Internal Monitoring for a Stronger Police Force - Research Paper Example

 Internal Monitoring for a Stronger Police Force This report compares traditional and community oriented policing (COP) programs in the US environment. The basic review of literature used by the current report examines pros and cons of COP. In general, the current investigation comes down more in favor of community programs, and also looks at the history of more traditional policing methods and theories. Recommendations are made, with a focus on officer ethics training. Introduction In terms of background, it is important to differentiate law enforcement attitudes between community oriented policing (COP) and traditional law enforcement practice, since this report is dwelling so specifically on law enforcement endorsed programs rather than extracurricular programs. COP is a way of policing that has been expanding functionally and organizationally since its first inception and popularization during the mid-twentieth century. During this era, interaction between the community and the police force was seen to be improved by community programs which focused on expanding a positive relationship between the community and the police that had previously been tarnished. Lines of communication were opened and police organizational structures began to change to support a more involved approach in terms of community relations. “Goldstein believed that in recognition of the reality of American policing… line officers (would be given) the freedom to develop creative solutions to community problems beyond simply making arrests or doing nothing” (Kane, 2000). It is also expected that individual officer training experiences will play a large role in their determinations of ethical and misconduct issues. It is expected that some officers will view civilians in hypothetical survey examples as potential combatants rather than potential participants in communication. Everyone has a different personal experience in training and this will be reflected in the results. Some officers may remember back to academy and certain training methods may be reflected more than others in league with potential misconduct, such as defensive tactics training. Some trainers for defensive tactics at academy do role playing exercises in which they play the civilian and must hide a weapon from the officer being trained to do a pat down of the civilian. The message that comes through in training is clear in this instance: the officer is being instructed and trained to trust no one. But there may be ethical problems with this approach, because an officer who goes through the experience of having blanks shot at him or her by the instructor who is hiding weapons, may find it hard once out in the street to approach civilians in a manner that seems relatively non threatening to them. Examples like these can be used to stress how the organizational culture of police departments cannot be separated from police departments themselves, a topic that is expected to be significantly addressed as well in the survey. Some officers may perceive that police departments have been asked to change organizational structures several times over the epochs of law enforcement from the nineteenth century (when the paradigm was political) onward. Some may perceive that the difficulties in responding to these changes are basically bureaucratic in nature, as layers of authority that stress crime control over effective methods of communication are seen to be an impediment to the process of COP development. Successful cases of Community Oriented Policing have been observed, and it is also expected that successful implementation of this method is both possible and wanted. Traditional policing One aspect of traditional zero-tolerance/broken windows theory that was developed by objective analysis is the rationale of the broken windows theory itself, which is basically a metaphor, and therefore not subjective. A metaphor is something that is used to signify an idea through example, and therefore this is an objective example of applying something that may be completely unrelated objectively, but still has meaning as it is seen to relate to a larger concept. In the case of the broken windows theory, this larger concept is the assumption that, basically, one thing leads to another. This is related in some ways to the previously objective portrayal of the domino metaphor, in which it only takes one domino falling to make many other dominos fall. Objectively, in terms of the broken window theory, “The germ of the idea is simple and compelling. A broken window--or a littered sidewalk, a graffito, or what you like--does no great harm to a neighborhood if promptly addressed. But left untended, it sends a signal: that no one cares about this neighborhood, that it is a safe place to break things, to litter, to vandalize. Those who engage in such behaviors will feel safe here. And once these minor miscreants have become well established, perhaps it will seem a safe enough neighborhood in which to be openly drunk” (Siegel et al., 2006). The first part of this statement is very objective by nature. Zero tolerance programs are also features of traditional policing. Traditional policing involves theory and other issues. It is also anticipated that results will be mixed in terms of officers’ perceptions of ethics training as an effective option to cut down on misconduct. “Usually, the content of ethics training consists of adopting one philosophical framework and discussing hypothetical or researched ethical dilemmas within that framework. To be sure, examples of ethical dilemmas for criminal justice students and practitioners can be gathered from newspapers, books, and journal articles. These sources identify such irksome issues as gratuities, corruption, bribery, whistle blowing and loyalty, undercover ethics, use of deception, discretion, sex on duty and other misconduct, deadly force, and brutality” (Pollock, 1996). It is expected that many of these issues will come up during daily work with officers, and also that officers will identify common themes of misconduct to focus on more than others due to their individuated perceptions. It is also expected that in open ended questions about ethics and misconduct, respondents