Unfinished business; Understanding police

Do you understand. Police in your community. Do you understand the police. Our unfinished business. A series of programs tape recorded designed to acquaint you with unresolved social welfare problems produced by the Ohio State University Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. Today's unfinished business understanding police. We were talking to two boys 14 and 16 years of age reformatory about the causes of their trouble. They mentioned drinking. We asked where they got the intoxicant to drink beer when you're pretty young for how we're acting.

About 11 12 years old. Well how did you get that there. That. I'd walk and usually with a. Few other guys and they'd just serve the. Mayor the other guys and when I'd asked for it I'd get it too. Then when you go to the 39 you registered and you made him think that your 18 was there and I thought I was about 20 21 at that time. They do. And so you go in by yourself and they. And no one ask you for any of your papers or anything else to drink beer every day for a good deal during the day or. Not generally I go to town night after I get off work. At 2:00 or 3:00 and I go to a movie come out. I have to. People are gone. Did you ever get served with kiana. Whenever I wanted it. They would never ask any question. You know. Do you think they thought you were 21.

Yes I believe they did think I was 21 because I always run with a lot of older guys. They classified me being as old as they were. During the period of time. Yes my dear tavern. How calmly Sonu. I thought I was a teen. And I didn't ask for any. Comment or Social Security or driver's license in that room. As for. An increasingly large numbers of drifting into serious delinquency because of drinking. Since the law forbids the sale of intoxicating drinks to mine as we ask at once. Why don't the police patrol these places where these young people get these drinks. Not only that we often feel dissatisfied about our law enforcement officers in other respects. Perhaps there are reasons they fail. We feel that we are very fortunate indeed to be able to bring you a police chief and sheriff working in the

same city. Who did not hesitate to frankly appraise the area of law enforcement for which they are responsible. Dr. Walter wreckless nationally known in the field of Criminology is conducting the interview. You are responsible for all the work within the city limits is that right. Yes that's right I'm sure you're responsible for police work in the county but outside of corporation limits. Right that's just about in the townships and incorporated villages in the country and if there is a city that's incorporated use the I want the police to do the job. Yes. Now what we really want to discuss here is. How we can improve police service within the municipal corporation how we can improve the police was the surest part. I wondering chief if you have any suggestions for improvement of police services in the city.

First of all one thing that you must consider from the standpoint of improved improving police service is the selection of your personnel. Any organisation will grow up to it primarily be approximately the same caliber of individuals it already has within the organization. So first be careful selection of the right type of personnel and number two the training of their personnel and the way that it should be trained. 3. A sufficient number of our police officers to adequately do the job. I may break in there a minute go on training do you have a police school in your department. Yes or we do and is it under FBI standards. I mean the. School from that. Now we have several representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as many other organizations that assist us in certain subjects. However our police training school in this particular city is a full

time operation during those periods of time that we are not running our recruit classes for newly appointed police officers we are issuing training bulletins to the officers who are have been appointed already have been appointed and are in service and have been over a period of years with police officers at the present time. Roughly to do a good job and of course you're using a phrase what is a good job to do and a first class job in this city we would need at least 50 percent more than we have now and they would be they would be split into four sections that we have now that is the primary sections we would add some of the personnel in our training school for example to do a better and a more thorough job of training. We would add more on patrol or we would put a few of them on on what beat in certain selected sections of the city and particularly during certain hours of the day we would add more on

traffic we would certainly of course add more in the detective section we would undoubtedly create new bureaus within our sections such as the juvenile bureau to do more learning. Crime prevention or didn't you some years ago some 18 to 20 years ago we had what we call a hate crime prevention or a juvenile bureau However it was not that at all. It was one individual sergeant who attempted to handle the juvenile cases that came to his attention or came to the attention of the vision of what we would like to do is to equip and train a certain number of police officers as policemen and policewomen to organize a juvenile crime prevention bureau I think we could do it. Certainly I'm sure even begun to improve the park right now is a little something of your department what do you think you need to do.

