title: Monstera deliciosa

text: It takes longer than a year for fruits to reach maturity. The fruit first shows signs of ripening by the yellowing of its lowest scales. As it ripens, the starch that was stored in the green fruit is converted to sugar, giving it its sweet flavor. This mechanism is comparable to how banana fruits ripen. The strong odor the fruit produces becomes noticeable when it is half-ripe. As time passes and the fruit continues to ripen, the odor becomes stronger. After it becomes fully ripe, however, the scent deteriorates quickly.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: This plant lives in the humid tropical forests, in the lowlands and middle mountains, in the extreme south of Mexico and also in Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panama. The seeds fall to the ground, then the seedlings crawl (negative phototropism) until they meet a tree on which to attach. The many adjacent roots thus allow the plant to anchor against its new support and reach the canopy light (although it rarely grows in full sun and prefers a light dimmed by the foliage). Wild plants can also be found in other parts of North America (Florida), Asia (Malaysia, India), Australia and the Western Mediterranean and Atlantic (Sicily, Portugal, Morocco, Madeira).


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: "Monstera deliciosa" is commonly grown outdoors as an ornamental plant in the tropics and subtropics. The plant requires a lot of space and a rich and loose soil (ideally garden soil and compost in equal parts). If it grows in the ground it is better to plant it near a tree, where it can climb, if not against a trellis. It is a "moderately greedy plant," in that it needs to be watered just to keep the soil slightly moist. Its hardiness is 11 (that is to say the coldest at ). It cannot withstand these temperatures for more than a few hours, but it can live outside in certain temperate regions (Mediterranean coast, Brittany). A steady minimum temperature of at least is preferable, allowing continuous growth. Growth ceases below and it is killed by frost. It needs very bright exposure, but not full sun.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: Forcing a "M. deliciosa" to flower outside of its typical tropical habitat proves to be difficult. Specific conditions need to be met for the plant to flower. However, in its tropical and subtropical habitat, the plant flowers easily. In ideal conditions it flowers about three years after planting. The plant can be propagated by taking cuttings of a mature plant or by air layering.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: In those areas where it grows naturally, "M. deliciosa" is considered a delicacy due to its sweet and exotic flavor. The fruit may be ripened by cutting it when the first scales begin to lift up and it begins to exude a pungent odor. It is wrapped in a paper bag and set aside until the scales begin popping off. The scales are then brushed off or fall away to reveal the edible flesh underneath. The flesh, which is similar to pineapple in texture, can be cut away from the core and eaten. It has a fruity taste similar to jackfruit and pineapple. The unripe green fruits can irritate the throat and the latex of the leaves and vines can create rashes in the skin, because both contain potassium oxalate: that is the reason why the fruits have to be consumed when the scales lift up. The black irritant fibres can be swept off with the application of a little citrus juice.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: Its architectural qualities, ease of cultivation, and tolerance of a wide range of conditions make it an ideal plant for indoor cultivation as well. For this reason it is a popular plant for the home or office throughout the temperate northern hemisphere. It prefers bright indirect light and temperatures of . Flowering is rare when grown indoors.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: In the UK "Monstera deliciosa" and the cultivar 'Variegata' have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: The aerial roots have been used as ropes in Peru, and to make baskets in Mexico. In Martinique, the root is used to make a remedy for snakebites. In Mexico, it is used in the relief of arthritis symptoms.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: Monstera deliciosa is moderately toxic to both cats and dogs because it contains insoluble calcium oxalate crystals (needle-like). This crystal may cause injury to the mouth, tongue, and digestive tract. It also causes dermatitis by direct contact with cat and dog skin.


title: Cannabis sativa

text: Cannabis sativa is an annual herbaceous flowering plant indigenous to Eastern Asia, but now of cosmopolitan distribution due to widespread cultivation. It has been cultivated throughout recorded history, used as a source of industrial fiber, seed oil, food, recreation, religious and spiritual moods and medicine. Each part of the plant is harvested differently, depending on the purpose of its use. The species was first classified by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. The word "sativa" means "things that are cultivated."


title: Cannabis sativa

text: The flowers of "Cannabis sativa" are unisexual and plants are most often either male or female. It is a short-day flowering plant, with staminate (male) plants usually taller and less robust than pistillate (female or male) plants. The flowers of the female plant are arranged in racemes and can produce hundreds of seeds. Male plants shed their pollen and die several weeks prior to seed ripening on the female plants. Under typical conditions with a light period of 12 to 14 hours, both sexes are produced in equal numbers because of heritable X and Y chromosomes. Although genetic factors dispose a plant to become male or female, environmental factors including the diurnal light cycle can alter sexual expression. Naturally occurring monoecious plants, with both male and female parts, are either sterile or fertile; but artificially induced "hermaphrodites" can have fully functional reproductive organs. "Feminized" seed sold by many commercial seed suppliers are derived from artificially "hermaphroditic" females that lack the male gene, or by treating the plants with hormones or silver thiosulfate.


title: Cannabis sativa

text: Although the main psychoactive constituent of "Cannabis" is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant is known to contain more than 500 compounds, among them at least 113 cannabinoids; however, most of these "minor" cannabinoids are only produced in trace amounts. Besides THC, another cannabinoid produced in high concentrations by some plants is cannabidiol (CBD), which is not psychoactive but has recently been shown to block the effect of THC in the nervous system. Differences in the chemical composition of "Cannabis" varieties may produce different effects in humans. Synthetic THC, called dronabinol, does not contain cannabidiol (CBD), cannabinol (CBN), or other cannabinoids, which is one reason why its pharmacological effects may differ significantly from those of natural "Cannabis" preparations.


title: Cannabis sativa

text: Beside cannabinoids, the chemical constituents of "Cannabis" include about 120 compounds responsible for its characteristic aroma. These are mainly volatile terpenes and sesquiterpenes.


title: Cannabis sativa

text: Cannabis also produces numerous volatile sulfur compounds that contribute to the plant's skunk-like aroma, with Prenylthiol (3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol) identified as the primary odorant. These compounds are found in much lower concentrations than the major terpenes and sesquiterpenes. However, they contribute significantly to the pungent aroma of cannabis due to their low odor thresholds as often seen with thiols or other sulfur-containing compounds.


title: Cannabis sativa

text: "Cannabis sativa" seeds are chiefly used to make hempseed oil which can be used for cooking, lamps, lacquers, or paints. They can also be used as caged-bird feed, as they provide a source of nutrients for most animals. The flowers and fruits (and to a lesser extent the leaves, stems, and seeds) contain psychoactive chemical compounds known as cannabinoids that are consumed for recreational, medicinal, and spiritual purposes. When so used, preparations of flowers and fruits (called marijuana) and leaves and preparations derived from resinous extract (e.g., hashish) are consumed by smoking, vaporising, and oral ingestion. Historically, tinctures, teas, and ointments have also been common preparations. In traditional medicine of India in particular "Cannabis sativa" has been used as hallucinogenic, hypnotic, sedative, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory agent. Terpenes have gained public awareness through the growth and education of medical and recreational cannabis. Organizations and companies operating in cannabis markets have pushed education and marketing of terpenes in their products as a way to differentiate taste and effects of cannabis. The entourage effect, which describes the synergy of cannabinoids, terpenes, and other plant compounds, has also helped further awareness and demand for terpenes in cannabis products.


