The International Association of Chiefs of Police and Other American Police Organizations

Abstract

IN view of the huge number of peace officers in the United States and of the technical character of their work, it might be expected that they would be associated in one or more strong professional organizations to further cooperation among members, to study technical police problems, and to disseminate information to both the police and the public. However, such is not the case. Not that there is a dearth of police organizations-they number a legion-international, national, state and local, embracing municipal police chiefs, members of specialized branches of the municipal police, state police superintendents, United States marshals and other Federal law enforcement officers, county sheriffs and their deputies, constables, and private police and detectives. Yet, apparently, the variety of police offices and of police activities and the absence of professionalization within the groups combine to prevent the establishment of an all embracing and powerful organization to promote this important public service. Perhaps the greatest deterrent to effective organization by police officers is insecure tenure in higher offices. There are, of course, some municipalities in which the chief of police is in every sense out of politics and holds his position year after year. However, in many cities the office is the plaything of politics and each change in administration sees the chief of police, and sometimes his principal subordinates, relegated to minor positions and new men elevated in their stead. It is obviously difficult for the head of a department, selected and dismissed through political influences and sure of his position for only a limited period, to interest himself in the building up of a professional spirit among police departments or to contribute actively to the work of a police organization of which he may not long be a part. This periodic rotation in membership, combined with what may be termed a practical in place of a scientific attitude toward police problems, has perhaps done most to prevent existing police organizations from undertaking the aggressive programs that have characterized, for example, such groups as the National Education Association or the National Conference of Social Work. Little effort has been made to weld the rank and file of police departments into a professional organization. Existing groups are almost entirely limited to chiefs of police and the technical heads of divisions within departments, the more important examples being the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Association for Identification, the International Association of Policewomen, and state and local organizations of these same offices. There is, however, the Sheriffs' and Police Officers' Association of America whose membership consists of sheriffs, policemen, wardens, detectives, marshals, and so forth, and the Fraternal Order of Police, whose membership is recruited from the police ranks in larger cities. The chiefs of private police forces frequently take membership in the International As-