NCJ Number
97894
Editor(s)
R J Homant,
D B Kennedy
Date Published
1985
Length
523 pages
Annotation
The 47 articles in this collection address 8 broad subject areas: orientation to the police role, police-community relations, the impact of policing on police officers, police discretion and the use of deadly force, hostages and terrorist acts, new police responses to contemporary problems, private police, and professionalization.
Abstract
Selections were drawn from literature published between 1975 and mid-1981. The first group covers recent changes in police tactics, techniques to assess productivity, differential police responses, residency requirements, measures of police performance, and coordination and cooperation as alternatives to consolidation. Community attidues toward the police are examined, with attention to changes in police personnel policy, such as the recruitment of women and minorities, that may affect these attitudes. The next group of papers considers the effects of police work on officers, including stress, problems of police officers' wives, police corruption, and deviance other than corruption, such as perjury and drinking on duty. Policies governing police discretion and the use of deadly force are discussed, as are decisions that can escalate an incident into violence. Other articles explore carrying weapons off-duty and the impact of a police shooting on the officer and the department. Articles on contemporary terrorism focus on negotiating with terrorists, but also discuss recent hostage incidents and media coverage. Topics addressed by papers on contemporary policing problems include psycholinguistic analysis of threats and the police responses to domestic violence and the rape victim. The book's final sections examine the relationships between public police and private security, computer crime, executive kidnapping, the Guardian Angels, police training, and unionization. References accompany each paper. Subject and name indexes are supplied.