Peel's Principles and Their Acceptance by American Police: Ending 175 Years of Reinvention

2003 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith L. Williams

Since the inception of modem policing in 1829, the policing styles of Britain and the United States have run incongruent courses. While the Metropolitan Police Department of London has stayed true to the principles first articulated by Sir Robert Peel, American policing has undergone several sweeping changes in the administration of service. These reinventions have hampered the establishment of a true ideology of police service in America. Through a comparative historical overview of these policing models, this article will strive to explain the reason behind the lack of acceptance of Peel's original nine principles by police in America. Further discussion will focus on the current acceptance of these principles by many police agencies within the United States in their community policing missions and ask what might have been had the Peelian virtues been accepted from the beginning.

2021 ◽  
pp. 088740342110383
Author(s):  
Scott M. Mourtgos ◽  
Ian T. Adams ◽  
Samuel R. Baty

Most use-of-force policies utilized by U.S. police agencies make fundamental ordinal assumptions about officers’ force responses to subject resistance. These policies consist of varying levels of force and resistance along an ordinally ranked continuum of severity. We empirically tested the ordinal assumptions that are ubiquitous to police use-of-force continua within the United States using 1 year’s use-of-force data from a municipal police department. Applying a quantitative technique known as categorical regression with optimal scaling, we found the assumptions of ordinality within the studied department’s use-of-force continuum (which is similar to many police use-of-force continua within the United States) are not met. Specifying physical force as a “lower” force option than less-lethal tools is associated with increased officer injury and decreased subject injury. Our findings call into question use-of-force continua featuring ordinal rankings for varying categories of less-lethal force.


Author(s):  
Noah Tsika

American police departments have presided over the business of motion pictures since the end of the nineteenth century. Their influence is evident not only on the screen but also in the ways movies are made, promoted, and viewed in the United States. Screening the Police explores the history of film’s entwinement with law enforcement, showing the role that state power has played in the creation and expansion of a popular medium. For the New Jersey State Police in the 1930s, film offered a method of visualizing criminality and of circulating urgent information about escaped convicts. For the New York Police Department, the medium was a means of making the agency world famous as early as 1896. Beat cops became movie stars. Police chiefs made their own documentaries. And from Maine to California, state and local law enforcement agencies regularly fingerprinted filmgoers for decades, amassing enormous records as they infiltrated theaters both big and small. Understanding the scope of police power in the United States requires attention to an aspect of film history that has long been ignored. Screening the Police reveals the extent to which American cinema has overlapped with the politics and practices of law enforcement. Today, commercial filmmaking is heavily reliant on public policing—and vice versa. How such a working relationship was forged and sustained across the long twentieth century is the subject of this book.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Richard H. Martin

This article discusses three models of command and staff colleges (CSC). Five university models, five United States Military models, and one police agency model are discussed. The 11 CSCs provide leadership development in various training and education programs all leading to the increased capabilities of leaders and potential leaders for public safety and branches of the military. The police agency CSC model was developed within a Montgomery, Alabama Police Department, the only one of its kind among public safety agencies in the country. The concept of a CSC for leadership development among police agencies in the U.S. is a rare entity. Other command and staff colleges were found to be connected to the various branches of the U.S. Military and higher education institutions. The article also discusses the municipal police agency CSC model historical development as it expanded within the department and throughout the state of Alabama.


1972 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-213
Author(s):  
Michael Banton

This is the first of two articles based on Professor Banton's recent study of policing in the United States. (The second article: “Labour-Management Relations in an American Police Department” will appear in our October issue.)


Author(s):  
Christopher S. Koper ◽  
Cynthia Lum ◽  
Xiaoyun Wu ◽  
Noah Fritz

PurposeTo measure the practice and management of proactive policing in local American police agencies and assess them in comparison to recommendations of the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Proactive Policing.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted with a national sample of American police agencies having 100 or more sworn officers to obtain detailed information about the types of proactive work that officers engage in, to quantify their proactive work and to understand how the agencies measure and manage those activities. Responding agencies (n = 180) were geographically diverse and served populations of approximately half a million persons on average.FindingsProactivity as practiced is much more limited in scope than what the NAS envisions. Most agencies track only a few forms of proactivity and cannot readily estimate how much uncommitted time officers have available for proactive work. Measured proactivity is mostly limited to traffic stops, business and property checks and some form of directed or general preventive patrol. Many agencies have no formal policy in place to define or guide proactive activities, nor do they evaluate officer performance on proactivity with a detailed and deliberate rubric.Originality/valueThis is the first national survey that attempts to quantify proactive policing as practiced broadly in the United States. It provides context to the NAS recommendations and provides knowledge about the gap between practice and those recommendations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven G. Brandl ◽  
Meghan S. Stroshine

In the last few decades, several less lethal forms of force have been introduced, adopted, and deployed by police agencies. Oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray is now used in nearly every department across the United States; the Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle (TASER) is used in the majority of police departments. Despite their widespread use, we still know relatively little about the factors associated with the use of OC spray and TASERs and the effectiveness of these weapons in incapacitating subjects. Knowing when these weapons are used and whether they are effective would provide for a more complete understanding of their strengths and limitations and inform the debate about where less lethal weapons should be placed on use of force continua. This article contributes to the discussion by analyzing 504 use-of-force incidents where the police used OC spray or TASERs during the event. Data were obtained from a large municipal police department on incidents that occurred in 2010 and 2011. Policy considerations and directions for further research are discussed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 104398622199988
Author(s):  
Janice Iwama ◽  
Jack McDevitt ◽  
Robert Bieniecki

Although partnerships between researchers and police practitioners have increased over the last few decades in some of the largest police agencies in the United States, very few small agencies have engaged in a partnership with a researcher. Of the 18,000 local police agencies in the United States, small agencies with less than 25 sworn officers make up about three quarters of all police agencies. To support future collaborations between researchers and smaller police agencies, like those in Douglas County, Kansas, this article identifies challenges that researchers can address and explores how these relationships can benefit small police agencies across the United States.


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