finals review Flashcards
Describe policing in one word
Asmakaya: exciting; one day is boring, the other murder
Skurrah: diconomist; supposed to be problem solver and gentle for people (dichotomous)
Pope: astounding; going home and reflecting on the day/shift
What excites you most of police work?
A: progress call; call 911 and watch things happen; get helicopter or other vehicle; rewarding to help the victim
S: challenging but rewarding; being able to help people from
P: frauds, chasing criminals down; tone or priority call satisfying; catching bad guy
Challenges of patrol work, has perception change them?
P: not addressing problems, little support to certain problems (mental health, homelessness); not enough resources
S: change from one thing to another drastically - deal with CPR then theft
A: mental health and addiction; lack of funding; short-staffed
Most common call in their community
A: homeless people; getting them to hospital again cuz hospital send them out
S: thefts, trespassing, property crime, stranger assualt
P: property thefts, break ins
What is the biggest misconception public has on police
S: society expects police to solve any problem people have; not equipped enough;expect perfection
A: not understanding mental health;use violence to solve most cases; media posts pore only being violent
P:believing now media portrays police;negatively, violent & mean people
How does fear manifest itself in frontline policing?
S: Mundane; every time hearing a call, afraid of what to do to someone; cannot control
A: afraid to get hurt/stabbed, show action, hope for the best; have to use force; high blood pressure lasts for hours after call; affects personal life
P:tone alert, unpredictable situation; do I really want to be first one there?; reflect on day; gotta do what you to get job done
Was experience of patrol/policing what you expected or not
P:no; not predictable, will know secrets when you join; way better than he expected - happy memories
S: what he expected, busier, similar to cvsa
A: some aspects expected, did normal policing stuff; did not expect scope of societal issues have to deal with
Examples of why people want to become a police officer
-Excitement
-Genuinely want to help people
-To catch bad people; people who commit crimes; put handcuffs
-Diversity of opportunity with the policing career
-Ability to problem-solve
-Being in the community, getting away from the desk, connecting with the street
Why is it difficult to hire police officers?
-Not everyone wants to become a police officer!
-Not everyone who wants to become an officer can be one!
-Not everyone who can become an officer is eligible!
-Not everyone who is eligible is desirable!
Not everyone wants to become a police officer!
Personal goals
Fear
Hostility
Compensation
Not everyone who wants to become a police officer can be one!
-Vision (shooting a gun, drive)
-Hearing (communication, hear environment)
-Health (sit and stand for certain amts of time, jump, run, lift, other physical functions)
-citizenship (not as relevant anymore in Canada; ppl w/ PR card allowed)
Not everyone who can become an officer is eligible!
Past behaviour (under police discretion, don’t cheat, be honest)
Job testing (need to pass a lengthy amount of tests, difficult)
Job testing examples
Written test
Physical agility test
Oral interview
Background investigation
Polygraph examination
Psychologist test
Medical examination
Not everyone who is eligible desirable!
Personal fit:
-Make sure you enjoy the career in their agency
-Be successful in their agency
-Devote themselves
-Be able to go from one case to another
Todak,2017: survey on why men and women(in uni) want to become an officer
-28 women, 18 men
-motivation when they were: childhood (16), teenager (15), college (11)
Todak,2017: survey on why men and women(in uni) want to become an officer (continued)
WHY?
-Help people (31)
- avoid a “desk job” (18)
Todak,2017: survey on why men and women(in uni) want to become an officer (continued)
LONG-TERM GOALS?
- full career in policing (16)
- stepping stone into federal law enforcement (15)
- one option to consider (11)
Todak,2017: survey on why men and women(in uni) want to become an officer (continued)
CONCERNS
Cynical - Exposed to the negative parts of society all the time
Protective - Swallow how horrible human beings can be to one another
Fear - Danger and risk that comes with the job
Coping -Trauma ;From cases: like picking up a dead
corpse
How to prepare for careers in policing?
● Shooting
● Ride-alongs
● Purchased firearm
● Work in police department; Get to know more about an agency
● Attended events
● Martial arts
● Criminal justice college education
Problems in applicants
- Many aspiring applicants have positive motivations, realistic expectations, good preparation
-Applicant numbers and applicant pool struggling
How to expand applicant pool?
Police recruitment videos ( Simpson, 2022)
Criteria for videos: Simpson, 2022
- look on department websites, youtube, Facebook
- video characteristics (music)
- officer representation (female, testimonials )
-Information content (slogan) - behaviourial content (what police were doing)
Discussion (Simpson 2022)
● The recruitment and retention of police officers remains a priority for police agencies around the world
● One of the primary means by which police to their agencies is via their recruitment videos
● Potential applicants may use these videos to infer conclusions about the police agency’s philosophies and practices
changing the content of the job ads for policing impacted applicant numbers
Linos, 2018
○ Public service motivations = not good
○ Personal benefits: challenge/career benefits
Constable Zacharias
-BA Criminology from SFU
-Port Moody Police Department
-Community and media relations officer
-role: social media, volunteers, engagement
Hiring process
-Typically 6-18 month process
○ Application, Intake exam, POPAT, Panel interview, Polygraph test (lie detector test), Psychological assessment, Medical testing, Background investigation, Ride along, Chief constable interview
Training
● Block I - foundation of policing: firearms investigations, law, UOF, driving (3 months)
● Block II - field training with training officer (5 months)
● Block III - advanced policing, special topics, certifications (2 months)
Recruiting strategies
○ Social media
○ Ride Along Videos
○ Community engagement: never too early!
