of respondents said the lack of external support was the most
serious problem for police, and 54 percent said they were dissatisfied with the
respect they received from local residents.3 Another survey found that most
law enforcement officers regarded “public abuse” and “politics” as the least
satisfactory aspects of their work.4
This attitude was not confined to patrol officers who had the greatest
amount of contact with the public; it also pervaded higher ranks of police
organizations. In a survey of Chicago police sergeants, one-half to nearly two-
thirds expressed the opinion that most citizens did not respect the depart-
ment, and similar proportions disagreed with the statement that “civilians
generally cooperate with police officers in their work.”5 Another study in
New York reported that 56 to 64 percent of patrol officers and 78 percent of

97
From the Public’s Standpoint

their superiors were convinced that the public “usually has to be forced to
cooperate with police officers.”6
In their efforts to overcome perceived disrespect by exerting their au-
thority, many law enforcement officers consciously or unconsciously conveyed
their own hostility to local citizens. In response, one might expect some mem-
bers of the public to display reciprocal animosity and distrust. Surprisingly,
however, this was not always the case. The attitudes of the general population
toward the police were both ambiguous and sharply divided. Among some
segments of the community, such as ghetto neighborhoods, perceptions of the
public and the police erupted in mutual antagonism and conflict.7 But in
predominantly white neighborhoods, opinions about the police reflected a
complex mixture of esteem, anxiety, and indecision. In fact, if any one word
could be used to describe the sentiments of the entire community, the most
appropriate would probably be “ambivalence.”8
Despite the difficulties of framing general statements about public atti-
tudes toward law enforcement officers, several studies indicated that most
people did not display the same enmity toward the police that some police
officers attributed to them. A national survey, for example, found that 42
percent of the public thought the police were doing a “very good” job of
protecting people in their neighborhoods, and 59 percent made a similar
appraisal of the respect the police displayed toward people like themselves. In
addition, 22 percent believed the police were doing an “excellent” job of
“enforcing the laws,” 45 percent felt they were doing “good” work, and only
32 percent rated their performance as “fair or poor.”9 Subsequent surveys in
eight major cities found that “the vast majority . . . of the residents thought
that their police were doing either a good [44 percent] or fair [38 percent]
job; only a small number [12 percent] thought that the police were doing a
poor job.”10 The studies also discovered that blacks were almost three times
as likely as whites to believe the police were doing a poor job; but an earlier
survey of predominantly black precincts in Washington, D.C., published in
1907, discovered that 85 percent of residents endorsed the statement that those
“who are willing to take on the tough job of being a policemen deserve a lot
more thanks and respect than they get from the public,” and 78 percent agreed
that “just a few policemen . . . are responsible for the bad publicity the police
department gets.”11 In general, public attitudes were somewhat favorable and
relatively devoid of intense personal dislike for law enforcement officers.
In specific circumstances, however, many different types of people ex-
pressed important reservations about law enforcement activities. A study of
police-community relations in San Diego, for example, found little criticism

98
 From the Public’s Standpoint

of the police force in predominantly white, middle-class areas of the city—

except for their role in traffic law enforcement, the principal source of contact
between those residents and police officers.12 Situations that involved a direct
confrontation with police authority frequently seemed to produce a marked
shift in public attitudes. A survey in selected areas of Chicago, Boston, and
Washington, D.C., reported that only 27 percent of residents agreed that
police officers should be able to stop them on the street and ask them what
they were doing there, where they had been, and related questions. Further-
more, only 18 percent said they would consent to a search if the police stopped
them.13 Although many people applauded conventional police methods of pre-
venting or investigating crime, they often became critical when police efforts
impinged upon their personal rights.
The conflicting goals of controlling crime and avoiding restrictions on
personal freedom reflected a lack of general agreement regarding the proper
authority police officers should be granted. For example, a national survey by
Philip Ennis, published in 1967, revealed that 52 percent of the American
public favored giving the police more power to question suspects, but 65
percent believed a person should be allowed to consult a lawyer before being
questioned by the police. In addition, 58 percent believed the police should
be “really sure” they arrested the right person rather than risk arresting an
innocent person. Perhaps most significant were Ennis’s conclusions that the
responses were not related to each other and that the answers reflected a “lack
of consensus” concerning the appropriate limits of police authority.14 Most
people apparently had not developed clear or consistent beliefs about the power
law enforcement agencies should be granted to protect them from crime.
Although many citizens disclosed few signs of willingness to surrender
rights that might affect them personally, controversies focusing on crime and
the police emerged as important subjects of popular concern, especially in
urban areas. In a series of national surveys, crime was listed as one of the
most serious problems facing the country.15 Statements by law enforcement
officials about the rising crime rate apparently had a significant impact on
public opinion. Surveys in areas of Boston and Chicago, for example, re-
vealed that 57 percent of residents thought violent crimes had increased sub-
stantially, even though neither city had experienced a rise in the crime rate
prior to the surveys.16

FEAR OF CRIME
One of the first national surveys conducted on criminal victimization, pub-
lished in 1967, found that 33 percent of Americans felt unsafe walking alone

99
From the Public’s Standpoint

at night in their own neighborhoods, and 16 percent reportedly had decided

not to leave their homes at night because of fear for their personal safety.17
This fear was particularly prevalent in major cities. For example, a 1969
survey in Brooklyn revealed that nearly half of the people there were afraid to
walk alone after dark.18 Later surveys revealed that the proportion of urban
residents who felt unsafe walking alone at night in their neighborhoods ranged
from 36–38 percent in cities such as Dallas, Denver, and Portland to more
than 50 percent in cities such as Baltimore, Newark, and Detroit.19 In four
areas of Brooklyn and Chicago, 24 percent of residents said they wanted to
move from their neighborhoods because of increasing crime.20 Such anxieties
were concentrated among a relatively small segment of the population, and
they were not necessarily translated into action. As a summary of subsequent
research in thirteen cities concluded, “Even among low-income blacks who
had been victims of crime and who perceived their neighborhood as either
somewhat or very unsafe, less than half [43 percent] said that the danger was
strong enough to make them seriously consider moving; among other ethnic
and minority group respondents the proportion was considerably lower.”21 In
addition, only 3 percent of city residents who had moved mentioned crime as
a motivating factor in their decision.22
The salience of the police to city dwellers was undoubtedly fostered both
by the publicity crime received and by the gradual decline of familiarity and
cohesion in many urban neighborhoods. In an earlier period of history, many
sections of major American cities were inhabited primarily by a predominant
ethnic group that formed a tightly knit community for mutual protection and
advancement. As those “ethnic enclaves” gradually disintegrated, they were
replaced by communities reflecting less widely shared moral values and greater
cultural diversity. Although many urban residents tended to stress the positive
aspects of their neighborhoods, evidence of the changing nature of local areas
was reflected in perceptions about crime. In the Boston and Chicago surveys,
23 percent of residents ranked crime and deviant behavior as things they
disliked most about their neighborhoods. In addition, 37 percent reported
that some of their neighbors were noisy or disruptive, and 35 percent said
some aspects of the neighborhood gave it a bad name. Local residents men-
tioned the presence of deviant persons and irresponsible behavior most often
as disreputable features of the area.23 In a number of studies, lawless or rowdy
conduct by young people also emerged as a major source of criticism in urban
neighborhoods. The decline of both a well-enforced moral consensus and com-
munity discipline probably contributed to the growing anxiety about crime in
many sections of American cities.24 Surveys conducted in several urban areas

100
 From the Public’s Standpoint

indicated that most residents had no complaints about their neighborhoods;

but among those who expressed concerns, factors such as noise, trash, over-
crowding, and population changes—or “bad elements” moving in—often over-
shadowed crime as sources of dissatisfaction.
As was mentioned earlier, as the fear of crime increased, many urban
residents altered their daily activities and lifestyle.25 In Boston and Chicago,
61 percent of residents reported that they had made one or more changes in
their personal habits. The most common changes included staying off the
streets at night, refusing to talk to strangers, and using taxicabs or cars at
night instead of public transportation, referred to by 21 percent. Twenty-eight
percent also stated that they had installed new locks on their doors for added
protection.26 It is not surprising, then, that growing anxiety about lawlessness
prompted people to remain indoors where they may have actually faced a
greater statistical risk of serious or violent crime than they would on crowded
city streets in the presence of many potential witnesses.
Perhaps one of the most dangerous possible consequences of popular
anxiety about crime was reflected in many people’s tendency to acquire weap-
ons for their own protection. The Boston and Chicago studies revealed that
one in ten persons started carrying a knife, and 14 percent reported owning
firearms.27 Indeed, in 1966 more than half of Americans admitted they were
worried that their homes might be burglarized.28 Nearly two-thirds of black
Americans and more than half of whites believed they had “to be prepared to
defend their homes against crime and violence” rather than leave that respon-
sibility to the police. Perhaps most important, however, this apparent lack of
confidence in police protection among whites was significantly related to sev-
eral other characteristics, including gun ownership, the opinion that police
officers should use more repressive measures to control urban violence, and
the belief that urban revolts represented an effort by blacks “to take over the
cities.”29
The implications of those findings appeared to suggest that the ethos of
vigilantism in America may persist as a formidable obstacle both to public
acceptance of police duties and to the maintenance of a government mo-
nopoly on the use of physical force—long a basic prerequisite for any sover-
eign state.30 In many respects, the preservation of police authority is essential
to maintain the domestic security of the state because, unlike other govern-
ment agencies, police possess “the societal delegated privilege to exercise co-
ercive force.”31 By expressing their preparedness to employ self-defense rather
than to rely on law enforcement officers for protection against crime and
violence, many citizens seemed to display a fundamental lack of faith in the

101
From the Public’s Standpoint

police, which worked to undermine police authority. As a result, law enforce-

ment agencies were increasingly confronted both with the threat of white
resentment toward the inadequacy of police protection and with the danger of
armed attempts to usurp police prerogatives.
Although the growing public anxiety about crime may have had ominous
implications for the relationship between police and society, evidence indi-
cated that most white citizens remained relatively unexposed to the threat of
lawlessness. Initially, since most violent crimes were committed in private
dwellings by relatives or acquaintances, many people’s tendency to stay at
home or to avoid public places in the evening because of their fear of “crime
in the streets” was of little value in preventing such offenses. Moreover, in the
normal conduct of everyday life, the risk of crime for many persons was
relatively remote. The average white, middle-class American living in a rela-
tively affluent suburb, for example, was much less likely to become a victim of
a violent crime than was a black or Latino resident of the inner city.32 The
danger of crime was greatest in the poorest and most densely populated neigh-
borhoods of large cities, and it declined significantly in prosperous and less
urbanized areas.
The principal sources of white anxiety about crime and of a loss of con-
fidence in police protection were located in areas somewhat insulated from
the threat of lawlessness. Although black citizens’ tendency to endorse self-
defense as a safeguard against crime increased in larger cities, with a corre-
spondingly higher risk of victimization, the willingness of white Americans to
leave this problem to the police seemed to diminish in sections that were
relatively immune to the danger of criminal attacks and to increase in areas
where the risk of crime was high. Whereas only one-third of whites living in
cities with populations of more than 1 million were prepared to employ self-
defense as a form of protection against crime and violence, that proportion
grew to more than one-half in communities ranging from 2,500 to 100,00 in
size and to two-thirds in rural areas with fewer than 2,500 residents.33 Ironi-
cally, the segment of society that was most secure against the threat of crime
was also apparently most responsive to political movements based on the fear
of crime.
Emerging trends indicated that continued public alarm about law en-
forcement issues might provoke the strongest demands for enhanced police
protection and security among segments of the white population that were
least vulnerable to crime. As a result, police administrators were increasingly
exposed to agonizing dilemmas concerning the allocation of resources and
personnel. Whereas law enforcement agencies usually concentrated police of-

102
 From the Public’s Standpoint

ficers in areas with high crime rates in the hope of preventing or reducing the
commission of serious offenses, they encountered powerful pressures from
fearful white citizens to change their policies.34
The growth of public concern about crime, which approached the level
of hysteria in some communities, was probably highly dysfunctional to law
enforcement agencies. In addition to the implication of a loss of public confi-
dence in the police, the prospect of an armed and suspicious population that
regulates many of its activities according to a faulty perception of the risk of
crime could have potentially emerged as a severe problem in preserving pub-
lic order. Although many people viewed crime primarily as a threat to their
personal safety, that fear also might have been used to serve other motives and
especially to secure police protection from unwanted “cultural assailants.”35
Popular cries for augmented police security and repression may have cloaked
deeper and more basic desires to isolate or remove from the community
divergent racial groups, persons with unconventional appearance or behav-
ior, and others who seemed to threaten traditional values. A survey in Mem-
phis discovered that citizens who shared police values emphasizing order and
stability, crime control, and improved efficiency rather than principles of
justice and procedural safeguards also displayed unfavorable feelings toward
groups such as liberals, women’s liberation advocates, and blacks—which were
consistent with police perceptions.36 There was a danger that dominant seg-
ments of the community could exploit the police simply to confine or sup-
press what they regarded as undesirable social groups or unacceptable social
conduct.

PERSONAL CONTACTS WITH POLICE

Despite the salience of crime and law enforcement issues to many sectors of
the public, most people tended to shun or avoid individual contact with police
officers. In large measure, this hesitancy probably resulted from a general
perception of police officers as agents of social control and from an under-
standable reticence to become personally enmeshed in the punitive aspects of
law enforcement. Boston and Chicago surveys indicated, for example, that
many persons living in high-crime areas had been compelled to call on the
police for assistance, but they were not inclined to interact closely with police
officers. In addition, nearly one-third of respondents stated that they had
never had social contact with employees of the police department. Whereas
41 percent of residents asserted that they had experienced some official con-
tact with the police during the past year—usually in the role of complainant—
45 percent said they did not know any police officers personally, and only 14

103
From the Public’s Standpoint

percent could name someone on the police force. However, 29 percent had
friends or relatives who were police officers.37
This gap between the public and the police was undoubtedly communi-
cated to many law enforcement officers. In the same areas of Boston and
Chicago, as well as in four police precincts in Washington, D.C., 61 percent
of police respondents claimed the public rarely or never cooperated with law
enforcement officers by giving them needed information. The principal rea-
sons given for this lack of cooperation were fear or dislike of the police, fear
of reprisal, and an unwillingness to become involved in the problems of oth-
ers.38 Yet studies of consumers of police service revealed generally high levels
of satisfaction with department performance, a nearly universal finding of
surveys on citizens’ attitudes toward the police. Moreover, the potential for
antagonistic associations was reduced by the fact that a high proportion of
criminal incidents and reported complaints did not result in any contact be-
tween police officers and civilians. Although police officers may have tended
to exaggerate the public’s indifference or opposition to law enforcement ef-
forts, they also undoubtedly encountered many persons who displayed a natu-
ral reluctance to develop close relationships with representatives of the law.
Similarly, a survey in Denver, published in 1969, revealed that 23 percent
of whites and equivalent proportions of black and Latino residents had called
the police for assistance during the past year. In addition, whites were twice
as likely as any other group to report that they had discussed a problem with
a police officer within the same period. But only 9 percent of whites, 13
percent of blacks, and 11 percent of Latinos reported that they were person-
ally acquainted with police officers assigned to their neighborhoods.39 The
lack of extensive encounters between urban residents and patrol officers obvi-
ously reduces the effectiveness of law enforcement personnel. As a social sci-
entist with major experience in police work noted:
Most of what a patrolman knows about the people he polices is learned
with their active cooperation. Aside from businessmen, service personnel,
and street workers, he has met most of the people he knows personally
because they have called for his assistance. . . . If he gets no calls, he is much
less likely to know the people who live in the houses he drives past daily.40
In any event, reticence to become involved with law enforcement agencies has
probably been both a major barrier to improved police-community relations
and a primary source of the ambiguity that characterized public attitudes
concerning police activities.
One of the most common sources of interaction between the public and
police officers stems from the enforcement of traffic laws. In a study of a state

104
 From the Public’s Standpoint

police department, citizens were classified by their contacts with police offic-
ers and by the number of traffic tickets they received. The research revealed
that persons having no contact with the police held much more positive im-
ages of state law enforcement officers than those who had experienced some
or many encounters with traffic officers. In addition, individuals who had no
contacts with police were more apt than any other group to report that they
liked the image of police officers.41 Apparently, individuals who had not had
direct contact with police officers tended to base their assessments of police
on the characterizations portrayed by the media, but those who had experi-
enced personal encounters with law enforcement personnel expressed more
negative views, and they seemed to base their judgments on their own experi-
ences. Since a primary source of interaction between police officers and civil-
ians had been the enforcement of traffic laws that sometimes led to distasteful
encounters, perhaps those situations had a major impact on public senti-
ments concerning law enforcement officers.
The case of a traffic stop is part of a larger category of situations that
might affect police perceptions. From the personal experience of one of the
authors of this book, public contacts with law enforcement officers result
either from calls to police departments or from actions taken at officers’ ini-
tiative. In the former circumstance, officers intervene in reaction to the call;
in the latter instance, their conduct is proactive. Whereas reactive interven-
tions are based on the perceived legitimacy of a public request, proactive
behavior requires police officers to justify their action independently. People
may be more inclined to accept the wishes of fellow citizens rather than ab-
stract government authority as a reason for personal inconvenience or inter-
ference. Hence proactive police tactics frequently elicit more displeasure than
reactive encounters do. In addition, public attitudes toward encounters with
police may have been influenced by the manner in which officers approached
citizens and by the nature of the offense being investigated.
In research which found that people rated crimes against persons as more
important than crimes against property or crimes without victims, efforts
were also made to determine the amount of cooperation law enforcement
officers received in different types of circumstances. The results revealed that
when officers gave a reason for questioning members of the public, the extent
of cooperation paralleled the perceived importance of the offense. The longest
period of cooperation was produced when police officers questioned people
about crimes against persons, followed by crimes against property and victim-
less crimes. The least cooperation occurred when no reason was given for
police intervention. As the authors of this study concluded:

105
From the Public’s Standpoint

The police-citizen encounter is a two-way exchange. If the citizen acts in a

negative or abusive manner, policemen are likely to respond in kind. . . .
However, the officers often set the tone for the interaction. A positive
relationship can be established by such simple and low cost behaviors as
providing explanations.42

Whereas offering a reason for contacts with citizens would seem to be a basic
condition necessary for cooperation with law enforcement officers, many other
factors may have influenced the opinions formed as a result of encounters
with the police.
The nature of interactions between the public and law enforcement offic-
ers has been studied extensively. In general, people appear to be remarkably
controlled when confronted by the police. One investigation of police-citizen
contacts, which revealed that approximately 30 percent of people were agi-
tated by and 10 percent were antagonistic to law enforcement officers, also
disclosed that a majority of citizens can be characterized as calm and deferen-
tial in encounters with the police.43 These emotions are often reciprocated by
law enforcement personnel, but there have been notable exceptions. The same
study concluded:
It is also clear that police officers depart from a model of professional or
bureaucratic handling of citizens. Although in almost three-fourths of all
encounters, the police behaved in a businesslike or routine civil fashion
toward citizens, and in an additional 15 percent they were more personal in
demeanor, expressing humor or joviality, in 11 percent of all encounters
they were hostile, authoritarian, or derisive of citizens.44

A significant relationship was also found between police and citizen con-
duct in specific encounters. Law enforcement officers were most apt to be
good-humored or jovial when people were very deferential, civil behavior by
citizens was usually greeted with businesslike or routinized police actions, and
police officers were most likely to exhibit authoritarian, brusque, and hostile
conduct when civilians were antagonistic. Perhaps most interesting are the
deviations from this pattern. When citizens were antagonistic, for example,
slightly more than half of police officers were able to maintain a polite or
businesslike demeanor, but about three-eights responded to animosity with
animosity.45

DIFFERENTIAL ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW

Another important source of popular ambivalence toward police authority
was differential enforcement of the law. People usually favored strict enforce-
ment of the law as long as it was primarily directed against the behavior of

106
 From the Public’s Standpoint

others. Frequently, however, when police practices had a direct or personal

impact, they were greeted with decreasing favor. This distinction not only
influenced individual perceptions of the police, but it also had a profound
effect on the sentiments of broad segments of the community. Many citizens,
especially members of the politically influential white middle class, held the
belief that law enforcement responsibilities should be confined to habitual
criminals and other undesirable elements. As a result, abrasive encounters
between police officers and civilians unaccustomed to confrontations with the
law often provoked unusually intense criticism and controversy.46
A prominent traditional basis of conflict between law enforcement offic-
ers and the community has been the disparity between public and private
morality. Although many persons have been willing to prohibit some forms of
conduct for the entire society, they often have been reluctant to surrender
their own minor vices. A businessman, for example, who pressures the police
department to stop the operation of the “numbers game” in slum neighbor-
hoods might see nothing inconsistent about placing a substantial wager in a
football pool at the office or the country club. Similarly, middle-class citizens
who encourage police to crack down on vice and liquor laws in local bars
might not anticipate the same treatment while attending a business or lodge
convention. Getting caught for many types of petty offenses seems to be widely
regarded as a product of bad luck or overly stringent law enforcement prac-
tices rather than as a sign of personal blame or guilt. Consequently, police
officers have been faced with growing demands that they serve incompatible
objectives.47 Although members of the public have demanded that police of-
ficers accept major responsibility for upholding the law and maintaining pub-
lic order, they often become incensed when legal restrictions are applied to
their own behavior.
In the face of conflicting pressures and demands, criminal statutes have
required the police to provide total and impartial law enforcement. As a
result, police officers often have seemed more zealous in enforcing the law
than the public has desired. In one study, law enforcement officers, members
of the public, and community leaders were asked about six common moral
offenses. The results revealed that the police were somewhat less likely than
the other groups to regard each of the crimes as “morally wrong.” Yet in
every case, with the important exceptions of racial discrimination and viola-
tions of Sunday blue laws, the police officers stated that they would be likely
to invoke the power of arrest more often than the community actually wanted
or that they felt the public wanted.48 The rigid criteria imposed by a full
enforcement policy, which may have inhibited the police from reflecting public

107
From the Public’s Standpoint

demands, were also a major source of tension between police forces and the
community.
Yet public desires undoubtedly had an effect on law enforcement prac-
tices, and large segments of the population have apparently recognized that
impact. In general, popular perceptions have frequently related social or eco-
nomic characteristics with police behavior. In Boston and Chicago, 42 per-
cent of residents surveyed expressed the belief that police treated people dif-
ferently depending on who they were, and 16 percent said that was sometimes
the case. When people were asked what groups law enforcement treated best,
35 percent referred to “the rich and respectable.” The study concluded that
more people see the police as applying differential justice by exempting per-
sons or treating them “better” than by employing the more primitive applica-
tion of justice, or treating them “poorly.”49 In the view of many persons,
perhaps, the police responded to local influences primarily by diverting scru-
tiny from the politically dominant sectors of the community. Instead of re-
flecting a clearly defined and publicly acknowledged departmental policy, this
standard of law enforcement was usually administered by members of the
force who had broad discretion but relatively little accountability—the aver-
age patrol officer on the beat. Suffice it to say, public recognition of differen-
tial law enforcement practices was probably a critical impetus for animosity
in many lower-class urban neighborhoods.

