Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

the police had remained ineffective and often corrupt Departments were badlymanaged, with little forward planning, poor supervision, and no rational division oflabor. Though formal standards and bureaucratic civil service procedures did exist,the personnel were poorly trained and generally undisciplined.85Faced with these conditions, the "new breed" sought to professionalize policing, and thereby raise their social standing. Beginning in the late 1920s and early1930s, they developed a model of professionalism that achieved prominence inpolice circles by mid-century. This model emphasized strict admission standards,extensive training, a high level of technical knowledge, and a devotion to serviceand a commitment to the public interest. 86 By becoming a profession, the reasoningwent, police could improve the quality of their work, raise their own status,and further insulate themselves from outside interference.S?The professional movement overlapped chronologically with the latter partof the Progressive Era, and the new reforms continued some of the effortsbegun by the Progressives, finding more success in many areas. For example,they continued the project of reorganizing departments along functional linesand managed to close more precincts, extending the reliance on special squadsand streamlining the hierarchy. While these changes did further diminish theinfluence of neighborhood bosses (whose power was already in decline) , theyoften just shifted corruption from the wards to the squads.8H In a textbook caseof failed reform, Chicago mayor Richard Daley responded to a 1960 burglaryringscandal by replacing Police Commissioner Timothy ]. O'Connor with reformluminary O. W. Wilson. Wilson set about professionalizing the department,removing corrupt or incompetent commanders, instituting a system of promotionsbased on seniority and competitive exams, and closing seventeen of thethirty-eight district stations-but corruption continued unabated.89 A 1964Justice Department report revealed that a score of Chicago cops, including aninternal affairs investigator, were running a protection racket,9°Reformers took steps to regulate the quality of the personnel, using physicalexaminations, education requirements, character checks, and the civil service processto weed out undesirable applicants.'ll Whether these measures succeeded in"improving" the quality of recruits is another matter. Critics at the time denouncedthe professional ideology as elitist,92 and in many cities, the new requirements wereused to prevent racial minorities from joining the force.93The reform commanders seemed to want to fill departments with recruitswhose backgrounds and values resembled their own, but the practical consequencesof these changes were not what their advocates had intended. When theeconomy recovered from the Depression, the "professionalized" departmentshad trouble attracting and keeping recruits. The pay had not kept pace with thatof other occupations, prestige was still lacking, and new officers could only enterthe department at the lowest leve1.94 Since the best cops did not always advancethrough the ranks, and the worst were seldom removed, stagnation set in. Thequality of leadership suffered, and the police became increasingly isolated.95Compared to the Progressives, the advocates of professionalization hadmore success in instituting their prescribed reforms, but they did no better inachieving their ultimate aims. The status of the police did not come to equalthat of doctors and lawyers, and the departments were only mildly cleaner131