Police Behavior

Problems and Solutions

 How do we evaluate police
behavior?
• Police are in a unique position in democratic societies.
They are given a great deal of power and can engage in
actions disruptive of personal freedom
– Power to detain
– Power to search
– Power to arrest
– Power to use force, including deadly force
• Yet we need police to maintain order and security so a
free society is possible.
• But do both police and citizens understand their duties?
Who establishes limits on police use of authority and
who enforces those limits? WHO, IN OTHER WORDS,
POLICES THE POLICE?
• Before we decide how to control police
behavior, we have to decide what we
expect from them.
• Defining the proper role for police is for
citizens and their elected officials not for
the police themselves.
• Recall our early discussion of legal culture.
 Evaluating Police
• General Standards (E3R)
– Equal treatment
– Equitable treatment
– Efficiency (assuming Effectiveness)
– Responsiveness

• Specific Standards (What do we expect from

police in their encounters with…)
– Citizens
– Victims
– Witnesses
– Suspects
Law Enforcement Code of Ethics
• As a Law Enforcement Officer, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind;
to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception,
the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against
violence or disorder; and to respect the Constitutional rights of all persons to
liberty, equality and justice.
• I will keep my private life unsullied as an example to all; maintain
courageous calm in the face of danger, scorn or ridicule; develop self-
restraint; and be constantly mindful of the welfare of others. Honest in
thought and deed in both my personal and official life, I will be exemplary in
obeying the laws of the land and the regulations of my department.
Whatever I see or hear of a confidential nature or that is confided to me in
my official capacity will be kept ever secret unless revelation is necessary in
the performance of my duty.
•  I will never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices,
animosities or friendships to influence my decisions. With no compromise
for crime and with relentless prosecution of criminal, I will enforce the law
courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill will, never
employing unnecessary force or violence and never accepting gratuities.
• I recognize the badge of my office as a symbol of public faith, and I accept
it as a public trust to be held so long as I am true to the ethics of the police
service. I will constantly strive to achieve these objectives and ideals,
dedicating myself before God to my chosen profession...law enforcement.
 "Yes Me the Lousy Cop" 
• From birth you teach your children that I am the bogeyman, and then you're shocked when
they identify me with my traditional enemy, the criminal. You accuse me of coddling
juveniles, until I catch your kid doing something. You may take an hour for lunch, and have
several coffee breaks each day, but point me out as a loafer if you see me having just one
cup.
• You pride yourself on your polished manners, but think nothing of interrupting my meals at
noon with your troubles. You raise hell about the guy who cuts you off in traffic, but let me
catch you doing the same thing and I'm picking on you. You know all the traffic laws, but
never got a single ticket you deserved. You shout "foul" if you observe me driving fast en
route to an emergency call, but literally raise hell if I take more than ten seconds
responding to your call!!!
• You call it "part of the job" if someone strikes me, but it's "police brutality" if I strike back.
You wouldn't think of telling your dentist how to pull a badly decayed tooth, or your doctor
how to take out your appendix, but you are always willing to give me a few pointers on law
enforcement. You talk to me in a manner and use language that would assure a bloody
nose from anyone else, but you expect me to stand and take it without batting an eye.
• You cry, "Something has to be done about all the crime!" but you can't be bothered with
getting involved.
• You've got no use for me at all, but, of course, it's OK if I change a tire for your wife, or
deliver your baby in the back seat of my patrol car on the way to the hospital, or save your
son's life with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, or work many hours over-time to find your lost
daughter.
• So Mr. Citizen, you stand there on your soapbox and rant and rave about the way I do my
job, calling me every name in the book, but never stop a minute to think that your property,
your family, or maybe your life might depend on one thing, ME, THE LOUSY COP"
How do we control the police?
1. Citizens
1. By requesting police presence actions
2. By Complaint
3. By Friendship
2. Police Department
1. Supervision and Command Structure
2. Peer Group Pressure
3. Hiring/Training Standards
4. Policies and Procedures
3. External Controls
1. Laws
2. Court System Feedback
3. Political System Feedback
4. Legal Culture
 Written Policy Directives
(Police Agencies with more than 100 Sworn Officers)

Local Sheriff State

Police Depts. Police
Code of Conduct/Appearance 99% 95% 100%
Use of Deadly Force 99% 96% 100%
Pursuit Driving 99% 90% 98%
Strip Searches 81 % 88% 37%
Juveniles 95% 86% 74%
Domestic Disturbances 93% 77% 49%
Mentally Ill/Handicapped Persons 86% 81 % 53%
Homeless Persons 30% 19% 6%
Off-Duty Employment 95% 96% 100%
Citizen Complaints 95% 84% 92%
 Hot Pursuit Policies
Consider the following factors
• Vehicle condition & road conditions
• Seriousness of the violation
• At no time will officers pursue the wrong way
down a freeway pr frontage road
• Police shall not discharge their firearms at a
fleeing vehicle.
• Actions requiring supervisory authorization:
– Driving along the side of the fleeing vehicle in an
attempt to force it from the road.
– Roadblocks
 Miranda v. Arizona
• Do criminals go fee because we mirandize them?
– Many (40-50%) confess voluntarily.
– Many others don’t understand the Miranda warning (a
function of lack of education, poverty and
socialization).
– Some police are more casual and don’t see it as
critical
– Court challenges to the need continue to this day.
• The Impact: Few confessions are “coerced”, few
are overturned, and police clearance and
prosecutorial conviction rates are little changed.
 Corruption
• Virtually every police department in the
nation has experienced both organized
corruption and major scandals as a result
of that corruption.
• Corruption is not confined to big cities.
• One advantage of our fragmented police
industry is that it provides citizens with
alternatives.
 A Simple Typology of Corruption:
Grazers versus Meat-Eaters
• Grass Eaters
– Accept payoffs that come their way
– Minor favoritism
– The “mooch” – free lunch