PERCEPTIONS OF CORRUPTION
Another aspect of patrol officers’ discretion that often stirred public resent-
ment was the opportunity it afforded for corrupt practices within police de-
partments. Regardless of police officers’ moral standards, a large proportion
of the public retained the impression that unethical conduct or graft had been
a common feature of law enforcement operations. Whereas a national survey
disclosed that 59 percent of Americans generally felt “almost all” police offic-
ers were honest, 70 percent of people living in Brooklyn thought police offic-
ers were “mostly honest with a few whom are corrupt.”50 Another survey
conducted during a minor police scandal in Detroit found that 63 percent of
residents believed law enforcement officers sometimes “break the rules for
their personal gain,” and 34 percent estimated that one-fourth or more of the
officers were involved in misconduct. In four areas of Boston and Chicago
with relatively high crime rates, 38 percent of the residents thought police
officers took bribes or payoffs.51
According to the author’s experience, for cops on the beat, the pressures
and temptations of law enforcement responsibilities created numerous prob-

108
 From the Public’s Standpoint

lems. In predominantly white middle-class sectors of the community, they

were often urged to ignore minor infractions of the law and to concentrate on
the investigation of known criminals. On the other hand, the opportunities
both to obtain favors and to neglect some forms of illegal activity in other
areas of the city were difficult to ignore. Unfortunately, the only resource
police officers had to cope with this problem was their own discretion. As a
result of this latitude, police officers frequently allowed a suspect’s social char-
acteristics or appearance to affect their disposition of a case. On other occa-
sions, they did not adhere to strict law enforcement policies in exchange for
monetary or material rewards. Since political authorities provided police of-
ficers with little more than a universal and impossible requirement that all
laws must be fully and impartially enforced, they probably could not have
been expected to do otherwise. In circumstances involving direct bribes, non-
enforcement of the law was more lucrative for the police and more morally
reprehensible to society than were situations in which nonenforcement was
influenced by social or economic considerations, but in both circumstances—
bribery and discretion—selective enforcement of the law has been important
to the police in resolving the conflicting demands the public has imposed on
them.
Perhaps the most disturbing consequence of the differential enforcement
of the law, however, was its tendency to produce disadvantages for lower-class
citizens. In general, the groups most favored by the police were probably
those with the greatest influence and power. In some areas this meant viola-
tors of the law who could offer the greatest material rewards received the best
treatment from police officers; in other places that advantage accrued to the
politically dominant middle class. In many communities law enforcement
undoubtedly fulfilled firm standards of impartiality, but police authority was
often applied sparingly to one group. Seldom, however, have lower-class per-
sons received exceptionally favorable police treatment.
Another source of the social and economic distinctions that developed in
police procedures in the author’s experience may have been lower-class unfa-
miliarity with commonly accepted principles of law and law enforcement.
Most middle-class citizens have maintained that laws should be universally
and fully enforced, even though they have occasionally sought specific exemp-
tions from those requirements. In addition, they have endorsed the view that
police personnel should adopt legalistic and impersonal criteria for evaluating
public behavior. Lower- or working-class people, however, have often used
personal methods of resolving disputes, and they have supported the belief
that personal factors should be considered in administration of the law.

109
From the Public’s Standpoint

Law enforcement officers who patrol working-class neighborhoods have

often been caught between opposing perspectives. As William Foote Whyte
noted in his classic study of working-class culture:
There are prevalent in society two general conceptions of the duties of the
police officer. Middle-class people feel that he should enforce the law
without fear or favor. Cornerville people . . . believe that the policeman
should have the confidence of the people in his area so that he can settle
many difficulties in a personal manner without making arrests. These two
conceptions are in large measure contradictory. The policeman who takes a
strictly legalistic view of his duties cuts himself off from the personal
relations necessary to enable him to serve as a mediator of disputes in his
area. The policeman who develops close ties with local people is unable to
act against them with the vigor prescribed by law.52

Many patrol officers, who have regarded their primary mission as “han-
dling situations” or “keeping the peace” on their beats, have accepted some of
the views of lower-class residents. As the police became increasingly profession-
alized, however, there was an increasing emphasis on impersonal application
of the law and on universal standards for judging social conduct. Consequently,
a widening gap seemed to develop between police officers and working-class
city dwellers. Armed only with the authority to impose penalties on unaccept-
able or deviant behavior, police officers increasingly resorted to the power of
arrest as a means of maintaining order. At the same time, perhaps they de-
prived themselves of important sources of public cooperation and assistance.
Since the provision of community services had been generally regarded as an
irrelevant or inappropriate function for law enforcement officers, the police
were left with few major duties that may have created popular support in low-
income neighborhoods.
Some evidence of increasing lower-class resentment of law enforcement
practices emerged in a study that sought to relate public attitudes regarding
increased police power and civil liberties measures that might limit police
authority, such as civilian review boards and the right of suspects to consult
an attorney before police interrogation. As might have been anticipated, so-
cial status was related to urban dwellers’ ability to resolve the tension between
approval of police power and support for civil liberties. Perhaps most impor-
tant, among whites as well as black residents with low levels of education, a
growing fear of crime was related to increased support for the protection of
civil liberties rather than to approval of increased police power.53 Although
the acceptance of enhanced police power among upper-income citizens was
apparently associated with a desire to reduce guarantees of civil liberties,

110
 From the Public’s Standpoint

perhaps the increased anxiety of lower-class residents who were most vulner-
able to the threat of lawlessness produced a simultaneous demand for protec-
tion both against crime and against occasional excesses of police authority.
Hence the treatment accorded white as well as black and Latino residents and
poor urban residents in neighborhoods with high crime rates seemed to pro-
voke increased reluctance to endorse the growth of police power.
In part, public reactions to law enforcement practices also appeared to
reflect variations between different urban areas. A survey of fifteen major
American cities, for example, not only revealed important local differences in
public statements about police abuse, but it also disclosed a correlation be-
tween the reports of police mistreatment given by white and black residents of
those cities.54

PERCEPTIONS OF POLICE MISTREATMENT

Perhaps the most significant area of public criticism of police officers in most
localities was centered among blacks and other minority groups. For centuries,
black Americans and other minorities have been both the principal targets of
prejudice and the most oppressed segments of the population. Moreover,
their highly vulnerable position in the community has brought them into fre-
quent conflict with law enforcement officers. As a result, black citizens often
perceived police practices as another manifestation of the injustice and dis-
crimination that permeated America.55
To an extent, black attitudes toward police behavior also appeared to
reflect community differences in law enforcement activities. A 1964 survey
revealed that their treatment by police officers was rated as “bad” by 23 per-
cent of the black citizens in Chicago, 34 percent of blacks in New York, 39
percent of blacks living in Atlanta, and 60 percent of black residents in Bir-
mingham, Alabama.56 Those responses, therefore, seemed to provide empiri-
cal confirmation of the special brand of justice meted out by many Southern
sheriffs. Gradually, however, black criticism of police activities began to spread
to nearly all sections of the country. A national survey conducted in 1966
indicated that 41 percent of black Americans in the North believed the police
had been more harmful than helpful to the cause of civil rights.57 A study in
Denver found that 54 percent of whites but only 22 percent of blacks and 31
percent of the Mexican American residents of that city felt police officers had
good reputations in their neighborhoods.58 In the Boston and Chicago sur-
veys, whites were more than twice as likely as blacks to say that law enforce-
ment officers did a better job in their own neighborhoods than in other parts
of the city.59 Perhaps most significant, black censure of law enforcement agencies

111
From the Public’s Standpoint

encompassed a large proportion of all police. Whereas only one-fourth of the

whites in Boston and Chicago were critical of a majority of police officers,
one-third to more than two-fifths of the blacks in those cities agreed that it
would be necessary to replace half of the police now on the force to have a
really good police force.60
White and black assessments of police behavior disclosed sharply con-
flicting perspectives. A 1965 survey in Detroit, published in 1970, revealed
that 56 percent of black residents believed “the police treated some people
better than others,” but 61 percent of whites thought policemen “treated all
people the same.” Whereas whites supported the belief that most law enforce-
ment activities respected strict standards of impartiality, black citizens tended
to view police conduct as a reflection of severe inequality. Furthermore, many
black Americans felt they were the victims not only of differential treatment
but also of unusually harsh or aggressive behavior. Among white citizens,
there was little recognition that police practices departed from the require-
ment of equality before the law.61
Black resentment of law enforcement activities has frequently been ex-
pressed in the charge of “police brutality.” Since many allegations of brutality
have tended to arise from encounters initiated by police in the absence of
witnesses, departmental superiors, and other observers, the validity of those
attacks has often been difficult for the courts and other agencies to evaluate.
Yet people generally have tended to base their actions on what they believe to
be the facts rather than on what may actually be true or real. According to
several surveys, the proportion of black citizens who believed at least some
police brutality existed in their communities was 47 percent in the Watts area of
Los Angeles, 43 percent in Harlem,62 and 49 percent in the Bedford-Stuyvesant
section of Brooklyn.63 The widespread perception of police brutality in urban
areas presented a major barrier to law enforcement officers’ objective of gain-
ing public respect.
Despite the difficulty of assessing claims of police discrimination or abuse,
at least some evidence provided empirical support for the charges. For ex-
ample, observational studies of police procedures in Boston, Chicago, and
Washington, D.C., revealed that blacks were twice as likely as whites both to
be constrained or prevented from leaving an encounter with police and to be
taken to the station house for further processing.64 Since some police officers
felt compelled to make instantaneous decisions about a case based on the
suspect’s superficial appearance rather than on a judicious investigation of the
circumstances, racial or ethnic characteristics were especially salient in trans-
actions between citizens and law enforcement personnel. In fact, some police

112
 From the Public’s Standpoint

officers contended that the appraisal of racial or socioeconomic traits in ap-

proaching members of the public only represented a type of sociological gen-
eralization derived from prior experience and from studies of crime statistics.
The inspection of law enforcement practices in the three cities found that
black citizens were more likely than whites to be subjected to a search by
police officers. Yet those searches were also more likely to uncover weapons
on black suspects than on whites.65 Despite the grounds that might be cited to
support such conduct, however, actions based solely on racial or similar con-
siderations comprised a major form of discriminatory treatment. The contin-
ued use of such factors in shaping the nature of encounters with minority
groups, therefore, again raised the threat of increasing public resistance to the
authority of law enforcement officers.
In addition to the differential procedures that have influenced police con-
tacts with minorities, these groups have been viewed as the targets of aggres-
sive and sometimes violent physical mistreatment. Perhaps the most intensive
research on this subject was conducted in a survey of black residents of Watts
that asked about six common forms of police abuse, including showing a lack
of respect, using insulting language, rousting and frisking, using unnecessary
force in making arrests, and beating up suspects in custody. The results re-
vealed that a high proportion of persons believed such practices occurred in
their neighborhood—from 65 to 72 percent, depending on the type of mis-
conduct that comprised the basis for the question. Moreover, from 21 to 41
percent asserted that they had seen cases of police abuse, and 4 to 23 percent
stated that they had been abused.66 A survey conducted in Denver found that
68 percent of the black and 59 percent of the Mexican American respon-
dents—but only 46 percent of whites—reported hearing about charges of
police brutality. Also, 21 percent of the blacks, 25 percent of Mexican Ameri-
cans, but only 4 percent of the whites said they had seen someone treated
badly by police officers. Whereas 25 percent of the black and Mexican American
residents also related a personal experience from which they had concluded
that police officers did not treat all people equally, only 9 percent of whites in
Denver related a similar experience.67 From information acquired by reports
from other persons, direct observation, and personal experience, large pro-
portions of blacks and other minorities concluded that the police are guilty of
hostile and abusive behavior.
Another major survey of white and black residents in fifteen American
cities, which asked people about the use of insulting language, unjustifiable
searches, and unnecessary physical force by police, yielded comparable re-
sults.68 Black hostility toward law enforcement agencies not only was directed

113
From the Public’s Standpoint

at flagrant cases of police abuse or brutality, but it was also focused on the
failure of police officers to provide needed services and to offer sufficient
protection from the many crimes that plague urban communities.
To many observers, based on the author’s experience, black attitudes con-
cerning police conduct appeared paradoxical or enigmatic. Although large
segments of the black community complained about police harassment and
oppression, a significant percentage also objected to the lack of adequate
police protection. Whereas the former criticism appeared to suggest a desire
for police surveillance to be relaxed in black neighborhoods, the latter charge
seemed to denote popular support for the expansion of police patrols and for
the adoption of strict law enforcement practices. Hence many police admin-
istrators reacted to this dilemma with apparent confusion and indecision.

ATTITUDES CONCERNING POLICE PROTECTION

Although the greatest amount of publicity has probably been devoted to the
issue of police abuse or mistreatment, police protection against crime has
also been a persistent problem in many black communities. In general, low-
income urban areas have suffered higher crime rates than white middle-class
sectors of the city, and black residents of those neighborhoods have been the
most frequent victims of unlawful acts. As with many other areas of social
behavior, illegal activities have seldom crossed racial boundaries; criminal
attacks perpetuated by black offenders have usually been directed at other
blacks. Since crime has tended to be intra- rather than interracial in charac-
ter, many urban dwellers have demanded that police officers provide increased
protection against the threat of economic loss and personal injury resulting
from criminal conduct.
Some evidence, in fact, indicated that black discontent over inadequate
police protection tended to surpass concern about abusive police behavior.69
A partial summary of data on this subject was provided by the National Advi-
sory Commission on Civil Disorders when it noted, “Surveys have reported
that blacks in Harlem and South Central Los Angeles mention inadequate
protection more often than brutality or harassment as a reason for their re-
sentment toward the police.”70
Perhaps a major source of the seemingly inconsistent black complaints
about both police brutality and insufficient police protection was the widely
adopted, supposedly professional doctrine of “preventive patrolling.”71 As the
President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice
explained, the procedure usually entailed “aggressive action on the part of the
police in stopping persons using the streets in high-crime areas and in making

114
 From the Public’s Standpoint

searches of both persons and vehicles.”72 Hence many black residents of neigh-
borhoods with high crime rates were subjected to “stop and frisk” tactics by
law enforcement officers that sparked charges of police harassment and abuse.
At the same time, the delegation of resources to interrogate and search suspi-
cious people on the streets may have prevented police officers from reacting
quickly to calls for police assistance in adjacent residential areas. In Cleve-
land, for example, it was revealed that patrolmen took nearly four times longer
to respond to burglary reports in black neighborhoods than they did to those
in white sections of the city.73 Since the volume of urban crime usually exceeded
the resources of law enforcement agencies, police officers probably felt com-
pelled to devote less attention to the many minor offenses that occurred in
slum areas than to the prospect of making an arrest for a serious crime by
stopping and frisking suspicious persons. Black citizens’ simultaneous demands
for an end to police brutality and for increased police protection, therefore,
were probably promoted by the professional law enforcement policy of ag-
gressive preventive patrolling that provoked numerous abrasive contacts be-
tween police officers and ghetto residents while diverting police manpower
from investigating crimes that directly affected black citizens in urban areas.74
In addition to the apparent neglect of ghetto crimes that resulted from the
emphasis on preventive patrolling, many black persons expressed strong dis-
approval of the inequities in police protection in different segments of com-
munities. Although lower-class urban neighborhoods were perhaps traditionally
less secure from crime than relatively affluent sections of the city, a growing
number of inner-city residents had begun to regard differential police protec-
tion as an indication of racial rather than socioeconomic distinctions. A sur-
vey of the Twelfth Street ghetto in Detroit that asked persons to compare the
amount of police protection received by five other groups in the community
tended to confirm this supposition. Whereas only 31 percent of the black
inhabitants of the area believed homeowners in general received more police
protection than renters did, 61 percent felt white homeowners obtained more
protection than black homeowners received.75 By introducing home owner-
ship as a crude means of controlling the effects of social status, the findings
seemed to reveal the strong racial connotations that have permeated black
appraisals of law enforcement activities.
Additionally, urban minorities perceived other important discrepancies
in law enforcement operations. In the study of the Twelfth Street ghetto, one-
half of the residents stated that large stores were granted more police protec-
tion than small businesses, and one-third thought older persons received more
protection than young people did.76 A survey in Denver disclosed that 56

115
From the Public’s Standpoint

percent of blacks, 47 percent of Mexican Americans, but only 20 percent of

whites believed personal status affected the way people were treated by police
officers. Moreover, when black and Mexican American residents were asked
to name the groups that received differential treatment, their replies reflected
a consensus about “rich and influential people.”77 In the view of many mem-
bers of minority groups, law enforcement officers apparently failed to provide
impartial protection for all sectors of the population.
Perhaps one of the most serious consequences of this lack of confidence
in the equality of police practices was again a reluctance to cooperate with law
enforcement officers. In the Denver study, approximately 20 percent of the
black and Mexican American residents but merely 5 percent of whites be-
lieved persons who assisted police officers were “just asking for a lot of
trouble.”78 Similarly, fewer than half of the residents of the Twelfth Street
ghetto reported that they would call the police regarding several hypothetical
incidents, including a traffic accident, a robbery, and an apparent case of
police brutality. Perhaps most significant, a close examination of those re-
sponses indicated that perceptions of impartial police protection were signifi-
cantly related to people’s willingness to contact law enforcement officers in
circumstances that required police intervention. Whereas inner-city residents
who believed police officers did provide equal protection to various local
groups were prepared to summon the police in such situations, those who
perceived major disparities in police protection were hesitant about request-
ing assistance from law enforcement officers.79 Appraisals of differential po-
lice protection, therefore, seemed to form a major barrier to cooperation
with police officers in many urban communities.
The unwillingness of many citizens—white as well as black—to contact
the police was a critical and persistent problem for law enforcement agencies.
A major national survey which found that the crime rate was twice as high as
recorded in official statistics also revealed that a lack of confidence in the
police seemed to be a major cause of many persons’ refusal to inform them
about illegal acts. Fifty-five percent of victims of crime who did not notify the
police stated that “the most important reason” for their inaction was the belief
that “the police would not be effective.” Although low-income black citizens
were somewhat more reluctant than whites to report property crimes, the
results of this study disclosed that a large proportion of both white and black
victims of all types of crime neglected to contact the police because they
believed there was little police could do about the matter.80
Public skepticism about the ability of police officers to handle their re-
quests apparently did not lack empirical foundations. Although the national

116
 From the Public’s Standpoint

survey of illegal incidents revealed that 51 percent of crime victims did not
notify a law enforcement agency, 23 percent of those who reported the event
said the police did not come after their call. Fifty-six percent of the victims of
crimes that did not produce a police response were dissatisfied with the out-
come of the case—a level of dissatisfaction exceeded only among persons who
did not report the incident, victims of crimes that did not yield an arrest, and
those who believed the penalty imposed upon the offender was too lenient.81
A similar finding concerning public calls for police assistance was reported by
another study that observed police procedures in three major cities. For many
reasons, more than one-fourth of the mobilizations examined in this research
did not occasion any interaction between a police officer and a civilian. Al-
though many of the mobilizations dispatched by police radios did not involve
crime-related events, 31 percent of those called failed to result in contacts
with the public. In addition, police officers seemed intentionally to ignore
several attempts by citizens to stop them on the street.82 Although many of the
decisions to neglect public requests may have resulted from police discretion
and their tendency to assign a higher priority to major crimes than to inci-
dents that did not entail unlawful conduct, their failure to respond to some
calls from citizens probably weakened public confidence in law enforcement
agencies.

