Police: Vice Squad
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Description
Historically, the vice squad is that organizational branch of a local police department which specializes in the enforcement of laws prohibiting prostitution and gambling and, more recently and importantly, the use and sale of illegal drugs. The laws enforced by the vice squad are accordingly among the most controversial in the armamentarium of the criminal law. The vice squad enforces “victimless crimes” lying at the “borderland” of criminal justice. No systematic statistical studies of vice squads have been undertaken to determine how many exist, their average size, or what portion of law enforcement resources they expend. A minor survey of West Coast police departments conducted in the summer of 1981 revealed that every major police department in California maintained a vice squad and that smaller cities might join in forming a countywide narcotic enforcement unit. A rough idea of size and scope might be gained from the following comparisons. San Francisco, with a population of 642,900, maintained a vice squad of seventy-two, or 3.89 percent of the total police force. Oakland, whose population was 327,300, maintained a vice squad of fourteen, or 2.64 percent of the total force, and Merced, a farming community of 34,000, increasing to 45,000 during the harvest season, assigned six officers out of seventy, or 8.5 percent of its force, to its vice squad. Oakland's vice squad is fairly typical of the organization and operations of such units in middle-sized cities. A lieutenant, two sergeants, and eleven patrolmen constitute the squad. The lieutenant reports directly to the deputy chief who heads the bureau of investigation. A majority of the squad's members are assigned to narcotic enforcement, and the remainder try to contain the city's population of prostitutes and illegal gamblers.
Source Publication
Encyclopedia of Crime & Justice
Source Editors/Authors
Sanford H. Kadish
Publication Date
1983
Edition
1
Volume Number
3
Recommended Citation
Skolnick, Jerome H., "Police: Vice Squad" (1983). Faculty Chapters. 1406.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1406
