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 final report
two challenges when he took office and he
banned graft and gifts, and instituted a series of reforms
August Volmer’s reforms and recognized designation
The abuses by police and prosecutors
(1) Use of the "third degree"
(2) bribery
(3) coercion of witnesses
(4) entrapment
(5) fabricating evidence
(6) illegal wiretapping
Graft
The third degree
Bribery
Witness coercion
Wickersham Commission final report and recommendations
OW Wilson
1965 Lyndon Johnson -- Office of “Law Enforcement Assistance Administration of Justice (LEAA)
The survey instrument
The Final report
The crime issues investigated
(1) policing, (2) courts, (3) corrections
(4) organized crime, (5) drugs
(6) juvenile delinquency.
The Kansas City Experiment -- Scientifically Rigorous Data
Conducted on police between October 1972 and December 1973:
Hypothesis
Dependent variable
Independent variable
Independent variable: sub-divided “beats,” grouped into three categories
Routine preventive patrol
(1) Five "reactive" beats (Eliminated -- officers entered these areas only in response to calls from residents)
(2) Five "Control" beats (routine patrol was maintained)
(3) Five "proactive" beats (patrol was intensified by two to three times the norm)
Results of police patrol visibility on recorded crime:
Increasing or decreasing patrol had no significant effect
The law-enforcement-officer subculture
separate from main culture; operates by an informal rule