ABSTRACT
This chapter describes about the nature of police work and its effect on the nature of police administration. Police dealt with alcoholics, wayward children, thieves, and smugglers, as they do. Prevention of crime was accepted as one function of the police, along with order maintenance and the provision of various government services. Police were expected to prevent crime by diligently patrolling their assigned beats so that wrongdoers would be deterred by the fear of police discovery. The chapter reports the increasingly popular development of non-arrest alternatives to drug cases, especially those that begin with overdoses. Community policing and problem-oriented policing have affected the nature of police work. Typically associated with the crime-fighting view of police work has been the idea that police work primarily involves law enforcement. This approach sees policing mainly in terms of legal norms. Police officers are perceived as technicians trained to apply the law to problems of crime and disorder.
