Читать книгу Police in America - Steven G. Brandl - Страница 94

Police departments have also been described as street-level bureaucracies.⁷ They have many features and problems in common with other agencies, such as public schools; public assistance agencies (e.g., homeless shelters, welfare agencies); municipal courts; legal service offices; public health offices; and so forth.

Specifically, these agencies all share the following characteristics:

 They process people.

 They provide services and/or sanctions.

 They are public service agencies, and most rely on tax dollars for funding.

 Most of their clientele are poor.

 A large proportion of employees in street-level bureaucracies are street-level bureaucrats. Such bureaucrats are line-level workers in the agency (e.g., police officers, teachers, social workers).

 Street-level bureaucrats use substantial discretion in processing people and providing services and/or sanctions. Their decisions are usually made on the spot.

 Clients change as a result of the decisions of street-level bureaucrats (e.g., citizens become suspects, suspects are jailed, victims may get a sense of justice).

Sometimes, there is a tendency to focus on the aspects of police departments that make them unique. In actuality, they have many features in common with other public agencies, particularly with other street-level bureaucracies.

street-level bureaucracy: A public agency that serves primarily low-income clients and whose workers have substantial discretion in processing those clients.