CONCLUSION
Perhaps the most important single reason for police officers’ inability to halt
increases in crime was the failure of many people to contact the police. In
addition, a significant proportion of the public had begun to exhibit a funda-
mental and potentially dangerous lack of confidence in the ability of the police
to protect them from the threat of lawlessness and violence. Since police
officers often defined their responsibilities solely as “combating crime,” many
citizens seemed to regard law enforcement as having this single purpose. Fur-
thermore, as the mounting fear of crime began to grip large groups of Ameri-
cans, people were subjected to a heightened recognition of their dependence
on the police for the preservation of conventional standards of social order.
Because police departments seemingly failed to fulfill their only mission, law
enforcement officers suffered a decline in public approval and cooperation.
Although much of this criticism was unjustified, the strong emphasis placed
on police protection by both the people and law enforcement agencies seemed
to contribute to a serious loss of vital confidence. Many of police officers’ other
duties, such as providing community services, may have offered an essential
alternative source of respect, but those tasks appeared to be overshadowed by

117
From the Public’s Standpoint

the attention focused on the problems of crime and police protection. By

neglecting to stress the many other police activities that produce direct and
perceptible benefits to the community, law enforcement agencies deprived
themselves of a firm basis of popular support.

NOTES
1. Jerome H. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial (New York: John Wiley, 1975), 50.
2. Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Career Orientations, Job Satisfaction, and the Assessment of
Law Enforcement Problems by Police Officers,” in Studies of Crime and Law Enforce-
ment in Major Metropolitan Areas (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
n.d.), vol. 2, 21–22.
3. Peter H. Rossi, Richard A. Berk, David P. Boesel, Bettye K. Eidson, and W.
Eugene Groves, “Between White and Black: The Faces of American Institutions in the
Ghetto,” in Supplemental Studies for the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 104–105.
4. Alan F. Arcuri, “Police Pride and Self-Esteem: Indications of Future Occupa-
tional Changes,” in Paul F. Cromwell Jr. and George Keefer, eds., Police-Community
Relations Selected Readings, 2d ed. (St. Paul: West, 1978), 95.
5. James Q. Wilson, “Police Morale, Reform, and Citizen Respect: The Chicago
Case,” in David J. Bordua, ed., The Police: Six Sociological Essays (New York: John Wiley,
1967), 147–149.
6. Arthur Niederhoffer, Behind the Shield (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967),
225.
7. Mike Davis, City of Quartz (New York: Vintage, 1992). This, of course, does not
mean police officers generally regard all members of the public as hostile or disrespectful.
Muir estimated that a typically “uncertain officer” views about 20 percent of the popu-
lation as not “governable” and as a threat to safety and security. William Ker Muir Jr.,
Police: Streetcorner Politicians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 167.
8. Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Public Perceptions and Recollections About Crime, Law
Enforcement, and Criminal Justice,” in Studies of Crime and Law Enforcement in Major
Metropolitan Areas (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, n.d.), vol. 1, 35.
9. Philip H. Ennis, Criminal Victimization in the United States (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 53.
10. Reiss, “Public Perceptions.”
11. Albert D. Biderman, Louise A. Johnson, Jennie McIntyre, and Adrianne W. Weir,
Report on a Pilot Study in the District of Columbia on Victimization and Attitudes Toward
Law Enforcement (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907), 135–137.
12. Joseph D. Lohnan and Gordon E. Misner, The Police and the Community
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), vol. 1, 37–38, 51, 77, 177.
13. Reiss, “Public Perceptions,” 88–89.
14. Ennis, Criminal Victimization, 64–65.
15. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,
The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1967), 49–50.

118
 From the Public’s Standpoint

16. Reiss, “Public Perceptions,” 36–37, 93–97.

17. Ennis, Criminal Victimization, 72–74; President’s Commission, Challenge of
Crime in a Free Society, 50–51.
18. David W. Abbott, Louis H. Gold, and Edward T. Rogowsky, Police, Politics,
and Race: The New York City Referendum on Civilian Review (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1969), 21–22.
19. In specific interactions, the attitude of police officers is naturally shaped by the
mood of civilians. Reiss, for example, found that agitated suspects were especially apt to
become targets of police hostility, but most citizens did not openly display antagonistic
attitudes toward law enforcement personnel. Albert J. Reiss Jr., The Police and the Public
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 48–53.
20. Reiss., “Public Perceptions,” 31–33.
21. James Garofalo, Public Opinion About Crime: The Attitudes of Victims and
Nonvictims in Selected Cities (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1977), 27–28, 87.
22. Garofalo, Public Opinion About Crime, 174, 190, 206, 222, 238.
23. Ibid., 25–34.
24. James Q. Wilson, “The Urban Unease: Community vs. City,” in Henry J.
Schmandt and Warner Bloomberg Jr., eds., The Quality of Urban Life (Beverly Hills:
Sage, 1969), 455–472.
25. Ennis, Criminal Victimization, 74; Abbott, Gold, and Rogowsky, Police, Poli-
tics, and Race, 22.
26. Reiss, “Public Perceptions,” 102–109.
27. Ibid., 104, 106–107, 111.
28. Ibid., 75–76; Abbott, Gold, and Rogowsky, Police, Politics, and Race, 22.
29. Joe R. Feagin, “Home-Defense and the Police: Black and White Perspectives,”
American Behavioral Scientist 13 (May-June-July-August 1970): 797–814.
30. The implications of the findings appear to raise serious questions about the
extent to which America actually fulfills Max Weber’s classic definition of a state as a
“human community that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force
within a given territory.” See Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in H. H. Gerth and C.
Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 78.
31. Richard J. Lundman, Police and Policing: An Introduction (New York: Rinehart
and Winston, 1980), 170.
32. Ward Just, “Leaders Must Use Language of Justice,” Los Angeles Times, Decem-
ber 1, 1968, G3.
33. Feagin, “Home-Defense and the Police,” 800–802.
34. Eric H. Monkkonen, Crime, Justice and History (Columbus: Ohio State Uni-
versity Press, 2002).
35. Lohnan and Misner, Police and the Community, vol. 2, 57.
36. Ibid.
37. Reiss, “Public Perceptions,” 58–64.
38. Reiss, “Career Orientations,” 79–81.
39. David H. Bayley and Harold Mendelsohn, Minorities and the Police: Confron-
tation in America (New York: Free Press, 1969), 57–86.

119
From the Public’s Standpoint

40. Jonathan Rubinstein, City Police (New York: Ballantine, 1973), 184.
41. Jack L. Preiss and Howard J. Ehrlich, An Examination of Role Theory: The Case
of the State Police (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), 133–136.
42. Ibid., 133–134.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. James Q. Wilson, “The Police and Their Problems: A Theory,” Public Policy 12
(1963): 189–216.
48. John P. Clark, “Isolation of the Police: A Comparison of the British and Ameri-
can Situations,” Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science 61 (Fall 1965):
307–319.
49. Reiss, “Public Perceptions,” 41–45; see also, Bayley and Mendelsohn, Minori-
ties and the Police, 113.
50. Abbott, Gold, and Rogowsky, Police, Politics, and Race, 27–28.
51. Reiss, “Public Perceptions,” 69–71.
52. William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1943), 136.
53. Richard L. Block, “Support for Civil Liberties and Support for the Police,”
American Behavioral Scientist 13 (May-June-July-August 1970): 781–796.
54. Howard Schuman and Barry Gruenberg, “The Impact of City on Racial
Attitudes,” American Journal of Sociology 76 (September 1970): 223–261; Peter H.
Rossi and Richard A. Berk, “Local Political Leadership and Popular Discontent in the
Ghetto,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 391 (September
1970): 111–127.
55. Judson L. Jeffries, “Police Brutality of Black Men and the Destruction of the
African American Community,” Negro Educational Review (October 2001): 115–131.
56. Gary T. Marx, Protest and Prejudice (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 36–
37.
57. Louis Harris and William Brink, Black and White (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1967), 234.
58. Bayley and Mendelsohn, Minorities and the Police, 41, 111.
59. Reiss, “Public Perceptions,” 40–41.
60. Ibid., 55, 57–58, 80–88.
61. Joel D. Aberbach and Jack L. Walker, “The Attitudes of Blacks and Whites
Toward City Services: Implications for Public Policy,” in John P. Crecine, ed., Financing
the Metropolis: Public Policy in Urban Economies (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1970), 526–528.
62. John F. Kraft, Inc., “The Attitudes of Negroes in Various Cities,” in Federal Role
in Urban Affairs, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization,
Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate, 89th Congress, 2d Session, Au-
gust 31–September 1, 1966 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966),
vol. 6, 1389, 1400.
63. Harlan Hahn and Joe R. Feagin, “Riot-Precipitating Police Practices: Attitudes
in Urban Ghettos,” Phylon 31 (Summer 1970): 187–188.

120
 From the Public’s Standpoint

64. Donald J. Black and Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Patterns of Behavior in Police and
Citizen Transactions,” in Studies of Crime and Law Enforcement in Major Metropolitan
Areas (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, n.d.), vol. 2, 102.
65. Ibid., 80–88.
66. Walter J. Raine, The Perception of Police Brutality in South Central Los Angeles
(Los Angeles: UCLA Institute of Government and Public Affairs, 1967).
67. Bayley and Mendelsohn, Minorities and the Police, 117–129.
68. Angus Campbell and Howard Schuman, “Racial Attitudes in Fifteen Ameri-
can Cities,” in Supplemental Studies for the National Advisory Commission on Civil Dis-
orders (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 42–43.
69. Hahn and Feagin, “Riot-Precipitating Police Practices,” 187–189.
70. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 161.
71. For an insightful discussion of the effects of this policy, see Robert M. Fogelson,
“From Resentment to Confrontation: The Police, the Negroes, and the Outbreak of the
Nineteen-Sixties Riots,” Political Science Quarterly 83 (June 1968): 217–247.
72. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,
Task Force Report: The Police (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967),
23.
73. See the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 161–
162.
74. Hahn and Feagin, “Riot-Precipitating Police Practices,” 183–193.
75. Ibid., 190–191.
76. Harlan Hahn, “Ghetto Assessments of Police Protection and Authority,” Law
and Society Review 6 (1971): 183–194.
77. Bayley and Mendelsohn, Minorities and the Police, 113.
78. Ibid., 120–121.
79. Hahn, “Ghetto Assessments of Police Protection and Authority.”
80. Philip H. Ennis, Criminal Victimization in the United States: A Report of a
National Survey (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 43–47.
81. Ibid., 47–51.
82. Black and Reiss, “Patterns of Behavior in Police and Citizen Transactions,” 17,
25.

121
 Police and Racial Conflict

5 Police and
Racial Conflict

O
NE OF THE MOST PRESSING ISSUES IN URBAN LAW ENFORCEMENT during the
twentieth century was the conflict between police officers and racial mi-
norities.1 From a persistent legacy of resentment and suspicion, police
contacts with minority groups were not only a major source of animosity, but
they sometimes erupted in heated—and on occasion violent—acts of appar-
ent warfare. Whereas a significant number of black Americans and other
disadvantaged groups viewed the police as agents of repression and injustice,
some police officers regarded urban minorities as their principal adversaries.
Not surprisingly, an intense sense of mutual hostility and mistrust developed
over the years between minority groups and the police.2
A striking indication of this antagonism was revealed in the urban rebel-
lions that swept through U.S. cities during the 1960s.3 As an expression of
black discontent that produced staggering levels of death, injury, and destruc-
tion, the civil disorders dramatically demonstrated many urban residents’ willing-
ness to defy the legal restrictions imposed on them by the established order.4
Consequently, the violence created increased burdens for law enforcement
agencies. Not only were police actions often regarded as a major impetus for
the disorders, but police were also charged with the responsibility of quelling
the disorders. Although the revolts of the period 1964 to 1968 appeared to
subside shortly thereafter, many of the issues that had triggered the violence
remained unresolved for both urban residents and city police departments.5
Hence the responsibility of police officers in preventing or controlling urban
violence was a pressing and persistent problem for law enforcement agencies.
The conflict that flared into massive violence between mostly black citizens
and police officers was undoubtedly one of the most tragic and significant

123
Police and Racial Conflict

events in the history of law enforcement. As a strong perception of police

abuse surfaced in many neighborhoods, the eruption of violence was appar-
ently sparked by a seething sense of indignation that persisted among many
residents for decades.6

WHITE POLICE OFFICERS IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY

The controversy over police behavior in urban settings had its origins in an
extensive historical tradition of abrasive encounters between minority groups
and law enforcement. For many decades police practices not only were con-
trolled by the white elite, but they also were strongly influenced by the racial
prejudice that pervaded U.S. society. The primary objective of white voters
and politicians was to prevent both slave and free black persons from disrupt-
ing a segregated social structure, and the police served as an essential instru-
ment of that policy. For the vast majority of black Americans living in the
South and for many others residing in the North, the police were re-
garded as the agents of oppressive political institutions rather than as a
source of protection from crime and violence. Police officers frequently were
guilty of inflicting extra-legal punishment on black citizens, and they com-
monly failed to provide blacks with security against unlawful white attacks.
In addition, black citizens were arbitrarily denied the right to join police
forces or to pursue other means of promoting changes in law enforcement
activities.7
The actions of police officers during much of American history were
founded on legal regulations that seemed to reflect common racist assump-
tions. The laws in northern as well as southern states not only prevented black
people from achieving impartial treatment, but many statutes were expressly
designed to force them into a position of social and political inferiority. Nei-
ther the law nor its enforcement by police officers guaranteed black citizens
equality in the prevailing system of criminal justice. Hence black disapproval
of the police also reflected their opposition to the discriminatory measures
police officers were authorized to administer.
As a result, for many years the principal goal of many black Americans,
especially in the South, was to avoid police intervention in the affairs of their
communities. In part, this perspective seemed to gain at least the tacit accep-
tance of white law enforcement officers. Although the police were prepared to
impose stringent and frequently cruel penalties on black suspects accused of
committing crimes against white persons, they often appeared to adopt a
passive or indifferent attitude toward illegal conduct by blacks against other
blacks. Gunnar Myrdal provided a particularly interesting account of the be-

124
 Police and Racial Conflict

havior of police officers in black communities during an earlier period of

history. In his classic study An American Dilemma, he stated:
Police service to Negro communities is limited largely to radio cruising cars.
A map of their routes through Atlanta’s Negro sections, however, shows that
they do not go through the areas where most Negro homicides occur, but
rather stay on the main thoroughfares which are given over largely to
business purposes. Too often the police go into the Negro community only
when called, as it were, to umpire Negro brawls, or even more often to pick
up members of the “enemy” faction. . . . The real function served by the
police in many Southern communities seems to be limited to rounding up
vagrants, loiterers, crap shooters, noncooperating prostitutes, and drunks.
These occasional arresting excursions serve several purposes: they keep the
Negroes intimidated, they maintain arrest quotas, they earn money for the
police court, and sometimes they help preserve order.8

Since the presence of white police officers in black neighborhoods created the
danger of additional oppression, residents similarly sought to refrain from
contacting local police departments. As a result, many black communities
became, at least to some extent, self-policing. Black southerners made few
demands on law enforcement agencies, and police officers tended to neglect
offenses in black areas that did not arouse the wrath of the white population.
The relationship between police officers and black citizens seemed to
reflect important changes as a result of the increasing migration to the North
that occurred during the World War I era. Although black northerners were
greeted by several racial conflicts in which police officers reacted by aiding
white attackers rather than impartially restoring order,9 those incidents ap-
peared confined largely to riotous situations. Moreover, the police violence to
which black migrants were subjected in the North, tragic as it was, did not
seem to parallel the numerous lynchings that were tolerated or encouraged by
southern law enforcement during this period. Whereas black citizens may
have encountered comparable problems with law enforcement officers in north-
ern cities, they were to some extent able to escape some of the most blatant
forms of police discrimination and injustice they had experienced in the South.10
In addition, black residents in some cities in the North were apparently
successful in gaining employment with police departments. For example, by
1930 in Chicago, 2.2 percent (137) of the 6,163 police officers on the force
were black. Although two-thirds of those men were assigned to predominantly
black neighborhoods, their presence on the force seemed to represent a mod-
est advance from the days when rigid barriers of racial discrimination main-
tained local police departments as exclusively white organizations.11

125
Police and Racial Conflict

Subsequent progress in the integration of urban police departments was

slow, but it was not completely imperceptible. Although a study of the nation’s
twenty largest cities in 1950 disclosed that the mean proportion of black law
enforcement officers in those departments was only 3.1 percent, by that
date Chicago had hired approximately 275 black officers, and other north-
ern cities reported similar contingents.12 The number of African Ameri-
cans on the Philadelphia police force increased from 35 in 1884 to 60 by
1890 and to 100 by 1905. The number peaked at 260 in 1920, dropped to
219 by 1930, and declined for the next twenty years. By 1950, only 195
African Americans served on a Philadelphia force of more than 4,500 offic-
ers. Still, Philadelphia and Chicago were a step ahead of other northern cities
and light-years ahead of southern cities in hiring black police officers. By
contrast, a 1947 survey revealed a total of only 221 black police officers in
forty-one cities throughout the South.13 By 1960 an estimated 3.6 percent of
all sworn officers in the United States were African American.14 As integra-
tion proceeded in many northern cities, the issue of promotions or advance-
ment rather than membership in the force apparently became a concern for
black personnel.
The entrance of black officers into police ranks did not cause racial preju-
dice among white officers to suddenly decline. According to a survey con-
ducted in the Philadelphia Police Department during the 1950s, 59 percent of
the white officers stated that they would “object to riding with a Negro patrol-
man.”15 Although 94 percent of those officers allegedly felt “it is a good thing
to have some Negroes on the police force,” 57 percent thought a white com-
munity would object “to having a Negro policeman assigned to that area,”
and 76 percent believed “a Negro patrolman should be assigned to a Negro
neighborhood.” Furthermore, 52 percent of the white police officers claimed
they had “found it necessary to be more strict with Negro law violators than
with white violators.”16 Racial intolerance, therefore, apparently remained
strong within major urban police departments in the North during the decade
following World War II.
Despite the racial discrimination that continued to permeate law enforce-
ment practices, black attitudes toward policemen gradually appeared to shift
in a favorable direction. As black citizens in the North achieved the rights to
vote and to participate in other government programs, they also began to
develop the expectation that law enforcement officers would treat them simi-
larly to whites. Unlike the earlier perceptions of many black Americans living
in the South, police officers were generally regarded as impartial administra-
tors of the law rather than as agents of an oppressive political regime. As a

126
 Police and Racial Conflict

result, a growing number of black residents of northern cities seemed to ac-

quire confidence in the equality of police procedures, and they began to call
upon the police for assistance.
Although this changing assessment of police functions had numerous con-
sequences, perhaps the most direct and visible effects were reflected in an
apparent growth of crime in black neighborhoods. As some blacks overcame
their reluctance to notify the police about illegal acts, the number of crimes
known to the police seemed to increase precipitously. In fact, some observers
have contended that one of the principal reasons for the sharp rise in the
urban crime rate since World War II was the increased willingness of black
citizens “to report crimes in their neighborhoods.”17
Perhaps the primary response of law enforcement agencies to this dra-
matic growth in reported offenses was reflected in the assignment of patrol-
men in precincts with high crime rates. As a result of techniques developed
early in the twentieth century, many police departments had adopted a strat-
egy for the “proportional distribution” of manpower based on the incidence
of law enforcement problems in different sectors of the city.18 Although police
forces probably continued to provide greater protection for affluent commer-
cial and residential areas than for low-income black communities, this pro-
gram may have augmented the presence of police in predominantly black
neighborhoods. As historian Robert M. Fogelson concluded in 1968, “Negro
ghettos are . . . more thoroughly and intensively policed today than Irish,
Italian, and other ethnic ghettos were two generations ago.”19 To some extent,
the policy was also self-perpetuating. Increased police surveillance of urban
ghettos may have occasioned a larger number of arrests, thereby producing a
higher crime rate that bolstered the justification for placing additional per-
sonnel in those neighborhoods.
One of the principal effects of growing black confidence in impartial law
enforcement, therefore, was to expand the scope of police influence in inner-
city communities. As black citizens seemingly became less hesitant to call the
police, those crime reports provided a basis for strengthening law enforce-
ment officers’ authority. Not only were police officers available to respond to
local requests for assistance, but they were also able to confront black persons
at their own initiative. As a result, the larger numbers of police officers in
urban areas seemed to increase the opportunities for abrasive or unwelcome
encounters between law enforcement officers and local residents. Although
black Americans in northern cities began to gain the advantages of added
police protection, they were also increasingly exposed to the punitive aspects
of law enforcement practices.

