Law Enforcement and Police Calls
Police Services, Keeping the Peace or City Services Hotline?
As a society, it is collectively understood that contacting the police is a community service available to citizens. The phone number to connect emergency service dispatchers is the ubiquitous, '9-1-1,' digits. While there are additional channels in which non-emergency calls may be routed, the '9-1-1' option is the most memorable and universally known means for a citizen to connect with emergency services.
The types of calls that police respond to are generally categorized into four categories that correlate with legitimate functions of law enforcement and fighting crime. However, there is also a fifth class of requests that falls outside of police duties. This paper discusses the categories of police service requests, as well as considering the less conspicuous implications of prostitution and call-services on law enforcement and crime fighting.
John C. Meyer specifically cites four areas of police service calls as, 'maintain social boundaries, relieve disrupting situations, counter-punching (the caller's own suspicious activities), or obtain emergency response services,' (Walker & Katz, 2008, p. 238).
The public generally assumes that...
The first two categories fall within the police duties of law enforcement aimed at 'keeping the peace.' The neighbor that decides to enter the yard of another with the aim of cutting down a tree that obscures a view is likely to instigate a police call for trespassing on private property. The police response is aimed at maintaining social boundaries established by laws. Similarly, a call that a neighbor is playing loud music, past the time of a local ordinance, requests the police serve as a third party intermediary to negate a public nuisance. The response of police to both the trespassing and music situations are clearly within the realm of enforcing laws.
Requests for police intervention in case of counter-punching and emergency services are generally more within the realm of crime fighting functions. A call to police of a burglary underway that is merely aimed at diverting police resources away from another area is an example of criminal counter-punching. While the counterpunching example is nefarious in nature, the counterpart of a call for emergency services is the opposite. A homeowner that hears an intruder break the glass on their backdoor to obtain entry calls the police to solicit…
