Exam 14: Order and the Police

Traditionally, the police have relied on what source to define when disorder has occurred?

Attempts to control a situation by the issuance of an order is known as definitional regulation.

Decisions by the police NOT to enforce the law when legal grounds to do so exist are known as:

Toward the end of the 1970s police agencies were increasingly responding to domestic disturbances as social problems rather than crimes.

Behavior that threatens the public peace/involves face to face conflict between two or more persons is:

James Wilson concludes that the ability of police administrators to control officer discretion is greatest in situations involving citizen invoked law enforcement.

Goldstein was concerned with non- invocation discretion because he viewed it as being:

Police tend to exercise invocation discretion more frequently than they do non- invocation discretion.

The importance of order maintenance as a goal or function of the police often limits law enforcement efforts.

Traditionally, police officers have been reluctant to respond to domestic disturbances because these events were considered to be private.

To date the results of the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment have been replicated across the country.

An officer who prefers to counsel and mediate between disputants in an attempt to maintain order would be identified by Muir as a(n):

Order maintenance is both the most important and most difficult police function.

As a result of their ability to choose which laws to enforce when and against whom, Kenneth Davis argued that police are:

In the 1980s, police agencies began to redefine domestic disturbances as crime and prefer policies of arrest in these cases because:

Police will arrest citizens in disorderly circumstances if they challenge the officer's authority.

Arresting citizens who are disrespectful to the police helps establish the authority of the officer.

In some cases making a legal arrest can actually create disorder.

The "acid test" of police officer discretionary choices in order maintenance is:

When both parties to a conflict expect the responding officer to take their side, the officer will generally refuse to intervene.