Policing and the Law - Softcover

Walker, Jeffrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130284351 ISBN 13: 9780130284358

Publisher: Pearson, 2001

This book provides practical, in-depth and extensive coverage of legal issues affecting the police, discussing both operational and administrative issues in policing as they are enhanced or constrained by the system of laws in America. It contains a collection of ten essays in three topical areas: legal aspects of police-citizen encounters, limitations on police work, and the law and police administration. Contributors to the book include both practitioners and academicians, as well as those who work or have worked in both fields. Chapter topics include: legal issues of police operations, an overview and examination of Supreme Court decisions, administrative aspects of legal issues, changes in the legal environment, affirmative action and police selection, age limitations and discrimination of police officers, and a summary of the themes presented throughout the book that reinforces the importance of the relationship between the police and the law. For police officers, supervisors, and police executives—and for use in police training, and as a study guide for promotions in police agencies.

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From the Back Cover:

There is no question that the law is intimately linked with policing. What defines the police is their ability to enforce the law. Beyond using the law as a tool in police work, the police also receive a great deal of oversight from the law. Practically everything that police officers do is potentially subject to judicial review. From the probable cause needed to make an arrest to the proper entrance exams that do not racially discriminate, the professional lives of police officers are mired in the law.

This book contains material that is vital to police officers. This book should appeal to both the officer on the street who needs some additional information about operational issues, such as when lockers of students can be searched or how long a person may be detained while a narcotics-sniffing dog is summoned, and to the administrator who must make decisions about hiring that are not discriminatory and must investigate his or her own officers for misconduct.

This book is broken into two major decisions—operational aspects and the law, and administrative aspects and the law. Includes a review of Supreme Court decisions important to all police officers:

Fourth Amendment issues in the war on drugs; no-knock searches, and traffic stops
Legal issues of roadblocks and check points
Whether civil lawsuits against police dampen officers' willingness to make arrests
The use of canines in search and seizure
Investigations concerning computers and the Internet
How police officers and police agencies react to changes in the legal environment
Privacy rights of police officers as they relate to employer authority to regulate police employee conduct, searches and seizures involving police officers in the workplace, drug testing of police officers, medical fitness issues (including AIDS), and employer regulation of police sexual conduct
Affirmative action and police selection, physical agility testing, and written selection tests
Age limitations and discrimination of police officers

About the Author:

Jeffery T. Walker is a Professor of Criminal Justice in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where he has taught since 1990. Walker also serves as the Research Director for the Arkansas Statistical Analysis Center, which directs research and data gathering in criminal justice in Arkansas. He has served as President of both the Arkansas Criminal Justice Association and the Southwestern Association of Criminal Justice. He currently serves as the Secretary of ACJS. Editorial experience includes service as Editor of the Journal of Criminal Justice Education, Editor of Critical Criminology, and as Editor of ACJS Today. His two primary areas of research are criminology and law enforcement. In addition, he has researched and written on computers in criminal justice, distance education, legal issues concerning the police, and gang behavior. Previous publications include articles in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Journal of Criminal Justice Education, Journal of Gang Research and the books Leading Cases in Law Enforcement and Statistics in Criminal Justice: Analysis and Interpretation.

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