Poice Ethics Chapter 3, Nature of Police Work

Question 1

Emilie Durkheim’s concept of normlessness: when people feel out of sync with their society.

Answer 1

Anomie

Question 2

The propensity for police officers to keep quiet about the misdeeds of others.

Answer 2

blue code of silence

Question 3

Obtaining desired behaviors through using threats to harm.

Answer 3

coercive power

Question 4

The idea that the media make violence appear to be sexy and cool.

Answer 4

cosmetized violence

Question 5

The military propensity to make enemies less than human;aids in creating a killing atmosphere.

Answer 5

dehumanizing the enemy

Question 6

The sorts of “boxes” within our minds where we store information.

Answer 6

diagnostic packages

Question 7

The judicial concept requiring a charge to be brought before a person can be kept behind bars.

Answer 7

habeas corpus

Question 8

Valuable possessions of a person that may be threatened for the purposes of coercion.

Answer 8

hostages

Question 9

Refers to procedural laws of the criminal justice system that are often considered to operate against efforts to hold the factually guilty accountable for their misdeeds.

Answer 9

legal technicalities

Question 10

Applied to the functions of the police, the idea that what the police are expected to prioritize is complicated rather than easy to discern.

Answer 10

multiple, conflicting, and vague

Question 11

The idea that criminal justice practitioners must take all deviant behavior and codify it.

Answer 11

normalize crime

Question 12

Something that operates contrary to normal expectation or to common sense, or contrary to the thing’s apparent purpose.

Answer 12

paradox

Question 13

The less a person values a hostage, the less coercible that person is.

Answer 13

paradox of detachment

Question 14

The less a person has, the less they have to lose.

Answer 14

paradox of dispossession

Question 15

The nastier a person’s reputation, the less often they are required to prove it.

Answer 15

paradox of face

Question 16

A two-part paradox-
the crazier the victim of coercion, the less effective the threat; the crazier the coercer, the more effective the threat.

Answer 16

paradox of irrationality

Question 17

Semi=military or quasi-military way of organizing the police.

Answer 17

para militarism

Question 18

Process by which people make quick decisions in life.

Answer 18

perceptual shorthand

Question 19

The idea that the police will solve all crimes all of the time.

Answer 19

RCMP Syndrome

Question 20

The normal human propensity to categorize data and utilize it later for the purpose of making life simpler and more manageable.

Answer 20

stereotyping

Question 21

Citizens about whom officers should be concerned because they might assault the police.

Answer 21

symbolic assailants

Question 22

Frustration is brought about by possessing an

Answer 22

inadequate amount of power over others

Question 23

The duties that police are supposed to accomplish and the roles they are supposed to play are
____ ____ and _____

Answer 23

multiple
conflicting
vague

Question 24

Police have three basic sets of functions and roles

Answer 24

law enforcement
order maintenance
service

Question 25

on the street, police must focus on substantive guilt. but system does not. it focuses upon

Answer 25

procedural guilt

Question 26

legal system can appear to be lost in a wilderness of

Answer 26

legal technicalities

Question 27

diagnostic packages

Answer 27

everything we know is made up of nothing more than stereotyped notions of people, things, events and language

Question 28

police also stereotype by using organizational shortcuts such as radio codes, 211, 187

Answer 28

perceptual shorthand

Question 29

normalize crime

Answer 29

no matter how bizarre, disgusting, the police are driven to normalize it by attaching a numeber to it.

Question 30

working the beat

Answer 30

officers normalize how beat looks, who belongs and who doesnt. caused police to stereoptype

Question 31

symbolic assailants

Answer 31

people who might pose a threat

Question 32

who wrote that police are forever looking to symbolic assailants.

Answer 32

Jerome Skolnick, leading American scholar on policing

Question 33

additional police stereotyping

Answer 33

police see people as “cases”

Question 34

what is the single most important minute by minute form of misconduct in police work

Answer 34

abuse of discretionary latitude

Question 35

Hostage

Answer 35

Coersion involves obtaining desired behavior from another by threatening to harm something of value to them

Question 36

Muirs’s paradoxes of coercive power

Answer 36

1. paradox of dispossession- those that are disenfranchised that they have no hostages
2. paradox of detachment- people who can consciously detach themselves from valeuing their freedom can be difficult to coerce.
3. paradox of face- police showing a tough face to public. , nastier one’s reputation, the less nasty one has to be
4. paradox of irrationality- the crazier the victim of coersion, less effective the threat. ex: juveniles, drunk or stonedd, mentally unbalanced.

Question 37

second half of paradox of coercive power is the crazier the coercer, the more effective the threat

Answer 37

ex: police k9.

Question 38

paramilitarism, reasons for this military focus

Answer 38

1. makes police visible
2. makes police more accountable.
3. paramilitarism instills a sense of duty in indiv.-duty to “the corps” of police.

Question 39

downside to paramilitarism.
Tony Jefferson in “The Case Against Paramilitary Policing”.
4 important points

Answer 39

1. creates “us against them” feeling among police and citizenry
2. making citizens into “enemy” in a warlike battle.
3. intimidates people unnecessarily\
4. focuses upon such trivialities as haircusts and shoe shines
5. works against COP principles: collegial problem solving.

Question 40

todays police are invovled in creating and maintaining two organizations at once

Answer 40

COP system of problem solving agents

militaristic system of people who do precisely what they are told

Question 41

In Media Imagery

Answer 41

1. RCMP syndrome- Royal Canadian Mounted Police- “Mountie always gets his man”.
2. Dirty Harry problem- vigilante justice
3. cosmetized violence-making violence appear sexy and cool.
4. universal problem in America with Miranda warning

Question 42

sociologist labeled anomie

Answer 42

Emile Durkheim

Question 43

anomie

Answer 43

term for the feeling of normlessness, that many suicidal people experience. a Disconnect between themselves and society.

Question 44

sociologist tell us that subculture is a

Answer 44

culture within a culture

Question 45

police subculture is known for its

Answer 45

solidarity

Question 46

police isolation or solidarity develop norms that are driven by this experience. 5. police subcultural dynamics

Answer 46

some norms operate in a way of counterproductive to interest of justice.

1. Overkill- regard to use of force
2. blue code of silence-no police would aid into investigation of misconduct of other officers
3. norm that works directly against the development of COP. idea that “real” police work involves enforcing law, only enforcing law.
4. solidarity within the group
5. Police socializing: parties, vacations, celebrations

Question 47

____,____ and ____ nature of what the police do sometimes creates confusion for the police, distrust of the police and difficulties that directly impact our discussion of what ethical conduct is.

Answer 47

multiple, conflicting and vague

Question 48

Multiple, Conflicting and Vague functions of the police, which are admittedly vague and often in conflict with each other, are to :

Answer 48

enforce the law
maintain order
provide services to community