Summary Of Herman Goldstein's Policing A Free Society

Herman Goldstein’s first contact with a police department came in working with the Philadelphia Police Department as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. During his work, he assisted O.W Wilson, who was the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, in his study of Philadelphia’s police administration. Later, from 1956-1957 he worked as a researcher on behalf of the American Bar Foundation’s Survey of Administration of Criminal Justice, to which Goldstein noticed the street operations conducted by police in both Wisconsin and Michigan. While working along with several national organizations such as the Knapp Commission, Goldstein wrote substantially on the role of the police, the use of police discretion, control of police conduct, police relationship with the
This shift was a major change in policing as policing was transitioned from local to that of federal (Panzarella & Vona, pg 246-247). In Policing A Free Society, Goldstein proposed questions of the ways a police department should be integrated into the government of a city. Moreover, Goldstein recommended his theory in ways that police actions in field operations and policies should be made accountable to the public. Additionally, Goldstein denied the basic idea that was projected by the professionalism movement in that police matters and business should be left to the police alone, noting that the police are a multi-function agency that not only deals with crime but also directs traffic, provides medical attention to the injured, and other diverse activities (Panzarella & Vona, pg 248). Goldstein, who believed that the public should hold police accountability also supported his idea on the basis of democracy, in which he believed that in a democracy all citizen should have a say in deciding all matters including that of the