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26
resulted in heightened supervision, these improvements in technology also arguably
alienated police officers from the citizens they were protecting. Officers accustomed
to walking their beats and interacting with citizens directly, left the sidewalks and
got behind the wheel of patrol cars, therefore separating themselves from and
diminishing face-to-face contact with the public (Walker 1993, 31). As Kelling and
Moore note, during the 1930s and 1940s, “patrol cars became the symbol of
policing” (1991, 15).
The reform era spanned more than six decades. Police tactics evolved with
the times and the advent of technological advances. Later reform era innovations
like the 911 system and computer-aided dispatch further altered citizen-police
interactions (Kelling and Moore 1991, 13-14). Kelling and Moore note that “[t]he
primary tactics of the reform strategy were preventive patrol by automobile and rapid
response to calls for service” (1991, 13). O. W. Wilson14, a progressive police chief
in several cities, a student of August Vollmer, and himself one of the most influential
policing scholars of the reform era, developed this widely adopted policing strategy
of aggressive preventive patrol. As Kelling and Moore explain, preventive patrol
theory posited that having officers patrol randomly throughout the city in clearly
identified police cars, particularly near high-risk areas such as schools and bars,
would reduce crime and comfort citizens by providing a sense of safety. This would
create a sense that police were everywhere, making citizens feel safe and preventing
14 O. W. Wilson authored two of the most influential textbooks on policing, Police Administration
(1950) and Police Planning (1952). Like his mentor, Vollmer, he entered academia, serving as Dean
of the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Criminology from 1950 to 1960.
Object Description
| Title | Policing accountability: an empirical investigation of state-sponsored police reform in Riverside, California |
| Author | Gomez, Jose Adolfo |
| Author email | jagclash@yahoo.com; jgomez@treasurer.ca.gov |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Political Science |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-01 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Restricted until 13 Oct. 2010. |
| Date published | 2010-10-13 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Renteln, Alison Dundes |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Newland, Chester A. Wong, Janelle S. |
| Abstract | The police have the ability to detain, arrest, and use force when necessary. Police accountability is thus of paramount concern to the public. Numerous examples of police misconduct, including cases of excessive force, brutality, and corruption, appear regularly via the news media. These incidents often evidence systemic organizational problems in law enforcement agencies. Scholars have observed that attempts at police reform have placed too much emphasis on individuals behaving badly, rather than on the systemic problems of the police department.; Beginning in the second half of the 1990s, federal and state Attorneys General began employing institutional reform litigation, in the form of consent decrees, to reform law enforcement agencies and enhance police accountability. The consent decrees were crafted to address systemic organizational dysfunction in local police departments. The United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) conducted most of these reform interventions. However, a notable exception was the settlement agreement between the Attorney General of the State of California and the City of Riverside, California.; There has been little research on the efficacy of these efforts to rehabilitate law enforcement agencies. This analysis is a case study of the effectiveness of the institutional reform intervention by the California Attorney General into the Riverside Police Department (RPD). The detailed examination revealed that the intervention produced constructive changes in the way the RPD conducts its business. The RPD became more professional, effective, transparent and accountable as it implemented the provisions of the consent decree, demonstrating that institutional reform litigation can result in meaningful police reform. The shadow of the law was ever present, encouraging an ethos of cooperation and exerting pressure for meaningful organizational change. The Riverside experience suggests that a facilitative oversight style produces constructive collaboration between the parties, improving the likelihood of durable police reform. Moreover, consent decrees to correct systemic police misconduct should not be the exclusive purview of the USDOJ. State Attorneys General can effectively initiate police reform and in some cases state intervention is a more appropriate alternative. |
| Keyword | institutional reform; police reform; police accountability; state attorney's general; police misconduct; organizational change; consent decrees |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Riverside |
| Geographic subject (state) | California |
| Coverage date | 1993/2008 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1664 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Gomez, Jose Adolfo |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Gomez-2358 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume29/etd-Gomez-2358.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 38 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 26 resulted in heightened supervision, these improvements in technology also arguably alienated police officers from the citizens they were protecting. Officers accustomed to walking their beats and interacting with citizens directly, left the sidewalks and got behind the wheel of patrol cars, therefore separating themselves from and diminishing face-to-face contact with the public (Walker 1993, 31). As Kelling and Moore note, during the 1930s and 1940s, “patrol cars became the symbol of policing” (1991, 15). The reform era spanned more than six decades. Police tactics evolved with the times and the advent of technological advances. Later reform era innovations like the 911 system and computer-aided dispatch further altered citizen-police interactions (Kelling and Moore 1991, 13-14). Kelling and Moore note that “[t]he primary tactics of the reform strategy were preventive patrol by automobile and rapid response to calls for service” (1991, 13). O. W. Wilson14, a progressive police chief in several cities, a student of August Vollmer, and himself one of the most influential policing scholars of the reform era, developed this widely adopted policing strategy of aggressive preventive patrol. As Kelling and Moore explain, preventive patrol theory posited that having officers patrol randomly throughout the city in clearly identified police cars, particularly near high-risk areas such as schools and bars, would reduce crime and comfort citizens by providing a sense of safety. This would create a sense that police were everywhere, making citizens feel safe and preventing 14 O. W. Wilson authored two of the most influential textbooks on policing, Police Administration (1950) and Police Planning (1952). Like his mentor, Vollmer, he entered academia, serving as Dean of the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Criminology from 1950 to 1960. |
