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

than before. But the main effect of professionalization was to increase policeautonomy. And professionalization, like bureaucratization, not only institutionalizedthat autonomy, but helped to legitimize it:)!, The discourse surroundingprofessionalization encouraged institutional problems to be thoughtof in technical terms, and thus referred to the "experts"-the police. Issuesof accountability and oversight were thus framed as professional matters withwhich the uninitiated should not be trusted to interfere. In other words, professionalizationsought to take the issues of police power and accountabilityoutside of the realm of the political.The move toward professionalization embodied both a continuation of and areaction against the bureaucratization of policing. The advocates of professionalization,usually police administrators, envisioned their project as an extension ofthe bureaucratic reforms, with an increased emphasis on the quality of recruitsand higher public esteem for the occupation. Carl Klockars argues from thisbasis that the term "professional" was primarily of rhetorical value:The fact is that the "professional" police officer, as conceived by the professionalpolice model, was understood to be a very special kind of professional,a kind of professional that taxes the very meaning of the idea. The distinctivecharacteristic of the work of professionals is the range of discretionaccorded them in the performance of their work. By contrast, the policeview of professionalism was exactly the opposite. It emphasized centralizedcontrol and policy, tight command structure, extensive departmentalregulation, strict discipline, and careful oversight. While the professionalmodel wanted intelligent and educated police officers and the technologicalappearance of modern professionals, it did not want police officers who weregranted broad, professional discretion. It wanted obedient bureaucrats.')?The rank-and-file officer, on the other hand, had a very different notion ofwhat professionalization in1plied. ''TIle vrofessionally-rninded patrolman wantsto act according to his evaluation of the situation and not according to somebureaucratic directive."98 Professionalization very clearly promoted police autonomy,but it was deeply ambivalent about what this meallt for the ma.'1ageillent ofdepartments. Did professionalization only require the autonomy of the institutionrelative to the civilian authorities, or did it also demand the autonomy of thepatrolman relative to departmental control? In practice the second followed fromthe first, as commanders sought to protect themselves from criticism. Ratherthan exposing abuses and disciplining the officers, internal affairs investigatorsand unit commanders took their task as the defense of the department as awhole, and especially ofthe officers under their command.99Most high-ranking officials were prone to praise the efforts of their unitsand, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, to shift the responsibilityto other parts of the force or other branches of government. If this tacticfailed, they were ready to deny responsibility on the grounds that ... theyhad few effective sanctions over their subordinates.lOoProfessionalization, again like the earlier reform effort, continued to put supervisorsin the position of covering lor their subordinates.At the Sall1e time as the "professional" police were asserting a new independence,they also adopted strategies that increased their presence in the lives of132