Background: The Progressive Era (Gilded Age - 1870-1900)
2 labels for the system for hiring police and corrections officers:
Definition
The conflict arising from that system
Problematic manner of police arrest offenders, and court members process court cases
The problematic outcome
Background of 1930 --Wickersham Commission -- survey instrument
August Vollmer -- primary author of the Commission's final report
He faced two challenges when he took office
He instituted a series of reforms
August Volmer’s recognized designation
The abuses by administrators, police, and prosecutors
(0) Graft Definition
(1) Use of the "third degree" Definition
(2) bribery Definition
(3) coercion of witnesses Definition
(4) entrapment Definition
(5) fabricating evidence Definition
(6) illegal wiretapping Definition
Wickersham Commission final report and recommendations
OW Wilson
1965 Lyndon Johnson – Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) -- The survey instrument
The Final report -- 1967
The crime issues investigated: (1) policing, (2) courts, (3) corrections, (4) organized crime, (5) drugs, and (6) juvenile delinquency.
The Kansas City Experiment -- (Scientifically Rigorous Study based on data)
Conducted on police between October 1972 and December 1973:
Hypothesis
Dependent variable: Crimes
Independent variable: Beats grouped into three categories.
(1) Eliminated: Routine preventive patrol was eliminated in five beats, labeled "reactive" beats (meaning officers entered these areas only in response to calls from residents).
(2) Unchanged: Routine patrol was maintained in five "control" beats.
(3) Increased: Routine patrol was increased by two to three times the norm In five "proactive" beats.
Results of police patrol visibility on recorded crime
There was not a statistically significant difference in crimes between varying treatment levels (Increasing or decreasing police patrol visibility)
The law-enforcement-officer subculture
separate from the main culture; it operates by an informal rule