Shades of Blue
Practice and Possibility in Policing
Preliminary Edition
Edited by Christine Ivie
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Shades of Blue
PRACTICE AND
POSSIBILITY IN POLICING
Preliminary Edition
Edited by Christine Ivie
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
Contents
SECTION ONE: INNOVATIONS
1
What the Police Do: Evolving Innovation in Police Work
By Christine Ivie
3
The Scientific Policeman
By August Vollmer
7
Police Arrest Privileges in a Free Society: A Plea for Modernization
By O.W. Wilson
11
Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety
By George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson
21
Improving Policing: A Problem-Oriented Approach
By Herman Goldstein
33
Third-Party Policing: A Theoretical Analysis of an Emerging Trend
By Michael E. Buerger and Lorraine Green Mazerolle
53
Crime Prevention and the Built Environment:
Classical Theories of Place-Based Crime Prevention
By Richard H. Schneider and Ted Kitchen
Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas
By Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay
SECTION TWO: INCORPORATION
Who the Police Are: Examining Development in Officer Recruitment
By Christine Ivie
Not Your Father’s Police Department: Making Sense
of the New Demographics of Law Enforcement
By David Alan Sklansky
75
101
141
143
147
The Effectiveness of Affirmative Action: The Case of Women in Policing
By Susan E. Martin
167
College Education and Police Job Performance: A Ten-Year Study
By Donald M. Truxillo, Suzanne R. Bennett, and Michelle L. Collins
181
White, Black, or Blue Cops?: Race and Citizen
Assessments of Police Officers
By Ronald Weitzer
SECTION THREE: INJUSTICE
How the Police Foster Injustice: Acting Extralegally
Under the Mantle of Discretion
By Christine Ivie
191
209
211
The Dirty Harry Problem
By Carl B. Klockars
213
Training to Reduce Police-Civilian Violence
By James J. Fyfe
227
Race, Crime, and Injustice
By Gloria Browne-Marshall
241
Racial Profiling Under Attack
By Samuel R. Gross and Debra Livingston
281
SECTION FOUR: INSECURITY
305
What the Police Do: Evolving Innovation in Police Work
By Christine Ivie
307
Questioning Surveillance and Security
By Torin Monahan
309
Everyday Insecurities: The Microbehavioral Politics of
Intrusive Surveillance
By Nancy D. Campbell
329
Militarizing Mayberry and Beyond:
Making Sense of American Paramilitary Policing
By Peter B. Kraska and Louis J. Cubellis
345
The Security Industry and the Public School Market
By Ronnie Casella
365
Community Policing: A Conceptual Framework
By Willard M. Oliver and Elaine Bartgis
375
SECTION ONE:
INNOVATIONS
What the Police Do
Evolving Innovation in Police Work
By Christine Ivie
“Every kind of peaceful cooperation
among men is primarily based on mutual
trust and only secondarily on institutions
such as courts of justice and police.”
–Albert Einstein
I always begin my teaching of law enforcement by engaging the students in discussion
of their perceptions of the policing mandate.
Determining the core and standard precepts of
this mission provides a requisite foundation for
our exploration of police practices and pursuant
issues. In addition to establishing what, precisely,
the police do, the laying of such groundwork
facilitates successive theorizing as to why such
actions occur. Understanding the policing function within a democratic society and its myriad
manifestations, both actual and potential, is of
critical importance in studying law enforcement.
For this reason, the inaugural and, incidentally,
the lengthiest section of readings in this text examines notable, if not always novel, evinced
historical changes in the American policing
directive. This extensively studied chronology
has been divided into discrete epochs, with lawenforcement scholars somewhat divergent in
their partitioning of these distinctive eras. In accordance with my pedagogy, I compartmentalize
these policing annals into four paradigms: political, professional, community, and homeland
security. Though none of the included readings
speak exclusively to the political era, both reform
and reintegration of the fundamental principles
of this era factor significantly into many of the
collected articles herein.
