Screening The Police

American police departments have presided over the business of motion pictures since the end of the nineteenth century. Their influence is evident not only on the screen but also in the ways movies are made, promoted, and viewed in the United States. Screening the Police explores the history of film's entwinement with law enforcement, showing the role that state power has played in the creation and expansion of a popular medium. For the New Jersey State Police in the 1930s, film offered a method of visualizing criminality and of circulating urgent information about escaped convicts. For the New York Police Department, the medium was a means of making the agency world-famous as early as 1896. Beat cops became movie stars. Police chiefs made their own documentaries. And from Maine to California, state and local law enforcement agencies regularly fingerprinted filmgoers for decades, amassing enormous records as they infiltrated theatres both big and small. As author Noah Tsika demonstrates, understanding the scope of police power in the United States requires attention to an aspect of film history that has long been ignored. Screening the Police reveals the extent to which American cinema has overlapped with the politics and practices of law enforcement.

The Handbook of Police Psychology features contributions from over 30 leading experts on the core matters of police psychology. The collection surveys everything from the beginnings of police psychology and early influences on the profession; to pre-employment screening, assessment, and evaluation; to clinical interventions. Alongside original chapters first published in 2011, this edition features new content on deadly force encounters, officer resilience training, and police leadership enhancement. Influential figures in the field of police psychology are discussed, including America’s first full-time police psychologist, who served in the Los Angeles Police Department, and the first full-time police officer to earn a doctorate in psychology while still in uniform, who served with the New York Police Department. The Handbook of Police Psychology is an invaluable resource for police legal advisors, policy writers, and police psychologists, as well as for graduates studying police or forensic psychology.

From the Roman Praetorian Guard to the English shire-reeve to the U.S. marshals, lawmen have a long and varied history. At first, such groups were often corrupt, guilty of advancing a political agenda rather than protecting citizens. It was about the turn of the twentieth century that police officers as we know them came into being. At this time, a number of police reforms such as civil service and police unions were developed. Citizen committees were formed to oversee police function. About this same time, the technology of motion pictures was being advanced. Movies evolved from silent films with a limited budget and short running time to films with sound whose budget was ever rising and whose audience demanded longer, more complex story lines. From the infancy of moviemaking, lawmen of various types were popular subjects. Bounty hunters, sheriffs, private eyes, detectives and street officers—often portrayed by some of Hollywood’s biggest names—have been depicted in every conceivable way. Compiled from a comprehensive examination of the material in question, this volume provides a critical-historical analysis of law enforcement in American cinema. From High Noon to The Empire Strikes Back, it examines the police in their many incarnations with emphasis on the ways in which lawmen are portrayed and how this portrayal changes over time. Each film discussed reveals something about society, subtly commenting on social conditions, racial issues and government interventions. Major historical events such as the Great Depression, World War II and the McCarthy trials find their way into many of these films. Significant film genres from science fiction to spaghetti western are represented. Films examined include Easy Street (1917), a nominal comedy starring Charlie Chaplin; Star Packer, a 1934 John Wayne film; The Maltese Falcon (1941) with Humphrey Bogart; Dirty Harry, a 1971 Clint Eastwood classic; Leslie Nielsen’s spoof Naked Gun (1988); and 1993’s Tombstone featuring Kurt Russell. The filmography contains a synopsis along with information on director, screenplay, starring actors and year of production. Photographs and an index are also included.

In recent years, personality assessment by professional psychologists has taken on an increasingly important role in the field of police work. Most importantly, personality assessment instruments have been utilized in the pre-employment psychological screening of police officer candidates. This psychological screening takes place at the end of the hiring process to ensure that candidates do not have personality characteristics or existing psychopathology that would interfere with their job performance. Personality assessment is also used for other applications in police psychology. These applications include fitness-for-duty evaluations (FFDEs) and second opinion evaluations of officers who challenge hiring decisions. Moreover, police psychologists are involved in a considerable amount of research in order to determine which tests and scales are most appropriate for evaluations. The present volume is divided into four parts to cover the relevant issues in personality assessment for police work. Part I provides an introduction and the basic principles of personality assessment in police psychology. Part II focuses on the major assessment instruments used in police psychology. These include the MMPI-2, the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) and Hilson Tests, the M-PULSE Inventory, pre-offer integrity instruments, and the Rorschach Comprehensive System. Part III examines multiple issues in personality assessment research in the field of police psychology. Part IV covers applications of personality assessment in police psychology. These applications include pre-employment evaluations, fitness for duty evaluations, conditional second opinion psychological evaluations of candidates, using multiple sources of information when conducting mandatory or required evaluations, and the politics of personality assessment in police agencies. This unique and comprehensive text is designed for psychologists who are actively working in the field of law enforcement, including psychologists in both applied and research/academic settings.

Police corruption is a growing ethical and occupational problem in many precincts and departments around the country. Despite this, effective pre-employment strategies designed to predict, explain, and prevent it are lacking. Police Corruption and Psychological Testing: A Strategy for Pre-employment Screening aims to fill this troubling gap in the academic and popular literature. Both original in its approach and integrative in its scope, this text is a useful, practical guide to understanding officer misconduct, pre-employment screening, and personality assessment. Relevant to the disciplines of criminal justice and psychology, this book can be used as a supplemental text in several undergraduate and graduate courses. Examples include criminal psychology, policing and society, criminal behavior, law enforcement administration, criminal justice policy, and profiling offenders. Robert P. Hanssen, subject of the movie Breach, is profiled in one chapter of this book. This book is part of the Criminal Justice and Psychology Series.

Written and extensively updated by an author team that includes former and current law enforcement officers, Introduction to Policing focuses on the thought-provoking, contemporary issues that underscore the challenging and rewarding world of policing. The authors skillfully balance research and practice to offer readers an overview of both the foundations of policing and the expanded role of today’s police officers. Evolving with the modern realities of the field, the Fourth Edition discusses major new and ongoing impactful events, such as the political shift marked by the U.S. presidential election of 2016 and expanded coverage of women and minorities in policing. The accessible and engaging writing style, coupled with unique coverage of the issues of policing in multicultural communities, the impact of technology on policing, and policing strategies and procedures, make this bestselling book a must-have.