A growing practice in contemporary local level law enforcement is the use of police officers as undercover narcotics agents. Often officers from several separate agencies are banded together, creating a multijurisdictional task force responsible for drug enforcement within a designated geographic area. Currently, little is known about the effects this type of assignment has on street level patrol officers. In this exploratory study, the impact of local deepcover narcotics work on its personnel is probed. The perceptions, norms, and attitudes most commonly experienced by this type of drug agent provide the focus of this study. Observations, unstructured interviews, and formal interviews are used to gain insight into this unique profession, giving the reader the "narcs' eye view" of the world. Three core categories emerged during research: "the job," "the work," and group solidarity. "The job" encompasses the types of people that drug officers must deal with as part of their daily duties. Unlike the uniform officers' dichotomous classification of people into either "us" or "them," narcotics agents create a trichotomy of "them," "us," and, most importantly, "we." The second core category, "the work" refers to narcotics enforcement in action, and covers actual procedural considerations and problems experienced by agents. Their views and preferences regarding everything from buy-busts and raids to reapplying for narcotics assignment are presented. The third category, group solidarity, forms the foundation of narcotics agents' working life. Due to inherent changes in job function, deepcover drug officers experience a higher need for group loyalty and allegiance than do uniform officers. Isolation, interdependence, and high stress converge in a unique pattern that demands increasing reliance on and trust in fellow agents. The quality and depth of team interaction / is an integral part of agents' job satisfaction, ultimately contributing to their ability to perform the long-term covert assignment. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-12, Section: A, page: 4000. / Major Professor: Thomas Blomberg. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77314 |
| Contributors | Mericle, J. Gayle., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 200 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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