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The Role of Police in Democratic Societies and Historical Impact in America
Criminology · Chapter 19: Policing in AmericaSection 19.1 · lesson 78 of 91video coming soon
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In this lesson
Coercive authority, its history in America, and why legitimacy matters.
- Explain the role and functions of police in a democratic society.
- Trace American policing through its recognized eras.
- Explain how research undermined the professional era.
- Explain police legitimacy and why it matters operationally.
Transcript
Everything said in the video, section by section (1,542 words). Read along, or search it.
Opening Question
Who Watches the Police?
One officer, alone, can decide in seconds whether to stop, detain, or arrest. So who watches the police? Police are the most visible face of government in daily life. They are also the part of government most directly empowered to use force against citizens. This lesson starts with that fact, and the democratic problem it creates.
Roadmap
Topics This Lesson Will Cover
We look at the three functions police actually perform, and how discretion shapes their work. We trace American policing through four recognized eras, including its documented history on race. We review the research that undermined the professional era's assumptions. Then we turn to legitimacy, procedural justice, and police culture. We close with a preview of accountability structures, and practice exercises.
Core Problem
Coercive Force and Democratic Accountability
The defining feature of the police role is the capacity to use coercive force, on behalf of the state. That includes the authority to detain, to arrest, and in defined circumstances, to use physical force. This creates what can be called the democratic problem of policing. An institution empowered to use force against citizens must remain accountable to those same citizens. Otherwise, it becomes a power exercised over the public, rather than on the public's behalf. The problem is not unique to policing, but it is unusually acute there. A legislature debates a law before it takes effect. A court rules only after hearing argument from both sides. A police officer's decision to stop, question, or detain is usually made alone, in the moment, on limited information. Yet its consequences can be as serious as either of those deliberative processes. That gap between speed and seriousness is why policing draws such attention to accountability.
Key Concepts
Three Functions of Police Work
Police work is generally analyzed as three functions. Law enforcement is the one most associated with police in the public imagination. It means investigating offenses and arresting offenders. Order maintenance, introduced in Subchapter fifteen point three, means managing disputes, disturbances, and conditions that threaten public order. It does not necessarily involve a clear offense. Service means responding to requests for help that involve no offense at all. Think of medical emergencies, welfare checks, and a wide range of other calls. Research on calls for service, drawing on Bureau of Justice Statistics data, finds a consistent pattern. Law enforcement is the smallest share of police work by volume. Order maintenance and service together account for considerably more of what police do each day.
Figure
Workload Share Versus Public Attention
This figure shows the three functions ordered by their relative share of workload. Service sits at the top, then order maintenance, and law enforcement last. The ordering reflects research on calls for service. The bar lengths, though, are illustrative, not precise measurements. What matters is the contrast. The function that dominates public and organizational attention is consistently the smallest share of actual workload. That gap has consequences. It affects how officers are trained, how departments measure success, and what the public expects police to do.
Key Concept
Low-Visibility Police Discretion
As Subchapter eighteen point one established, discretion is inevitable and pervasive in criminal justice. Policing is where it is most visible in its effects, and most consequential in practice. An officer decides whether to stop, warn, cite, or arrest, in the field, often within seconds. And that discretion is characteristically low visibility. A judge rules on the record, in open court. Most police discretion, by contrast, is exercised outside any contemporaneous review. It is documented, if at all, only in the officer's own later report. This is not a flaw of any individual officer or department. It is a structural feature of how street-level policing has to operate. And it shapes every accountability question in this chapter.
Historical Eras
Political and Professional Eras
American policing is usually divided into four recognized eras. The early, political era featured loosely organized policing, tied closely to local political machines. Its measure of success was local political satisfaction, and corruption and a lack of professional standards ended it. The reform, or professional, era emphasized autonomy from politics, technology like motorized patrol and radio dispatch, and rapid response. It measured success by response times and arrest activity. Research undermining its core assumptions brought it to an end.
Historical Eras
Community and Contemporary Eras
The community era emphasized partnership and problem solving with the community, as Subchapter nineteen point four develops. It measured trust, fear reduction, and satisfaction, but struggled with inconsistent implementation and sustaining organizational change. The contemporary period has no single consensus model. Demands for safety, accountability, and reform compete with resource constraints, and no settled successor has emerged.
Historical Record
Policing and Race in America
The documented historical record of American policing includes its relationship to race. American policing institutions historically included the enforcement of slave codes, and later of segregation law. Police also played a documented role in suppressing labor organizing, and at points, civil rights organizing. This is not presented as a claim about any individual officer today. It is presented because it is part of the documented institutional record. It also bears directly on effects on community relations that persist in some communities. Understanding today's legitimacy and trust challenges requires understanding this record. Community distrust does not arise from nothing.
