NCJ Number
192156
Date Published
2001
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This paper describes types of police behavior that are deviant and criminal, even if they are performed to support legitimate purposes, and it argues that there has been a general reluctance among police, police administrators, policymakers, legislators, and researchers to recognize and use a more encompassing term, such as "police crime," to label what might more generally be referred to as police deviance.
Abstract
This paper first discusses the importance of having an adequate definition and conception of police crime, and it then reviews the terms typically used: "police misconduct," "police deviance," and "abuse of authority." The author concludes that most of these definitions fail to appreciate the legal/illegal dimension of police actions. In proposing a taxonomy of police crime, four bipolar distinctions of police criminality are made. The first is between violent and nonviolent actions; the second is between economically motivated and non-economically motivated police behavior; the third is between police crime committed by individual law enforcement officers while performing their duty and those by the police organization itself against the citizenry or potential opposition; and the fourth is between crimes committed by police officers against the police organization versus crimes committed by the organization against law enforcement officers. The author identifies subcategories of police crime under these broad areas of illegal policing behavior. The author notes that the police behaviors described attack democratic principles such as the rule of law, the rule of equity in policing, the integrity of public servants, and the legitimacy of the state as a democratic institution. 68 references and 17 notes