title: Cannabis sativa

text: A "Cannabis" plant in the vegetative growth phase of its life requires more than 16–18 hours of light per day to stay vegetative. Flowering usually occurs when darkness equals at least 12 hours per day. The flowering cycle can last anywhere between seven and fifteen weeks, depending on the strain and environmental conditions. When the production of psychoactive cannabinoids is sought, female plants are grown separately from male plants to induce parthenocarpy in the female plant's fruits (popularly called "sin semilla" which is Spanish for "without seed" ) and increase the production of cannabinoid-rich resin.


title: Cannabis sativa

text: In soil, the optimum pH for the plant is 6.3 to 6.8. In hydroponic growing, the nutrient solution is best at 5.2 to 5.8, making "Cannabis" well-suited to hydroponics because this pH range is hostile to most bacteria and fungi.


title: Cannabis sativa

text: Tissue culture multiplication has become important in producing medically important clones, while seed production remains the generally preferred means of multiplication. Sativa plants have narrow leaves and grow best in warm environments. They do, however, take longer to flower than their Indica counterparts, and they grow taller than the Indica cannabis strains as well.


title: Cannabis sativa

text: A nominal if not legal distinction is often made between industrial hemp, with concentrations of psychoactive compounds far too low to be useful for that purpose, and marijuana.


title: Hare

text: Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus Lepus. They are herbivores, and live solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are able to fend for themselves shortly after birth. The genus includes the largest lagomorphs. Most are fast runners with long, powerful hind legs, and large ears to dissipate body heat. Hare species are native to Africa, Eurasia and North America. A hare less than one year old is called a "leveret". A group of hares is called a "husk", a "down" or a "drove".


title: Hare

text: Members of the "Lepus" genus are considered true hares, distinguishing them from rabbits which make up the rest of the Leporidae family. However, there are five leporid species with "hare" in their common names which are not considered true hares: the hispid hare ("Caprolagus hispidus"), and four species known as red rock hares (comprising "Pronolagus"). Conversely, several "Lepus" species are called "jackrabbits", but classed as hares rather than rabbits. The pet known as the Belgian hare is a domesticated European rabbit which has been selectively bred to resemble a hare.


title: Hare

text: Hares are swift animals and can run up to over short distances. Over longer distances, the European hare ("Lepus europaeus") can run up to . The five species of jackrabbits found in central and western North America are able to run at over longer distances, and can leap up to at a time.


title: Hare

text: Normally a shy animal, the European brown hare changes its behavior in spring, when it can be seen in daytime chasing other hares. This appears to be competition between males to attain dominance for breeding. During this spring frenzy, animals of both sexes can be seen "boxing", one hare striking another with its paws. This behavior gives rise to the idiom "mad as a March hare". This is present not only in intermale competition, but also among females toward males to prevent copulation.


title: Hare

text: Hares are generally larger than rabbits, with longer ears, and have black markings on their fur. Hares, like all leporids, have jointed, or kinetic, skulls, unique among mammals. They have 48 chromosomes, while rabbits have 44. Hares have not been domesticated, while some rabbits are raised for food and kept as pets.


title: Hare

text: Most rabbits live underground in burrows or warrens, while hares live in simple nests above the ground, and usually do not live in groups. Hares do not bear their young below ground in a burrow as do other leporids, but rather in a shallow depression or flattened nest of grass called a form. Young hares are adapted to the lack of physical protection, relative to that afforded by a burrow, by being born fully furred and with eyes open. They are hence precocial, so are able to fend for themselves soon after birth. By contrast, rabbits are altricial, having young that are born blind and hairless.


title: Hare

text: Hares and rabbits are plentiful in many areas, adapt to a wide variety of conditions, and reproduce quickly, so hunting is often less regulated than for other varieties of game. In rural areas of North America and particularly in pioneer times, they were a common source of meat. Because of their extremely low fat content, they are a poor choice as a survival food.


title: Hare

text: Hares can be prepared in the same manner as rabbits—commonly roasted or parted for breading and frying.


title: Hare

text: The hare (and in recent times, the rabbit) is a staple of Maltese cuisine. The dish was presented to the island's Grandmasters of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, as well as Renaissance Inquisitors resident on the island, several of whom went on to become pope.


title: Hare

text: According to Jewish tradition, the hare is among mammals deemed not kosher, and therefore not eaten by observant Jews. Muslims deem coney meat (rabbit, pika, hyrax) to be halal, and in Egypt, hare and rabbit are popular meats for "mulukhiyah" (jute leaf soup), especially in Cairo.


title: Hare

text: The blood of a freshly killed hare can be collected for consumption in a stew or casserole in a cooking process known as jugging. First the entrails are removed from the hare carcass before it is hung in a larder by its hind legs, which causes blood to accumulate in the chest cavity. One method of preserving the blood after draining it from the hare (since the hare is usually hung for a week or more) is to mix it with red wine vinegar to prevent coagulation, and then to store it in a freezer.


title: Hare

text: Jugged hare, known as in France, is a whole hare, cut into pieces, marinated, and cooked with red wine and juniper berries in a tall jug that stands in a pan of water. It traditionally is served with the hare's blood (or the blood is added right at the end of the cooking process) and port wine.


title: Hare

text: Jugged hare is described in an influential 18th-century English cookbook, "The Art of Cookery" by Hannah Glasse, with a recipe titled, "A Jugged Hare", that begins, "Cut it into little pieces, lard them here and there ..." The recipe goes on to describe cooking the pieces of hare in water in a jug set within a bath of boiling water to cook for three hours. In the 19th century, a myth arose that Glasse's recipe began with the words "First, catch your hare."


title: Hare

text: Many other British cookbooks from before the middle of the 20th century have recipes for jugged hare. Merle and Reitch have this to say about jugged hare, for example:


title: Hare

text: In 2006, a survey of 2021 people for the UKTV Food television channel found only 1.6% of the people under 25 recognized jugged hare by name. Seven of ten stated they would refuse to eat jugged hare if it were served at the house of a friend or a relative.


title: Hare

text: In England, a now rarely served dish is potted hare. The hare meat is cooked, then covered in at least one inch (preferably more) of butter. The butter is a preservative (excludes air); the dish can be stored for up to several months. It is served cold, often on bread or as an appetizer.


title: Hare

text: No extant domesticated hares exist. However, hare remains have been found in a wide range of human settlement sites, some showing signs of use beyond simple hunting and eating:


title: Hare

text: The hare in African folk tales is a trickster; some of the stories about the hare were retold among enslaved Africans in America, and are the basis of the Br'er Rabbit stories. The hare appears in English folklore in the saying "as mad as a March hare" and in the legend of the White Hare that alternatively tells of a witch who takes the form of a white hare and goes out looking for prey at night or of the spirit of a broken-hearted maiden who cannot rest and who haunts her unfaithful lover.


title: Hare

text: Many cultures, including the Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican, see a hare in the pattern of dark patches in the moon (see Moon rabbit). The constellation Lepus is also taken to represent a hare.


title: Hare

text: The hare was once regarded as an animal sacred to Aphrodite and Eros because of its high libido. Live hares were often presented as a gift of love. Now, the hare is commonly associated with the Anglo-Saxon goddess Ēostre, and therefore pagan symbols like the Easter Bunny have been appropriated into the Christian tradition. However, no primary sources support this belief, which seems to be a modern invention.