Research
Testing Random Preventive Patrol
The professional era rested on specific empirical assumptions, and later research substantially undermined them. Research on random preventive patrol tested patrol that is not directed at any specific place or problem.
Quick Check
Predicting Patrol Experiment Results
Quick check, before the result. Researchers varied how much random preventive patrol different areas received. What do you predict happened to crime? Pause, and decide. Little change. Varying its level produced little detectable effect on crime, or on public perception of safety.
Research Findings
Response Time and Detective Studies
Research on rapid response found that response time mattered much less than assumed. Most delay happens before anyone even calls the police, so cutting travel time does little for apprehension. Research on detective work found that most solved cases turned on information available at the scene, or from witnesses. Extended investigative effort solved comparatively few. These studies, conducted from the nineteen seventies onward, are widely cited in the policing literature. Together, they undercut the professional model and helped motivate the shift to the community era.
Key Concepts
Legitimacy and Procedural Justice
Police legitimacy is the public's belief that police authority is rightful, and deserves deference. Procedural justice is the perceived fairness of how police exercise authority, independent of the outcome. Research on procedural justice has produced a consistent and influential result. Perceived fairness of treatment predicts cooperation and compliance better than perceived effectiveness does. That finding comes from social psychology research on legitimacy, and it has been widely applied to policing. The practical implication is direct. A department that treats people respectfully, explains its actions, and applies rules consistently tends to earn more voluntary cooperation. That means more witness reports, more compliance with instructions, and more willingness to work with the department. This can hold even against a department that relies on enforcement, and looks more effective at deterrence in isolation.
Definition
What Police Culture Means
Police culture is the documented set of shared attitudes, norms, and informal rules that develop among officers as an occupational group. It is distinct from any formal department policy. Commonly discussed features include strong loyalty among officers, and a heightened, sometimes generalized, sense of danger. Another is a degree of insulation from external scrutiny. This culture serves a real function, giving solidarity and shared coping norms to people who face physical risk and public scrutiny.
Nuance
Solidarity Meets Coercive Authority
It is easy to overstate the problem, so be precise. Strong solidarity also appears in firefighting, emergency medicine, and other occupations with shared risk. What distinguishes policing is the combination of that ordinary dynamic with coercive state authority. There, the solidarity that helps officers cope can also make external accountability harder to apply.
Preview
Four Accountability Mechanisms and Limits
Several accountability structures apply to police conduct, previewed here and developed fully in Subchapter nineteen point five. Internal accountability runs through a department's own internal affairs or disciplinary process. Civilian oversight bodies provide external review, outside the department's chain of command, in forms that vary by jurisdiction. Prosecutorial accountability applies when an officer's conduct itself meets the elements of a criminal offense. Civil accountability lets an affected person bring a civil claim, subject to legal doctrines covered later. Each mechanism reaches different conduct, and each has different limits. Those limits are examined in detail at the end of this chapter, alongside the reform debates they generate. So before evaluating any accountability reform, ask what each mechanism can and cannot reach.
Practice
Classifying Everyday Police Activities
Let's classify some everyday police activities. Arresting on probable cause, investigating a reported offense, and issuing a citation are enforcement. Mediating a loud dispute between neighbors, and directing traffic around a disabled vehicle, are order maintenance. Responding to medical distress, a welfare check, and helping a locked-out resident are service.
Scenario
High Enforcement, Low Crime Reporting
Now a scenario. A district with unusually high enforcement also shows unusually low reporting of crime. Leadership expected the opposite. Procedural justice offers an alternative explanation: enforcement experienced as unfair erodes legitimacy, and with it the voluntary cooperation that reporting depends on.
Practice Check
Uneven Rules and Consistency
One more case. Residents say officers apply the rules differently from one block to the next, and witness cooperation drops. Which factor is most directly at stake? Pause, and decide. Consistency. Applying the rules the same way everywhere is part of fair treatment; response time and arrest volume measure effectiveness instead.
Key Takeaways
Power, Workload, Research, and Fairness
Let's pull it together. Police hold coercive power, so accountability is the democratic problem. Law enforcement is the smallest share of police work. Research undercut the professional era. And fair treatment earns legitimacy and cooperation.
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About The Role of Police in Democratic Societies and Historical Impact in America
What are the three functions of police work, and which takes up the least time?
What are the four eras of American policing?
How did research undermine the professional era of policing?
What is police legitimacy, and why does it matter for police operations?
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