THE POLICEMAN: An Inside Look at His Role in a Modern Society

A mature, up-to-date and relatively candid view of the police, from New York City's former Deputy Commissioner of Community Relations and Chairman of the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Most of the book explores basic aspects of the subject: development of the police; growth of the crime rate (although nothing on less obvious social motivations); organization, recruitment and training in New York; detective work. Nearly a third deals with specialists from the Auto Squad to the Youth Division. Although the author does not ignore current controversies concerning police departments across the country, he ends with no concrete suggestions for an apparently irreconcilable situation. Acknowledging areas of negative regard (e.g. the white policeman as a symbol of repression to Negroes), he overlooks related factors such as increased polarization of popular opinion after intentional provocations and also fails to mention the influence of recent Supreme Court rulings on civil liberties. And ""2,845,000+ arrests"" on ""525,000+ complaints is a curious, questionably correlated indication of a year's activity. In general, however, it is a reliable approach.