Please. Well our requirements are quite similar to the bars of train personnel and sound person. As well as equipment I think our department is no different than most sheriffs all over the country we work with the handful of men and for the most part their training has to be done on the job. Unfortunately it is in the political classification and I personally think it should be taken out of. Or better placing. Now what do you mean by life. Jobs are political. Yes there are political appointments. And is it the same with the police or no civil service. We are civil service for sure that if you call a deputy the deputy's years are there by point or by point. And unfortunately in some areas the.

Political pressure is brought to bear to making these appointments who makes these a point the sheriff himself Europe and so on our Would salaries be higher could you attract better man. If that were taken out of politics and put in. Yeah well service or civil service classification would be part of the answer I'm sure. In the event that there is a change in administration just your sheriff and maybe a few of the top men would move on. I do have it under consideration as the chief. Here are establishing maybe his more juvenile you too. Special Patrol. Of the kids under do not correlate with the lateral thinking. Yes we would have thought of that and I have talked with the juvenile judge here and he is very much in favor of that so it was a personal limitation will never do it at this point we'd like to be a good

thing. I may ask that she or any other recommendations that you would make after you have pointed the right caliber of individual into your organization you have done a good job of training. There are certain things that the community must accept as a portion of their responsibilities. One of course being the organization is going to have to be furnished with the right kind of quarters the right kind of equipment. You will find as you look around your industrial organizations your large industrial organizations you will find that they have found it economically feasible to provide good quarters in which to hold their operations whether it's a manufacturing plant or whatever it may be a police headquarters is about to come in as building a whole community. But you're not going to get efficiency you're not going to get the right kind of morale within your organization if the community itself is not interested in providing decent quarters in which to operate in the city with which to operate. Your

individual citizens within the citizen within the community has the responsibility of making sure that the type of work being done by your police organization if it is good work is backed up by the citizens of that community with their support not only their good intentions but to see that the actions are not politically controlled and you don't have courts no police organization is going to operate effectively if you have a bad situation and that's the responsibility of the public. You have the public. Trying to read. We're trying the same thing I think you'll find that the people don't show to much of an interest in dollar is for police protection and then you hear them shouting I won.

Yes we do. When one of her found her function has to do with the jail of a police officer we have seven of them. That's right. Are you going to increase the number of women or would you if you expanded force would we have an expanded force we definitely would increase that number. There are there is a specific place in police work today for women as it relates to the handling of juveniles the handling of certain types of crimes offenses involving girls and women as it relates to their patrolling areas such as skating rinks dance halls a spacious. And so on there is a place for women. Are there you know are women. Uniform do you have any training or special training for you know not to do I'm able to send a deputy or two to a specialized school occasionally but not to the extent it should be is it

possible listening to the police. We've been invited to attend their school regularly however they were good and a lot of the attitude of the press. Is that there are. Good police. I would say that the guns are not on the individual newspapers and the personalities within those newspapers. Let's not forget that the newspapers have a job to do. But by the same token it seems to us in law enforcement that quite frequently in attempting to do their job and getting all the news up in front of the public they quite often completely disregard the fact that some of the things they do are definitely a handicap to law enforcement. They insist on publishing in some cases certain types of stories they insist on publishing certain facts certain information which does nothing more or less them. Provide that information to the criminals as to

what they can do and get away with how the police organization is attempting to operate in that particular community and so on. But by the same token there are many things that newspapers do that are definitely a benefit to law enforcement. Now there's another question I'm sure many people are interested. To what extent do you still find lingering practices of third degree sweating prisoners. Someone might. Want to you notice much in your department you know that does one thing and I am stood firm on that I do not approve of such practices whatsoever on your part. What any police organization that attempts to to use that sort of thing are just kidding themselves they're not going to get convictions in court if they attempt to get confessions and that sort of. Wait any modern and progressive police department definitely does not go in for that sort of thing. You will frequently