title: Hare

text: In European tradition, the hare symbolises the two qualities of swiftness and timidity. The latter once gave the European hare the Linnaean name "Lepus timidus" that is now limited to the mountain hare. Several ancient fables depict the Hare in flight; in one concerning The Hares and the Frogs they even decide to commit mass suicide until they come across a creature so timid that it is even frightened of them. Conversely, in The Tortoise and the Hare, perhaps the best-known among Aesop's Fables, the hare loses a race through being too confident in its swiftness. In Irish folklore, the hare is often associated with Sidh (Fairy) or other pagan elements. In these stories, characters who harm hares often suffer dreadful consequences.


title: Hare

text: A study in 2004 followed the history and migration of a symbolic image of three hares with conjoined ears. In this image, three hares are seen chasing each other in a circle with their heads near its centre. While each of the animals appears to have two ears, only three ears are depicted. The ears form a triangle at the centre of the circle and each is shared by two of the hares. The image has been traced from Christian churches in the English county of Devon right back along the Silk Road to China, via western and eastern Europe and the Middle East. Before its appearance in China, it was possibly first depicted in the Middle East before being reimported centuries later. Its use is associated with Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Buddhist sites stretching back to about 600 CE.


title: Hare

text: The hare has given rise to local place names, as they can often be observed in favoured localities. An example in Scotland is 'Murchland', 'murchen' being a Scots word for a hare.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, along with both Karl Marx and Max Weber.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies can maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity, an era in which traditional social and religious ties are much less universal, and in which new social institutions have come into being. Durkheim's conception of the scientific study of society laid the groundwork for modern sociology, and he used such scientific tools as statistics, surveys, and historical observation in his analysis of suicides in Catholic and Protestant groups. His first major sociological work was (1893; "The Division of Labour in Society"), followed in 1895 by ("The Rules of Sociological Method"), the same year in which Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology and became France's first professor of sociology. Durkheim's seminal monograph, "Le Suicide" (1897), a study of suicide rates in Catholic and Protestant populations, especially pioneered modern social research, serving to distinguish social science from psychology and political philosophy. The following year, in 1898, he established the journal "L'Année Sociologique". (1912; "The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life") presented a theory of religion, comparing the social and cultural lives of aboriginal and modern societies.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim was deeply preoccupied with the acceptance of sociology as a legitimate science. He refined the positivism originally set forth by Auguste Comte, promoting what could be considered as a form of epistemological realism, as well as the use of the hypothetico-deductive model in social science. For Durkheim, sociology was the science of "institutions", understanding the term in its broader meaning as the "beliefs and modes of behaviour instituted by the collectivity," with its aim being to discover structural social facts. As such, Durkheim was a major proponent of structural functionalism, a foundational perspective in both sociology and anthropology. In his view, social science should be purely holistic in the sense that sociology should study phenomena attributed to society at large, rather than being limited to the study of specific actions of individuals.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: He remained a dominant force in French intellectual life until his death in 1917, presenting numerous lectures and published works on a variety of topics, including the sociology of knowledge, morality, social stratification, religion, law, education, and deviance. Some terms that he coined, such as "collective consciousness", are now also used by laypeople.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: David Émile Durkheim was born 15 April 1858 in Épinal, Lorraine, France, to Mélanie (Isidor) and Moïse Durkheim, coming into a long lineage of devout French Jews. As his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been rabbis, young Durkheim began his education in a rabbinical school. However, at an early age, he switched schools, deciding not to follow in his family's footsteps. In fact, Durkheim led a completely secular life, whereby much of his work was dedicated to demonstrating that religious phenomena stemmed from social rather than divine factors. Despite this fact, Durkheim did not sever ties with his family or with the Jewish community. Actually, many of his most prominent collaborators and students were Jewish, some even being blood-related. Marcel Mauss, a notable social anthropologist of the prewar era, for instance, was his nephew.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: A precocious student, Durkheim entered the "École Normale Supérieure" (ENS) in 1879, at his third attempt. The entering class that year was one of the most brilliant of the nineteenth century, as many of his classmates, such as Jean Jaurès and Henri Bergson, went on to become major figures in France's intellectual history as well. At the ENS, Durkheim studied under the direction of Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, a classicist with a social-scientific outlook, and wrote his Latin dissertation on Montesquieu. At the same time, he read Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, whereby Durkheim became interested in a scientific approach to society very early on in his career. This meant the first of many conflicts with the French academic system, which had no social science curriculum at the time. Durkheim found humanistic studies uninteresting, turning his attention from psychology and philosophy to ethics and, eventually, sociology. He obtained his "agrégation" in philosophy in 1882, though finishing next to last in his graduating class owing to serious illness the year before.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: The opportunity for Durkheim to receive a major academic appointment in Paris was inhibited by his approach to society. From 1882 to 1887 he taught philosophy at several provincial schools. In 1885 he decided to leave for Germany, where for two years he studied sociology at the universities of Marburg, Berlin and Leipzig. As Durkheim indicated in several essays, it was in Leipzig that he learned to appreciate the value of empiricism and its language of concrete, complex things, in sharp contrast to the more abstract, clear and simple ideas of the Cartesian method. By 1886, as part of his doctoral dissertation, he had completed the draft of his "The Division of Labour in Society", and was working towards establishing the new science of sociology.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim's period in Germany resulted in the publication of numerous articles on German social science and philosophy; Durkheim was particularly impressed by the work of Wilhelm Wundt. Durkheim's articles gained recognition in France, and he received a teaching appointment in the University of Bordeaux in 1887, where he was to teach the university's first social science course. His official title was , thus he taught both pedagogy and sociology (the latter having never been taught in France before). The appointment of the social scientist to the mostly humanistic faculty was an important sign of changing times and the growing importance and recognition of the social sciences. From this position Durkheim helped reform the French school system, introducing the study of social science in its curriculum. However, his controversial beliefs that religion and morality could be explained in terms purely of social interaction earned him many critics.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: The 1890s were a period of remarkable creative output for Durkheim. In 1893, he published "The Division of Labour in Society", his doctoral dissertation and fundamental statement of the nature of human society and its development. Durkheim's interest in social phenomena was spurred on by politics. France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War led to the fall of the regime of Napoleon III, which was then replaced by the Third Republic. This in turn resulted in a backlash against the new secular and republican rule, as many people considered a vigorously nationalistic approach necessary to rejuvenate France's fading power. Durkheim, a Jew and a staunch supporter of the Third Republic with a sympathy towards socialism, was thus in the political minority, a situation that galvanized him politically. The Dreyfus affair of 1894 only strengthened his activist stance.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: In 1895, he published "The Rules of Sociological Method", a manifesto stating what sociology is and how it ought to be done, and founded the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux. In 1898, he founded "L'Année Sociologique", the first French social science journal. Its aim was to publish and publicize the work of what was, by then, a growing number of students and collaborators (this is also the name used to refer to the group of students who developed his sociological program). In 1897, he published "Suicide", a case study that provided an example of what a sociological monograph might look like. Durkheim was one of the pioneers of the use of quantitative methods in criminology, which he used in his study of suicide.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: By 1902, Durkheim had finally achieved his goal of attaining a prominent position in Paris when he became the chair of education at the Sorbonne. Durkheim had aimed for the position earlier, but the Parisian faculty took longer to accept what some called "sociological imperialism" and admit social science to their curriculum. He became a full professor (specifically, Professor of the Science of Education) there in 1906, and in 1913 he was named chair in "Education and Sociology". Because French universities are technically institutions for training secondary school teachers, this position gave Durkheim considerable influence—his lectures were the only ones that were mandatory for the entire student body. Durkheim had much influence over the new generation of teachers; around that time he also served as an advisor to the Ministry of Education. In 1912, he published his last major work, "The Elementary Forms of The Religious Life".


