Повседневная работа полиции

As you know criminal investigation is the keystone of American police service, its law enforcement. But according to available estimates for some past period of time only one-third of police manpower resources dealt with crime, criminals and detective work which most police officers regard as "real" and the most glamorous aspect of police work. The other two-thirds of police personnel, mostly patrol officers, were engaged in "peace-keeping" or so called non-law enforcement activities.

The data collected show that the great majority of incidents the police handled, arose when the police responded to citizen’s calls for service - a citizen telephoned the police and the dispatcher directed a radio-equipped patrol car to deal with the situation. The police officer became implicated in a wide range of human troubles many of which had little or nothing to do with criminal law enforcement. He transported people to the hospital, wrote reports of auto accidents, and arbitrated and mediated between disputants - neighbours, husbands and wives, landlords and tenants, businessmen and customers. He took missing person reports, directed traffic, controlled crowds at fires, wrote dogbite reports, and identified abandoned autos. He removed safety hazards from the streets, quieted noisy parties, radios and television, evicted a drunken person from a bar and occasionally scooped up a dead animal. Policemen also spent much of their time with "juvenile troubles". Somewhat less than half of the encounters arising from a citizen telephone call had to do with a crime - a felony or a misdemeanour, i.e. indictable or arrestable offences. Thus, in the line of his everyday duties a policeman directed, aided, informed, pacified, warned, disciplined, etc. - in short, contributed to the maintenance of the peace and order.

The officers usually began their shift after roll call. Once the squad car manned by two officers was on the street patrolling the beat - cruising, looking for traffic violations, stolen cars or unsecured business - the officers took their instructions from a radio dispatcher from time to time. You see that the telephone and dispatch room became the centre of contemporary precincts.

Both the dispatchers in their radio calls and the police officers in their records preferred to give the tersest description of the incidents. They used such abbreviations as "B" and "E" (breaking or/and entering), "family trouble" or "domestic", "silent alarm", "somebody screaming", "a theft report", "a man down" (a person lying in a public place, cause unknown), "outside ringer" (burglar-alarm ringing), "the boys" (trouble with juveniles) or "kids disturbing", P.I. (personal-injury automobile accident), DK (drunk), PD (property damage automobile accident), H-and-R (Hit-and-Run) and suchlike. We see they used some kind of police slang.

That is a very incomplete list of routine police work that the officers performed over the period covered. You see it included a lot of thankless tasks which the police officers had to perform. Frankly speaking, policemen disdained this kind of work but they did it every day - they realized how necessary it was.