NCJ Number
105403
Date Published
1987
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This paper examines how police perform crime prevention functions in the context of the police department as a political institution.
Abstract
The evolution of American policing has emphasized three major police roles: the maintenance of civil stability through routine regulatory and emergency services; the creation or maintenance of moral stability; and the detection, prevention, and repression of felonies. Crime fighting receives top priority because it elicits public and fiscal support. The majority of police resources, however, are expended on public services. Crime prevention involves police in mediation, referral, and diversion, all of which involve discretionary police action. Police discretion is governed by four parameters that heighten its visibility: public concern about potential injustice, the involvement of police in order maintenance, police services intended to assist persons, and the conflict between patrol officers' freedom to make decisions and organizational control of official conduct. The political influences on discretionary police action mitigate against crime prevention actions, and efforts to implement new crime prevention policies end up being molded by traditional police priorities. Typically, nonessential resources are reassigned to crime prevention to give the appearance something is being done in this area, and crime prevention is often reinterpreted to mean increased arrest rates for crimes of primary concern to the public. Crime prevention also tends to be quantified by the same measures as reactive crime fighting. Overall, the political dynamics of police organizations tend to modify the distinctiveness of crime prevention functions. 30 notes and 10-item bibliography.