will perform similarly to those respondents in Pollock’s study, in which the author interviewed officers and came up with common elements or themes related to misconduct. “The instructors ask each other to draft a one sentence code of ethics. In essence, the students write down what they consider to be the central elements to being a good police officer. After collecting and reading these codes to the class, the officers identify five common elements: legality, service, honesty/integrity, loyalty, and some version of the Golden Rule” (Pollock, 1996). It is this last theme or category that may be the most interesting in terms of interview and survey results. Traditional policing theory also presents an objective view through cautionary punishment measures instituted by policy-makers who are working in a reaction in response to events. Though objective on the surface, the policies that have come out of this way of thinking have been generally controversial in their response to the presented issue. In the case of misbehavior being met by harsh punishment measures designed to counter this misbehavior such as the zero-tolerance policy, this way of thinking is being made objective in terms of reaction limiting or what could be called damage-control for the policy or theory. Another aspect of traditional policy determined objectively is the right of people to question the broken windows or zero tolerance policy, because objectivity signifies that there are two sides of the issue. Many critics of policies like the zero-tolerance policy state that such measures are by nature more superficial than they are proven in terms of effectiveness. But this may be the very reason that policies like zero-tolerance are, in fact, effective: they highlight an extreme issue by proposing an extreme counter-measure that gains scrutiny and attention, which highlights the problem and creates an atmosphere in which the problem cannot not be treated seriously. Overall, the objective lack of statistical evidence of the zero-tolerance policy’s effectiveness or drawbacks adds a certain amount of tentativeness to conclusions that can be reached by either proponents of the policy or its adversaries. But the general issue remains the objective institution of zero-tolerance policy that seeks to get to the root of social problems such as drugs and violence in society. It is also expected that officers today will show respondents examining some of the problems of implementing ethics programs and training both bureaucratically and in the field. Allen recognizes that for many police departments, accepting a change in organizational structure is difficult in a situation where tradition is treated with respect and deference. The author states that “police work results in a highly fragmented, internalized, and isolated environment (Stamper, 1993)… as a result, the police tend to band together and exclude outsiders. This tendency to close ranks develops into a police culture” (Allen, 2002, p. 511). This police culture is generally seen to be more resistant to the forces of change than some cultures which are seen to be more open in their attitude to the environment in which they operate. Allen found that in her study, “There were several examples… where command staff had attempted to empower street-level officers, but officers did not trust or believe that they had discretion to make decisions” (Allen, 2002, p. 515). The author traces this reluctance back to the bureaucratic structure of many police departments which is often the center of change, rather than the officer on the street being the center of change. In this example, the system proved to be inefficient because too much attention was being paid to organization and too little attention was being paid to execution. It is the assumption of this proposal therefore that the interviews and surveys will bring up similar issues to those brought up in Allen as well, in terms of implementing changes in training. Allen recognizes that for many police departments, accepting a change in organizational structure is difficult in a situation where tradition is treated with respect and deference. The author states that “police work results in a highly fragmented, internalized, and isolated environment (Stamper, 1993)… as a result, the police tend to band together and exclude outsiders. This tendency to close ranks develops into a police culture” (Allen, 2002, p. 511). This police culture is generally seen to be more resistant to the forces of change than some cultures which are seen to be more open in their attitude to the environment in which they operate. Community oriented policing Community perceives police s people who are only out to bother, harass, and even persecute them along various demographic lines, in the COP method. “Controlling for the social and political orientation and prior experience of respondents with the police, we find that blacks rate police misconduct higher than their white counterparts, and liberals rate police misconduct significantly higher than their conservative counterparts. Differences in judgments by blacks and whites and by liberals and conservatives concerning judgments of police misconduct have important implications for the legitimacy of police authority” (Seron, 2004). That is, if the citizenry see the police as increasingly illegitimate through instances of misconduct, this will reduce the level of trust that the public places in law enforcement, making this a very critical issue for officers to address in the context of everyday duties. As Allen states, in terms of tradition, “In police organizations where community policing is not the standard philosophy, police officers are assigned to a beat that covers an extensive area of the city” (Allen, 2002, p. 512). As noted and abovementioned, officers who are used to this system may find it difficult to change to a system in which they are asked to patrol a smaller area in which they have more extensive contact with the local community, with which they are asked to communicate, respond to, and make suggestions in within a new capacity of creativity and free thinking. Allen found that in her study, “There were several examples… where command staff had attempted to empower street-level officers, but officers did not