title: Émile Durkheim

text: The outbreak of World War I was to have a tragic effect on Durkheim's life. His leftism was always patriotic rather than internationalist, in that he sought a secular, rational form of French life. However, the onset of the war, and the inevitable nationalist propaganda that followed, made it difficult to sustain this already nuanced position. While Durkheim actively worked to support his country in the war, his reluctance to give in to simplistic nationalist fervor (combined with his Jewish background) made him a natural target of the now-ascendant French Right. Even more seriously, the generations of students that Durkheim had trained were now being drafted to serve in the army, many of them perishing in the trenches.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Finally, Durkheim's own son, André, died on the war front in December 1915—a loss from which Durkheim never recovered. Emotionally devastated, Durkheim collapsed of a stroke in Paris on 15 November, two years later in 1917. He was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: In "The Rules of Sociological Method" (1895), Durkheim expressed his will to establish a method that would guarantee sociology's truly scientific character. One of the questions raised concerns the objectivity of the sociologist: how may one study an object that, from the very beginning, conditions and relates to the observer? According to Durkheim, observation must be as impartial and impersonal as possible, even though a "perfectly objective observation" in this sense may never be attained. A social fact must always be studied according to its relation with other social facts, never according to the individual who studies it. Sociology should therefore privilege comparison rather than the study of singular independent facts.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim sought to create one of the first rigorous scientific approaches to social phenomena. Along with Herbert Spencer, he was one of the first people to explain the existence and quality of different parts of a society by reference to what function they served in maintaining the quotidian (i.e. by how they make society "work"). He also agreed with Spencer's organic analogy, comparing society to a living organism. Thus his work is sometimes seen as a precursor to functionalism. Durkheim also insisted that society was more than the sum of its parts.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Unlike his contemporaries Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber, he did not focus on what motivates the actions of individuals (an approach associated with methodological individualism), but rather on the study of "social facts".


title: Émile Durkheim

text: During his university studies at the ENS, Durkheim was influenced by two neo-Kantian scholars: Charles Bernard Renouvier and Émile Boutroux. The principles Durkheim absorbed from them included rationalism, scientific study of morality, anti-utilitarianism, and secular education. His methodology was influenced by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, a supporter of the scientific method.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: A fundamental influence on Durkheim's thought was the sociological positivism of Auguste Comte, who effectively sought to extend and apply the scientific method found in the natural sciences to the social sciences. According to Comte, a true social science should stress empirical facts, as well as induce general scientific laws from the relationship among these facts. There were many points on which Durkheim agreed with the positivist thesis:


title: Émile Durkheim

text: A second influence on Durkheim's view of society beyond Comte's positivism was the epistemological outlook called "social realism". Although he never explicitly espoused it, Durkheim adopted a realist perspective in order to demonstrate the existence of social realities outside the individual and to show that these realities existed in the form of the objective relations of society. As an epistemology of science, "realism" can be defined as a perspective that takes as its central point of departure the view that external social realities exist in the outer world and that these realities are independent of the individual's perception of them.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: This view opposes other predominant philosophical perspectives such as empiricism and positivism. Empiricists, like David Hume, had argued that all realities in the outside world are products of human sense perception, thus all realities are merely perceived: they do not exist independently of our perceptions, and have no causal power in themselves. Comte's positivism went a step further by claiming that scientific laws could be deduced from empirical observations. Going beyond this, Durkheim claimed that sociology would not only discover "apparent" laws, but would be able to discover the "inherent nature" of society.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Scholars also debate the exact influence of Jewish thought on Durkheim's work. The answer remains uncertain; some scholars have argued that Durkheim's thought is a form of secularized Jewish thought, while others argue that proving the existence of a direct influence of Jewish thought on Durkheim's achievements is difficult or impossible.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Throughout his career, Durkheim was concerned primarily with three goals. First, to establish sociology as a new academic discipline. Second, to analyse how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in the modern era, when things such as shared religious and ethnic background could no longer be assumed. To that end he wrote much about the effect of laws, religion, education and similar forces on society and social integration. Lastly, Durkheim was concerned with the practical implications of scientific knowledge. The importance of social integration is expressed throughout Durkheim's work:


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim authored some of the most programmatic statements on what sociology is and how it should be practiced. His concern was to establish sociology as a science. Arguing for a place for sociology among other sciences, he wrote, "sociology is, then, not an auxiliary of any other science; it is itself a distinct and autonomous science."


title: Émile Durkheim

text: To give sociology a place in the academic world and to ensure that it is a legitimate science, it must have an object that is clear and distinct from philosophy or psychology, and its own methodology. He argued that "there is in every society a certain group of phenomena which may be differentiated from those studied by the other natural sciences."


title: Émile Durkheim

text: In the Tarde-Durkeim debate of 1903, the "anthropological view" of Gabriel Tarde was ridiculed and hastily dismissed.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: A fundamental aim of sociology is to discover structural "social facts". The establishment of sociology as an independent, recognized academic discipline is among Durkheim's largest and most lasting legacies. Within sociology, his work has significantly influenced structuralism or structural functionalism.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim's work revolved around the study of social facts, a term he coined to describe phenomena that have an existence in and of themselves, are not bound to the actions of individuals, but have a coercive influence upon them. Durkheim argued that social facts have, "sui generis", an independent existence greater and more objective than the actions of the individuals that compose society. Only such social facts can explain the observed social phenomena. Being exterior to the individual person, social facts may thus also exercise coercive power on the various people composing society, as it can sometimes be observed in the case of formal laws and regulations, but also in situations implying the presence of informal rules, such as religious rituals or family norms. Unlike the facts studied in natural sciences, a "social" fact thus refers to a specific category of phenomena: "the determining cause of a social fact must be sought among the antecedent social facts and not among the states of the individual consciousness."


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Such facts are endowed with a power of coercion, by reason of which they may control individual behaviors. According to Durkheim, these phenomena cannot be reduced to biological or psychological grounds. Social facts can be material (i.e. physical objects ) or immaterial (i.e. meanings, sentiments, etc.). Though the latter cannot be seen or touched, they are external and coercive, thus becoming real and gaining "facticity". Physical objects, too, can represent both material and immaterial social facts. For example, a flag is a physical social fact that is often ingrained with various immaterial social facts (e.g. its meaning and importance).


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Many social facts, however, have no material form. Even the most "individualistic" or "subjective" phenomena, such as love, freedom, or suicide, were regarded by Durkheim as "objective" social facts. Individuals composing society do not directly cause suicide: suicide, as a social fact, exists independently in society, and is caused by other social facts—such as rules governing behavior and group attachment—whether an individual likes it or not. Whether a person "leaves" a society does not alter the "fact" that this society will "still contain" suicides. Suicide, like other immaterial social facts, exists independently of the will of an individual, cannot be eliminated, and is as influential—coercive—as physical laws like gravity. Sociology's task therefore consists of discovering the qualities and characteristics of such social facts, which can be discovered through a quantitative or experimental approach (Durkheim extensively relied on statistics).


