Word: cops
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...history of the beat cop has traveled full circle: once, he was nearly driven to extinction by a series of well-intended but ill-conceived reforms. Until the first decades of this century, police were all-purpose keepers of the peace. They ran lodging houses for the homeless, tracked down offensive smells, rounded up stray animals and kept the streetlamps supplied with oil. They also gained a reputation for taking payoffs and doling out a rough brand of curbside justice...
...income Broadway-Simpson neighborhood, hands out a business card with the phone number of the answering machine in his office. At the end of every day he has a tape full of pleas for assistance, messages from tipsters and calls from people who just wanted to chat with their cop...
...combat more serious crimes. When drug dealers in Houston turned a bank of pay phones outside a convenience store into their personal business office, a patrolman got the phones removed. In the same city, a deserted apartment complex where dealers flourished was finally boarded up after a community cop tracked down and harangued the property's bankruptcy trustee...
...doubtless go unreported, especially in cities where complaints have to be filled out at the station house that is the home base of the very officers against whom the charge is being brought. "The general feeling out on the streets is that you can't get justice when a cop mistreats you," says Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Many blacks believe, with considerable cause, that if the King beating had not been recorded, complaints about the case would have been discounted...
...held New York's top police job in the early 1970s. "He knew that behavior is controlled by consequences. The work of police officers, no matter how idealistic, energetic or motivated, can never transcend the caliber of their bosses. Leadership will either be a constant inspiration or instant depression. Cops at the lower rungs cannot escape the management of the chief. The L.A. officers would not have done what they did if they knew they would be reported by other officers. The problem is the tone set at the top." In most departments, says James Fyfe, an American University professor...