NCJ Number
184909
Date Published
1996
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This chapter focuses on police officers' encounters with juvenile gang members and the ways in which police and youths perceive and respond to one another.
Abstract
According to both gang members and patrol officers, residence in a particular neighborhood is the most general indicator used by the police to select a sample of potential law violators. Many local patrol officers tend to consider all residents of "bad" neighborhoods rather weakly committed to the moral order police enforce; this transforms most of the people who use the streets in these neighborhoods into good candidates for suspicion of law violations. If a juvenile being interrogated in the situation of suspicion refuses to proffer the expected politeness or to use the words that typically denote respect and if no offense has been discovered, a patrol officer is in an awkward position. He/she cannot arrest the youth for insolence or defiance, because there are no applicable laws. The officer must then decide whether to back down; attempt an arrest under a variety of curfew, vagrancy, or loitering laws; or continue to provoke the suspect until the suspect's level of belligerence may be classified as resisting arrest. Overall, juvenile gang members view patrol officers as biased, hostile, authoritarian, and unfair in dealing with them. 13 notes