I open this introductory chapter with
Einstein’s observation that the police, alone,
prove insufficient in establishing and maintaining the public peace. This assertion seemingly
underscores the necessity of community participation in actualizing social control. Yet what are
the best practices for police enlistment of citizen
involvement? Answers have varied in tandem
with the different policing paradigms. However,
as avowed by Eugene Daschle in his treatise on
criminal justice reform, much circularity can be
discerned in practice and premise throughout
the history of American law enforcement. As an
example, despite garnering substantial criticism
for rampant corruption, it was during the political era that officers first performed the practices
of foot patrol and warding the homeless, today
regarded as indispensable and routine procedure.
Indeed, the seeds of the current community
policing age appear to have been sown during
What the Police Do | 3
4 | Issues in Policing
the very inception of formalized policing in the
United States!
Within this reader, the survey of American
policing mandates commences with an article
authored by the foremost figure of professional
policing, August Vollmer. “Father of modern
law enforcement” in the United States, former
Berkley Police Chief, and late college professor,
Vollmer championed the indispensability of
education and technology in revolutionizing
policing. His initiatives amply attest to these dual
and complementary commitments. Mandating
that principles of science guide policing and that
his officers hold college degrees, he is credited
with establishing criminal justice as an academic
field. In addition to scholarly instruction of
officers, Vollmer instituted in- service training
for officers, a marked departure from policing
preparation during the political era. His introduction of various technologies, including
motorized patrol, radio dispatch, and centralized
record keeping, have been internalized as intrinsic to maximizing the efficacy and efficiency of
police work. However, the aversion to change
cultivated within the police subculture has impeded successful implementation of such reforms
throughout the generations. Although written
nearly a century ago, Vollmer’s essay eloquently
elucidates this enduring and detrimental attitude
that prompted resistance during the professional
era to incorporation of technology into police
work. As the fourth and final section of this
reader reveals, present-day police perceive technology as more beneficial than baneful. However,
as denoted elsewhere within this chapter and in
the two that follow, officer resistance to reform
persists, and the consequences of such obstinacy
remain potentially calamitous.
Officer education and the use of technology
lauded by Vollmer tangibly curtailed the police
corruption that was so rife during the political
era. While the former instructed officers on
how to appropriately exercise their immense
discretion, the latter established mechanisms
of accountability to monitor behavior. In addition to these two professional policing staples,
that of administrative regulation emerged as
an apparatus to further define and check police
authority. The void of official police guidelines
that characterized the “spoils” era was supplanted
during the professional period with zealous,
perhaps obsessional, rulemaking. The resulting
and ardent bureaucratization of the policing
craft entailed depersonalization by and of the
police. The second article in this chapter features
commentary provided by another professional
policing pioneer and Vollmer protégé, O.W.
Wilson. His featured article invokes the expansion of arrest powers as exemplifying the salience
of behavioral rubrics inherent in the professional
paradigm. In his exposition, Wilson asserts the
need for legislatures, not courts, to delineate the
legitimate parameters of arrest. Per Wilson, delegating this responsibility to lawmakers in lieu of
judges would encourage fact-finding, minimize
physical perils for police, and increase apprehension of offenders.
These professional policing staples of education and technology have proven an enduring
legacy, suffusing both the missions and mechanics of contemporary law enforcement. Though
born of a policing era known more for its barriers
between police and public, both education and
technology are strongly evidenced in Herman
Goldstein’s innovatory and impactful P.O.P.
(problem-oriented policing), a comprehensive
approach to police work that is complementary
to, yet distinct from, the community policing
paradigm. Goldstein’s earlier professional background in city management seasoned him to serve
What the Police Do | 5
as executive assistant to policing innovator O.W.
Wilson during his tenure as Superintendent of
the Chicago Police. Both Wilson, renowned as
the architect of professional police management,
and his venerated predecessor Vollmer emphasized the importance of the organization’s structure in executing the policing mandate. Though
Goldstein agreed with these policing icons as
to the instrumentality of administration in efficacious policing, he dramatically departed from
their conceptualizations of organizational goals.
