At one time, it was easy to glance at an off-duty police officer and know that he was an officer simply by his dress and deportment. In the 50s, officers usually had crew cuts and wore sensible and comfortable low-quarter shoes, both on and off duty. Pounding a beat day in and day out caused the arches to break down over time, giving walking-beat policemen the unenviable nickname of “flatfeet.” Unfortunately, the nickname was truer than any law enforcement officer ever wanted to admit. But times have changed, and so have the methods by which the law is enforced. Fewer and fewer “street crimes” that were prevalent in years past are committed now when compared to the vast numbers of crimes that involve the use of vehicles or long-range telecommunications.

Foot patrolmen who exclusively walked a beat have been replaced by motor patrolmen, owing to the marked increase in criminal activity not confined to small geographic areas that are easily covered on foot. Detectives that once prowled the streets by foot to capture their quarry also find it much more productive to track down criminals with the aid of a desktop computer.

New technologies are not limited to electronics that assist in surveillance or faster computers with new software that can work miracles. Refinements in law enforcement gear have created new nonlethal devices that are used to apprehend rather than maim or kill.

Many of these devices were developed with the aid of law enforcement officials who embraced the notion of a better way to do things. Capsicum spray, or pepper spray as it is more commonly known, is something most police officers now carry on their belts. It is a nonlethal method of disabling a suspect and allowing the officer to gain physical control over them. As described in Chapter 12, the Taser® gun is a nonlethal weapon that delivers a high-voltage shock to a suspect, allowing the officer to bring the suspect under control. Both of these technological developments came about because someone in law enforcement sought an alternative to rapping a suspect in the head with a stick or shooting him with a gun—methods that had the potential of inflicting extreme bodily harm, if not death, on the suspect.

With the need for more human resources to address serious crime, in many places the task of vehicular speed enforcement has been taken over by electronic countermeasures. Cameras in fixed locations along highways are used to clock speeders and take a photo of the car and driver, after which a ticket is mailed to the driver.

This turning over of duties is not meant as a criticism of officers who still patrol their jurisdictions by foot. Walking the beat is one of the many ways that law enforcement agents are able to apprehend criminals, and in the end it is the marriage of these two different approaches—human and electronic—to enforcement that net the best results.