127
Police and Racial Conflict

As discussed in Chapter 4, the seemingly ubiquitous presence of patrol-

men in black neighborhoods may have received a major impetus from the
mounting trend toward professionalization in large city police departments.
In an effort to reduce the crime rate in urban communities, police adopted
the practice of “aggressive preventive patrolling,” or stopping to interrogate
and to search or “frisk” persons who exhibited suspicious behavior. By em-
ploying such tactics, law enforcement agencies hoped to prevent the commis-
sion of crimes before they occurred. Since the goal of preventing undesirable
phenomena was a major tenet of professionalism in other occupations, the
application of this concept to the problem of crime seemed highly consistent
with professional police procedure. Yet this policy also had the effect of in-
creasing contacts between inner-city residents and police officers that were
initiated by police officers rather than encounters that represented a response
to calls for assistance. As a result, black citizens increasingly became the sub-
jects rather than the beneficiaries of police action.
Although aggressive preventive patrolling in areas with high crime rates
was usually justified as a deterrent to illegal acts, no effective means was
developed for ascertaining the amount of crime such activity prevented. In
fact, some evidence indicated that patrolmen tended to overestimate the value
of this procedure. According to a survey of the officers who patrolled black
neighborhoods in eleven major cities, 56 percent guessed that half or more of
the persons they stopped were found to be carrying a weapon such as a gun or
a knife “that might lead to a crime.” In addition, half of the officers believed
that at least four of every ten people stopped on the streets were wanted for
other crimes.20 Although no reliable statistics demonstrated the actual effi-
ciency of “stop and frisk” techniques in locating fugitives from justice, studies
conducted in high-crime areas for the President’s Commission on Law En-
forcement and Administration of Justice disclosed that just 10 percent of the
persons searched by police officers were found to be carrying guns, and an-
other 10 percent were carrying knives.21 Apart from the effects of preventive
patrolling on public cooperation with the police, the importance of this policy
as an instrument of law enforcement was not definitively established by care-
ful studies of police practices.
Despite the absence of conclusive evidence to demonstrate their effec-
tiveness, both the proportional distribution of personnel and the use of stop
and frisk tactics in neighborhoods with high crime rates were adopted by an
expanding number of urban police departments. Such practices were supple-
mented by other technical innovations, including improved methods of transpor-
tation and communication that seemed consistent with the movement toward

128
 Police and Racial Conflict

professionalization. Perhaps the major impact of this trend, therefore, was to

increase the distrust and estrangement that separated minority residents and
law enforcement officers. As patrol cars began to replace the cop on the beat
and as the police exercised aggressive methods of investigating suspicious
conduct, many black citizens were prevented from interacting with police
officers in unofficial situations or in circumstances where police intervention
was requested rather than uninvited. Instead of denoting a response to calls
for police services, contacts with police officers gradually acquired the aura of
an encounter with the awesome force of legal authority.22
The utilization of supposedly modern law enforcement practices not only
seemed to deny inner-city residents the opportunity to gain an understanding
of police officers, but it also appeared to deprive police officers of valuable
sources of information and experience in the black community. For example,
the survey of patrolmen in eleven cities disclosed that 49 percent of the offic-
ers could not name five or more adult leaders in the neighborhood, and 59
percent could not recall an equivalent number of important teenage or youth
leaders.23 Furthermore, most police officers apparently had not had extensive
informal contacts with black citizens elsewhere. A study conducted in Denver
found that only 8 percent of police officers listed black residents among their
social friends, and only 18 percent “said they had Negro friends to whom they
could say what they really thought.”24
In general, police contacts with ghetto residents were increasingly limited
by law enforcement officers’ preoccupation with preventing or controlling
crime. Since police departments adopted the fight against illegal acts as their
primary mission, they sought to enforce the law uniformly in both white and
black neighborhoods with tactics that for the most part seemed appropriate to
that objective. Yet the use of impersonal and supposedly nondiscriminatory
tactics such as preventive patrolling appeared to arouse public resentment
rather than praise. As a result, many police administrators became intensely
frustrated by their apparent inability to gain the confidence of black Ameri-
cans.
Perhaps one of the major difficulties affecting the relationship between
police officers and black citizens was the exercise of police discretion. Al-
though the application of universalistic standards for judging public conduct
undoubtedly eliminated some of the most obvious forms of discrimination
and injustice in police work, law enforcement agencies did not devise ad-
equate means of ensuring that police authority was imposed in a totally im-
partial and unbiased manner. In fact, by encouraging officers to investigate all
forms of suspicious conduct, preventive patrolling appeared to extend rather

129
Police and Racial Conflict

than restrict the discretion available to the average cop on the beat. As Robert
Fogelson noted, “Police discretion, which is applied everywhere in urban
America and with satisfactory results in white neighborhoods, does not work
well in Negro ghettos because the police, not knowing which Negroes to
ignore, check them all.”25
The problem of police discretion was probably intensified by the low
quality of law enforcement personnel assigned to predominantly black neigh-
borhoods. As Albert J. Reiss Jr. testified before the President’s Commission
to investigate the causes of ghetto violence: “I think we confront in modern
urban police departments in large cities much of what we encounter in our
schools, in these cities. The slum police precinct is like the slum-school. It
gets, with few exceptions, the worst in the system.”26 Since patrol duty in
urban areas seldom provided the status necessary to attract superior police
officers, the least qualified and least experienced police officers on the force
were often granted the greatest discretion in black neighborhoods.
Although manifestations of intolerance seemed to decline in police orga-
nizations, as well as in other social institutions, those sentiments remained a
basic element of the beliefs of some law enforcement officers. A survey in
Denver, for example, found that 36 percent of police officers in that city
would be upset by attending a party where most of the guests were black, and
85 percent said they would be disturbed if a member of their family chose a
black marriage partner. Although police officers scored only slightly higher
than white members of the public on a general measure of racial prejudice,
the responses reflected a desire by police officers to avoid close personal
contact with black residents of the city.27
Perhaps the clearest evidence of racial antagonism was displayed in police
assessments of the movement for racial equality and other attempts to im-
prove the position of black Americans. According to the 1969 survey of po-
lice officers in eleven large cities, 60 percent believed black citizens were
moving “too fast” in their efforts to achieve equal rights. In addition, 82
percent felt police behavior toward black persons was better than or equal to
their treatment of whites, and 81 percent made a similar judgment about the
conduct of public officials. Interestingly, 72 percent of the police denied that
black residents were the victims of inequality in medical care and education.28
A study of the Detroit police department found that a majority of lower-
ranked white officers believed black residents were treated fairly in several
areas, including housing, schools, employment, welfare, business, and law
enforcement; in fact, a majority stated that black citizens even had an advan-
tage in fields such as education and welfare.29 Apparently, the perceptions of

130
 Police and Racial Conflict

many white police officers did not encompass either a recognition of the
existence of racial discrimination or an appreciation of black efforts to gain
equal opportunities.
Police officers also expressed special enmity toward organized civil rights
activities. In the study of inner-city patrolmen in eleven cities, 75 percent of
the white law enforcement officers claimed their work had become more
difficult because of the actions of civil rights groups. Similarly, in the Denver
survey, police officers ranked civil rights workers as the least cooperative and
sympathetic segment of the community.30 Although police sentiments may
have been shaped in part by the criticism of their practices that emanated
from civil rights groups, their attitudes also seemed to denote a basic problem
in understanding the needs and aspirations of black Americans.
Numerous restrictions were imposed to prevent law enforcement officers
from displaying racial prejudice in the performance of their duties, but some
evidence indicated that personal attitudes and perspectives can exert an im-
portant influence on police officers’ conduct. For example, an analysis of the
survey of patrolmen in eleven cities revealed that police perceptions of local
hostility were more closely related to the personal traits of white officers than
to actual differences among the cities. The attributes most strongly associated
with police appraisals of ghetto sentiments included age, levels of racial preju-
dice, and the extent of acquaintance with inhabitants of the neighborhood.
Whereas highly prejudiced young police officers with few acquaintances in
the area were most apt to view minority residents as intensely hostile to police
authority, older and less prejudiced officers tended to perceive lower levels of
hostility.31 The individual characteristics of law enforcement officers appar-
ently had a major impact on police perceptions and behavior. The potential
dangers implicit in the exercise of police discretion in urban enclaves were
probably intensified by personal factors such as racial bias and a lack of famil-
iarity with the community.
Perhaps the most serious evidence of racial intolerance among police
officers was reflected in their opinions concerning crime and lawlessness in
predominantly black neighborhoods. Although the proportion of police offic-
ers favoring a differential application of the law among racial groups had
apparently declined somewhat, the 1966 Denver survey revealed that approxi-
mately one of every three policemen in that city still believed that both black
and Mexican American residents required stricter law enforcement practices
than other segments of the population.32 This finding was generally confirmed
by a study conducted in three Michigan communities, which discovered that
52 percent of the police officers there agreed with the statement “most Negroes

131
Police and Racial Conflict

have lower morals than whites.”33 Although such responses seemed to reflect
definite racial prejudice and stereotyping, they were also molded by the pecu-
liar character of police experiences in crime-ridden neighborhoods. Since law
enforcement officers frequently confronted the public during moments of
personal weakness and trauma, they tended to develop perspectives that em-
phasized law-breaking rather than law-abiding facets of human behavior. Per-
haps the distorted images produced by their exposure to violations of the law
in high-crime areas, combined with a strong innate racism, greatly impaired
some officers’ ability to objectively assess pressing social issues and problems.

THE POLICE AND URBAN VIOLENCE

Further evidence of this distinctive police orientation was reflected in their
opinions about the causes of the violence that erupted in many U.S. cities in
the 1960s. In the survey of police officers who worked in urban areas in
eleven major cities, half of the white officers attributed the urban uprisings to
social deficiencies within the black community, and only 21 percent ascribed
the blame to the failure of political or social institutions to resolve persistent
grievances. When the police officers were asked specifically about six possible
interpretations of the violence, 34 percent endorsed the view that the rebel-
lions were produced by nationalists or militants, 74 percent said they were the
work of criminal elements in the ghetto, and 33 percent simply asserted that
“Negroes are basically violent and disrespectful.” Only 24 percent agreed that
unmet black needs ignited the violence, and just 4 percent believed the vio-
lence was caused by “police brutality.”34 According to a 1968 study conducted
in Detroit, most white officers thought the violence in that city was inspired
by agitators or militants, unrestrained self-interest, or the violent mood of the
times.35 In evaluating the origins of urban unrest and in viewing other social
problems, law enforcement officers usually tended to stress individualistic
explanations. Police officers seldom considered either social and economic
forces or deficiencies in existing institutions as a source of conflict or unlaw-
ful acts.
The perceptions of white police officers, of course, contrasted sharply
with the attitudes of most black Americans. Numerous surveys of urban neigh-
borhoods, which exploded in violence, revealed that black citizens identified
discrimination and deprivation associated with housing, employment, educa-
tion, and other policies as the primary reasons for the uprisings.36 Further-
more, a large proportion of city residents who witnessed a serious outbreak of
violence also mentioned improper law enforcement practices as an important
cause. According to research conducted in the Watts section of Los Angeles,

132
 Police and Racial Conflict

for example, 21 percent of the black persons interviewed said police mistreat-
ment was one of the main sources of the upheaval there in 1965.37 A survey
conducted shortly after the upheaval in Detroit revealed that black citizens
ranked “police brutality” at the top of a list of twenty-three possible reasons
for the violence.38 Although most black residents apparently attributed the
revolts to persistent problems arising from social and economic inequality,
mounting local complaints about police behavior also may have constituted a
major impetus for the upheavals.39
Although the outbreak of urban violence seemed to dramatize the sharp
disagreements that had developed between white police and the black resi-
dents of urban areas, relatively few subsequent efforts were made to resolve—
or even confront—the issues that divided them. In fact, when Detroit police
were asked why a local survey discovered that many black residents regarded
police abuse as a primary cause of the uprisings there, incredulously, most
white officers in the department simply referred to the “antisocial nature of
the black community.”40 The seemingly jaded and highly individualistic per-
spective of white police officers thus provided them with a convenient inter-
pretation for the apparent inconsistency between their views and the attitudes
of the black community. Many black citizens remained equally convinced that
police act primarily as the representatives of a brutal and repressive white
power structure. In the midst of this controversy, little attention was devoted
to the structural characteristics of police practices that may have provoked
the conflict. Consequently, even by the most generous estimate, only minimal
progress was made in resolving the problems that sparked the uprisings. The
relationship between black residents and predominantly white police forces
continued to exhibit indications of a growing—and potentially disastrous—
polarization.
In the study of inner-city patrolmen in eleven cities, 30 percent of white
officers labeled “most Negroes” as their “enemies,” 43 percent applied that
designation to “most young adults,” and 52 percent employed the term in
describing their relationship with “most adolescents.” Surprisingly, even some
black police officers used the word enemy to characterize the same three
groups.41 Instead of viewing their work as a law enforcement responsibility,
many police officers apparently regarded their activities in slum neighbor-
hoods as a type of militaristic warfare.
The mounting conflict between police officers and black citizens was
seemingly promoted both by the historical animosities that permeated race
relations in America and by the organizational practices law enforcement agen-
cies had adopted in urban communities. As many city police departments

133
Police and Racial Conflict

began to employ the techniques of preventive patrolling and stop and frisk
procedures in areas with high crime rates, the incidence of disagreeable en-
counters with police officers rose perceptibly. Although no attempts were
made to estimate the total number of persons stopped by police officers in
slum areas, one study in San Diego revealed that approximately 20,000 field
interrogation reports were prepared each month, and perhaps an equal num-
ber of such confrontations did not result in the filing of a report.42 The policy
of aggressive preventive patrolling undoubtedly subjected a large number of
black residents in many cities to irritating contacts with police officers. As
police themselves admitted, few persons who were stopped and questioned by
law enforcement officers tended to react in a congenial manner. In the survey
of inner-city police in eleven cities, 80 percent acknowledged that people
generally dislike being searched. Thirty percent of the officers reported that
most persons “respond finally under threats and pressure,” and 11 percent
stated that the typical stop and frisk incident provoked physical resistance by
the suspect. Only 9 percent believed members of the public were usually
cooperative in such circumstances.43 Both the volume and the annoying or
harassing nature of search and interrogation procedures produced a strong
legacy of public grievances about police behavior in predominantly black ur-
ban neighborhoods.
Some research has indicated that public hostility toward police officers
may have been especially prevalent in areas that experienced serious turmoil.
A study completed after the Newark revolts in 1967, for example, revealed
that 49 percent of black residents but only 5 percent of whites in that city
believed the police were “too brutal.”44 Another survey that compared white
and black attitudes in Watts concluded that “the races [were] polarized more
over the issue of the police than over any other single question.”45
Perhaps the most striking evidence of criticism of police practices was
discovered by a survey undertaken in the Twelfth Street area of Detroit shortly
after the 1967 upheaval. Although the results of the investigation disclosed
higher levels of general militancy and discontent in that neighborhood than
were found by comparable studies conducted elsewhere,46 the expression of
disapproval of law enforcement issues seemed unusually strong. For example,
92 percent of the black residents of the community denied that “all laws are
enforced equally.” Similarly, 81 percent believed police officers in Detroit
treated some groups better than others rather than treating “all people the
same.” Seventy-eight percent stated that before the uprisings, police officers
were “mainly interested in trying to keep things quiet” rather than “in trying
to help the people in this neighborhood.” An overwhelming proportion of

134
 Police and Racial Conflict

persons living in the area were intensely critical both of police officers and of
the legislative and judicial codes that served as the foundation for their ac-
tions: “People who accepted a conventional belief in the impartiality of the
law and its enforcement formed a small minority. The prevailing consensus
supported the position that injustice pervaded the entire legal system.”47
In many respects, black objections to police practices seemed to reflect
an even more basic criticism of the nature of political authority. In a funda-
mental sense, police officers have acted as the local representatives of a mas-
sive legal and judicial system created and dominated for centuries by white
Americans. Although this structure was charged with the responsibility of
dispensing justice impartially to all citizens, the process of criminal justice
frequently appeared to perpetuate the influence of the white majority by pre-
venting black citizens from gaining equal treatment before the law. Since black
Americans often were excluded from participation in framing the statutes and
rules that govern society, they have failed to express strong support for the
servants of a legal system that has commonly worked to their disadvantage. To
a large degree, police officers were and continue to be the most immediate
targets of an underlying resentment of white legal and political institutions.
In addition, established political processes have frequently been attacked
for their lack of responsiveness to the needs of minority neighborhoods. In
the view of many black citizens, the white majority and its public officials
have not only tended to neglect the needs of urban communities, but they
have also been reluctant to relinquish their dominion over those communi-
ties. Hence according to many black residents, the only interest white Ameri-
cans have displayed concerning black communities has been in controlling
them. Moreover, the police have comprised the major vehicle through which
the white public and political leaders have sought to exert this control. To a
large segment of the black population, law enforcement officers have per-
sonified both a type of political authority in which they have been prevented
from participating and a manifestation of whites’ unwillingness to surrender
their domination of black communities. As a result, police officers were
often perceived as an army of occupation or as agents of an alien colonial
administration.48 The ever-present sojourns of white police officers in black
neighborhoods constantly reminded residents of their subjugation to the au-
thority and control of legal institutions they had little part in creating.
Again, increasing black resentment of law enforcement practices seemed
to form a major impetus for the violence that exploded in many ghetto com-
munities during the 1960s. The results of several surveys of black attitudes
revealed that strong disapproval of police conduct was closely related to public

135
Police and Racial Conflict

support for the uprisings as a way of bringing attention to the degraded way of
life to which many had been consigned.49 In addition, the role of police be-
havior in spawning the violence was frequently demonstrated by the precipi-
tating incident, or the event that sparked the upheavals. The outbreak of
violence not only was inspired by a mounting dissatisfaction with police pro-
cedures, but it was also frequently triggered by the specific acts of a police
officer. As the President’s Commission on Civil Disorders concluded, “Al-
most invariably the incident that ignites disorder arises from police action.”50
Although some smaller disturbances as well as the revolts that followed the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 were provoked by other
factors,51 the involvement of police officers at the start of many of the nation’s
most serious and destructive outbreaks of urban violence appeared to be more
than coincidental. In many upheavals, the particular act that triggered the
disorders seemed to be a relatively innocuous police practice. In each case,
however, the actions of police officers appeared to spark a smoldering antago-
nism that probably could not have been dampened indefinitely.
Police officers’ critical role in urban violence was demonstrated by their
involvement both at the start and at subsequent stages of the disorders. Dur-
ing most serious upheavals, the police, as well as stores and businesses, were
the main targets of public animosity. As the principal agents responsible for
imposing the legal restrictions of the outside society on minority communi-
ties, law enforcement officers have been natural targets of hostility and aggres-
sion. In addition, however, the assaults on law enforcement officers during
major upheavals may have signified other objectives. By directing their anger
at police officers and local retailers, rioters seemed to exhibit their disrespect
both for the primary representatives of the legal order and for the personal
and property rights that comprise the normative bases of political authority.52
Several studies have disclosed a striking parallel between the attitudes of po-
lice officers and those of merchants concerning crime, race relations, protest,
and rebellions.53 The attacks on police officers and store owners thus may
have been related to a broader political goal of assailing established social
institutions and forms of authority.
In a fundamental sense, moreover, the revolts represented a deliberate
repudiation of external social controls and a continuing defiance of attempts
by law enforcement agencies to reimpose conventional restraints on the com-
munity. During inner-city uprisings, crowds that formed spontaneously on
the streets usually established their own rules of behavior to replace the regu-
lations previously enforced by police officers. Although the newly created
norms of the aggrieved frequently protected innocent bystanders and black

136
 Police and Racial Conflict

merchants from harm, perhaps their principal impact was to condone acts of
violence against police officers and local businesses. By substituting their own
moral judgments for the legal codes prescribed by public officers, the partici-
pants in rebellions seemed to form a separate rule-making community. Their
rejection of the regulations enacted by supposedly legitimate political institu-
tions therefore necessitated strong police intervention to preserve the existing
authority of the state.
The role of police officers in major uprisings, however, often seemed to
intensify rather than reduce the level of violence. In general, police effective-
ness during ghetto uprisings was sharply impeded by a prevailing lack of
confidence in law enforcement activities. One researcher noted that “police
officers, in their attempt to enforce a higher authority, are perceived by inner
city residents more as a causal factor than a deterrent of riot behavior.”54
Since police officers often were considered responsible both for the growth
of discontent and for the events that precipitated the upheavals, their actions
in a serious riot seldom drew support or approval from persons living in a
neighborhood that erupted in violence.
Indeed, police behavior during revolts frequently became an additional
source of criticism. The results of the survey conducted in the Twelfth Street
area of Detroit shortly after the unrest of 1967, for example, revealed that
many persons apparently perceived police conduct as reprehensible during
the violence. More than half of neighborhood residents disapproved of the
manner in which police officers had treated local people before the violence,
and 31 percent also stated that police behavior grew worse during the vio-
lence. Perhaps the most striking fact disclosed by the survey was that 81
percent of the residents reported hearing “stories that some policemen were
involved in taking things or in burning stores” during the rebellions.55 Al-
though concrete evidence of police participation in illegal acts such as arson
and looting was difficult to obtain or evaluate, rumors of such incidents appar-
ently were widely circulated and believed in minority neighborhoods. Regard-
less of the accuracy of the charges, the actions of law enforcement officers
during the rebellions did not appear to provide a strong basis for public com-
pliance with police efforts to end the disorders or to restore their authority in
the ghetto after the violence had subsided.
In addition, law enforcement agencies frequently were verbally attacked
for exerting unnecessary physical force or violence during the unrest. In a
study of several major rebellions, the deaths, injuries, and damage initiated
by police conduct greatly exceeded the amount of force perpetrated by partici-
pants.56 In addition to several well-publicized cases of seemingly unjustifiable

137
Police and Racial Conflict

violence committed by police,57 police actions in urban revolts undoubtedly

imposed greater hardships and suffering on the residents of ghetto communi-
ties than the aggrieved inflicted on police officers. As a result, the “official
violence” produced by precipitous police behavior during the disorders was a
source of grave ethical and legal concern. Although the growing recognition
that black residents were the principal victims of violence in urban ghettos
may have contributed to the gradual decline of major uprisings, the use of
excessive force by police officers during those incidents also seemed to pro-
mote an increasing—and potentially disastrous—loss of confidence in the
authority of law enforcement officers.
The burdens imposed on police forces in major disorders seemed to
exceed the obligations of nearly all other government bureaus. Police inter-
vention in violent incidents often reflected the failure of public officials to
resolve divisive conflict. Since the outbreak of rioting was usually provoked
by the accumulation of public grievances, the willingness of government lead-
ers to summon the police frequently signified the inability of normal political
processes to satisfy civic demands in an equitable and responsive manner.
When all other channels of conciliation and negotiation collapsed, police of-
ficers were usually asked to curb the popular unrest elected officials were
incapable of assuaging.58 As a result, the tasks of implementing riot control
policies have probably been among the most demanding responsibilities re-
quired of any government agency.
Despite the importance of police functions in controlling serious disor-
ders, relatively little systematic attention has been devoted to this issue. An
examination of violence in U.S. cities during the early twentieth century, for
example, concluded that “in almost every major disorder local police forces
have been ineffective and inefficient.”59 Furthermore, the actions of police
officers in the violence of the 1960s did not appear to reflect a demonstrable
improvement. Although police conduct in the latter incidents seemed to change
from a passive to a more aggressive approach, another study found that law
enforcement officers’ efforts to end ghetto unrest were frequently hindered by
the use of inappropriate riot control strategies, a lack of coordination among
various agencies of social control, and the breakdown of police organiza-
tions.60 Police departments seldom developed extensive plans for curbing civil
disorders. In fact, one investigation, which found that the intensity of riot
activity in cities reflected the patterns of a cumulative scale, also discovered
that the preparation of a special riot control plan was directly related to the
severity of urban uprisings.61 Although this association may have indicated
either that the plans contributed to the escalation of rebellions or that plan-