find accusations in newspapers it is not about uncommon for a criminal coming into court through his attorney attempting to deny his admission of guilt by saying the confession was obtained by duress and whatnot. But those people who are concerned in or who are involved in modern law enforcement know that a large well 99 percent of that is merely an alibi on the part of the criminal to attempt to keep his confession from being introduced into evidence but there may be organizations around the country today probably are going to video your degree methods are really declining. Come on there's no question about it. You think that's true with nerves. Tomorrow your summer issue. We know you'll be interested in this interview with a policewoman and a fair sized city. Do you feel from your experience that there certainly are areas certain services you can render which cannot be rendered without police women can you tell us a bit about that.

I think it's very true the statement that police women have a unique and important job within any city's police department. Naturally we feel that women are able to handle talk with. And perhaps are playing with girls and women much better than men can of course especially in the field of sex crimes. Women and girls will not talk with me. And it is they're vitally necessary to have a woman on the force who can and is trained you know talking with juveniles. Can you give us some illustrations of cases in which as a police woman you have been able to help coming to mind is one that I just recently handled was a girl from another city who came to Columbus as a runaway actually got into very serious difficulty. As a matter of fact she was arrested on one occasion and placed in the women's workhouse for prostitution.

At that time she said that she was 22 and she served her term in the workhouse. Later she was picked up in a very serious matter and valving burglaries illegal sale of liquor in a private home and prostitution. Again at this time it came to light that she was 17 talking with a girl. We were able to arrest and convict a man in the case he served is going to serve fourteen to fifty seven years in a penitentiary. When we talked with a girl we found out that she definitely needed help perhaps psychiatric assistance so she was handled here through our juvenile court. Now that took a great deal of book handling in order to get the permission from the other city to allow her to be tried here because we were familiar with the facts here knew the child needed help psychiatric help and training of some sort.

Now had there not been a policewoman and a juvenile the bureau to deal with this situation she would have probably testified against the adults and been sent back to her home town. In turn would have received no assistance there because I mean I know all cities are like if the crime is not committed in their city they do not deal directly with it. And that is true of every city or true even of our city if a child is sent back here and we're not aware of all the facets of the crime we can deal with them. In this case I think definitely the girl received the assistance she needed because someone took the time to understand your problem to know that she did need assistance and guidance and to arrange for that help for her. Now what about cases perhaps less serious than not in the field of prevention of real delinquency on the part of teenage girls or younger girls.

Further the thing that comes to mind is runaways. Now I think it is important that runaway being a runaway is one of the very first outward signs of being a delinquent. Therefore I think the treatment of those runaways is very important to prevent them later going on in the path in which they have started. Therefore we take runaways as a very serious matter. In the bureau we work with them as much time as we possibly can give them when we have a missing report get the child back into our city. We bring them into the office. We try our very best to dig down and find out the reason for this runaway. If necessary we refer them to another agency to get some assistance with the problem the cause of the runaway. I feel definitely in handling runaways. We have done a very fine preventative job in the city now without the juvenile bureau runaways are sent back home and forgotten about.

So you don't feel them that these girls who run away should be classified as delinquents at all. Definitely we do not classify them as delinquents So that is one. Another service I feel that the bureau provides for the community. It's a screening service for the juvenile court. Now most of our runaways are runaways also as far as their first or second runaway either. Do not go before the juvenile court necessarily. They're handled through referral to other agencies without getting any sort of a delinquency blot on their record. And that screening service is done through a juvenile bureau through the police women and the specially picked police men that are involved in the juvenile bureau. What good are some of the reasons why girls do run away. Well there are high are as many as there are girls actually. I feel mostly it's home conditions and satisfactory living conditions. Sometimes it's overcrowding the fact that there are