Indeed, his included writing calls for a shift away
from privileging “secondary goals” of equipment
and training at the expense of the effects police
efforts actually have on the issues citizens call
upon them to address. Goldstein’s article speaks
to the issue highlighted in the Vollmer reading:
he contends that P.O.P. is not as resisted by the
police because it corresponds with the institution’s principal value system.
The fourth reading details a vivid turnabout in
both the mission and means of policing favored
by adherents of the professional era. “Broken
windows” policing chronicles a rudiment central
to both the political and community policing
paradigms: informal conflict resolution facilitated
by the police, chiefly by officers on foot. The authors, George Kelling and James Q. Wilson, exalt
a return to this watchman style of policing, first
imlemented during the political era and greatly
evidenced by the “broken windows” approach.
“Broken windows,” which proffers that inattentiveness to minor incivilities within communities
culminates in more menacing crime problems,
has not been without reproach. The low-visibility of such discretionary decision-making proves
ripe for ostensible breaches of civil liberties.
Nonetheless, both authors vigorously endorse its
application. Kelling conducted the groundbreaking Newark Foot Patrol Experiment, which gave
credence to this tack, and Wilson contrasts the
watchman style with other policing approaches
in his seminal study on “varieties of police behavior.” Vollmer’s included piece underscores police
reticence to change, specifically to those that are
technological in nautre, and Kelling and Wilson
provide another example of this obstinacy in
initial officer resistance to conceding motorized
patrol. Both the Vollmer and Kelling and Wilson
writings cite police as ultimately and substantially
benefitting from these reforms they first rebuked.
Though the two preceding readings expressly
segue P.O.P. and “broken windows” policing
with the community policing paradigm, a
thorough elucidation of this oft nebulous juggernaut isnot presented until the Willard Oliver
and Elaine Bartgis’ reading. These authors aim
to demystify this wildly popular, yet grossly
misunderstood, policing framework by suggesting a model through which the associated
principles and practices can be best understood
and implemented. As has historically been the
case with the academic field of criminal justice
begun by Vollmer, community policing is largely
devoid of theory, which substantially impedes
its widespread, successful adoption. The authors
assert that, despite relative consensus as to the
requisite elements of community policing, no
single mold can be applied to all operations.
Instead, individual communities, in dialog with
the police serving them, must decide what they
want the police to do and how they can best do
it. Despite its comparative popularity, many have
individually and collectively taken umbrage with
the community policing model. In his article,
Michael Buerger begins by observing the opposition to community policing that arose during
the 1980s and 1990s and precipitated use of the
intriguing and controversial third-party policing. Despite its invocation of civil remedies, this
6 | Issues in Policing
tactic can still be construed as community-based,
and somewhat informal, in that property owners
and place managers, in lieu of criminal courts
and corrections, are being called upon to exact
social control.
The two readings concluding this chapter demonstrably differ from the other included articles
in that neither speaks directly to policing. Rather,
each proposes theorizations of crime, which consideration of palpably aids in improved drafting
of the police mandate and the policies to realize
it. Though decades separate the two articles, both
highlight the salience of environmental considerations in controlling crime. Richard Schneider
and Ted Kitchen inventory the multiple theories
arising from place-based crime prevention:
defensible space, situational crime prevention,
etc. Similarly, the article authored by prodigious
Chicago School criminologists Clifford Shaw and
Henry McKay examines the geographic distribution of male delinquency across the cityscape.
Though both pieces name the environment as
contributory to criminal proclivities, weighty
differences differentiate the two presentations.
Whereas the former draws primarily from the
classical criminological aspiration of deterrence
through reduced opportunity and increased risk,
the latter points to the influence of community
values, norms, and attitudes as being conducive
to criminality. The purpose and practices of a
police department operating in accordance with
place-based crime prevention would undoubtedly and starkly depart from one run premised
on the belief that economic and social inequities
fuel law-breaking. One reading calls for diminishing opportunity, while the other advises it be
fostered. In either or any case, examination and
consideration of criminological theory in deciding policing creed and craft furthers the visions
of myriad policing pioneers, many of whom are
highlighted in this chapter.