Types of departments...

[Blue_Chameleon]

Man, it's an erie silence here in the Rook corner so I'll post something.

Throughout my testing on my ride-alongs and post oral boards, I've noticed some departments are trying to sell themselves as "friendly" and not as "paramilitary" as other departments. Hence, one city is more relaxed than the other.

I went on a ride along with a city and the officer told me that although the department he worked for is a good department, morale is low, hence, there has been a high turnover rate in the past two years.

What kind of department do you have and how do you feel about the current structuring?

[me again]

My department has gotten further and further away from the paramilitary structure. As an example, during the 4th of July festivities, we were given the usual pre-event instructions. What made it unusual was the order, "Don't arrest anybody unless you really have to." The question arose, "Why did he say that? I wonder why he doesn't want us arresting anybody?" We had plenty of manpower and there were so many of us that we were tripping over ourselves.

It reminds me of the thread about De-Policing (http://www.officer.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001968.html). We are becoming a kinder, gentler and friendlier department.

Everybody smile and say cheese now! http://www.officer.com/ubb/smile.gif




[This message has been edited by me again (edited 07-08-2001).]

[Glockarmorer]

My agency covers both sides of that street. We have a "Community Services Division" complete with school resource officers, community liaison officers, DARE officers, and victim's rights advocates. All of the "touchy feely" type of stuff that represents "modern" law enforcement.

On the other side of the street we have the "Special Operations Division" (my division of course) that includes, S.R.T., K-9, Drug Task Force, and Criminal Investigations. Better believe we put some mofo's in jail! So do the uniformed patrol officers...every single day.

No one has ever told any officer at this agency "not to arrest anyone unless you have to". And no one better ever do that either.

G.A.

[Nonsequitur]

My department is in a similar sort of quandry. It is not so much that we are actually asked not to make arrests it is the fact that we know that the DA's office will leave us hanging. He will not prosecute drug offenses (..uhh... actually I am not going to go there), prostitution, or any quality of life crimes. We have to sort of get creative with stacking charges so that he will prosecute on anything.

I am pretty sure that I am not the only person mumbling about him; although our department as a whole is pretty okay morale-wise. People come here to smoke dope, or work the streets because they know that they will be back out, some of the time, before we can get our radiocars 10-8.

This is sort of disheartening but we can not stop doing our jobs; we still have to make the arrests even if they will be back at the house before we 10-7E...

Now do not even get me started about our Office of Citizen's Complaints (OCC). http://www.officer.com/ubb/frown.gif

[NLETA]

I think "De-Policing" (as described in that thread) is a different issue than the debate of what is described as "warm and fuzzy" versus "military" type departments.

From what I have seen, many departments do not properly understand or implement Community Oriented Policing.

I sum up some fundamental COP principles that are often overlooked in the following ways:

1) Examing the cause of crime and addressing the cause as opposed to reacting to it based on complaints. This is basically proactive rather than reactive.

2) Acknowledging and encouraging officer discretion. Many policies are chock full of "don't do this" and "don't do that", but they rarely tell you what TO DO. This enpowers officers to use their descretion in their decision to arrest instead of blindly arresting everyone or being told "not to arret anyone unless they have to".

COP is really nothing new. For generations, officers have been valued for their experience and judgement...then we saw a tendency for policies that discounted discretion. In response to litigation, officers were encouraged to either always arrest or to arrest only if neccessary.

We have also seen the tendency for dept's to be under staffed and officers responded to calls for service rather than patrolling and making officer initiated inquiries and arrests.

We also see the tendency to over fragment with officers often time being expected to do no more than fill out paperwork and tell complainants "someone will call".

At it's core, true COP is about empowering officers. It is a value system. I believe many dept's have merely paid "lip service" to COP inorder to get federal grant funds for more officers.

[uspublisher]

My department is run by a bloody chief-who-thinks-he's-a-politcian.

You guys can figure it out from there... :rolleyes:

[ 07-15-2001: Message edited by: uspublisher ]

[FLLawdog]

We've had a change of command, and morale is at a 12 year high. For the most part, the individual districts run operations as they see fit because each one is completely different than the next. I'm not talking completely different P&P's, but normal daily operations. For instance, our "battlezone district" gets zero tolerance attention for just about anything, especially juvenile crime and traffic.

The district I work in is more laid back and does the community policing thing. We've had our share of problems, but we've handled them to the point that now we're in maintenance mode. We're no longer putting out huge fires, so we can give our undivided attention to new issues and concerns that pop up.

[cajuncop]

Over the last year, our department has become a "touchy feely" and "community oriented" department.

Morale is the lowest it has been in about 5 years.

Our administration is more concerned with its public image then arresting criminals and conducting proactive policing.

Our deparment has gone to a city wide implementation of "community policing". Now I may be wrong, but I've always done community policing, but it was never called that. Since they've added the C.P. name to it, officers are forced into doing things they don't feel comfortable with.

For instance, as a patrol officer, one of your obligations is to contact a member of a neighborhood watch group to see if they have any problems. Normally, I would do that anyway, but now we're told who to contact, when to contact them, and what we are supposed to discuss. In addition, at the beginning of our shift we are told who is to ride bicycles that day, for public images of course. I thought the whold idea is to use officer discretion. Boy am I wrong...In our department it's nowhere near like that.

Sorry for the ranting, just a little frustrated. :mad:

[Lawman57]

Blue, I have been a member of both city police departments and Sheriffs department. I have found both good and bad in both. The city had a large turn over. This was mostly because of the Back biting that went on. It also had a paramilitary style force who were often in accessible to the lower men on the force.The Sheriffs' dept. hasn't got quite the turn over, but still has back biting.I have come to realize that this seems to be an occupational hazard one has to deal with. null :D

[Barkley]

Things in Canada are going the "Warm & Fuzzy" route also. I am a warm and fuzzy kinda guy.......until I get ******ed off.
************************************************** **********
M.H.K