trust or believe that they had discretion to make decisions” (Allen, 2002, p. 515). The author traces this reluctance back to the bureaucratic structure of many police departments which is often the center of change, rather than the officer on the street being the center of change. In this example, the system proved to be inefficient because too much attention was being paid to organization and too little attention was being paid to execution. Patrol methods changed as community policing became more popular, and officers were paired in teams and sometimes asked to patrol geographically smaller beats that heightened this sense of community relationship and communication in terms of reducing the community’s fear of crime and forming a positive dialogue with police officers. Since, COP has grown to include any number of operations and scenarios which are seen to improve the relationship between the police and the community, including many social skills programs geared towards reaching out to community youth such as D.A.R.E. and G.R.E.A.T, which are programs that stress positive ideals in the relation of the police and community. However, there is also something to be said for traditional policing: it has been proven to work. This cannot always be said in a similar way in reference to COP, which is still growing and is even misunderstood by many departments, as the definitions of true COP policy are often very hard to pinpoint exactly. The effectiveness of traditional policing is shown by the fact that, “Much of the growing literature on community policing tends to be qualitative in nature. That is, success stories are told, but they are accompanied by very little empirical proof” (Kane, 2000). Tried and true methods appeal to many officers when approaching the subject of how to effectively police a community, and these tried and true methods are especially die-hard when there is little significant quantitative evidence that new methods, which are less traditional, are effective in fighting crime and lowering crime rates. It is the proposal of the current report that the key to solving the persistent problem of police misconduct is to focus on training, both in terms of COP, as well as ethical training and situational awareness. Take the word of John M. MacDonald, who looks at the recent decline of violent crime in America and asks whether or not the increasing shift from traditional to community policing methods has anything to do with another decrease. “This change in violent crime rates is a particularly important issue given the efforts of the federal government under the 1994 Violent Crime Act to increase community policing at the national level” (MacDonald, 2002, p. 592). MacDonald notes that in recent years, the number of violent crimes in this nation’s cities has dropped significantly. At the same time, more and more police departments have organized many new COP programs. To see if a relationship exists between these two events, MacDonal analyses FBI and police data in over 150 cities across the nation to find out the economic and political causes of crime and associate these causes with the shift towards COP. However, MacDonald is not able to establish a significant thread of evidence that links the burgeoning COP programs with the reduction of violent crimes. The author does find that the programs have distinctive merits in terms of opening lines of communication between communities and police departments, but cannot definitively state that a link exists between COP policies and the decrease in the general crime rate across the nation. MacDonald (2002) states that “Although COP strategies may be appropriate for strengthening community relations, the effect of this national police movement on the control of violent crime remains unknown” (p. 599). MacDonald found that proactive arrest strategies had much more to do with declining crime-rates than Community Oriented Policing, but that the strategy being used by the individual officer to combat the individual violent crime differs so greatly that statisticians can come up with any number of arguable causal relationships. Most police departments currently have training programs in effect that are designed to heighten awareness of misconduct situations in officers, but the effectiveness of this training is sometimes called into question in the light of persistent instances of misconduct. “In spite of their rigid paramilitary structure, well worn operating procedures, and increased tort liability claims, police departments across the country continue to document cases of police misconduct, ranging from petty misfeasance to serious malfeasance… the day to day operating realities of police work, which provide for substantial discretion and freedom of judgment for the typical patrol officer, may lead to these ethics violations” (Potter and Kaplar, 2004). This theory suggests that a more intensive training program which focuses on limiting discretion and judgment in a rule based paradigm may be appropriate. However, others would argue that taking freedom of judgment and discretion from officers would do more harm than good, and would lead to possible conflicts not in theoretical and training structures, but in the quotidian and day to day reality of police work and its increasing reliance of individuated officer judgment within a community oriented policing system that is becoming increasingly common, especially in large metropolitan police departments such as that of New York City. “Research suggests that the most citizens tend to place a great emphasis on an expectation of evenhanded or trustworthy practices. The public expresses a rather low tolerance for police misconduct, particularly the unnecessary use of force. When asked about such behavior, findings show that in principle, 93 percent of respondents do not approve of an officer ‘striking a citizen who had said vulgar things to the officer.’ The claim that police officers should toe the line suggests expectation that officers will perform their duties within a set of fair public and accountable guidelines” (Seron, 2004). The fact that the majority of the public does not approve of a police officer beating someone who only used verbal aggression against them may not actually be representative of a particularly low tolerance for misconduct, as this seems a fairly reasonable objection. It is also the intention of the proposed research to measure officers’ attitudes towards the public, in terms of their personal attitudes and beliefs towards what the public expects from them and how tolerant the public is about misconduct. Some officers, for example, may make distinctions between the media and the public, seeing the media as being obsessed with pointing out police misconduct, and the public as being less caring, as long as the officer is using the potential misconduct situation to fight or deter crime that could cause the public harm. “Some law enforcement officers believe that citizens will tolerate if not support aggressive and legally questionable crime fighting tactics in order to quell the rising tide of violent crime. Police departments also increasingly emphasize community oriented policing (COP)” (Jones, 1995). In the future research will also explore COP in the context of the NYPD, which does have a COP program in effect currently. Many critics link COP and misconduct because COP tends to give more power of discretion to the individual officer and their relation to the community than the rulebook and its relation to the officer. But others may argue that COP actually may decrease ethical violations and misconduct, because it focuses on establishing and keeping positive ties with the community, which may be adversely effected by instances of officers’ misconduct. Recommendation It is recommended that officers be remanded to special training classes and pursue other studies. “Findings show that respondents’ judgments of the seriousness of misconduct consider both ethical and legal dimensions. On the legal side of the ledger, officers’ unnecessary use of force and use of offensive language significantly increase judgments of serious misconduct; on the extralegal side of the ledger, civilians’ confrontational demeanor significantly reduces judgments of serious misconduct” (Seron, 2004). But, as mentioned, officers have to learn that the public is right to expect that hey don’t respond inappropriately, such as beating a civilian who is simply being verbally confrontational to them. “The findings suggest that citizens expect officers to behave professionally or by the book, but with a recognition that street level discretion has a place in an officers toolkit. Citizens’ expectations that street level discretion has its place is also demonstrated by findings for the dimension abuse of authority as a significant predictor of serious misconduct” (Seron, 2004). It is expected that survey results will also mirror this predictor. Internal monitoring is often known as “Internal Affairs” in terms of representations of law enforcement self-policing capacities and fulfillments, as well as investigational styles. The idea of internal agency monitoring is itself perhaps flawed, as the agency is arguably not an unbiased and fair representative to police itself in many cases, according to theories of groupthink. Groupthink is the type of thinking which is commonly referred to in psychology and tells us that internal monitoring is often a process of socially influenced codes internal rather than external to the law enforcement agency. Ideas of misconduct and the bureaucracy portrayed through internal monitoring and internal audits is mixed. On the one hand, there is research that is in favor of internal monitoring because it works in some cases. On the other hand, there is research that criticizes internal monitoring and internal auditing because it is a situation in wich oversight may be magnetized by social bonds between the investigators and the investigated. “On the legal side of the ledger, officers' unnecessary use of force and use of offensive language significantly increase judgments of serious misconduct; on the extralegal side of the ledger, civilians' confrontational demeanor significantly reduces judgments of serious misconduct. The findings suggest that citizens expect officers to behave professionally, or by the book, but with a recognition that "street-level" discretion has a place in an officer's toolkit” (Seron, 2004). In these cases, internal groupthink among officers is further divided into categories of misconduct based on excuses from law enforcement. Skyrocketing statistics regarding the relative frequency of juvenile gun use and possession in the US, when combined with the abovementioned situations, seems to form a sort of culture of delinquency that presents a danger for those juveniles who do not have more fulfilling ways with which to occupy their time. Many scholars point out that “the conventional wisdom on teens that they don't want to be part of wholesome, organized activities, but would rather hang out and become part of gangs… That's the wrong conclusion. They do want to join these kinds of organizations--there just aren't enough of them” (Best, 2004). And in terms of the levels of violence in the given population, the factorial elements tend to favor the same sorts of environmental and social forces that drive such theories as labeling and profiling. “Violence often results from a complex interaction of environmental, social, and psychological factors such as the learned behavior of responding to conflict with violence, the effects of drugs or alcohol, the presence of weapons, the absence of positive family relationships and adult supervision” (McDonald, 2002). Many juveniles who do not have positive family relationships and structured time under supervision during their hours away from school may find themselves eventually indulging in violence and drugs. Fishman’s review of Thurman, Zhao, and Giacomazzi’s “Community Policing in a Community Era,” the author relates some of his own experiences as a trainee who found that what he was taught caused him to view many citizens as potential threats rather than potential participants in communication. Fishman tells of how his defensive tactics instructor at academy took him through a routine drill in which the instructor played the part of a citizen. Fishman patted down his instructor as he was told, and then was shocked to see the instructor turn around and shoot at him with a starting pistol which he had concealed in a back