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FUNCTIONS OF THE POLICE IN MODERN SOCIETY

NCJ Number
147822
Author(s)
E Bittner
Date Published
1970
Length
122 pages
Annotation
The institution of the police was evaluated.
Abstract
Despite a highly critical public, the police are much improved in modern American society. Wanton brutality, corruption, and sloth--endemic features a generation earlier--were limited to sporadic incidents, and police reform had become an internal goal, not just a cause espoused by outside advocates. Aspects of policing are covered in this book as following chapter titles: Popular Conceptions About the Character of Police Work; Cultural Background of the Police Idea; Courts and the Police; Institutional Independence of the Police; Capacity to Use Force as the Core of the Police Role; Police and the "War on Crime"; Quasi-Military Organization of the Police; Esprit de Corps and the Code of Secrecy; Accreditation of Police Skill; Relations of Police Work to Scientific Scholarship; Recruitment and Education; Some Elements of Methodical Police Work; Coping with Resistance and Use of Force; Arrest and Detention; and Community Relations. 164 footnotes