Hunting for “Dirtbags”: Why Cops Over-Police the Poor and Racial Minorities

3 | Shaken or Stirred? Choosing Your Policing Style and Level of Proactivity

c h a p ter thr ee SHAKEN OR STIRRED? Choosing Your Policing Style and Level of Proactivity Everyone in this district is on probation or parole. They’re all searchable. —Stonesville officer ith the advent of the 9-1-1 system, researchers concluded that patrol officers continue to spend a greater proportion of their time responding to citizen calls for service than proactively fighting crime (Black 1980; Garland 2001: Smith, Novak, and Frank 2001). Dispatchers prioritize calls and send officers to respond based on the immediacy of need. Even in highcrimedistricts ,though,mostnightsleavealotoftimeforanofficer to fill as she sees fit (Brown 1981). Studies have demonstrated that approximatelyhalf(Bittner1990,Reiss1971)tothree-quarters(Famega , Frank, and Mazerolle 2005) of an officer’s shift is discretionary or “clear” time. Police officers decide what type of officer they want to be before stepping into the patrol car each day. Does an officer want to be a “hard charger” who spends much of his unassigned time looking for lawbreakers? If so, is he interested in targeting stolen cars, drugs, weapons, or people who are searchable because of their probation or parole status? Or, instead, does the officer want to minimize his proactive activities and use his unassigned time to make 50 hunting for “dirtbags” contacts with community members or wait in his patrol car until he is dispatched to a call for service? Answers to these questions all influence an officer’s policing style and, therefore, his decisions on the street. This chapter highlights decisions officers make before they even start their shifts; the types of offenses they decide to hunt are important discretionary decisions that influence their policing styles. As it concerns proactivity, there are three different policing styles that emerged—hunters, slugs, and community builders. Our observations suggested that choice of policing style was influenced by a variety of factors, including an officer’s number of years on the force, the sex of the officer, and, in the case of Stonesville,theofficer’sexperiencesduringhistrainingperiodand hissergeant’smanagementapproach.Therewerealsoinstitutional incentives and disincentives to proactive policing that affected officers ’ styles. An officer’s policing style influenced her likelihood to arrest in a given situation. If she came across the crime she was hunting,shewould bemorelikelyto arrestinthatcasebecauseher hunting efforts would have proved successful. Police Discretion and Style The discussion related to police officer discretion is wide and varied .1 Social scientists have identified four factors as major influences on how police officers use their discretion. Perhaps most obviously , the characteristics of the crime affect the degree to which an officer can wield discretion. First, officers have much less freedom to ignore serious offenses. Second, the relationship between the suspect and the victim influences police discretion: the closer the victim-suspect relationship, the greater the use of discretion. Third, the relationship between the police officer and the subject or victim also affects how police officers use their discretion. Included in this relationship is the oft-cited influence of the suspect’s attitude toward the officer (Black 1980; Engel, Sobol, and Worden shaken or stirred? 51 2000;Reisigetal.2004WordenandShepard1996).2Finally,police department administration’s policies shape officer discretion to some degree (Groeneveld 2005; Skolnick 1966; Wilson 1968). There are three additionally relevant factors that influence both the type of policing style officers choose to adopt and how they use their discretion. The style an officer chooses is influenced by (1) his own level of desired proactivity, (2) what type of crime is a priority to the officer, and (3) his desire to promote or be assigned to a special unit. Our argument regarding policing style is consistent with other policingstyletypologies.3Forexample,anofficercanbeanenforcer, idealist, realist, or optimist (Broderick 1987). What we explain here are important differences in police behaviors even among officers inonecategory,specificallytheenforcercategory.Enforcersbelieve their job is to keep the streets safe, but there are a variety of ways to achieve that goal and officers can focus on different offenses in ordertofeelasiftheyarefightingcrime.4Thereisalsoadistinction between active and passive officers (Herbert 1998). Active officers are those who initiate more contacts with citizens, assert control, andmake morearrests.Thepolicingstylesweobservedareconsistentwiththosecategories .Huntersareclearlyactiveofficersatleast in the dimension of initiating contacts. Patrolofficersbelieverespondingtocitizencallsforassistanceis largely part of their service role and not their crime-fighting function . Officers are most proud of being crime fighters and want to practiceandhonetheir craft.Becausecrimefightingisunderstood as self-initiated rather than citizen-requested, exploring how they spend their time when they are not responding to calls is particularly important. As stated previously, in regards to...