One important factor is that recognition and promotions come from making lots of arrests, not from maintaining the peace. In Westley’s words, “Patrolmen feel that little credit is forthcoming from a clean beat (a crimeless beat), while a number of good arrests really stands our on the record. To a great extent this is actually the case, since a good arrest results in good newspaper publicity, and the policemen who made many “good pinches’” has prestige among his colleagues.”

There are strong pressures to solve “big crimes.” As one patrolman told Westley, “If it is a big case and there is a lot of pressure on you and they tell you you can’t go home until the case is finished, than naturally you are going to lose your patients.”

And when abuse helps solve a crime, police adopt an “ends justify the means” mentality. Another officer explained to Westley, “There is a case I remember of four Negroes who held up a filling station. We got a description of them and picked them up. Then we took them down to the station and really worked them over. I guess that everybody that came into the station that night had a hand in it, and they were in pretty bad shape. Do you think that sounds cruel? Well, you know what we got out of it? We broke a case in ——. There was a mob of twenty guys, burglars and stick-up men, and eighteen of them are in the pen now. Sometimes you have to get rough with them, see. The way I figure it is, if you can get a clue that a man is a pro and if he won’t cooperate, tell you what you want to know, it is justified to rough him up a little, up to a point. You know how it is. You feel that the end justifies the means.” [continue reading]

First published in Daily Kos