138
 Police and Racial Conflict

ning was confined primarily to cities with a high propensity for violence, it
did not seem to support the proposition that police forces have been success-
ful in developing effective disorder control techniques.
In general, police efforts to stop urban unrest were plagued by what can
be termed the problem of “undercontrol and overcontrol.”62 Whereas many
persons have argued that the police should employ an impressive display of
strength immediately after the outbreak of disorders to deter further unrest,
others have urged that law enforcement should adopt a relatively passive ap-
proach to avoid inciting additional violence. The alternatives available to police
administrators seeking to control a major disorder have posed an agonizing
paradox. Although outbreaks of violence have usually been overcome by the
superior force of law enforcement, the presence of police officers in urban
neighborhoods also has apparently contributed to both the outbreak and the
escalation of many disorders. As a result, the general features of urban upheavals
have seldom suggested a simple or an easily discernible method of ending the
violence.
Perhaps at least one basis for resolving this dilemma was provided by the
perceptions of slum residents who had experienced a serious disorder. Al-
though police considerations of riot control usually focused on technical is-
sues such as the mobilization and deployment of personnel, the development
of rapid communication systems, and the acquisition of weapons,63 public
reactions to the techniques police officers used in attempting to stop riots
frequently seemed to be even more critical to their success. Perhaps the pri-
mary purpose of riot control measures, as well as nearly all other law enforce-
ment activities, has been to secure public compliance with legal authority.
Inner-city assessments of disorder control strategies thus have probably had a
critical impact on their effectiveness.
Although many police administrators seemed to assume that inner-city
residents would express as much hostility toward rebellion control efforts as
they displayed toward other police activities, the results of a survey conducted
in Detroit after the 1967 revolts failed to confirm that supposition. Black
residents appeared evenly divided on several basic disorder control issues.
Approximately half of the residents believed that “if the police had gotten
tough right away . . . they could have stopped the trouble then,” but another
half believed this tactic “would have made matters worse.” Fifty-four percent
thought the force applied by police officers to stop the rebellions was “too
strong,” whereas 24 percent said it was “about right” and 22 percent stated
that it was “not strong enough.” Perhaps most important, the study revealed
that persons who felt police officers had exercised early self-restraint and did

139
Police and Racial Conflict

not perceive police conduct as deteriorating during the riots also tended to
favor relatively strong riot control measures and to approve of the methods
Detroit police officers used to end the violence. In addition, many urban
residents who believed police officers had been prevented from using suffi-
cient force at the beginning of the rebellions also predicted that the behavior
of neighborhood police officers would improve in the aftermath of the vio-
lence. The evidence indicated, therefore, that an appreciable segment of the
neighborhood may have been willing to accept an impressive display of strength
and firm measures to control violence, provided strict restraints were im-
posed on the use of force by police officers and that police conduct was not
viewed as deteriorating during the revolts.64 Although public attitudes may
have constituted a more extensive basis of support for riot control functions
than many police officers expected, they also seemed to impose some essen-
tial limitations on police activities.

PREVENTING URBAN VIOLENCE

Although police officers were apparently granted the opportunity to utilize
riot control measures designed to secure public cooperation in a serious out-
break of violence, those methods did not provide a solution to many continu-
ing problems and sources of tension that had produced the violence in black
neighborhoods. In military terms, the conflict between police officers and
urban residents seemingly changed from massive confrontations in violent
battle to sporadic and clandestine acts of guerrilla warfare. As many persons
experienced the crushing force exerted in police attempts to control serious
revolts, resentment of law enforcement officers in inner-city communities
appeared to shift to less dramatic—but even more dangerous—actions. In
1968, for example, a neighborhood in Cleveland exploded into an armed
skirmish between black residents and law enforcement officers.65 Subsequently,
periodic battles began to occur in many urban enclaves between police agen-
cies and black radical organizations such as the Black Panther Party and the
Republic of New Africa. Numerous events, therefore, indicated that black
animosity toward the police had not subsided appreciably. Just as a sizable
percentage of police office viewed most black citizens as their principal en-
emies, an increasing proportion of urban residents began to regard police
officers as their antagonists. In the aftermath of serious upheavals, the rela-
tionship between police officers and black Americans appeared to be worse
than it had been before the violence erupted.
One of the disturbing effects of the cessation of urban rebellions was that
no significant movement emerged to remedy either the social and economic

140
 Police and Racial Conflict

conditions or the police problems that had ignited the violence. In fact, law
enforcement officers’ principal response to the revolts was apparently expressed
in their demands for increased power to repress further disorders. A study of
Detroit police after the uprisings in 1967, for example, revealed that a large
majority of white officers below the rank of lieutenant suggested more strin-
gent laws or more efficient police work rather than social action programs or
improved police-community relations as the principal means of preventing
future violence.66 In addition, many police officers strongly objected to pro-
posals such as the recommendations of the Kerner Commission on Civil
Disorders that called for major police reforms and expanded government
programs to alleviate the plight of black Americans. In a survey of six occupa-
tional groups—including police officers, educators, social workers, political
activists, merchants, and employers—that worked in the urban areas of fif-
teen major cities, police officers comprised the only group that disagreed
with the findings of the Kerner Commission report by a substantial majority.
In addition, 57 percent of police officers predicted that the report would have
no effect on their own community.67
In general, most white citizens seemed to share the perspectives of law
enforcement officers concerning appropriate means of averting continued vio-
lence. According to a survey of people living in the same fifteen cities, a
majority of whites but fewer than one-tenth of black residents proposed “more
police control” as the most important method of preventing further violence.68
Furthermore, those sentiments paralleled the attitudes of national legislators.
Research conducted in 1967 revealed that a majority of members of Congress
ranked measures such as increased penalties for rioters and “larger, better-
paid police forces” as “of great importance” in avoiding a recurrence of the
disorders.69 Perhaps most important, however, white Americans’ growing cry
for the repression of civil disorders and violence appeared to impose mount-
ing pressure on law enforcement officers and political leaders. In a study of
three Michigan communities, only 21 percent of police officers agreed with
the statement that “to control future revolts effectively, Negroes must be taught
a lesson and kept in their place by force,” but 24 percent said their fellow
officers felt that way, and 57 percent believed their friends held that view-
point.70 Although the Michigan police officers’ specific responses seemed to
raise vexing problems of interpretation, evidence from many sources indi-
cated that law enforcement agencies had been subjected to increasing attempts
by the white public and its political representatives to influence the conduct of
law enforcement.

141
Police and Racial Conflict

CONCLUSION
The growing demand for police repression of urban revolts posed a serious
threat to other forms of protest and dissent. As white citizens became increas-
ingly alarmed by the menace of crime and violence, they called on local police
departments to quash many peaceful as well as unlawful expressions of social
discontent. Consequently, police officers received extensive public support
for the use of “official violence” to end troublesome demonstrations. As a
result of the actions of the Chicago police toward antiwar protestors during
the 1968 Democratic National Convention, for example, the phrase police
riot entered the vocabulary of law enforcement through an officially commis-
sioned report.71 Perhaps of even greater significance, however, was the fact
that a large segment of the American public condoned and applauded the
seemingly abusive treatment of demonstrators by Chicago police. A national
survey disclosed that only 19 percent of U.S. residents thought police officers
had employed “too much force” in attempting to end the protests.72 The find-
ings, therefore, appeared to suggest the grave threat that public support for
the exercise of civil liberties in other circumstances could be overshadowed
by a strong willingness to tolerate the use of repressive force by law enforce-
ment officers.
An important opportunity to assess the sources of popular approval of
this type of action was provided by another national survey, which developed
an empirically defined measure of public attitudes toward “police violence.”
Although this research disclosed that black citizens were more likely than
whites to criticize police violence, it also revealed that among whites with
comparable educational backgrounds, the strongest opposition to the use of
excessive force by police was expressed by younger, less affluent, and politi-
cally inactive segments of the population.73 The major complaints about police
violence appeared to be concentrated among groups that possessed relatively
little political influence in society. As a result, the attitudes of the more influ-
ential segments of the community seemed to impose few constraints upon the
application of violent force by law enforcement agencies to repress discontent
and unrest.
Increasing fears of crime, violence, protest, and disorder were not enough
to bring about an adequate remedy for those problems. As a report prepared
for the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence noted,
nearly every government commission convened to study outbreaks of vio-
lence recommended a “two-pronged” solution that stressed the need for both
social and economic improvements—including changes in police practices—
and more effective methods of controlling unrest. Yet in almost every case,

142
 Police and Racial Conflict

the recommendations for social reform were neglected, and major emphasis
was placed on more efficient social control. As a result, political leaders not
only failed to resolve the problems that had caused the violence, but they also
imposed massive burdens on law enforcement agencies. As the report con-
cluded, “Even given the possibility of short-term control of riots, and ignoring
its immediate destructive effects, the political nature of riots suggests that
forceful riot-control techniques may channel expressive protest into more or-
ganized forms of political violence, thus requiring greater military and para-
military force with its inescapable monetary and social costs.”74 In addition to
the increased use of excessive “official violence” and the threat of guerrilla
warfare, the demand for expanded social control presented a pressing danger
that civil liberties in the United States would deteriorate.
The emergence of racial conflict and violence presented police officers
with a critical challenge that seemingly could be resolved only by improving
social and economic conditions in urban communities. Numerous surveys
revealed that an overwhelming proportion of black Americans regarded in-
creased opportunities in employment, education, and housing, as well as
changes in police conduct, as the most significant means of preventing future
violence. Perhaps the importance of this finding was expressed most suc-
cinctly by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administra-
tion of Justice when it stated, “Examination of the crimes that are committed
during rebellions and of the conditions of life in the places where riots break
out leads to the conclusion that the only enduring guarantee that riots will not
occur is to answer the cry of ‘Help!’ that Negroes have been uttering for many
years, and that can be heard clearly even amid the destruction and bloodshed
of a riot.”75
Perhaps the most fundamental problem police officers faced in urban
areas, both during periods of racial turmoil and at other times, was an in-
creasing loss of public confidence in police authority. The intense criticism of
law enforcement officers that emerged in predominantly black neighborhoods
not only produced extensive hostility and violence, but it also led to renewed
reluctance among some inner-city residents to provide assistance or support
for police activities. For example, the survey of residents in the Twelfth Street
neighborhood of Detroit disclosed that among those persons who endorsed
the principles of black separatism, a majority also stated that they reacted to
a neighborhood robbery by simply ignoring it rather than by calling the po-
lice.76 The estrangement of many black citizens from the values and standards
of the legal system and its enforcement apparatus appeared to reach massive
proportions. Since police officers must rely on public respect and cooperation

143
Police and Racial Conflict

for the effective performance of their duties, the mounting lack of trust in
police functions seemed to raise serious questions about their capability to
provide effective law enforcement in those neighborhoods.
The goal of gaining increased public support for police activities in the
inner city, therefore, was probably the most crucial challenge confronting law
enforcement agencies. Perhaps even more significant, however, the ability to
achieve that objective appeared to depend on the adoption of extensive re-
forms and a restructuring of local police departments.

NOTES
1. Judson L. Jeffries, “Police Brutality as a Major Everyday Threat: Notes From an
Angry Young Professor,” Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy 6 (Summer
2000): 129–146.
2. Judson L. Jeffries, “Police Brutality of Black Men and the Destruction of the
African American Community,” Negro Educational Review 52 (October 2001): 115–
130.
3. Steven Steinberg, Turning Back: The Retreat From Racial Justice in American
Thought and Policy (Boston: Beacon, 1995).
4. Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few (New York: St. Martin’s, 1995).
5. Harlan Hahn, “Los Angeles and the Future,” in Michael Dear, Greg Hess, and
H. Eric Schockman, eds., Rethinking Los Angeles (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1996),
77–95.
6. Bryan Vila and Cynthia Morris, The Role of Police in American Society (Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood, 1999).
7. William G. Lewis, “Toward Representative Bureaucracy: Blacks in City Police
Organizations, 1975–1985,” Public Administration Review 49 (May-June 1989): 257–
267.
8. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), vol.
2, 1189; see also John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957).
9. For an interesting compilation of materials focusing on the history of U.S. race
riots, see Allen D. Grimshaw, ed., Racial Violence in the United States (Chicago: Aldine,
1969), especially 60–115.
10. Joe R. Feagin, Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations
(New York: Routledge, 2000).
11. Harold F. Gosnell, Negro Politicians: The Rise of Negro Politics in Chicago (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1935), 244–279; W. Marvin Dulaney, Black Police
in America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).
12. William M. Kephart, Racial Factors and Urban Law Enforcement (Philadel-
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957), 134–139.
13. “Negro Police in Southern Cities,” New South 2 (October 1947): 1.
14. Dulaney, Black Police in America.
15. Kephart, Racial Factors and Urban Law Enforcement, 134–139.

144
 Police and Racial Conflict

16. Ibid., 77–88.

17. Albert J. Reiss Jr. and David J. Bordua, “Environment and Organization: A
Perspective on the Police,” in David J. Bordua, ed., The Police: Six Sociological Essays
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967), 42.
18. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,
Task Force Report: The Police (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967),
52.
19. Robert M. Fogelson, “From Resentment to Confrontation: The Police, the
Negroes, and the Outbreak of the Nineteen-Sixties Riots,” Political Science Quarterly 83
(June 1968): 243.
20. Peter H. Rossi, Richard A. Berk, David P. Boesel, Bettye K. Eidson, and W.
Eugene Groves, “Between White and Black: The Faces of American Institutions in the
Ghetto,” in Supplemental Studies for the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 107.
21. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,
The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1967), 94–95.
22. As the so-called Kerner Commission Report concluded, “The patrolman comes
to see the city through a windshield and hear about it over a police radio. To him, the
area increasingly comes to consist of lawbreakers. To the ghetto resident, the policeman
comes increasingly to be only an enforcer.” Report of the National Advisory Commission
on Civil Disorders (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 160.
23. Rossi et al., “Between White and Black,” 112–113.
24. David H. Bayley and Harold Mendelsohn, Minorities and the Police (New
York: Free Press, 1969), 157; P. Fielding, The Police and Social Conflict: Rhetoric and
Reality (London: Athlore, 1998).
25. Fogelson, “From Resentment to Confrontation,” 231.
26. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 160.
27. Bayley and Mendelsohn, Minorities and the Police, 144–147.
28. Rossi et al., “Between White and Black,” 89. In Denver, half of the police
officers judged that black residents were “pressing too hard for their rights,” and 47
percent said they “were trying to push in where they were not wanted.” Ibid., 150–
151.
29. Robert A. Mendelsohn, “Police-Community Relations: A Need in Search of
Police Support,” American Behavioral Scientist 13 (May-June-July-August 1970): 749–
752; reprinted in Harlan Hahn, ed., Police in Urban Society (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1971),
159–174.
30. Bayley and Mendelsohn, Minorities and the Police, 152.
31. W. Eugene Groves and Peter H. Rossi, “Police Perceptions of a Hostile Ghetto:
Realism or Projection,” American Behavioral Scientist 13 (May-June-July-August 1970):
727–743.
32. Bayley and Mendelsohn, Minorities and the Police, 163–164.
33. Joe R. Feagin and Harlan Hahn, Ghetto Revolts (New York: Macmillan, 1973),
179–180.
34. Rossi et al., “Between White and Black,” 110–111.

145
Police and Racial Conflict

35. Mendelsohn, “Police-Community Relations,” 749.

36. See, for example, Joe R. Feagin and Paul B. Sheatsley, “Ghetto Resident Ap-
praisals of a Riot,” Public Opinion Quarterly 33 (Fall 1968): 354; Nathan S. Caplan and
Jeffrey M. Paige, “A Study of Ghetto Rioters,” Scientific American 119 (August 1968):
21; see also Feagin and Hahn, Ghetto Revolts.
37. T. M. Tomlinson and David O. Sears, Negro Attitudes Toward the Riot (Los
Angeles: UCLA Institute of Government and Public Affairs, 1967), 13.
38. Philip Meyer, “The People Beyond Twelfth Street,” Detroit Free Press, August
20, 1967, 1, 48.
39. In fact, one commentator even labeled the issue of police abuses a “folk theory”
of ghetto violence. Peter A. Lupsha, “On Theories of Urban Violence,” Urban Affairs
Quarterly 4 (March 1969): 282–283; see also Burton Levy, “Cops in the Ghetto: A
Problem of the Police System,” American Behavioral Scientist 11 (March-April 1968):
31–34.
40. Mendelsohn, “Police-Community Relations,” 751–752.
41. Rossi et al., “Between White and Black,” 106.
42. Joseph D. Lohman and Gordon E. Misner, The Police and the Community
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), vol. 1, 127–134.
43. Rossi et al., “Between White and Black,” 108.
44. Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorder, State of New Jersey, Report for
Action (Trenton: State of New Jersey, 1968), 22–37.
45. David O. Sears, “Black Attitudes Toward the Political System in the Aftermath
of the Watts Insurrection,” Midwest Journal of Political Science 13 (November 1969):
524.
46. Harlan Hahn, “Ghetto Sentiments on Violence,” Science and Society 33 (Spring
1969): 197–208; Harlan Hahn, “Violence: The View From the Ghetto,” Mental Hy-
giene 53 (October 1969): 509–512.
47. Harlan Hahn, “Philosophy of Law and Urban Violence,” Soundings 52 (Spring
1969): 113.
48. See James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name (New York: Dell, 1962), 65–67;
G. Alpert and R. Dunham, Policing Urban America (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland,
1994).
49. Bayley and Mendelsohn, Minorities and the Police, 179–181; Raymond J.
Murphy and James M. Watson, The Structure of Discontent (Los Angeles: UCLA Insti-
tute of Government and Public Affairs, 1967), 46–48.
50. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 93.
51. Bryan T. Downes, “Social and Political Characteristics of Riot Cities: A Com-
parative Study,” Social Science Quarterly 49 (December 1968): 512.
52. Harlan Hahn, “The Political Objectives of Ghetto Violence,” unpublished
manuscript, 5.
53. Rossi et al., “Between White and Black,” 73–101; Howard Aldrich and Albert
J. Reiss Jr., “The Effect of Civil Disorders on Small Business in the Inner City,” Journal
of Social Issues 26 (Winter 1970): 187–206.
54. James R. Hundley Jr., “The Dynamics of Recent Ghetto Riots,” Journal of
Urban Law 45 (Spring-Summer 1968): 637.

146
 Police and Racial Conflict

55. Ibid.
56. See Jerome H. Skolnick, The Politics of Protest (New York: Ballantine, 1994
[1969]).
57. See, for example, John Hersey, The Algiers Motel Incident (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1968).
58. Harlan Hahn, “The Public and the Police: A Theoretical Perspective,” in Harlan
Hahn ed., The Police in Urban Society (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1971), 9–33.
59. Allen D. Grimshaw, “Actions of Police and the Military in American Race
Riots,” in Allen D. Grimshaw, ed., Racial Violence in the United States (Chicago: Aldine,
1969), 271.
60. Gary T. Marx, “Civil Disorders and the Agents of Social Control,” Journal of
Social Issues 26 (Winter 1970): 19–57.
61. Jules J. Wanderer, “An Index of Riot Severity and Some Correlates,” American
Journal of Sociology 74 (March 1969): 500–505.
62. Ralph W. Conant, “Rioting, Insurrection, and Civil Disobedience,” American
Scholar 37 (Summer 1968): 427.
63. See, for example, Rex Applegate, Riot Control: Material and Techniques (Harris-
burg: Stackpole, 1969); R. M. Momboisse, Riots, Revolts, and Insurrections (Springfield,
Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1967).
64. Harlan Hahn, “Cops and Rioters: Ghetto Perceptions of Social Conflict and
Control,” American Behavioral Scientist 12 (May-June-July-August 1970): 761–779.
65. For an account of the incident, see Charles E. Jones, ed., The Black Panther
Party Reconsidered (Baltimore: Black Classic, 1998).
66. Mendelsohn, “Police-Community Relations,” 747.
67. Rossi et al., “Between White and Black,” 100.
68. Angus Campbell and Howard Schuman, “Racial Attitudes in Fifteen American
Cities,” in Supplemental Studies for the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 48.
69. Harlan Hahn and Joe R. Feagin, “Rank-and-File Versus Congressional Percep-
tions of Ghetto Riots,” Social Science Quarterly 51 (September 1970): 371–373.
70. Donald Bouma, Kids and Cops: A Study in Mutual Hostility (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1969), 93–94.
71. Daniel Walker, Rights in Conflict (New York: Bantam, 1968).
72. John P. Robinson, “Public Reaction to Political Protest: Chicago 1968,” Public
Opinion Quarterly 34 (Spring 1970): 1–9.
73. William A. Gamson and James McEvoy, “Police Violence and Its Public Sup-
port,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 391 (September
1970): 97–110.
74. Skolnick, Politics of Protest, 342–346, quote on 343.
75. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,
The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, 38.
76. Harlan Hahn, “Black Separatists: Attitudes and Objectives in a Riot-Torn
Ghetto,” Journal of Black Studies 1 (September 1970): 44–45.