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Regarding the society itself, like social institutions in general, Durkheim saw it as a set of social facts. Even more than "what society is," Durkheim was interested in answering "how is a society created" and "what holds a society together." In "The Division of Labour in Society", Durkheim attempts to answer the latter question.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim assumes that humans are inherently egoistic, while "collective consciousness" (i.e. norms, beliefs, and values) forms the moral basis of the society, resulting in social integration. "Collective consciousness" is therefore of key importance to the society; its requisite function without which the society cannot survive. This consciousness produces the society and holds it together, while, at the same time, individuals produce collective consciousness through their interactions. Through collective consciousness human beings become aware of one another as social beings, not just animals.The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or common consciousness.In particular, the emotional part of the collective consciousness overrides our egoism: as we are emotionally bound to culture, we act socially because we recognize it is the responsible, moral way to act. A key to forming society is social interaction, and Durkheim believes that human beings, when in a group, will inevitably act in such a way that a society is formed.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Groups, when interacting, create their own culture and attach powerful emotions to it, thus making "culture" another key social fact. Durkheim was one of the first scholars to consider the question of culture so intensely. Durkheim was interested in cultural diversity, and how the existence of diversity nonetheless fails to destroy a society. To that, Durkheim answered that any apparent cultural diversity is overridden by a larger, common, and more generalized cultural system, and the law.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: In a socio-evolutionary approach, Durkheim described the evolution of societies from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity (one rising from mutual need). As the societies become more complex, evolving from mechanical to organic solidarity, the division of labour is counteracting and replacing to collective consciousness. In the simpler societies, people are connected to others due to personal ties and traditions; in the larger, modern society they are connected due to increased reliance on others with regard to them performing their specialized tasks needed for the modern, highly complex society to survive. In mechanical solidarity, people are self-sufficient, there is little integration and thus there is the need for use of force and repression to keep society together. Also, in such societies, people have much fewer options in life. In organic solidarity, people are much more integrated and interdependent and specialization and cooperation is extensive. Progress from mechanical to organic solidarity is based first on population growth and increasing population density, second on increasing "morality density" (development of more complex social interactions) and thirdly, on the increasing specialization in workplace. One of the ways mechanical and organic societies differ is the function of law: in mechanical society the law is focused on its punitive aspect, and aims to reinforce the cohesion of the community, often by making the punishment public and extreme; whereas in the organic society the law focuses on repairing the damage done and is more focused on individuals than the community.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: One of the main features of the modern, organic society is the importance, sacredness even, given to the concept—social fact—of the individual. The individual, rather than the collective, becomes the focus of rights and responsibilities, the center of public and private rituals holding the society together—a function once performed by the religion. To stress the importance of this concept, Durkheim talked of the "cult of the individual":Thus very far from there being the antagonism between the individual and society which is often claimed, moral individualism, the cult of the individual, is in fact the product of society itself. It is society that instituted it and made of man the god whose servant it is.Durkheim saw the population density and growth as key factors in the evolution of the societies and advent of modernity. As the number of people in a given area increase, so does the number of interactions, and the society becomes more complex. Growing competition between the more numerous people also leads to further division of labour. In time, the importance of the state, the law and the individual increases, while that of the religion and moral solidarity decreases.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: In another example of evolution of culture, Durkheim pointed to fashion, although in this case he noted a more cyclical phenomenon. According to Durkheim, fashion serves to differentiate between lower classes and upper classes, but because lower classes want to look like the upper classes, they will eventually adapt the upper class fashion, depreciating it, and forcing the upper class to adopt a new fashion.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: As the society, Durkheim noted there are several possible pathologies that could lead to a breakdown of social integration and disintegration of the society: the two most important ones are "anomie" and "forced division of labour"; lesser ones include the lack of coordination and suicide. To Durkheim, "anomie" refers to a lack of social norms; where too rapid of population growth reduces the amount of interaction between various groups, which in turn leads to a breakdown of understanding (i.e. norms, values, etc.). "Forced division of labour", on the other hand, refers to a situation in which those who hold power, driven by their desire for profit (greed), results in people doing work that they are unsuited for. Such people are unhappy, and their desire to change the system can destabilize the society.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim's views on crime were a departure from conventional notions. He believed that crime is "bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life" and serves a social function. He states that crime implies "not only that the way remains open to necessary changes but that in certain cases it directly prepares these changes." Examining the trial of Socrates, he argues that "his crime, namely, the independence of his thought, rendered a service not only to humanity but to his country" as "it served to prepare a new morality and faith that the Athenians needed." As such, his crime "was a useful prelude to reforms." In this sense, he saw crime as being able to release certain social tensions and so have a cleansing or purging effect in society.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: The authority which the moral conscience enjoys must not be excessive; otherwise, no-one would dare to criticize it, and it would too easily congeal into an immutable form. To make progress, individual originality must be able to express itself…[even] the originality of the criminal…shall also be possible.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim thought deviance to be an essential component of a functional society. He believed that deviance had three possible effects on society:


title: Émile Durkheim

text: In "Suicide" (1897), Durkheim explores the differing suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics, arguing that stronger social control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates. According to Durkheim, Catholic society has normal levels of integration while Protestant society has low levels. Overall, Durkheim treated suicide as a social fact, explaining variations in its rate on a macro level, considering society-scale phenomena such as lack of connections between people (group attachment) and lack of regulations of behavior, rather than individuals' feelings and motivations.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim believed there was more to suicide than extremely personal individual life circumstances: for example, a loss of a job, divorce, or bankruptcy. Instead, he took suicide and explained it as a social fact instead of a result of one's circumstances. Durkheim believed that suicide was an instance of social deviance. Social deviance being any transgression of socially established norms.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: He created a normative theory of suicide focusing on the conditions of group life. Proposing four different types of suicide, which include "egoistic", "altruistic", "anomic", and "fatalistic", Durkheim began his theory by plotting social regulation on the x-axis of his chart, and social integration on the y-axis:


title: Émile Durkheim

text: This study has been extensively discussed by later scholars and several major criticisms have emerged. First, Durkheim took most of his data from earlier researchers, notably Adolph Wagner and Henry Morselli, who were much more careful in generalizing from their own data. Second, later researchers found that the Protestant–Catholic differences in suicide seemed to be limited to German-speaking Europe and thus may have always been the spurious reflection of other factors. Durkheim's study of suicide has been criticized as an example of the logical error termed the ecological fallacy. However, diverging views have contested whether Durkheim's work really contained an ecological fallacy. More recent authors such as Berk (2006) have also questioned the micro–macro relations underlying Durkheim's work. Some, such as Inkeles (1959), Johnson (1965), and Gibbs (1968), have claimed that Durkheim's only intent was to explain suicide "sociologically" within a holistic perspective, emphasizing that "he intended his theory to explain variation among social environments in the incidence of suicide, not the suicides of particular individuals."