Retention & recruiting issues
Declining interest
■ Media perceptions
■ Salary not competitive enough
■ pandemic/frontline work
■ LMD uncertainty
■ Existence of danger
■ Patrol work unfavourable
-not much representation
important factors of policing job
○ Shiftwork is tough
○ You will work holidays and weekends
○ High stress situations
○ Physically and emotionally demanding job
○ Rewarding and exciting
○ Administratively intensive
Contact with police
Citizen-initiated process
NOT all contacts with the police have the same
impact on the public’s perceptions of the police
The impact of having a negative encounter w/ the police is 4-14 times greater than the impact of having a positive encounter with the police
Stakes of police contacts is really high (takes time to build trust, can lose that trust super quickly)
The assumption of police work from calls
○ The public’s interaction with the police begins when the police arrive on-scene at a call for service ■ Police officers use information obtained on-scene to accurately assess their response to the situation
■ Police Officer On-Scene -> Outcome
The reality
1) Judgement by Public
2) Judgement by Call-Taker
3) Judgement by Radio-Operator
4) Judgement by Police Officer
5)Police Officer On-Scene
Dispatcher
All people who work in an emergency call environment
Call-taker
deals with public
Radio-operator
communicates with police officer
information-operator
- sometimes don’t exist in small agencies
-Takes on both call-taker and radio-operator cuz too much calls and information
-Backup
1) Judgement by the public
-in order for a public-initiated contact with the police to begin, the public must first decide to contact the police such as: call the police, visit a police station, flag down a police officer
-The public’s reasons for contacting the police can vary depending uponthe person, context, and time
Criminal in nature call examples
● “He just hit me!”
● “Someone is breaking into my house!’
● “My car is stolen!”
● “I think someone just vandalized my mailbox!”
● “There’s a drunk driver on highway 1!”
● “I think some just got shot!”
Civil in nature call examples
● “My tenant won/t pay his rent!” (get lawyer)
● “I let my friend borrow my Xbox and now he won’t return it!”
● “The store won’t return my purchase!”
● “The contractor is telling me I owe twice the price we originally agreed upon!”
● “My neighbor’s fence crosses onto my property!”
● “My brother isn’t honoring my deceased mother’s will!”
2) judgement by the call-taker
-Importance of language; synonyms can have different meanings (arguing, fighting)
-Indications of distress?
-Time pressure
-Complainants in various states of mind
3) judgement by radio-operator
○ Radio-operators rely on the files generated by call takers to dispatch police officers to calls for service
■ Radio-operators utilize information from call-takers to decide:
■ … the order of files to be dispatched
■ …and how many police officers to send each file
Two features of dispatching
1) radio time is sparse -> radio-operators must be considerate of the amount of radio time they use to dispatch calls for service
● Radio time is shared by the radio-operator and multiple police officers at any given time
2) multiple calls for service are being handled simultaneously -> each call for service is dispatched and handled alongside of multiple other calls for service
4) judgement by the police officer
Police officers rely on the information provided to them by their radio-operator to make operational decisions regarding their response to the call
○ Depending on the information provided to them, police officers must decide:
■ Emergency response vs routine response?
■ Proceed into situation upon arrival vs wait for backup unit(s)?
■ Tactical entry vs routine entry?
■ Etc.
5) police officer on-scene
Police officers’ initial reactions to calls for service are based upon the information provided to them leading up to their arrival on-scene
■ E.g., if there is reason to believe that an assault occurred -> officers may initially detain someone on-scene
○ Following mediation, it may become clear that the initial call description was not accurate, however these details were NOT known at the time of the police arrivals
■ Hindsight is 20/20
Evidence based policing
○ Police do things that they have always done it, not necessarily because it is
the best option
○ Research in policing is new
“The early 20 years since the publication of Sherman’s (1998, p. 2) assertion that
‘police practices should be based on scientific evidence about what works best’
● Anecdotal evidence - throws out
● Rigorous research - favours this
evidence based policing (continued)
statistics
Numbers of assaults do not correlate with fluctuation of numbers
○ Evidence based policing do not look at number
Survey: do officers know what EBP is?
5% provided accurate definition
30% provided an incorrect definition
Pos. Relationship between rank and higher education
Appearance based research
■ Public liked when officers wear high-visibility apparel (vest)
■ Public doesn’t like when police wears black gloves, sunglasses
● Look at eyes for threats
■ Public doesn’t like when police wears long stick batons
● Doesn’t like clanging on uniforms
■ Baseball caps had no effect
■ External low-bearing vest elicited mixed reaction, some saw pos., some neg.
Appearance based research (continued)
vehicles
■ Police cars are important for their identity
■ Style factor, cool part of the job
■ Showed pictures of police officers in different looking police cars
■ Public prefers marked cars
■ Color scheme matters too (on the marked cars)
■ Favoured black and white cars more, seem more approachable, not the predominately white car
Constable scarecrow, Simpson 2020
○ A life-sized cardboard cutout of a police officer
○ To police roadways, for safety
○ To help slow cars down, reduce speeding
○ Two residential roadways, reduce speeding in neighbourhoods
Constable scarecrow, Simpson 2020 (cont.)
Traffic-related issues are a major concern for communities across North America
■ Traffic condition are the leading cause of death aged 15-29 and the eighth leading cause of death for all people worldwide (World Health Organization, 2015)
■ Police are increasingly expected to reduce traffic collisions and the correlates of such collisions
Constable scarecrow, Simpson 2020 (cont.)
Arterial: successful in vehicles slowing down, sharp reduction in speeding, during day & night
Residential: no effect, cars were about the same as it CST scarecrow wasn’t there
Deterrence theory
human beings are rational actors who are motivated to pursue pleasure and avoid pain
Routine activities theory
Perspective of criminal; A crime will only be committed if a motivated offender thinks that a target is suitable and a capable guardian is absent. It is the offender’s assessment of a situation that determines whether a crime will take place.