• Meat Eaters
– Aggressively misuse authority for personal
gain
– Bribery / extortion / shakedowns
 The 1 Major NYPD Scandal
st

• Hearings helf by the Lexon Committee of the NY Senate

1894
• Instigated by Rev. Charles Parkhurst who paraded
gamblers, prostitutes, madames and police officers in
front of the committee.
• The (bad) publicity lead to the election of a reform mayor
in NYC and the appointment of a new police chief to
clean up the department.
• This new chief, Theodore Roosevelt, would use this
position to go on to be elected Governor of NY in 1898
and would become the President of the US in 1901 with
the assassination of President William McKinley. Did he
actually fix the NYPD? Probably not given the long
history of problems that followed.
 New York City
A 20 Year Cycle of Corruption
• 1894 Lexon Commission
• 1911 Curran Commission
• 1932 Seabury Report
• 1951 Harry Gross (Gambling Czar) Investigation
• 1971 Knapp Commission
• 1992 The Mollen Commission
• 1995 Commission to Combat Police Corruption
(CCPC), a permanent board to monitor and
evaluate anticorruption efforts
 Frank Serpico
• Perhaps the most
famous of the
investigations into the
NYPD was stimulated
by the revelations of
NYPD Officer Frank
Serpico.
• 1966 - Serpico is asked to join a “gambling pad”.
• He refuses and tells his captain. His captain
replies “Frank, you could end up in the East
River for such accusations.”
• Serpico complained to
– His District Commander
– The 1st Deputy Police Commissioner
– The Mayor’s Assistant on Police
– The Commissioner of Investigations
• The District Commander finally begins an
investigation in late 1967.
• With little movement internally, Serpico goes to
the NY Times in April 1970.
 Frank Serpico
Politics and Corruption
• In response to the Times stories, NYC
Mayor John Lindsey appoints a
committee to investigate but the
committee is compromised by the fact
that among its members are the Police
Commissioner and the Manhattan DA
who were supposed to be in charge of
the day-to-day oversight of the
department corruption .
• A second independent committee is
appointed: “The Commission to
Investigate Allegations of Police
Corruption and the City’s Anti-Corruption
Procedures” (Whitman Knapp, Chair)
• The Police Commissioner resigns before
the investigation begins.
• The Commission documents extensive
problems ranging from minor payoff’s to
$80,000.\
• “Serpico” becomes a major movie
starring Al Pacino
 Other Cities, Same Problems
• LAPD (Need I say more?)

• Philadelphia 1990 – Grand

jury investigates 100,000
arrests from the previous
decade involve police use of
drugs and paraphernalia to
pay informants, setup
suspects, bribe witnesses and
buy sexual favors.

• Cleveland 1991 – 30 police

officers indicted for extortion,
obstruction of justice,
narcotics and gambling.
 Other Cities, Same Problems
• Detroit 1991 – The Police Chief
is found guilty of embezzling
$2.6 million from a special fund
for undercover investigations.
• New Orleans 1994 – 10 officers
indicted for selling drugs and
guns
• Greenport (NY) 1994 – The
entire police department (9
officers) is disbanded due to
corruption, ineptitude and
widespread drug and alcohol use
by on-duty officers.
• Jersey City 1995 – Officers are
charged with selling themselves
113 impounded cars at discount
prices.
• San Francisco 1996 – Officers
indicted on charges of perjury,
soliciting perjury wrongful arrests
and stealing from suspects.
 The Police Subculture:
Will They “Fink” On Their Fellow Officers?
Q: How often do the other officers in your department
engage in the following activities?

Always or Rarely or
Sometimes Never

Sleep on Duty? 63% 37%

Drink on Duty? 89% 11%
Perjury/Lying? 47% 53%
Excessive Force? 54% 46%
Sex on Duty? 45% 55%
 Systematic Approaches to
Policing the Police
Internal Affairs
• They don’t exist in all departments
• Questionable effectiveness (Contrary to
TV image)
– The don’t want to investigate their own
– They perceive a lack of support from the
police command
– There are problems of citizen access to report
problems
 Internal Affairs
• Houston PD
• Formed in 1977 after the Jose Campos
Torres incident.
• Captain, 4 Lieutenants, 18 investigating
officers drawn from the ranks for 1 year
“tours”
• Caseload of 75-100 per officer.
• Report violations to COP
 Internal Affairs - Reported Violations
Houston Police Department, 1978-1984

1978 1984 Increase

Department Rules 129 217 68.2%
Neglect of Duty 217 351 61.8%
Excessive Force 544 545 0.2%
Potentially 388 657 69.3%
Criminal Acts
Conduct/Behavior 371 707 90.6%

TOTALS 1,865 2,888 54.9%

Investigating Police Shooting Incidents
Houston Police Department lAD - 1983
What happened to the Citizen?

Death lnjurv No Injury

lAD Ruling
Justified 88% 67% 64%
Shooting

Not Justified 6% 10% 8%

Shooting

Accidental 6% 23% 28%

Shooting
Problems with the Houston IAD
• Investigations take too long.
• Use of “pro-officer” neutral witnesses to clear
accused officers.
• Criminal records checks of those who register
complaints
• Bad record keeping
– 3 x 5 index cards
– 1,000 accusations lost
– Inability to track “bad apples” (117 officers, 3% of the
HPD force received 20% of all complaints.
– After severe punishment (dismissal) no one speaks to
future employers
Boston
PD
 The Denver Model –
A Police Monitor

• A response to the Paul Childs shooting

• Independent of the Police Department
 Systematic Approaches to
Policing the Police
• Civilian Review Boards