NCJ Number
73328
Journal
Revue de science criminelle et de droit penal compare Issue: 1 Dated: (January-March 1978) Pages: 161-177
Date Published
1978
Length
17 pages
Annotation
A brief history of the development of the social role of the police since the early 1950's, particularly in prevention of juvenile delinquency, is presented.
Abstract
Starting with the 1953 meeting of the International Commission of Criminal Police in Oslo, the concept of the role of the police in social protection began to change. Emphasis shifted from the repressive role of the police to notions of prevention and examination of the individual personality. Public relations efforts of the police took on a new importance. Sociocultural influences and socialization gained significance as factors relevant to the development of criminal behavioral patterns. In Copenhagen, a police social work department was developed to provide informal but responsible social intervention. The cultural language of the police was also modified and made less dramatic. Everyday social work by the police implied assumption of social and moral responsibility. Participation of the social police in serious preventive efforts was part of an overall transformation of the justice system to achieve a more humane system. At the International Meeting of the Criminal Police in Helsinki in 1963, a report on police preventive efforts recorded the existence of special police departments for criminal prevention in a number of countries. Preventive efforts noted took the form of public education, organization of material protection against theft, study of appropriate prevention methods, detection of dangerous symptomatic states and juvenile delinquency, and participation in the organization of juvenile leisure activities. The importance of the social role of police was reemphasized at the Third Colloquium on Criminology at Strasbourg in 1977.