147
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

Conclusion:
Police, Politics,
and the Community

A
MONG THE MANY DIFFICULT AND CRITICAL CHALLENGES that have confronted
law enforcement agencies, perhaps few were more important than the need
to develop public confidence in police activities. Since extensive coop-
eration and assistance have usually formed an essential prerequisite for the
fulfillment of police responsibilities, the effective performance of law enforce-
ment tasks has seemed to depend on widespread favorable judgments about
police behavior. In the absence of broad community support, police officers
seldom achieved a high level of success either in controlling crime or in per-
forming their numerous other duties. Public approval and respect have con-
stituted a critical foundation for law enforcement operations.
Increasingly, some segments of the population have displayed a serious
loss of faith in police work. As growing numbers of black Americans experi-
enced abrasive and harassing encounters with police officers, public hostility
toward law enforcement rose to an alarming level in many urban neighbor-
hoods. At the same time, the accelerating fear of crime also appeared to
provoke strong reservations among white citizens about the efficacy of police
protection. Law enforcement agencies faced a mounting crisis of public con-
fidence in police authority. As a result, the growth of popular dissatisfaction
seemed to indicate an urgent need for major changes and reforms to restore
public trust in police practices.
In many respects, the difficulty of regaining public respect for law en-
forcement officers was inextricably linked with the larger task of designating
the proper role of the police in a democratic society.1 Although law enforce-
ment agencies have been commonly accepted as necessary for the mainte-
nance of social order, relatively little attention was devoted to this problem

149
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

prior to the turbulent 1960s and the reaction that turbulence produced in the
1970s. As many citizens became aroused by the threat of crime, discontent,
and violence, local police departments were exposed to powerful and conflict-
ing public influences. Whereas some Americans demanded that the police
stop “crime in the streets,” others were primarily concerned with ending “po-
lice brutality.” In addition, a growing controversy emerged over the value of
stopping socially disruptive behavior and of punishing crimes by government
officials. Implicitly, the controversy appeared to raise some basic, inescapable
questions concerning how police resources should be allocated and who ought
to control law enforcement agencies—questions that seemed to lack conclu-
sive answers. Although anxiety about crime and police conduct became a
major topic in several national elections, the fundamental subject of defining
the public accountability of police organizations remained a persistent source
of contention in many U.S. cities.
This problem, however, did not seem peculiar to America. Although law
enforcement officers in several European countries traditionally maintained a
high degree of public respect that enabled them to dispense with guns and
other lethal weapons, the relatively democratic police forces in England and
Scandinavia had been plagued by increasing conflicts with the public.2 In fact,
one study of Great Britain, the former Soviet Union, and the United States
concluded that whereas each of those nations responded similarly to growing
public pressures, neither democratic nor totalitarian police agencies were
notably successful in halting crimes that created public alarm.3 The experi-
ences of other societies seemingly did not offer a remedy that could be easily
transferred to U.S. police departments.
Perhaps one of the principal reasons for America’s failure to resolve the
tension between police officers and the public had to do with a prevailing
ambiguity about the democratic responsibilities of law enforcement agencies.
Police officers assumed the tasks of controlling and restricting public behav-
ior, but they also acted as public employees who are ultimately responsible to
the people. As a result, the conduct of law enforcement officers in a demo-
cratic country often seemed to pose an irreconcilable dilemma. In fact, George
Berkeley concluded that from many perspectives, “the phrase ‘democratic po-
lice force’ is a contradiction in terms.”4
Yet law enforcement agencies also seemed to possess important means of
fulfilling their mission in a democratic society. Although police officers could
not be directly responsive to shifting public tastes in law enforcement, they
could be made responsible to the entire community. Police departments, like
all other agencies, ultimately had to be accountable to the public for their

150
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

policies and behavior.5 At the same time, this requirement also seemed to
impose reciprocal obligations on citizens. Democratic law enforcement prac-
tices cannot be sustained in a nation where the public blindly or passively
accepts whatever the police choose to do. Nor can they be preserved in a
society where the people seek to employ police powers for their personal
benefit or to subjugate other segments of the population. Although the mainte-
nance of democratic police organizations requires a delicate balance between the
privileges and duties of law enforcement officers and the community, police
functions do not appear to be inherently incompatible with guidance and
direction by responsible public attitudes and political leadership.
Furthermore, efforts to strengthen the public accountability of law en-
forcement agencies could have provided an important means of enhancing
popular respect for law enforcement activities. People have often tended to
harbor reservations about government bureaus that apparently are not under
popular control and that appear to demand public trust solely on the basis of
their expertise. By demonstrating their willingness to heed the opinions of the
community, police departments could have received increased cooperation
from local citizens. This Conclusion, therefore, examines several proposals
that might have promoted the democratic management of law enforcement
agencies and improved public confidence in police practices.

POLICE PERSONNEL
Perhaps the most commonly proposed suggestion for increasing the quality of
police work focused on the recruitment and selection of law enforcement
officers. In general, the ability of police departments to attract capable men
and women has been impeded by widespread public reluctance to assume the
duties of police officers. For example, according to a survey published in the
late 1960s, in Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., only 46 percent of
officers said they would advise a young man to enter police work, and only 26
percent stated that they would encourage one of their sons to join the force.6
This perception was apparently shared by large segments of the population. In a
survey of the same cities, 68 percent of the residents in each city asserted that it
would be a mistake for a young man to become a police officer rather than accept
“a job paying as much in the construction business.”7 Since many have regarded
law enforcement as a thankless and unappealing vocation, some reformers
have advocated that police officers should receive reimbursements commen-
surate with their seemingly awesome and demanding responsibilities.
Another major proposal called for increased representation of minority
groups in law enforcement agencies. As discussed in Chapter 5, in 1960, 3.6

151
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

percent of all U.S. police officers were black. Over the next thirty years (to
1990), the number crept to a mere 10.5 percent. Latinos, meanwhile, repre-
sented about 5.2 percent of all police officers in 1990 (unfortunately, few data
are available on Latino officers for earlier years).8 As the data show, over the
years the percentage of black and Latino police officers has not been com-
mensurate with the proportion of those groups in the population of most
cities. As a result, police departments were urged to provide greater employ-
ment opportunities for groups that had historically been denied such opportu-
nities. In many communities, however, this policy was promoted not only to
eradicate the effects of racial discrimination but also to enhance the effective-
ness of police work in urban areas. Because black police usually fared better
than white officers in developing a rapport with black residents, their pres-
ence on the police force was often viewed as a means of extending the author-
ity of law enforcement agencies in predominantly black neighborhoods.
For similar reasons, efforts were also made to recruit female officers.
Although law enforcement had historically been a male-dominated profes-
sion, some women were able to penetrate the ranks of police departments.
Alice Stebbins Wells, the first female officer in U.S. history, was hired by the
Los Angeles Police Department in 1910.9 By 1925, 145 police departments
nationwide had hired female officers.10 In 1960 women still made up a paltry
1 percent of all U.S. police officers. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several
police departments began to eliminate gender-specific duties and to assign
women to patrol on the same basis as men. Two interrelated factors led to this
policy. The first was the 1972 amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which
extended the act’s coverage to public employees and prohibited job discrimi-
nation on the basis of sex. The second was an investigation conducted by the
Police Foundation in the early 1970s on the performance of female officers.
Not surprisingly, the studies found that women carried out their duties effec-
tively. The only variance between them and male officers was that women
made fewer arrests and gave fewer traffic citations. Studies also found that
women police officers were more adept than male officers at defusing poten-
tially explosive situations and were less likely to use excessive force against
suspects. Additionally, female officers tended to take women’s complaints of
spousal abuse more seriously.11 Their presence at the scene of such conflicts
proved invaluable. Women officers were also found to be less likely than their
male counterparts to engage in unbecoming conduct.
With the support of antidiscrimination laws and corroboration of their
effectiveness as patrol officers, women began to join police forces across the
country in increasing, albeit small numbers. By 1975, 4 percent of all sworn

152
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

police officers were women, and by 1990 the number had climbed to 9 per-
cent. The intensive recruitment of police officers of color, women, and other
highly qualified individuals appeared to offer a relatively simple and direct
method of reducing antagonism between the police and the community.12
Although efforts to secure exceptionally competent persons may have
contributed to the improvement of police practices, an exclusive emphasis on
this program may have been inadequate to achieve the desired goals. Initially,
any organization that seeks to resolve its difficulties solely through personnel
practices may impose excessive or undue burdens upon its employees.
As a result of the increasing conflict between law enforcement agencies
and the residents of urban areas, black police officers seemed especially vul-
nerable to intense personal strain. As a major study of black officers con-
cluded, “The Negro policeman occupies a doubly marginal position between
the marginal police role and his own marginality as a Negro.”13 Although
some blacks may have been attracted to law enforcement by the relative im-
partiality of civil service policies, they were also subjected to racial tensions
both within police departments and in the community. Moreover, attempts
by law enforcement agencies to expand their influence by assigning black
officers exclusively to black neighborhoods raised serious obstacles to public
acceptance of police authority. Interestingly, according to a Detroit survey, 78
percent of whites and 88 percent of black residents thought it was more im-
portant to obtain highly trained police officers than to designate black law
enforcement officers to black areas.14 Although proposals for well-qualified
police officers appeared to draw more public support than practices that im-
plied racial separatism, neither approach seemed to provide a total solution to
the many challenges that confronted law enforcement agencies. The problems
of police departments appeared to extend beyond the individual characteris-
tics of the officers involved. Efforts to recruit either an increasing number of
minority police officers or highly trained white officers needed to be accom-
panied by major changes both in the internal organization of police forces and
in their external relationships with the community.
As many Americans began to demand visible and concrete improvements
in police officers’ ability to combat crime and violence, extensive plans were
launched to gain higher-caliber law enforcement officers. In addition to ma-
jor increases in salaries, opportunities were provided for officers to take col-
lege or junior college classes in police science and related fields.15 Since police
officers were usually from lower-middle-class origins, the increased educa-
tional and financial opportunities appeared to provide significant hope for
improving the quality of law enforcement personnel.

153
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

Yet these programs’ effectiveness seemed to be limited by several factors.

Perhaps most important, the type of education traditionally offered police
officers appeared to develop their physical prowess and technical proficiency
in police procedures rather than their knowledge and understanding of the
communities in which they had to work. Although the curriculum for police
officers usually devoted a large amount of time to such topics as the use of
firearms, legal regulations, traffic control, and related subjects, relatively little
attention was devoted to social problems or issues.16 Since contacts between
law enforcement officers and members of the public comprise a fundamental
aspect of police activities, perhaps the relative neglect of the social sciences in
training programs prevented police officers from acquiring important infor-
mation and perspective.
Furthermore, rigid barriers to promotion within law enforcement agen-
cies often hindered police officers’ ability to utilize their educational experi-
ences. For example, appointments to most relatively high-level administrative
positions in a police department were often restricted to members of the
force. Law enforcement administrators usually began as patrol officers and
advanced slowly through the ranks. The relative absence of provisions for
“lateral entry,” or the recruitment of personnel from comparable work either
in other communities or in civilian occupations, deprived police departments
of access to valuable talent.17 In addition, promotional patterns probably tended
to increase the isolation and solidarity of law enforcement agencies. Since
police administrators were usually promoted through the ranks of the same
department, they were exposed to similar socializing experiences and often
developed natural ties or affinities that inhibited their ability to exercise effec-
tive command. The potential value of improved methods of recruitment and
training for law enforcement careers was frequently reduced by the agencies’
internal characteristics and procedures.
Efforts by police officers to solve major crimes, for example, were seldom
successful unless people were willing to furnish the information necessary to
accomplish that objective. Similarly, police officers could not be effective in
controlling incidents of disorder or violence if conflict between the public and
the police had reached a stage where it could no longer be avoided or con-
tained. The ability of police officers to fulfill their responsibilities depended
more on the general perceptions of law enforcement officers than on their
individual characteristics. Although efforts to staff police departments with
educated and capable officers did help to improve the public image of the
police, they also may have produced a disadvantageous response for law en-
forcement agencies. Since police forces generally portrayed the fight against

154
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

crime as their primary area of competence and concern, political leaders and
citizens may have anticipated that the investment of large public expenditures
to enhance the qualifications of police officers would result in an immediate
and direct reduction in the crime rate. Without a massive amelioration of
pressing social problems and a comparable shift in popular views of police
authority, however, such a result was probably unlikely.
Moreover, in many respects police leaders’ preoccupation with plans to
improve the caliber of their officers seemed to reflect the traditional Ameri-
can nostrum that the solution to almost any problem rests in finding “better
men for the job.” By focusing on the personal traits of police officers rather
than on the structural characteristics of law enforcement agencies, police ad-
ministrators failed to remedy the difficulties that confronted them.
As careers in law enforcement began to offer increasing status and finan-
cial compensation, the personal attributes of police recruits shifted to some
extent to college-educated men from middle-class backgrounds. Although many
viewed this trend as desirable, it also may have increased the social and cul-
tural distance that separated police officers from the habitual offenders and
lower-class city residents who often were the principal objects of police inter-
est and attention. As a result, law enforcement officers may have encountered
increased difficulties in becoming familiar with the problems and characteris-
tics of the people who lived on their beats. Changes in the socioeconomic
characteristics of police officers, therefore, also may have created the unan-
ticipated consequence of widening the schism that had already developed
between the public and the police.
The problems produced by police officers’ failure to understand thor-
oughly the areas they patrolled were probably most severe in urban areas and
neighborhoods with high crime rates. In some cities, commanders assigned men
to such areas as a way of disciplining them.18 Patrolmen in urban communi-
ties were frequently either the most inexperienced or the most aggressive
members of the force. Yet police officers did not express strong dissatisfac-
tion with those assignments. A survey of police in high-crime areas of Boston,
Chicago, and Washington, D.C., revealed that only a small fraction of the
officers would have preferred to have been assigned elsewhere. When those
officers were asked why they liked their beats, black officers tended to state
that they “knew the people well,” but most whites ascribed their choice to the
fact that the district was “active.”19 What the patrolmen apparently meant by
the term active was that the neighborhood gave them numerous opportunities
to make a “good arrest” and to engage in other tasks directly related to solving
crimes or enforcing the law. White patrol officers, therefore, appeared more

155
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

interested in imposing strict controls on public behavior in neighborhoods

with high crime rates than in becoming familiar with the residents of the area.
Ironically, the opportunities for police to acquire extensive familiarity
with the areas they patrolled were sharply restricted by regulations within
police organizations. For example, in Philadelphia, departmental rules pro-
hibited patrol officers “from residing within the police district to which they
were assigned.”20 In other cities, patrol assignments were rotated periodi-
cally.21 Although such procedures may have been adopted to discourage favor-
itism, perhaps their principal impact was to prevent law enforcement officers
from participating in the lives of the communities they patrolled. A survey of
urban police in eleven major cities revealed that only 21 percent of the offic-
ers occasionally attended meetings in the neighborhoods to which they were
assigned, 12 percent saw friends from the area frequently, and 17 percent
lived in the area where they worked.22 As the police were granted higher
salaries and increased prestige, this trend probably continued. According to
an estimate in one major metropolitan area, approximately 85 percent of the
police officers assigned to the central city lived in surrounding suburban com-
munities.23 Both departmental requirements and police officers’ increasing
aspirations for middle-class status contributed to raising an invisible wall be-
tween law enforcement officers and the communities in which they worked.
Although the issue seldom received public attention, the assignment of
patrol duties was one of the most important policy decisions police adminis-
trations were compelled to make. Since police protection was one of few
indirect benefits law enforcement agencies were able to confer upon the com-
munity, both the number and the competence of patrols allocated to different
sectors of the city were of major concern to local residents. In many urban
areas, the distribution of patrols might have been incidentally related to the
influence of business and commercial interests. Yet in attempting to control
crime, police chiefs appeared to be confronted by a choice between what one
observer called the “crime minimization” approach, meaning spreading patrol
officers throughout the city so all citizens received comparable protection, or
the “crime equalization” principle—concentrating patrol officers in high-crime
areas so the probability of crime prevention was equivalent in different sec-
tions of the community.24 Although both policies contained important impli-
cations concerning the costs and benefits people received from police forces,
neither strategy had the effect of reducing the total amount of crime in the
city. As a result, the allocation of patrols required that police administrators
make a crucial political decision, but that choice did not achieve the ultimate
objective of controlling crime.

156
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

A third alternative could have been considered. By assigning patrol offic-

ers on the basis of their residence or their familiarity with an area, both police
officers and local residents might have gained an improved understanding of
each other. Although this approach would undoubtedly have required careful
supervision to avoid the danger of either espionage or favoritism, it also could
have promoted a closer working relationship between police officers and the
community. In addition, police officers in areas with high crime rates might
have been advised to consider reducing aggressive or harassing practices such
as the policy of “preventive patrolling,” which provoked numerous hostile and
abrasive encounters. Although efforts to gain public trust and respect often
appeared to yield fewer immediate results than other measures, police depart-
ments that examined those alternatives in reaching decisions about patrolling
eventually discovered that they could contribute to the primary goal of reduc-
ing crime.
In assigning police patrols and formulating other policies, police admin-
istrators were frequently confronted with a fundamental problem. Attempts to
curb unlawful activities were guided either by programs to enhance police
officers’ efficiency or by plans to improve their relationship with the commu-
nity. Although many police chiefs found the former proposal especially attrac-
tive, the latter approach may have offered the most effective long-range means
of reducing crime. Furthermore, there were few techniques law enforcement
agencies could have employed in isolation, without strong public assistance
and cooperation, to accomplish that purpose. Although some evidence indi-
cated that a relatively short response time, or the prompt appearance of a police
officer at the scene of a crime, tended to increase the probability of making
an arrest, perhaps the most significant factor affecting the ability of the police
to solve a reported crime was the victim’s willingness to name a suspect.25
Instead of emphasizing technical proficiency, police departments seemed to
possess ample justification for assigning a high priority to the development of
public confidence in law enforcement officers.
The suggestion that police officers could be encouraged to live in the
neighborhoods they patrolled seemed to provoke unusual controversy. The
basic impetus for this proposal was the proposition that increased familiarity
with local residents might have enhanced effectiveness in the exercise of dis-
cretion. In the era of the old-style ethnic political machine, the proximity of
police officers may have enabled them, for example, to decide which drunk or
disorderly persons should be taken to jail and which should be sent home.
University professors need not live in student dormitories to work with un-
dergraduates (although some do). But police officers’ decisions are intimately

157
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

enmeshed in the family life of urban residents, and although other profession-
als might appear to have been in a better position to handle this type of
discretion, a principal thesis of this analysis is that personal sensitivity and a
genuine concern about the fate of urban neighborhoods may have comprised
more appropriate preparation for intervention in family matters and related
issues than formal educational credentials did.
It has also been argued that urban housing markets would have precluded
officers from living in the communities they patrolled. But that objection
simply focuses attention on issues concerning appropriate reimbursement
schedules and the type of individuals who could have been attracted to law
enforcement agencies.