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Despite its limitations, Durkheim's work on suicide has influenced proponents of control theory, and is often mentioned as a classic sociological study. The book pioneered modern social research and served to distinguish social science from psychology and political philosophy.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: In "The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life" (1912), Durkheim's first purpose was to identify the social origin and function of religion as he felt that religion was a source of camaraderie and solidarity. His second purpose was to identify links between certain religions in different cultures, finding a common denominator. He wanted to understand the empirical, social aspect of religion that is common to all religions and goes beyond the concepts of spirituality and God.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim defined "religion" as: "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, i.e., things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."In this definition, Durkheim avoids references to supernatural or God. Durkheim rejected earlier definitions by Tylor that religion was "belief in supernatural beings," finding that primitive societies such as the Australian aborigines (following the ethnologies of Spencer and Gillen, largely discredited later) did not divide reality into "natural" vs. "supernatural" realms, but rather into realms of the "sacred" and the "profane," which were not moral categories, since both could include what was good or evil. Durkheim argues we are left with the following three concepts:


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Out of those three concepts, Durkheim focused on the sacred, noting that it is at the very core of a religion:They are only collective forces hypostasized, that is to say, moral forces; they are made up of the ideas and sentiments awakened in us by the spectacle of society, and not of sensations coming from the physical world.Durkheim saw religion as the most fundamental social institution of humankind, and one that gave rise to other social forms. It was religion that gave humanity the strongest sense of collective consciousness. Durkheim saw religion as a force that emerged in the early hunter and gatherer societies, as the emotions collective effervescence run high in the growing groups, forcing them to act in a new ways, and giving them a sense of some hidden force driving them. Over time, as emotions became symbolized and interactions ritualized, religion became more organized, giving a rise to the division between the sacred and the profane. However, Durkheim also believed that religion was becoming less important, as it was being gradually superseded by science and the cult of an individual.Thus there is something eternal in religion which is destined to survive all the particular symbols in which religious thought has successively enveloped itself.However, even if the religion was losing its importance for Durkheim, it still laid the foundation of modern society and the interactions that governed it. And despite the advent of alternative forces, Durkheim argued that no replacement for the force of religion had yet been created. He expressed his doubt about modernity, seeing the modern times as "a period of transition and moral mediocrity."


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim also argued that our primary categories for understanding the world have their origins in religion. It is religion, Durkheim writes, that gave rise to most if not all other social constructs, including the larger society. Durkheim argued that categories are produced by the society, and thus are collective creations. Thus as people create societies, they also create categories, but at the same time, they do so unconsciously, and the categories are prior to any individual's experience. In this way Durkheim attempted to bridge the divide between seeing categories as constructed out of human experience and as logically prior to that experience. Our understanding of the world is shaped by social facts; for example the notion of time is defined by being measured through a calendar, which in turn was created to allow us to keep track of our social gatherings and rituals; those in turn on their most basic level originated from religion. In the end, even the most logical and rational pursuit of science can trace its origins to religion. Durkheim states that, "Religion gave birth to all that is essential in the society."


title: Émile Durkheim

text: In his work, Durkheim focused on "totemism", the religion of the Aboriginal Australians and Native Americans. Durkheim saw this religion as the most ancient religion, and focused on it as he believed its simplicity would ease the discussion of the essential elements of religion. As such, he wrote:Now the totem is the flag of the clan. It is therefore natural that the impressions aroused by the clan in individual minds—impressions of dependence and of increased vitality—should fix themselves to the idea of the totem rather than that of the clan: for the clan is too complex a reality to be represented clearly in all its complex unity by such rudimentary intelligences.Durkheim's work on religion was criticized on both empirical and theoretical grounds by specialists in the field. The most important critique came from Durkheim's contemporary, Arnold van Gennep, an expert on religion and ritual, and also on Australian belief systems. Van Gennep argued that Durkheim's views of primitive peoples and simple societies were "entirely erroneous". Van Gennep further argued that Durkheim demonstrated a lack of critical stance towards his sources, collected by traders and priests, naively accepting their veracity, and that Durkheim interpreted freely from dubious data. At the conceptual level, van Gennep pointed out Durkheim's tendency to press ethnography into a prefabricated theoretical scheme.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Despite such critiques, Durkheim's work on religion has been widely praised for its theoretical insight and whose arguments and propositions, according to Robert Alun Jones, "have stimulated the interest and excitement of several generations of sociologists irrespective of theoretical 'school' or field of specialization."


title: Émile Durkheim

text: While Durkheim's work deals with a number of subjects, including suicide, the family, social structures, and social institutions, a large part of his work deals with the sociology of knowledge.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: While publishing short articles on the subject earlier in his career, Durkheim's definitive statement concerning the sociology of knowledge comes in his 1912 "magnum opus", "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life". This book has as its goal not only the elucidation of the social origins and function of religion, but also the social origins and impact of society on language and logical thought. Durkheim worked largely out of a Kantian framework and sought to understand how the concepts and categories of logical thought could arise out of social life. He argued, for example, that the categories of space and time were not "a priori". Rather, the category of space depends on a society's social grouping and geographical use of space, and a group's social rhythm that determines our understanding of time. In this Durkheim sought to combine elements of rationalism and empiricism, arguing that certain aspects of logical thought common to all humans did exist, but that they were products of collective life (thus contradicting the "tabula rasa" empiricist understanding whereby categories are acquired by individual experience alone), and that they were not universal "a" "prioris" (as Kant argued) since the content of the categories differed from society to society.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Another key elements to Durkheim's theory of knowledge outlined in "Elementary Forms" is the concept of ("collective representations"). ' are the symbols and images that come to represent the ideas, beliefs, and values elaborated by a collectivity and are not reducible to individual constituents. They can include words, slogans, ideas, or any number of material items that can serve as a symbol, such as a cross, a rock, a temple, a feather etc. As Durkheim elaborates, ' are created through intense social interaction and are products of collective activity. As such, these representations have the particular, and somewhat contradictory, aspect that they exist externally to the individual—since they are created and controlled not by the individual but by society as a whole—yet, simultaneously within each individual of the society, by virtue of that individual's participation within society.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Arguably the most important "" is language, which according to Durkheim is a product of collective action. And because language is a collective action, language contains within it a history of accumulated knowledge and experience that no individual would be capable of creating on their own:If concepts were only general ideas, they would not enrich knowledge a great deal, for, as we have already pointed out, the general contains nothing more than the particular. But if before all else they are collective representations, they add to that which we can learn by our own personal experience all that wisdom and science which the group has accumulated in the course of centuries. Thinking by concepts, is not merely seeing reality on its most general side, but it is projecting a light upon the sensation which illuminates it, penetrates it and transforms it.As such, language, as a social product, literally structures and shapes our experience of reality. This discursive approach to language and society was developed by later French philosophers, such as Michel Foucault.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim defines morality as "a system of rules for conduct." His analysis of morality is strongly marked by Immanuel Kant and his notion of duty. While Durkheim was influenced by Kant, he was highly critical of aspects of the latter's moral theory and developed his own positions.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim agrees with Kant that within morality, there is an element of obligation, "a moral authority which, by manifesting itself in certain precepts particularly important to it, confers upon [moral rules] an obligatory character." Morality tells us how to act from a position of superiority. There exists a certain, pre-established moral norm to which we must conform. It is through this view that Durkheim makes a first critique of Kant in saying that moral duties originate in society, and are not to be found in some universal moral concept such as the categorical imperative. Durkheim also argues that morality is characterized not just by this obligation, but is also something that is desired by the individual. The individual believes that by adhering to morality, they are serving the common Good, and for this reason, the individual submits voluntarily to the moral commandment.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: However, in order to accomplish its aims, morality must be legitimate in the eyes of those to whom it speaks. As Durkheim argues, this moral authority is primarily to be located in religion, which is why in any religion one finds a code of morality. For Durkheim, it is only society that has the resources, the respect, and the power to cultivate within an individual both the obligatory and the desirous aspects of morality.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Durkheim has had an important impact on the development of anthropology and sociology as disciplines. The establishment of sociology as an independent, recognized academic discipline, in particular, is among Durkheim's largest and most lasting legacies. Within sociology, his work has significantly influenced structuralism, or structural functionalism. Scholars inspired by Durkheim include Marcel Mauss, Maurice Halbwachs, Célestin Bouglé, Gustave Belot, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton, Jean Piaget, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault, Clifford Geertz, Peter Berger, social reformer Patrick Hunout, and others.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: More recently, Durkheim has influenced sociologists such as Steven Lukes, Robert N. Bellah, and Pierre Bourdieu. His description of "collective consciousness" also deeply influenced the Turkish nationalism of Ziya Gökalp, the founding father of Turkish sociology. Randall Collins has developed a theory of what he calls "interaction ritual chains", a synthesis of Durkheim's work on religion with that of Erving Goffman's micro-sociology. Goffman himself was also deeply influenced by Durkheim in his development of the "interaction order".


