Police Organization
This is the order of authority within a police department, from the highest rank to the lowest.
What is the chain of command?
This means anticipating, recognizing, and reducing risks before offenses occur.
What is crime prevention?
This is the location where an offense occurred or where evidence connected to it may be found.
What is a crime scene?
This is an officer's authority to choose among lawful options such as warning, citation, summons, or arrest.
What is police discretion?
This policing style emphasizes strict enforcement of the letter of the law.
What is the legalistic style?
These are field or supervisory activities directly related to daily police work.
What are line operations?
This philosophy makes police and residents partners in identifying and solving crime and disorder problems.
What is community policing?
This specially trained professional documents a scene and collects, preserves, and processes physical evidence.
What is a crime-scene investigator?
This is the special responsibility of officers to follow moral duties and professional standards.
What are police ethics?
This policing style emphasizes keeping the peace and maintaining order, often through informal action and broad discretion.
What is the watchman style?
These activities, such as administration and training, support officers performing daily police work.
What are staff operations?
Often shortened to PCR, this focuses on building cooperation and trust between law enforcement and the public.
What are police-community relations?
This first stage after a crime is reported includes securing the scene, gathering basic facts, and identifying witnesses or suspects.
What is a preliminary investigation?
This term describes the formal standards, training, conduct, and public acceptance expected of modern police work.
What is police professionalism?
This policing style emphasizes helping citizens and solving community problems, often using alternatives to arrest.
What is the service style?
This term means the number of personnel or units supervised by one commander.
What is span of control?
This approach assigns an integrated, versatile group of officers to provide services in a fixed district.
What is team policing?
This process seeks to discover facts, collect evidence, identify an offender, and prepare a case.
What is a criminal investigation?
This is the shared set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that develops within the police working environment.
What is police subculture?
This is the time between receiving a call for police service and officers arriving at the scene.
What is response time?
These administrative activities involve controlling, directing, and coordinating police personnel, resources, and operations.
What is police management?
This strategy identifies recurring crime or disorder problems, analyzes their causes, and develops targeted solutions.
What is problem-solving policing?
This is a piece of information about a crime that may help establish the perpetrator's identity.
What is a solvability factor?
This is analyzed information about crimes, offenders, and patterns used to support law-enforcement decisions.
What is criminal intelligence?
This approach uses crime patterns, intelligence, and long-term planning to focus resources on particular offenses, offenders, places, or times.
What is strategic policing?