POLICE PROFESSIONALIZATION
The principal effort to improve the effectiveness of police work was centered
in the growing movement toward “professionalization.” Although the concept
of police professionalism acquired a variety of meanings, again, the major
tenets of this doctrine seemed to include demands for higher salaries, ex-
tended training, technical resources, and similar improvements to increase
police officers’ capability to cope with crime. In many respects, the drive
toward professionalization reflected a natural response to growing pressures
both within law enforcement agencies and from the general population.
The trend toward police professionalism seemed to produce many desir-
able results. By seeking to raise the standards of law enforcement and to
upgrade the occupation generally, many police departments gained both higher
morale and a renewed awareness of the importance of their responsibilities.
Moreover, the notion of professionalism had been associated with a shift
from tough or violent police behavior to an approach that increasingly em-
phasized human relations in the conduct of law enforcement duties. Perhaps
most significant, the entrance of highly trained and qualified persons into the
field of law enforcement appeared to facilitate the removal of gross incompe-
tence and corruption in some police departments.
The desire to gain increasing professional status also had a strong impact
on police attitudes and behavior. A comparative investigation of the handling
of juvenile cases in two urban areas indicated, for example, that police profes-
sionalism seemed to promote the impartial treatment of white and black youths,
as well as the imposition of strict penalties according to legal rules rather than
through the exercise of personal discretion.26 Similarly, research in four Wis-
consin cities on police reactions to the 1966 Miranda decision found that the
degree of professionalization in police departments was related to approval of

158
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

the court decision and to its acceptance as a legitimate restraint on the exer-
cise of police power.27 The growth of professionalism apparently was associ-
ated with the expanding use of universalistic legal standards in police work.
Another study in several midwestern communities revealed that police
officers with a high level of professional commitment were more likely than
their less professionalized colleagues to reject extremist right-wing political
movements, to express favorable opinions of minority groups, to refrain from
using excessive force, and to avoid using racial or social class epitaphs in
describing the types of individuals against whom differential force might be
employed. The perspective of professional law enforcement officers, however,
did not seem to imply a complete renunciation of the need for physical force
in contacts with civilians. Whereas police officers with a relatively low degree
of professionalism tended to identify racial minorities and lower-class people
as the principal groups that might require the exercise of physical force, most
officers displaying strong professionalism applied that designation to people
they called “animals,” or known troublemakers who prevented the police from
performing their routine duties.28 The highly professionalized police officers
appeared to express intense resentment toward those who hampered or inter-
fered with what they considered their major responsibilities.
Although the attitudes of professional police officers seemed to reflect
some progress from the days when persons who were disrespectful toward
them were probably met with harsh physical force,29 the changes exerted by
police professionalism were also limited by several factors. Initially, the emer-
gence of a profession usually implied that the members of that occupation had
acquired an extensive body of knowledge about the proper performance of
their duties. In fact, the accumulated experience of years of police work,
especially in attempting to control crime, appeared to form a major impetus
for the drive toward professionalization among law enforcement officers. Yet
in some ways police forces apparently did not achieve great success in devel-
oping effective techniques to fulfill their self-imposed mission. As numerous
studies have demonstrated, the largest proportion of crimes known to the
police were not solved by the arrest—much less the conviction—of a suspect
in the case; nor were the police able to devise proven methods of preventing
or detecting illegal acts that were not reported to them by the public. Although
major advances were made in the efficiency of law enforcement operations,
the expertise of police forces alone apparently failed to produce a demon-
strable reduction in the crime rate.
In addition, the major elements of police professionalism appeared to
ignore one of the most critical features of the job. Like the practitioners of

159
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

law, medicine, and other occupations that gained the status of professions,
police officers had an unusually intimate relationship with clients, or criminal
suspects, on a continuous basis. People often confronted law enforcement
officers during some of the most traumatic moments of their lives, and indi-
viduals may have been compelled to divulge highly personal or confidential
information to explain their behavior. Moreover, the judgment of a police
officer in deciding to exercise his or her power of arrest or to refrain from its
use ultimately may have life-or-death implications for the suspect. Although
the criminal clients of law enforcement officers might be perceived as mem-
bers of an especially disreputable segment of the population, other profession-
als such as attorneys and physicians are also required to protect the fate of
persons who may appear to lack redeeming social attributes. Thus one would
have expected professional codes of police conduct to emphasize sensitivity
concerning the plight of the client, or suspect, and to foster an increased
awareness or appreciation of that client’s problems and needs.
Yet the principal thrust of police professionalization appeared to empha-
size an adversarial relationship. Relatively little attention was devoted to match-
ing the client’s interests with the requirements of the law or to determining
whether the suspect’s observance of the law would be enhanced or diminished
by different legal alternatives. In fact, the prevailing doctrine of police profession-
alism tended to stress the rigid—albeit impartial—application of statutory penal-
ties to any conduct that ran afoul of its specific provisions. Although this
approach may have promoted relatively strict standards of equity or fairness
in law enforcement, the primary focus seemed to reflect punitive objectives
rather than the development of a relationship of mutual confidence and re-
spect between clients and members of the profession.
Perhaps the most salient characteristic of the police professionalization
movement was a desire for increased self-governance. Again, just as doctors,
lawyers, and other professions earned the prerogative of establishing internal
processes of occupational discipline and control, a growing number of law
enforcement personnel also demanded the right to regulate their own opera-
tions without outside intervention. The simultaneous growth of police pro-
fessionalism and the emergence of intense opposition to the expression of
civilian grievances or influence, therefore, seemed more than coincidental.
Basic to a trend toward professionalization was a prevalent belief among
police officers that they should be exempt from external interference and that
they should be allowed to pursue their central mission—the prevention and
control of crime—according to their own practices and judged by their own
criteria.

160
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

Critics of police professionalism, however, noted several basic weaknesses

in the argument for self-regulation. Initially, this power was usually conferred
upon professions only after they devised successful methods of achieving goals
that gained the respect of both members of the profession and the general
public. Since the association between police practices and the reduction of
crime had not been demonstrated by careful research, many persons found it
difficult to accept police demands for the rights and privileges of a profession.
Furthermore, law enforcement officers apparently failed to develop effective
procedures governing one of the most crucial facets of police work: their
relationship to their clients. Many regarded the demands for professional
perquisites in the field of law enforcement, therefore, as premature.
Unlike members of most other established professions, police officers are
also public servants employed by governments to administer the laws enacted
by representatives of the people. Moreover, as the principal government agency
that translates abstract requirements of the social order into the specific con-
duct of community life, the police occupy a unique position in the structure
of political authority. Hence it might be argued that members of the public
and their political leaders should not have been denied the opportunity to
exercise some direction of police activities by granting law enforcement agen-
cies the authority to regulate their own affairs.
The growth of police professionalism may have enhanced isolation from
the public. Law enforcement agencies were frequently described as a “broth-
erhood” in which police officers were socialized by their colleagues to accept
the prevailing attitudes and beliefs of the organization. Both the strong bonds
of loyalty that exist in police departments and their capacity to induce ortho-
doxy or conformity in police behavior evoked serious doubts concerning efforts
to promote professionalization by reducing or eliminating external supervision.
Because police departments already possessed many characteristics of a self-
contained community, the granting of additional powers of self-governance to
law enforcement agencies might have enabled the police eventually to ignore
their responsibilities to the people and ultimately become a law unto themselves.30
Although the classification of police work as a craft, a trade, or a profes-
sion was the subject of extensive controversy, there appeared to be little doubt
that the trend toward professionalization was exerting a powerful impact on
the field of law enforcement. Perhaps the major conflict within police depart-
ments was represented by the antagonism that existed between the new doc-
trine of professionalism and the conventional values of what one writer called
the “system,” or a highly particularistic and fraternal structure of authority
within police organizations.31 As the traditional norms of police work were

161
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

challenged by growing professional aspirations, these opposing forces contin-

ued to produce serious tensions within law enforcement agencies.
In addition, police departments experienced severe disruptions as a re-
sult of another new movement, this one toward unionization. At the end of
the 1960s, many police officers appeared to be joining teachers, clerks, and
other municipal employees in an effort to preserve and expand their status
through collective bargaining agreements with local governments. Since the
functions of policemen and firemen were perhaps even more crucial for the
protection of the community than were the duties of other civil servants, the
emergence of police unions to some degree may have produced a major crisis
in urban politics. Moreover, there did not appear to be any obvious method
of safeguarding the interests of the public in the face of the somewhat contra-
dictory trends toward professionalization or unionization. Although Calvin
Coolidge was vaulted into national politics by his assertion during the 1919
Boston police strike that the police had no right to strike against public safety,
many fundamental issues regarding the control of law enforcement activities
by public officials seemed to remain essentially unresolved. As a result, the
emergence of new types of police forces, operating either as self-regulating
professions or as militant labor unions, appeared to raise critical questions
about the proper relationship between police officers and the public.

THE POLITICS OF POLICE DISCRETION

Although most of the changes or reforms proposed by police spokespersons
focused on the internal operations and characteristics of law enforcement
agencies, perhaps an even more important issue was the need for significant
modifications of police practices that affected their relationship with the com-
munity. Police officers were most effective when they received active popular
support and cooperation. The ability of law enforcement officers to perform
their basic duties historically depended upon a merger of public and police
sentiments. Perhaps one of the major steps that should have been taken to
gain public trust was to manage police discretion. Since officers in the lowest
ranks of police organizations usually had the widest range of alternative ac-
tions available to them, controversies arising from that authority were often a
major source of public contention and concern. Patrol officers were some-
times criticized both for engaging in unnecessarily hostile or abusive behavior
vis-à-vis some citizens and for neglecting to enforce the law against other
members of the community. Moreover, the exercise of discretionary power
frequently occurred in circumstances that were not amenable to effective sur-
veillance and control by either superior officers or the public. As a result, the

162
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

issue of police discretion was arguably one of the most troublesome and frus-
trating challenges for police administrators.
The problem of discretion was not only reflected by variations in police
practices within a single department, but it was also represented by divergent
police conduct in separate communities. Since the enactment of most crimi-
nal laws was a prerogative of the states and their enforcement was a local
responsibility, the principles of U.S. federalism could introduce wide discrep-
ancies into police behavior. Many cities, for example, acquired reputations
for police leniency or for their “wide-open” character, whereas other towns
were noted both for civic virtue and strict law enforcement. Although exten-
sive collaboration exists among national, state, and city law enforcement agen-
cies,32 governmental policies did not appear to provide a totally satisfactory
method of reconciling the inequities that may have resulted from local diver-
sity in police conduct. As a result, major changes were required to strengthen
the control of police discretion both within and between communities.
The tasks of managing police discretion and of gaining increased public
respect for the police appeared to indicate a need to situate law enforcement
activities increasingly within the broad contours of the policy-making pro-
cess. Law enforcement agencies could have received valuable assistance from
responsible spokespersons for the public in seeking to define their role in the
community. Many questions concerning the exercise of police authority might
have been more justifiably decided by public officials than by the cop on the
beat. Although police chiefs still encountered difficulties in their efforts to
supervise the actions of their officers and to produce comparable police prac-
tices in different cities, the adoption of local law enforcement policies could
at least have been submitted to established political processes for resolution in
the same manner other public issues were determined. Thus police adminis-
trators, political leaders, and members of the public—acting together—might
have been able to devise a body of general rules to guide police officers in
discharging their duties and in handling their contacts with citizens. As James
Q. Wilson has noted, in many situations “the patrolmen can be given a clear
statement about how to intervene even if not about whether to intervene.”33 By
attempting to delineate proper standards of public behavior insofar as pos-
sible, therefore, political authorities not only were capable of exercising in-
creased control over police discretion, but law enforcement officers might
have been relieved of many of the burdens and responsibilities produced by
the open-ended alternatives available to them.
In seeking to define appropriate limits of police discretion, policy makers
might have seriously considered removing major inequities in police protection

163
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

and services. Abstract standards of impartiality and fairness seemed to offer

little justification for law enforcement practices that conferred significant ben-
efits upon one city or sector of the community while producing severe disad-
vantages for another locality or segment of the population. Moreover, public
perceptions of those inequalities were often a major source of hostility and
criticism. Efforts to formulate increasingly specific and impartial guidelines
for the exercise of discretion, therefore, not only could have expanded the
public accountability of police departments, but they also might have en-
hanced public respect of and support for law enforcement functions.
In addition to providing relatively clear policy directives for law enforce-
ment officers, public officials may have faced a need to develop improved
methods of processing citizen grievances about police conduct. In many po-
lice departments, established channels that permitted the filing of complaints
by either police officers or members of the public seemed absent or ineffec-
tive. For example, according to a survey of 1,181 cities conducted in 1965,
only 40 percent of the communities had a formal grievance procedure for
employees, and only 35 percent had an informal process within their law
enforcement agencies.34 Perhaps most important, even though some police
departments had established internal mechanisms for handling complaints
from local residents at the time the complaints were made, only a few cities
such as Philadelphia and New York had experimented with police review
boards that included representatives of the public. Moreover, in those com-
munities that had adopted complaint procedures within police departments,
only a small proportion of the charges proffered by members of the commu-
nity seemed to result in disciplinary action. A study of grievances presented to
the Los Angeles Police Department, for example, indicated that only about 5
percent of complaints about excessive force were sustained by the department’s
Internal Affairs Division; but more than 80 percent of the charges of neglect
of duty, which emanated primarily from superior officers, were upheld by
internal investigations.35
As a result, many people concluded that law enforcement agencies were
unresponsive to community grievances, and they began to advocate the cre-
ation of civilian police review boards to evaluate complaints about police
behavior. The issue soon provoked a heated and political controversy. An
extensive national survey published in 1967 revealed that 45 percent of the
American people favored proposals for civilian review boards, 35 percent
were opposed, and 20 percent were undecided.36 Gradually, public attitudes
on this question seemed to reflect a growing polarization between the domi-
nant white community and minority groups. A study in Denver revealed that

164
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

only 47 percent of whites, in comparison with 73 percent of blacks and 71

percent of Mexican American residents, endorsed a plan for a civilian review
board there.37 This finding was confirmed by a major investigation of a New
York City referendum on a local civilian review board, which resulted in the
abolition of the board in 1967. According to a survey of 374 white voters in
Brooklyn, racial antagonism and disapproval of the civil rights movement
emerged as the most significant attitudinal index of public opposition to the
board.38
Despite the intense racial conflict that surrounded the issue, however,
civilian review boards were not used exclusively as an instrument of minority
groups. In fact, an examination of grievances reported to the New York
Civilian Complaint Review Board disclosed that complaints lodged by whites
frequently outnumbered those filed by black or Latino citizens. In addition,
the records of three privately sponsored complaint centers—deliberately lo-
cated in the center of slum neighborhoods in Los Angeles—revealed that
whites still lodged about 20 percent of the complaints, approximately 50
percent were made by black residents, and most of the remaining 30 percent
were filed by Mexican Americans.39 On the other hand, a report on the
Police Advisory Board in Philadelphia indicated that approximately five-eighths
of the grievances presented to that body were submitted by black complain-
ants, even though black residents comprised just slightly more than one-
fourth of the city’s population. Nonetheless, further analysis demonstrated
that nearly 40 percent of the grievances filed by men in Philadelphia were
brought by white males.40 The experience of civilian review boards, there-
fore, seemed to suggest that complaints about abusive police treatment were
not confined solely to minority groups; they also encompassed a segment of
the white population.
Although definitive evidence of police abuse has often been difficult to
gather or examine critically, detailed investigations of individual cases and the
reports of police review boards both seemed to indicate that such incidents
certainly occurred. Moreover, existing political structures seldom appeared to
offer citizens an adequate remedy for grievances concerning police miscon-
duct. Yet the conflict over the merits of civilian police review boards did not
result in their widespread adoption. Whereas most police officers continued
to fight the plan with exceptional vigor, many former supporters of the issue
also concluded that review boards were unsuccessful and ineffective.
Perhaps one major outcome of this controversy was suggested by the
President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice
when it concluded:

165
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

In going beyond the established legal procedures, the Commission finds it

unreasonable to single out the police as the only agency that should be
subjected to special scrutiny from the outside. The Commission, therefore,
does not recommend the establishment of civilian review boards in
jurisdictions where they do not exist, solely to review police conduct. The
police are only one of a number of official agencies with whom the public
has contact, and in some cases, because they are the most visible and
conspicuous representatives of local government, they may be the focus of
more attention than they deserve.41
Although it seems difficult to justify the conclusion that the police had
been the object of undue concern, the general thrust of this statement seemed
to contain some validity. In many respects, the commission’s recommenda-
tion appeared to argue for the appointment of an ombudsman, or an office
designed to facilitate citizen grievances against all government bureaus, rather
than to reject civilian review boards. Perhaps a pressing mandate had emerged
for an expanded means of processing public complaints not only concerning
police behavior but also regarding the conduct of other administrative bodies.
Moreover, as a public agency that constantly mingles with the community and
that occupies a uniquely critical position in the relationship between the people
and abstract political authority, the necessity for public supervision of police
departments seemed especially compelling. Even though civilian review boards
may not have been the most efficient mechanisms for accomplishing this
purpose, the obligation to develop effective methods of resolving public griev-
ances about the police and other political institutions has remained a crucial
responsibility of city governments.
The problems that confronted urban police officers, therefore, did not
appear to support continuing efforts to divorce the police from both the pub-
lic and political supervision. In fact, they seemingly indicated a need to make
law enforcement operations an integral part of the policy-making process.
Public officials encountered a growing need not only to provide relatively
clear and consistent guidelines for the exercise of discretionary police author-
ity but also to institute improved methods of satisfying citizen complaints
about police behavior. As a result, the relationship between the police and
political leaders also seemed to assume increasing importance in the conduct
of law enforcement duties.

CONCLUSION
Numerous studies conducted in communities throughout the United States
found that the largest proportion of calls police received from private citizens
did not involve crimes or illegal activities; they were usually requests for per-

166
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

sonal aid or assistance. Interestingly, despite the large quantity of their time
consumed by this function, police officers often viewed such work as an un-
warranted interference with their principal objective of fighting crime. As
William H. Parker, the late Los Angeles Police chief, once stated:
I’m a policeman, not a social worker. . . . Law enforcement officers are
neither equipped nor authorized to deal with broad social problems. We do
not control economic cycles; we are not equipped to deal with racial,
religious, or political prejudice; we are not arbiters of right or wrong. In
short, we are not healers of social ills. Our job is to apply emergency
treatment to society’s surface wounds; we deal with effects, not causes.42

As a result, many police officers considered community service tasks—which

they did perform—solely as a means of familiarizing themselves with their patrol
districts or as a method of gaining information that might be helpful in solving
crimes. Many law enforcement officers regarded service activities as inappropri-
ate or demeaning; consequently, they frequently sought to avoid such duties.
There appeared to be no sensible justification for deemphasizing com-
munity service functions in police work. Much research demonstrated that
the basic sources of crime can be traced to fundamental social and economic
conditions rather than to individual propensities. The major police objective
of combating lawlessness may have been achieved more effectively by attempt-
ing to eradicate the origins of crime rather than by expanding the ability of
the police to punish illegal conduct. An increased emphasis on the perfor-
mance of community services might have constituted one of the most valu-
able contributions police departments could have made to ameliorate press-
ing social problems and to the eventual reduction of crime. In addition, police
officers appeared to lack a clear moral criteria for assigning a higher priority
to arresting a criminal suspect than to transporting an injured person to a
hospital.
The ethical issues police officers faced were complex, and they might
reasonably have expected assistance from policy makers in resolving those
questions. Although communities may have eventually decided that law en-
forcement agencies should devote their attention to fighting crime rather than
to providing services, this judgment might at least have been formulated as an
explicit public policy after alternatives were carefully assessed by representa-
tives of the public and political leaders, as well as by police officers.
In addition, an emphasis on community services would probably have
necessitated major administrative or organizational changes. At the time cov-
ered by this research, most police departments were divided into units such
as homicide, burglary, and narcotics, which signified their relatively limited

167
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

focus concerning the goal of fighting crime. A more realistic administrative

structure that would have reflected the actual distribution of police officers’
work and that might have enabled them to utilize their specialized talents in a
reorganized community service agency, therefore, might have consisted of
bureaus such as medical assistance, family problems, and similar divisions. In
addition, intensive efforts could have been launched to improve police de-
partments’ capability to refer specific cases to other government agencies.
Although many people may have argued that other bureaucracies might be
better equipped than law enforcement agencies to process community ser-
vices, at least two characteristics of the police—their availability and their
accessibility—could have been cited in defense of continuing to include those
activities within the purview of police departments rather than redistributing
them elsewhere. Since police officers circulated throughout the community
twenty-four hours a day, they could be dispatched almost instantaneously to
any location where personal help or assistance was needed. Police officers
were indeed in a unique position to provide services to the community that
no other branch of government was capable of offering. Unfortunately, their
inability to recognize that fact ultimately led to the disintegration of public
confidence and trust from which the police have yet to fully recover.

NOTES
1. Sidney L. Harring, Policing a Class Society: The Experience of American Cities,
1865–1915 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983).
2. Mark Dantzker, Understanding Today’s Police (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1995);
Michael Tonry and Norval Morris, eds., Modern Policing (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1992).
3. Robert W. Clawson and David L. Norrgard, “National Responses to Problems of
Urban Crime: The Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States,” in
Harlan Hahn, ed., The Police in Urban Society (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1971), 71–93.
4. George E. Berkeley, The Democratic Policemen (Boston: Beacon, 1969), 2.
5. Harlan Hahn, “The Public and the Police: A Theoretical Perspective,” in Harlan
Hahn, ed., The Police in Urban Society (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1971), 9–33; Samuel
Walker, The Police in America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992).
6. Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Career Orientations, Job Satisfaction, and the Assessment of
Law Enforcement Problems by Police Officers,” in Studies in Crime and Law Enforce-
ment in Major Metropolitan Areas (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
1967), vol. 2, 7–12.
7. Albert J. Reiss Jr., “Public Perceptions and Recollections About Crime, Law
Enforcement, and Criminal Justice,” in Studies in Crime and Law Enforcement in Major
Metropolitan Areas (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), vol. 1, 55,
57.

168
 Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

8. Bureau of Justice Statistics, State and Local Police Departments, 1990 (Washing-
ton, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1992), table 11. For a review of the earlier
data, see Samuel Walker, The Police in America: An Introduction, 2d ed. (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1992), 303–323.
9. Janis Appier, “Gender and Justice: Women Police in America, 1910–1946.”
PhD diss., University of California at Riverside, 1993.
10. Michael J. Palmiotto, Policing: Concepts, Strategies, and Current Issues in Ameri-
can Police Forces (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1997).
11. Edith Linn and Barbara Raffel Price, “The Evolving Role of Women in Ameri-
can Policing,” in Abraham S. Blumberg and Elaine Niederhoffer, eds., The Ambivalent
Force: Perspectives on the Police (Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1985),
69–79.
12. National Center for Women and Policing, on the World Wide Web
<www.feminist.org/police/newpabout.Html>.
13. Nicholas Alex, Black in Blue: A Study of the Negro Policeman (New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969), 20; W. Marvin Dulaney, Black Police in America
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996).
14. Joel D. Aberbach and Jack L. Walker, “The Attitudes of Blacks and Whites
Toward City Services: Implications for Public Policy,” in John P. Crecine, ed., Financing
the Metropolis: Public Policy in Urban Economies (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1970), 536–537.
15. See, for example, Charles L. Newman and Dorothy Sue Hunter, “Education
for Careers in Law Enforcement: An Analysis of Student Output, 1964–1967,” Jour-
nal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science 59 (March 1968): 138–143.
16. J. Robert Havlick, “Recruit Training: Police Chief ’s Dilemma,” Public Manage-
ment 50 (December 1968): 300–303.
17. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,
Task Force Report: The Police (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967),
142.
18. Joseph D. Lohman and Gordon E. Misner, The Police and the Community
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), vol. 2, 162; R. Roberg and J.
Kuykendall, Police and Society (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1993).
19. Reiss, “Career Orientations,” 57–61.
20. Lohman and Misner, Police and the Community, vol. 2, 51.
21. Ibid., vol. 1, 161.
22. Peter H. Rossi, Richard A. Berk, David P. Boesel, Bettye K. Eidson, and W.
Eugene Groves, “Between White and Black: The Faces of American Institutions in the
Ghetto,” in Supplemental Studies for the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 113.
23. Ibid.
24. James Q. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1968), 61–62.
25. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,
The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1967), 247–248; see also the commission’s Task Force Report: Science and Tech-
nology (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 92–93.

