1. BEHAVIOR AND MISCONDUCT
CHAPTER NINE

2. Perspectives of Police Behavior
A number of unique perspectives exist to explain police behavior
Universalistic perspective
Sociological perspective
Psychological perspective
Organizational perspective
What differentiates these perspectives?

3. Perspectives of Police Behavior
Particularistic perspectives also focus on police decision-making
Worden (1989) identified five ways in which officers differ
1) their view of human nature
2) their role orientations
3) their attitudes toward legal and departmental restrictions
4) their beliefs/behavior based on clientele
5) their relationship between management and peer group support

4. Perspectives of Police Behavior
Two additional theoretical perspectives have been offered to explain differences in police behavior
Socialization theory
Pre-dispositional theory
How do these theories differ?

5. Classic Studies of Police Behavior
A host of early efforts aimed to explain police behavior
Violence and Police (1970)
Justice Without Trial (1966)
Varieties of Police Behavior (1968)
City Police (1973)
Working the Street: Police Discretion (1981)
Understanding Police Culture (1998)

6. Decision-Making and Police Discretion
Police decision making and discretion have received a wealth of research attention
Findings in this area point to four areas of importance
Organizational variables
Neighborhood variables
Situational variables
Individual variables

7. Police Deviance Not all police behavior is legal or proper
Deviance is behavior that does not conform to norms/expectations
Ethical standards
Organizational standard
Legal standards

8. Types of Deviance
Kane and White (2009) have classified misconduct as follows:
Profit-motivated crimes
Off-duty crimes against persons
Off-duty public order crimes
Drugs
On-duty abuse
Obstruction of justice
Administrative/failure to perform
Conduct-related probationary failures

9. Types of Deviance
Four kinds of deviance according to Kappeler, Sluder, and Alpert:
Police crime
Occupational deviance
Police corruption
Abuse of authority
In what ways are each of these unique?

10. The Prevalence of Police Deviance
Measuring the incidence of police deviance has proved a difficult task
Several surveys of deviance in police departments suggest that deviance is widespread
Strong peer support exists to cover up deviance
Kane and White (2009) found that:
1,543 NYPD officers terminated between1975–1996

11. Deviant Officers
There is great variation in the extent to which deviant officers are in fact deviant
Knapp Commission offered one of most important insights into the nature of police corruption
Grass eaters
Meat eaters
What is the difference?

12. Deviant Officers
Barker (1996) expanded Knapp Commission’s typology of deviant officers to the following:
White knights
Straight-shooters
Grass eaters
Meat eaters
Rogues

13. Persistence of Corruption
There are a # of reasons why police corruption persists
Police are very powerful
Community and political environments are influential
Widespread tolerance among citizens for some kind of deviance
Patterns of deviance can become standards of behavior

14. Persistence of Corruption
Two theories offer competing insights into the continuation of police corruption
Systemic theory of corruption
Rotten-apples theory of corruption
What does each of these theories maintain?

15. Are Gratuities a Type of Misconduct?
Arguably the most perplexing matter of police deviance concerns the acceptance of gratuities
What are examples of gratuities?
What are officers’ views on gratuities?
Why are gratuities such a difficult issue to address?

16. Police Sexual Misconduct
Police sexual conduct is defined as:
Behavior by an officer who takes advantage of their authority and power to commit sexual violence or initiate a sexually motivated cue for the purpose of sexual gratification
This is a poorly understood area of police behavior
Due in part to the fact that it is rarely reported
Maher (2003) found that police sexual misconduct is common
What are the types of sexual misconduct he identified?

17. Drug War and Police Deviance
The Drug War has posed unique challenges for police departments and officers
Kappeler et al. (1994) identified 4 types of corruption
Use corruption
Economic corruption
Police violence
Subjugation of a defendant’s rights
Noble-cause corruption appears particularly common
What is noble-cause corruption?

18. Summary
Universalistic perspectives of police behavior are sociological, psychological, and organizational
Predisposition and socialization are two particularistic theories
Predisposition focused on the type of individual employed
Socialization focuses on what happens to an officer after employment
Various other factors are known to affect police behavior
Organizational, neighborhood, situational, and officer
Police deviance comes in various forms