too many children in the home for them to get any attention at all. Sometimes it is a desire to be older than they are and perhaps go with the fellows and their parents are against that and they take things in their own hands right away sometimes with the fellow that they do want to go with and are not allowed to. Sometimes it's economic they just their family cannot afford to give them the things that they feel they should have a feeling go out and get them on their own. Are Usually I feel it's a sense of not being wanted in a whole not tangible that they can put their fingers on but still something in their own makeup that makes them feel that they are not loved and needed and cared for at home and they leave the home for that reason. Do you think many of these girls just need a little adjustment and a little friendly advice. But in the absence of that might really drift into a very serious

crime. That's true and many times we feel it's the parents that need the friendly advice. Many times we can bring parents and children into an office and really talk through the problem that has been bothering them. It's surprising how many children cannot talk to their parents I mean their parents are too busy. They never understood the problem and they've never had time to understand it. When you actually suck them down in an office facing each other with another person there many times they can talk out problems that have been really knotty in the home for a long time. And they can agree that maybe this was a little harsh and this was and the girl maybe didn't give enough and the parents didn't give enough and it's surprising what can be worked out with the parents. Them understanding where they have maybe failed in one or two aspects of the problem. Doctor reckless How do you see this problem of the police. We have made important gains in police work in the United States particularly

in the State Police Service of the state patrol of the various states and in metropolitan police and also all in the sheriff's department. The gains that cars have been quite noticeable in the Metropolitan Police Department. There is obviously less corruption and the generations are goal. There is less visible tie up with political machines and organized crime. There is better police organization better crime labs better personnel more specialized bureaus and it looks as their police organization is much more streamlined to take. Into account the modern problem of crime. The sheriff's departments all throughout the United States who lacked considerable aid and they do lack come from some of these and lack personnel and lack training and lack organization and they have lagged because very few of us are interested in having a good

Sheriff's Department. Now there are noticeable exceptions to this of course. One of the outstanding exceptions is the sheriff's department in Los Angeles which is outstandingly progressive our small town police and township police are wholly inadequate to day to the problem of crime this almost cannot be helped in our system of local government. We must remember that the automobile and other means of communication have taken crime out into the rural areas and out onto into the highways and into the villages and we have not developed appropriate law enforcement to take care of this exodus of crime in Iraq in this modern era of crime control might be the criteria by which we could judge a good police department or a good Sheriff's Department. Let me prepare a list of several things.

First of all some of the things that we should not judge a police department by. We should not judge a police department by the size of its force any longer and we should not judge a police department by the number of convictions that the Parkman gets in the various courts. On the other hand we should judge a modern police department by its moral organization its flexible organization. Number three we might judge it by the good personnel and good training within the department. We might judge it by good staff and line organization within the department. This brings up the last criterion which I wish to mention namely the criterion of appropriate service instead. Thinking of police in terms of force which gets convictions

we should look upon the police of the future. As a service which is appropriate to the problems which they handle. In other words if we have special laws for the alcoholic the police have got to make the proper diversions in the proper screenings of the alcoholic to get them to the right facilities and the right hospitals. The police do not have to take into custody every alcoholic they merely need to take into custody those alcoholics which are definite public nuisances or disturbers of the peace. The police likewise in appropriate services need to handle the juvenile delinquency problem properly. They need also to have insight and understanding of the drug addict problem. They need to know how to run good lockups and if we run a good lock up that's a star in their record rather than necessarily having to arrest an extra number of the horribles or vagabonds to

swell the conviction rates. Likewise another item in appropriate services and cooperation with community agencies and with key citizens. Another idea of appropriate services public education and good public relations. Finally the citizens need to get behind their police services not only the state patrol the sheriff's department but also the Metropolitan Police. We will not have good police service. We will have poor police service and less sort of. Take an interest and unless police and citizens can work together the police job is a job really of social protection and appropriate service. It is not necessarily the job of conviction of persons who have been involved in crime. Do you understand the problems of the police and sheriff's departments and

do you have an understanding police in your community. Or is there unfinished business to be handled. He's one of a series of business program in the series but they don't like school. Production consultant David Ayers. The technician and the entire unfinished business was produced by station from the Educational Television and Radio Center. This program is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters less sponsors speaking.

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