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Outside of sociology, Durkheim has influenced philosophers, including Henri Bergson and Emmanuel Levinas, and his ideas can be identified, inexplicitly, in the work of certain structuralist theorists of the 1960s, such as Alain Badiou, Louis Althusser, and Michel Foucault.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Much of Durkheim's work remains unacknowledged in philosophy, despite its direct relevance. As proof, one can look to John Searle, whose book, "The Construction of Social Reality", elaborates a theory of social facts and collective representations that Searle believed to be a landmark work that would bridge the gap between analytic and continental philosophy. Neil Gross, however, demonstrates how Searle's views on society are more or less a reconstitution of Durkheim's theories of social facts, social institutions, collective representations, and the like. Searle's ideas are thus open to the same criticisms as Durkheim's. Searle responded by arguing that Durkheim's work was worse than he had originally believed, and, admitting that he had not read much of Durkheim's work: "Because Durkheim’s account seemed so impoverished I did not read any further in his work." Stephen Lukes, however, responded to Searle's reply to Gross, refuting, point by point, the allegations that Searle makes against Durkheim, essentially upholding the argument of Gross, that Searle's work bears great resemblance to that of Durkheim's. Lukes attributes Searle's miscomprehension of Durkheim's work to the fact that Searle, quite simply, never read Durkheim.


title: Émile Durkheim

text: Margaret Gilbert, a contemporary British philosopher of social phenomena, has offered a close, sympathetic reading of Durkheim's discussion of social facts in chapter 1 and the prefaces of "The Rules of Sociological Method". In her 1989 book, "On Social Facts"—the title of which may represent an homage to Durkheim, alluding to his ""—Gilbert argues that some of his statements that may seem to be philosophically untenable are important and fruitful.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-largest municipal police department in the United States, after the New York City Police Department and the Chicago Police Department.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The LAPD has its headquarters at 100 W. 1st St., in the Civic Center district, not far from the demolished Parker Center it replaced in 2009. The organization of the department is complex, including 21 divisions (stations) grouped in four bureaus in the Office of Operations; multiple divisions within the Detective Bureau in the Office of Special Operations; and specialized units such as SWAT, K-9, mounted police, air support and the Major Crimes Division all within the Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau. Further offices support the chief of police in areas such as constitutional policing and professional standards, while the Office of Support Services covers facilities management, personnel and training, among other areas.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Independent investigative commissions have documented a history of police brutality, corruption, and discriminatory policing within the LAPD. In 2001, the United States Department of Justice entered into a consent decree with the LAPD regarding systemic civil rights violations and lack of accountability that stretched back decades. As a result of major reforms, the consent decree was lifted in 2013.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The first specific Los Angeles police force was founded in 1853 as the Los Angeles Rangers, a volunteer force that assisted the existing L.A. County forces. The Rangers were soon succeeded by the Los Angeles City Guards, ada Jeremy another volunteer group. Neither force was particularly efficient, and Los Angeles became known for its violence, gambling and vice.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The first paid force was created in 1869, when six officers were hired to serve under City Marshal William C. Warren. By 1900, under John M. Glass, there were 70 officers, one for every 1,500 people. In 1903, with the start of the Civil Service, this force was increased to 200.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The CBS radio show "Calling All Cars" hired LAPD radio dispatcher Jesse Rosenquist to be the voice of the dispatcher. Rosenquist was already famous because home radios could tune in to early police radio frequencies. As the first police radio dispatcher presented to the public ear, he was the voice that actors went to when called upon for a radio dispatcher role.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: During World War II, under Clemence B. Horrall, the overall number of personnel was depleted by the demands of the military. Despite efforts to maintain numbers, the police could do little to control the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Horrall was replaced by retired United States Marine Corps general William A. Worton, who acted as interim chief until 1950, when William H. Parker succeeded him and would serve until his death in 1966. Parker advocated police professionalism and autonomy from civilian administration. However, the Bloody Christmas scandal in 1951 led to calls for civilian accountability and an end to alleged police brutality.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The iconic television series "Dragnet", with LAPD detective Joe Friday as the primary character, was the first major mass media representation of the department. Real LAPD operations inspired Jack Webb to create the series and close cooperation with department officers let him make it as realistic as possible, including authentic police equipment and sound recording on-site at the police station.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Due to "Dragnet"'s popularity, LAPD Chief Parker "became, after J. Edgar Hoover, the most well-known and respected law enforcement official in the nation" at that time. In the 1960s, when the LAPD under Chief Thomas Reddin expanded its community relations division and began efforts to reach out to the African-American community, "Dragnet" followed suit with more emphasis on internal affairs and community policing than solving crimes, the show's previous mainstay.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Under Parker, the LAPD created the first SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team in U.S. law enforcement. Officer John Nelson and then-Inspector Daryl Gates created the program in 1965.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, also known as the Police Commission, is a five-member civilian body that oversees the LAPD. The Chief of Police reports to the board and the rest of the department reports to the chief.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Office of the Inspector General is an independent part of the LAPD that has oversight over the department's internal disciplinary process and reviewing complaints of officer misconduct. It was created by the recommendation of the Christopher Commission and it is exempt from civil service and reports directly to the Board of Police Commissioners. The current Inspector General is Mark P. Smith, who was formerly the Constitutional Policing Advisor for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The OIG receives copies of every complaint filed against members of the LAPD as well as tracking specific cases along with any resultant litigation. The OIG also conducts audits on select investigations and conducts regular reviews of the disciplinary system in order to ensure fairness and equality. As well as overseeing the LAPD's disciplinary process, the Inspector General may undertake special investigations as directed by the Board of Police Commissioners.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The LAPD's Art Theft Detail "is the only full-time municipal law enforcement unit in the United States devoted to the investigation of art crimes." The longtime head and often sole member of the unit is Detective Don Hrycyk, who in 2014 was described as being a 40-year veteran of the department with twenty years as the only known full-time art detective in the United States. According to the LAPD, the unit has recovered over $121 million in stolen works since 1993. The Art Theft Detail is part of the Burglary Special Section of the Detective Bureau of the LAPD.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) is the labor union for LAPD officers up to the rank of lieutenant.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The LAPD Cadet Program is the department's police explorer program. The program was formerly called the explorer program but was changed after the police commission broke off their partnership with the Boy scouts over policies barring gays, atheists, and agnostics from being troop leaders. The cadet program shifted focus from an old explorer program that tried to guide members to a career in law enforcement to a program that tries to give cadets a solid foundation in life and to help them prepare for careers by offering services such as tutoring and college scholarships. The cadets complete courses not only on law enforcement but also on citizenship, leadership, financial literacy and other different skill sets. Cadet's work positions including ride alongs, crowd control, charity assistance, and working in stations. The cadet program has posts at all of the LAPD's regional divisions as well as specialized divisions including the Metropolitan Division and the communications division; as of 2014 there were 5,000 cadets.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Office of the Chief of Police has the responsibility for assisting the Chief of Police in the administration of the department.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Director of the Office of Constitutional Policing and Policy, currently Police Administrator III Lizabeth Rhodes reports directly to the Office of the Chief. This office was created as a result of the Department of Justice's federal consent decree. It develops the LAPD's policies and procedures, conducts internal auditing and programs to ensure compliance, handles litigation, forms and ensures compliance with the LAPD's long-term strategic plan and risk management strategies, and coordinates local, state, and federal government and legislative matters.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The majority of the LAPD's approximately 10,000 officers are assigned within the Office of Operations, whose primary office is located in the new Police Administration Building. Headed by an Assistant Chief, currently Assistant Chief Beatrice Girmala, and the Assistant to the Director, who is a Commander, the office comprises four bureaus and 21 police stations, known officially as "areas" but also commonly referred to as "divisions". The Office of Operations also has a dedicated Homeless Coordinator reporting directly to the Assistant Chief. The Community Engagement Group also reports to the Assistant Chief.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The 21 police stations or "divisions" are grouped geographically into four command areas, each known as a "bureau". The latest areas, "Olympic" and "Topanga", were added on January 4, 2009.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Office of Special Operations is an office that was created in 2010 by then-Chief Charlie Beck. Headed by an Assistant Chief, currently Assistant Chief Horace Frank, the office comprises the Detective Bureau, the Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, and the Transit Services Bureau.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Detective Bureau also houses the COMPSTAT (Computer Statistics) Division which maintains crime data. COMPSTAT is based on the NYPD CompStat unit that was created in 1994 by former LAPD Chief William Bratton, while he was still a NYPD Police Commissioner. He implemented the LAPD version on becoming Chief of Police in 2002.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau provides the Los Angeles Police Department specialized tactical resources in support of operations during daily field activities, unusual occurrences and, especially, during serious disturbances and elevated terrorism threat conditions. it was created from the merger of the Counterterrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau with the Special Operations Bureau in 2010


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The Transit Services Bureau supervises the Transit Services Group and the Traffic Group, responsible for overseeing the four Geographical Traffic Divisions.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Prior to 2009, LAPD headquarters was located at Parker Center, named after former chief William H. Parker, which stood at 150 N. Los Angeles St. in the Downtown Los Angeles Civic Center district. It was demolished in 2019.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: A new headquarters replaced it in October 2009 and is located west in the purpose-built LAPD Headquarters Building at 100 W. 1st St., also in the Civic Center, occupying the entire block between Main, Spring, 1st and 2nd streets, immediately south of the Los Angeles City Hall. Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall (DMJM) were the architects.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The total cost of the new building complex including the data center, the Main Street Parking Structure, and the Aiso Public Parking Garage was $437 million. The main building is a across 10 floors, a café ("LA Reflections"), underground parking as well as a parking structure, racks for 50 bicycles, and a 400-seat civic auditorium. It is LEED-certified, uses energy-efficient mechanical systems, daylighting, high-performance glass, and recycled or renewable building materials. The perimeter is lined with green space. The complex provides space for about 2,300 workers, which let the department consolidate functions here which had been spread out across multiple locations.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Up to the Gates administration, the LAPD was predominantly white (80% in 1980), and many officers had resided outside the city limits. Simi Valley, the Ventura County suburb that later became infamous as the site of the state trial that immediately preceded the 1992 Los Angeles riots, has long been home to a large concentration of LAPD officers, most of them white. A 1994 ACLU study of officers' home zip codes, concluded that over 80% of police officers resided outside the city limits.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Hiring quotas began to change this during the 1980s, but it was not until the Christopher Commission reforms that substantial numbers of black, Hispanic, and Asian officers began to be hired on to the force. Minority officers can be found in both rank-and-file and leadership positions in virtually all divisions.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In 1910 the LAPD hired the first female police officer with the power to arrest in the United States, Alice Stebbins Wells. LAPD's first Latina officer, Josephine Serrano Collier, was hired in 1946. On the LAPD through the early 1970s, women were classified as "policewomen".


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Through the 1950s, their duties generally consisted as working as matrons in the jail system or dealing with troubled youths working in detective assignments. Rarely did they work any type of field assignment, and they were not allowed to promote above the rank of sergeant.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: A lawsuit by a policewoman, Fanchon Blake, from the 1980s instituted court-ordered mandates that the department was to begin actively hiring and promoting women police officers in its ranks. The department eliminated the rank of "policeman" from new hires at that time along with the rank of "policewoman". Anyone already in those positions was grandfathered in, but new hires were classified instead as "police officers", which continues to this day. In 2002, women made up 18.9% of the force.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In 1886, the department hired its first two black officers, Robert William Stewart and Roy Green. The LAPD was one of the first two police departments in the country to hire an African-American woman officer, Georgia Ann Robinson in 1919. Despite this, the department was slow at integration. During the 1965 Watts riots, only 5 of the 205 police assigned to South Central Los Angeles were black, despite the fact that it was the largest black community in Los Angeles. Los Angeles' first black mayor Tom Bradley was an ex-police officer and quit the department after being unable to advance past the rank of lieutenant like other black police officers in the department. When Bradley was elected mayor in 1972, only 5% of LAPD officers were black and there was only one black captain in the department, Homer Broome. Broome would break down racial barriers on the force going on to become the first black officer to obtain the rank of commander and the first black to command a police station, the Southwest Division which included historically black neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles in 1975.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: As of 2019, the Los Angeles Police Department had 10,008 officers sworn in. Of these, 81% (8,158) were male and 19% (1,850) female. The racial/ethnic breakdown:


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The LAPD has grown over the years in the number of officers who speak languages in addition to English. There were 483 bilingual or multilingual officers in 1974, and 1,560 in 1998, and 2,500 in 2001 that spoke at least one of 32 languages. In 2001, a study was released that found that non-English-speaking callers to the 911 and non-emergency response lines often receive no language translation, often receive incomplete information, and sometimes receive rude responses from police employees. The issue of a lack of multilingual officers led to reforms including bonuses and salary increases for officers who are certified in second languages. Currently, over a third of LAPD officers are certified in speaking one or more languages other than English. The department also uses a device called the phraselator to translate and broadcast thousands of prerecorded phrases in a multitude of languages and is commonly used to broadcast messages in different languages from police vehicles.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: LAPD patrol officers have a three-day 12-hour and four-day 10-hour work week schedule. The department has over 250 types of job assignments, and each officer is eligible for such assignments after two years on patrol. LAPD patrol officers almost always work with a partner, unlike most suburban departments surrounding the City of Los Angeles, which deploy officers in one-officer units in order to maximize police presence and to allow a smaller number of officers to patrol a larger area.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The department's training division has three facilities throughout the city, including Elysian Park, