Thinking about Police

This is a book of readings for the introduction to policing course taught in sociology or criminal justice departments. It includes selected readings from fictional works by such authors as Joseph Wambaugh to articles from sociological and criminal justice journals.

Carl B. Klockars is Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. He received his undergraduate degree in sociology from the University of Rhode Island and his master's and doctoral degrees in criminology and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. He first became interested in the subject of police after the publication of his now classic book, The Professional Fence, an intimate and detailed life history of a major dealer in stolen property. Convinced that few professional criminals can operate for long without developing some sort of symbiotic relationship with police, Klockars spent nearly two years in full-time participant observation of the vice and detective divisions of three police agencies. This experience ultimately led to his writing of The Idea of Police, a monograph that examines the question of what policing means, what it has meant, and what it can mean. Over the past decade Professor Klockars has served in a consultant capacity to the National Institute of Justice as well as many police agencies. He has been a member of the American Society of Criminology for twenty years, including four years on its executive board. He is currently studying how research is produced and consumed by police agencies and exploring ways in which police and academics can learn from one another. Stephen D. Mastrofski is Associate Professor of Administration of Justice at Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr.Mastrofski has authored articles and monographs on a variety of policing topics, including performance measurement, organizational and political influences on officer decisionmaking, and contemporary police reform. He recently co-edited the volume of Community Policy: Rhetoric or Reality. He is an associate editor of Justice Quarterly and serves on the editorial advisory board of Criminology. He is currently engaged in research on drunk driving law enforcement for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.