NCJ Number
80758
Date Published
1981
Length
202 pages
Annotation
This handbook presents police officers' rights under current law and suggests how officers may secure these rights.
Abstract
The validity of miscellaneous qualifications for police employment are examined, such as required age, height, and weight; absence of criminal record; and veteran's status. The permissibility of using race, sex and parenthood as factors in hiring is also considered. Whether and when the hiring decision can be based on an applicant's political belief and associations is explored, and sexual preference and personal associations as elements in the hiring decision are discussed. A chapter is devoted to the first amendment's protection of labor-related associational rights, collective-bargaining and strike rights under State law and the Constitution, and rights related to the police officer's status vis-a-vis the union and the union's status vis-a-vis the employer. Issues of unnecessarily dangerous working conditions and their relationship to collective bargaining are also examined. The extent to which factors in the private lives of police officers may be used to occasion professional discipline is analyzed, and due process procedural rights provided officers in various circumstances are identified. Issues related to the police use of force are broadly treated by examining how a number of police departments and States deal with this problem. One chapter deals with issues of concern to the officer who is sued or who sues a superior or the department in a civil action. Civil suits brought by officers against citizens and by citizens against officers are also discussed. Extensive footnotes are provided, with attention to judicial decisions bearing upon the issues discussed, and a subject index is included.