169
Conclusion: Police, Politics, and the Community

26. James Q. Wilson, “The Police and the Delinquent in Two Cities,” in James Q.
Wilson, ed., City Politics and Public Policy (New York: John Wiley, 1968), 173–195.
27. Neal Milner, “Comparative Analysis of Patterns of Compliance With Supreme
Court Decisions: ‘Miranda’ and the Police in Four Communities,” Law and Society
Review 5 (August 1970): 119–134; Neal Milner, “Some Common Themes in Police
Responses to Legal Change,” in Harlan Hahn, ed., The Police in Urban Society (Beverly
Hills: Sage, 1971), 247–262; see also Robert R. Afford, Bureaucracy and Participation
(Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969), 144–146.
28. James Leo Walsh, “Professionalism and the Police: The Cop as Medical Stu-
dent,” American Behavioral Scientist 13 (May-June-July-August 1970): 705–725.
29. William A. Westley, “Violence and the Police,” American Journal of Sociology 59
(July 1953): 34–41; P. Fiedling, The Police and Social Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality
(London: Athlore, 1998); S. Eitzen, In Conflict and Order (Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
1993).
30. Harlan Hahn, “Local Variations in Urban Law Enforcement,” in Peter Orleans
and William Russell Ellis Jr., eds., Race, Change, and Urban Society (Beverly Hills: Sage,
1971), 373–400.
31. Terrence J. Fitzgerald, Police in Society (New York: H. H. Wilson, 2000).
32. Morton Groodzins, The American System (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966),
89–124.
33. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior, 65.
34. “Municipal Personnel Data,” in 1966 Municipal Yearbook (Chicago: Interna-
tional City Manager’s Association, 1966), 179–181.
35. American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Law Enforcement: The
Matter of Redress (Los Angeles: Institute of Modern Legal Thought, 1969), 21–23.
36. Philip H. Ennis, Criminal Victimization in the United States (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 64.
37. David H. Bayley and Harold Mendelson, Minorities and the Police (New York:
Free Press, 1969), 134.
38. David W. Abbott, Louis H. Gold, and Edward T. Rogowsky, Police, Politics,
and Race: The New York City Referendum on Civilian Review (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1969), 35–41.
39. Algernon D. Black, The People and the Police (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968),
240–241.
40. American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Law Enforcement, 55–
56.
41. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,
Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, 103.
42. O. W. Wilson, ed., Parker on Police (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1957),
12.

170
 Index

Index

Adams, Thomas F., 71 113–15, 116, 143; fear of crime among,

Administrators, 79, 84 100, 102; as neighborhood patrol officers,
Admission, exclusion of, 49 86–87; and patrolling techniques, 128–
African Americans. See Blacks 29; in police departments, 125–26; as
American Bar Foundation, 45 police officers, 152, 153; police treatment
An American Dilemma (Myrdal), 125 of, 75–76, 115, 124–25, 126–27, 129–
Ames, Alfred Elisha, 6 30; racial prejudice and, 130–32,
Antiwar demonstrations, 10 145(n28); urban rebellions and, 123–
Arrest(s), 19, 21, 46, 48, 51, 56, 76; and 24; urban violence and, 132–40
confession, 49–50; differential use of, Boston, 3, 4, 6, 7, 151, 155, 162; police-
107–8; power of, 39–44; for public citizen interactions, 72, 75, 76, 99, 103–
intoxication, 57–58; resisting, 74–75; for 4; police misconduct in, 8, 90; public
vagrancy, 58–59; for vice, 53–55 attitudes in, 108, 111, 112; public fear
Assault and battery: on police, 74–75; victims in, 100, 101
of, 22–23 Brooklyn, 100, 108, 112
Assistance, police role in, 25–26
Atlanta, 8, 111 California, 4, 46, 49–50, 55. See also Los
Attorneys, 40, 50, 51 Angeles; San Diego; San Francisco
Authority, 57, 85, 99; discretionary, 71–77; Chicago, 4, 25, 49, 78, 81, 151, 155; black
exercise of, 23–25, 28, 39, 90–91, 92; police officers in, 125, 126; Democratic
patrolling and, 128–29; riot control and, Party convention in, 10, 142; police-
139–40, 141 citizen interactions, 72, 75, 76, 97, 99,
Autonomy, of police departments, 11–12 103–4; police misconduct in, 8, 90;
public attitudes in, 108, 111, 112;
Baby boom, 9 public fear in, 100, 101
Baltimore, 4, 8, 100 Children, 25
Bedford-Stuyvesant, 112 Chilton, Richard, 52–53
Behavior: deviant, 22–23; of police, 7, 70; Citations, traffic, 59–60
police authority and, 24–25 Citizens. See Public
Black Panther Party, 140 Civil demonstrations, 23
Blacks, xi, 9, 45, 78, 101, 143; attitudes Civil disorder, xi, 5; plans for, 138–39. See
toward police, 98, 104, 110, 111–12, also Urban violence

171
Index

Civil liberties, protection of, 110–11 Demonstrations, antiwar, 10

Civil rights, 130–31, 145(n28) Denver, 75, 90, 100, 104, 111, 113, 130;
Civil Rights Act (1964), 152 civil rights in, 131, 145(n28); differential
Civil service system, 8 protection in, 115–16; review boards,
Civil War, 5 164–66
Clearance rates, 33 Depression, 8
Cleveland, 115, 140 Detention, 20, 49
Commission on Law Enforcement and Deterrence, 18, 30–31
Administration of Justice, 20, 21, 25 Detroit, 25, 44, 45, 53, 58, 100, 108, 143;
Communication, technological improvement public attitudes in, 112, 115; racial
in, 128 attitudes in, 130–31, 153; urban violence
Conduct, police, 69 in, 133, 137, 139–40, 141
Confessions, 48; Supreme Court decisions Disciplinary actions, 83
and, 50–53; voluntary, 49–50 Discretion: police use of, 71–77, 162–66;
Conservatism, 87–88 preventive patrolling and, 129–30
Convictions, arrest and, 40 Discrimination: police procedures and, 112–
Coolidge, Calvin, 162 13, 126–27; in protection, 114–16
Cooperation, citizen, 104, 105–6 Disorderly conduct, 21, 56–57
Corruption, 6, 10, 14–15(n40), 90; public Disrespect, for police, 24
perceptions of, 108–11 District of Columbia. See Washington, D.C.
Courtesy, 7 Domestic disputes, 23, 28
Courts, 39; public intoxication charges, 57– Draft riots, New York City, 5
58; vagrancy cases, 58–59 Drunkenness. See Public intoxication
Crime, 2, 18, 19, 56; police response to, 116– Due process, 50
17; preventing or controlling, 29–33, Duties, of police officers, xi, 17–18
128–29; public fear of, 99–103;
reporting, 32–33, 36(n45), 62, 127; vice, Economics, police officers and, 79–80
53–55 Education, of police officers, 9, 78–79, 153–
Crime Commission. See Commission on Law 54
Enforcement and Administration of Effectiveness, measuring, 33
Justice Emergency calls, 26
Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, 10 Employment, public, 79–80
Crime fighting, as police duty, 17–18 Equal rights, blacks and, 130–31
Crime prevention, 12–13 Escobedo v. Illinois, 50
Crime rates, 30, 43, 114; patrolling and, Ethics, police, 89–90
128–29; reporting and, 32–33, 127 Ethnic conflict, 3, 5
Crimes against property, 19 Ethnic groups, and police forces, 6–7. See also
Crimes against the person, 19 Minorities
Crime scenes, authority over, 23 Evaluation, of law enforcement, 33–34
Crime statistics, 32 Evidence, obtaining, 47, 48
Crimes without victims, preventing, 21–22. Exclusionary rule, 44, 45, 46; police
See also Vice procedures and, 47–48
Crime waves, 9
Culture, and social conduct, 110 Family issues, police and, 26, 28
Favoritism, 8
Daley, Richard, 10 FBI. See Federal Bureau of Investigation
Dallas, 100 Fear, public, 99–103
Deaths, 74 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 32
Defendants, 40 Felonies, arrest for, 40, 41, 46
Democratic Party National Convention, 10, 142 Field interrogation, 43–44, 45

172
 Index

Force, use of, 24, 74–75 Law enforcement, ix–x, 2, 7; arrests and, 41–
Fourteenth Amendment, 47 43; evaluation of, 33–34; proper role of,
Fourth Amendment, 44, 50, 53 149–50; research on, 17–18; urban, 3–
Fraternal Order of Police, 82 6; urban violence and, 132–40
Friendships, police officers’, 81–82 Law Enforcement Assistance Administration
Frisking, 45, 53, 128 (LEAA), 10–11; on reporting crime, 32–
Fugelson, Robert, 130 33
Laws, differential enforcement of, 73, 106–8,
Gambling, 6, 53, 54 109–10
Germans, 6 LEAA. See Law Enforcement Assistance
Golden rule procedure, 58 Administration
Goldwater, Barry, 2 Legal counsel, rights to, 50, 51
Government, police force and, 1–2 Legal system, enforcement of law and, 41, 143
Graft, 6, 8 Life, protection of, 19, 20, 28
Guidelines, police department, 72 Lomasny, Martin, 7
Guilty pleas, 40, 50–51 London, 1, 3
Los Angeles, xii, 165; police behavior in, 70,
Harlem, 112, 114 74; police misconduct in, 8, 112; urban
Health services, request for, 25 violence in, 132–33
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 87 Los Angeles Police Departments, 45, 152,
Homosexuals, 89 164; psychiatric evaluations in, 90–91
Human nature, police distrust of, 70–71 Lower-class, treatment by police, 109–11
Lower-middle class, 76, 77–78
Immigrants, police departments and, 6–7 Low-income areas, 43, 114
Indictment, 48 Loyalty, police, 82–83
Informants, informer system, 54–55
Inner-city communities, policing in, 127–28 McFadden, Martin, 52–53
Integration, 125–26, 129, 130 McNabb-Mallory rule, 58
Internal Affairs Divisions, 164 Magistrates, 48
Interrogation, 20, 48 Mapp v. Ohio, 46–47
Investigation, arrest for, 48, 49, 55 Massachusetts State Supreme Court, 87
Irish, 6, 7 Memphis, 103
Irish Mafia, New York police department as, 6 Metropolitan Police Force (London), 3
Mexican Americans, 111, 113, 116, 165. See
Johnson, Lyndon B., 10, 20 also Latinos
Judges, 40 Michigan, 131–32, 141
Judiciary, 39, 41, 49 Middle class, 57, 107, 109, 114
Juvenile crimes, 56 Migration, south-north, 9, 125
Milwaukee, 6, 8, 45
Kansas City (Mo.), 8, 10, 20, 30 Minneapolis, 6
Kelling, George L., 21 Minorities, xi, xii–xiii, 45, 74, 78, 129; in
Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders, 141, law enforcement, 151–52; police
145(n22) departments in, 125–26; police treatment
Killings, by police, 74 of, 75, 115–16, 123, 124–25
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 136 Miranda v. Arizona, 51–52; responses to,
King, Rodney, xii 158–59
Knapp Commission, 10 Misconduct, 8, 90; accusations of, 83–84
Misdemeanors, 40, 46
Language, used by officers, 88–89 Mistreatment, police, 111–14
Latinos, 9, 104, 152, 165 Mobilizations, citizen or police-initiated, 71–72

173
Index

Moral consensus, 7 Patrol officers, 104, 127; assignments of,

Morale, professionalization and, 84–85 155–56; attitudes toward citizens, 97–98;
Morality, 89–90, 107; urban fear and, 100– blacks as, 86–87; neighborhoods and, 86,
101 157–58
Myrdal, Gunnar, 124; An American Dilemma, Patronage, 6, 7
125 Peel, Robert, 1
Pennsylvania, 50
Narcotics laws, 47; violations of, 54–55 Personal freedom, 99
Nassau County (N.Y.), 57 Personal issues, 26
National Advisory Commission on Civil Philadelphia, 4, 6, 8, 59, 75, 126, 156;
Disorders, 114 police conservatism in, 87–88; police
National Commission on Crime, 26, 30, 32, review boards, 164, 165
44 Police Advisory Board (Philadelphia), 165
National Commission on Law Observance and Police Appraisal and Review Boards, 42
Enforcement. See Wickersham Commis- Police brutality, 7–8, 74, 75; charges of, 112,
sion 113
National Commission on the Causes and Police chiefs, 72
Prevention of Violence, 10, 142–43 Police departments, xi, 1, 24, 57, 72;
Neighborhoods, 111; interactions in, 85–86; accountability of, 150–51; conservatism
crime rates in, 114, 127; patrol officers of, 87–88; crime fears and, 102–3; crime
and, 86–87, 155–58; police and, 7, 8; prevention and deterrence and, 31–32;
public fear in, 100–101 differential treatment by, 114–16;
Newark, 100, 134 increased budgets for, 154–55; integration
New Jersey, 50 of, 125–26; modernizing, 10–11;
New Orleans, 4, 6, 75, 76, 89, 90 operation styles of, 60–61; organization
New Orleans Police Department, 79, 80, 87, of, 3–6; politics of, 6–8; professionaliza-
89 tion of, 84–85; public interactions, 85–
New York City, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 47, 78, 86; rules and regulations of, 82–83;
81, 111, 164; police solidarity in, 82, service and, 25–27, 166–68; urban
83 violence and, 132–40
New York City Police Academy, graduates of, Police officers, ix, xii, 45, 47; attitudes toward,
77–78 143–44; attitudes toward citizens of, 69–
New York City Police Department, 8, 83, 84, 71, 97–98, 118(n7), 119(n19),
89, 97–98 145(n22); authority function of, 23–25,
New York Civilian Complaint Review Board, 92; black, 125–26; and black rebellion,
165 123–24; citizen interactions with, 56–57,
Night watchmen, 3 75–77, 103–6, 109–10, 126–27, 133–
Nonenforcement, 42, 43 34; conflicting functions of, 27–29; as
conservative, 87–88; crime prevention
Oakland, 22, 68 and, 29–33; discretion of, 71–77, 162–
Obscenities, police officer use of, 89 63; duties of, xi, 17–18; education of,
Order, maintaining public, 20–23 78–79; exercising authority, 90–91;
Organized crime, in Kansas City (Mo.), 10 government and, 1–2; immigrants and,
6–7; job security and, 79–80; and
Parker, William H., 70, 167 minorities, 124–25; minority neighbor-
Patrolling, 19, 20, 127; active, 155–56; in hoods and, xii–xiii; Miranda rules and,
high crime areas, 128–29; police 51, 52; order function of, 20–23;
discretion and, 129–30; preventive, 42– personal characteristics of, 88–90; power
43, 114–15 of arrest and, 40–44; preventive
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, 82 patrolling, 42–43; professionalization of,

174
 Index

8–9, 11–12; protection function, 18–20, services for, 26–27; and urban violence,
34; psychiatric evaluation of, 90–91; 135–36, 139–40
racial prejudice and, 130–32; recruitment Public intoxication, 4, 28, 57–58
and selection of, 151–58; review boards Public order, 91; preserving, 4–5, 21–23, 28
and, 163–66; roles of, 2–3, 4–5, 12–13; Public space, authority in, 23–24
service function of, 25–27, 166–68; Public spending, and police departments,
social class of, 77–78; solidarity of, 81– 154–55
87; training, 80–81
Police procedures, practices, 49; discretion Race, 78; and attitudes toward police, 113–14,
and, 162–66; discrimination in, 112– 153; conflicts and, 123–24; equality
113, 114–15, 126–27; exclusionary rule issues of, 130–31, 145(n28); neighbor-
and, 47–48; politics and, 60–63; public hood patrolling and, 86–87; and review
intoxication arrests, 57–58; Supreme boards, 164–65
Court decisions and, 50–53; traffic Racism: police attitudes and, 75–76, 130–32;
violations, 59–60; and urban violence, police procedures and, 112–13
133–35; vagrancy and, 58–59 Raids, 54
Police riots, 142 Recruitment, 8; education and, 78–79; of
Police strikes, 30, 162 officers, 151–58; social class and, 77–78
Political machines, immigrants and, 6–7 Reiss, Albert J., Jr., 130
Politics, 2, 8, 10; police autonomy and, 11– Reports, criminal complaint, 42
12; discretionary power and, 162–66; Report writing, 26
police departments and, 6–8, 60–63; Republic of New Africa, 140
police officers and, 87–88 Research, on law enforcement, 17–18
Portland, 100 Review boards, need for, 164–66
Prejudice, racial, 130–32. See also Discrimina- Riots, 5, 23, 142; police department plans for,
tion; Racism 138–39. See also Urban violence
President’s Commission on Law Enforcement Rules and regulations, 82
and Administration of Justice, 114–15,
128, 130, 136, 143, 165–66 St. Louis, 6
Prestige, of police work, 79, 97 Salaries, of police officers, 153
Professionalization, professionalism, 27, 56; San Diego, police-community relations in,
impacts of, 84–85, 158–62; and 98–99, 134
patrolling tactics, 128–29; police, 8–10, San Francisco, 8
11–12 San Francisco Vigilance Committee, 4
Prohibition, 8 Search and seizure, 44, 45, 46, 53
Property, protection of, 3, 4, 19–20, 28 Search warrants, 45, 46
Prostitution, 6, 53, 55 Secrecy, community interaction and, 85
Protection, 34; discrimination and, 114–16; Security, of public employment, 79–80
police duty as, 18–20, 28, 29–33 Self-defense, need for, 101–2
Psychiatric evaluation, of police, 90–91 Self-esteem, of police officers, 80
Public, 44, 73–74, 92, 97, 160, 161; and Self-governance, police professionalization and,
differential enforcement of law, 106–8; 160–61
fear of crime among, 99–103; distancing Serpico, Frank, 10
the, 85–86; perceptions of police, ix, 1–3, Service(s), 28; community, 7, 12–13, 25–27,
98–99, 117–18; police attitudes toward, 29, 61, 166–68
69–71, 97–98, 119(n119); police Social class: police recruitment and, 77–78;
contact with, 71–72, 75–77, 103–6; and and police treatment, 76–77, 89, 108,
police departments, 150–51; on police 109–11
mistreatment, 111–14; power of arrest by, Social conduct, class and, 110
39–40; on review boards, 164–65; Social discontent, 142. See also Urban violence

175
Index

Social life, police and, 81–82 patrolling in, 155–56; public fear in,
Social order, 4 100–101
Social workers, 7 Urban violence, x, xi–xii; components of, 130,
Solicitation, 55 132–40; prevention of, 140–41
Solidarity, among police officers, 81–87
South Central Los Angeles, 114 Vagrancy, 58–59
Steffens, Lincoln, 7 Vice, arrests for, 53–55
Students, antiwar protests, 10 Victims, 19, 22–23, 62
Subordinates (employees), and superiors, 82– Vietnam War, 10
84 Vigilantes, 4
Superiors (supervisors), and subordinates, Violence, 5, 23, 130; police, xii, 10; racial,
82–84 123–24. See also Urban violence
Supreme Court, 63; on confessions, 48, 49,
50–53; search and seizure laws, 44, 45, 47 Washington, D.C., 4, 48, 112, 151, 155;
Suspects, confessions by, 49–50 police-citizen interactions in, 72, 75, 76,
Suspicion: arrests for, 44, 48; police posture 104; police misconduct in, 8, 90; public
of, 70–71, 92; reasonable, 52–53 attitudes in, 98, 99
Syracuse, 57 Watts, 112, 113; urban violence in, 132–33,
Syracuse Police Department, 25 134
Weapons, 3, 101
Terry, John, 52–53 Wells, Alice Stebbins, 152
Terry v. Ohio, 52–53 Whalen, Grover, 7
Thomas, Timothy, xii Whites, 45, 78, 86, 101, 102, 165; attitudes
Traffic offenses, deaths associated with, 74 toward police of, 99, 104, 105, 110,
Traffic regulation, 20 111–12, 113, 116; minorities and, 124–
Traffic violations: police-citizen interactions and, 25, 129; police treatment of, 75–76, 113;
104–5; police procedures and, 59–60 on racial issues, 130–32
Training, of police officers, 9, 80–81 Wichita, 45
Transportation, technological improvement in, Wickersham Commission, 2, 7–8, 14–
128–29 15(n40)
Wilson, James Q., 21
Uniform Crime Reports (FBI), 32 Wiretaps, 47
U.S. Congress, on urban violence, 141 Wisconsin, Miranda responses in, 158–59
Unlawful arrest, 44 Women, as police officers, 152–53
Upper class, police treatment of, 76 Working class, 57, 89; interactions with police
Urbanization, 9; law enforcement and, 3–6 by, 110–11; police recruitment and, 77–
Urban sector, 43, 115; disorder in, x, xi–xii; 78
neighborhood patrol officers, 86–87; World War II, 8

176