pocket. The author notes that since that incident, he has been induced to trust no one. He relates, “I suddenly felt in danger policing a city in which I had previously felt perfectly safe. It took a decade of experience… before I was comfortable talking to the average citizen without assuming a tactical stance” (Fishman, 2001). The author uses this example to stress how the organizational culture of police departments cannot be separated from police departments themselves, a topic that is significantly addressed in the book which he is reviewing. The author sees that police departments have been asked to change organizational structures several times over the epochs of law enforcement from the nineteenth century (when the paradigm was political) onward. He sees that the difficulties in responding to these changes are basically bureaucratic in nature, as layers of authority that stress crime control over effective methods of communication are seen to be an impediment to the process of COP development. Although he mentions them, Fishman does not focus on the impediments to COP exclusively, as he does note that several successful cases of Community Oriented Policing have been observed, and that successful implementation of this method is both possible and wanted. Conclusion America must be a diverse country, and change to COP. The statistics do not reflect the accuracy of racial profiling or labeling along racial lines targeting African-American juveniles to even be accurate. Of course, different sources offer different statistics, and often even the same statistics can be used by two opposing sources to provide evidence for different points (Milovanovic and Russell, 2001). But in terms of age and race having an impact on one’s likelihood to commit a crime, it can definitely be argued that the prevalence of profiling and labeling African-American juveniles is unfounded. And still, African-American juveniles tend to be more heavily profiled and labeled by the justice system, and with other minority groups, are also more likely to be referred to the system in the first place. REFERENCE Allen, Rhonda Y.W. (2002). Assessing the impediments to organizational change. Journal of Criminal Justice, pp. 511-517. This source looks at organizational theory and change, as it can be applied to traditional vs. COP. The author explains their predilection by stating that an impediment model has interesting points as well as limitations from different perspectives, shown working in cohesion and symbiosis in their theories. Best, J (2004). Random Violence. Los Angeles: California Press. This book is interesting to read as a whole, with the one drawback being too much length spent summarizing another author’s works. This book is very appropriate, strongly written, and articulately and literately presented to the reader. The writer’s presentation was complete and satisfactory. Jones, T. (1995). Police ethics training. The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. The author appeared to be looking for a balanced perspective on organizations that blended effective elements of strategy and ethics. I think that this is a positive way of looking at law enforcement through this perspective. Fishman, G (20006). In Constructing Crime. Long Grove, IL: Wave Land. This was overall a good general resource on crime. At the conclusion of the chapters, the author presents a brief and summative section that is designed to show the reader their own personal data and conclusions about effective and accepted concepts in dealing with change and what the limitations are. Kane, Roert J. (2000). Permanent beat assignments in association with community policing: Assessing the impact on police officers’ field activity. Justice Quarterly. I found this article particularly informative. It was interesting to me as well that the author was able to make connections between the real world and some of the issues in the theoretical texts. MacDonald, John M. (2002). The Effectiveness of Community Policing in Reducing Urban Violence. Crime and Delinquency, pp. 592-618. This author’s article is articulate and literate, and answers all aspects of the assignment in concise terms while paraphrasing main ideas of other authors often in the text. It is interesting to read as a whole. This author writes an informative and to-the-point presentation. Milovanovic and Russell (2001). Petit Apartheid in the US Criminal Justice System. Durham, NC: CAP. An original research report like this uses a design that incorporates empirical evidence testing and supplies statistical results in a scientific manner. Original research uses quantitative or qualitative methods. The population the research wants to draw conclusions about is a fairly standard population. Pollock, J. (1996). Ethics training using officers’ dilemmas. The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. All of the author’s research questions are very unbiased and open-ended, which could have been a problem but wasn’t. This author seems to go out of their way to attempt survey objectivity. Potter, G and V Kappler (2005). Constructing Crime. New York: Dell. This book is strong because it follows the form of a policy review and summarizes the theories and hypotheses surrounding the various hierarchy perspectives before choosing one as the choice for most effective. The writer uses a form in which they first set up authors’ ideas by discussing the issues associated with the text, and then they go on to show the findings through their own understanding. Siegel, L, Welsh, B, and Senna, J. (2006).  Juvenile Delinquency.  In this book, the writers provide a thoughtful, literate, and articulate reckoning of the various parts of the research question hierarchy as well as discussion, as they are presented in the reviewed text. They blend paraphrased ideas and sections from the reviewed text directly with their own interpretations and comments, which makes the book easier to read and more informative at the same time. Seron, C. (2004). Judging police misconduct. Law and Society Review. A review paper like this is a sort of meta-analysis that is not empirical in its approach to the subject matter. A review collates other sources which may have empirical value, but does no actual experimental testing. Read More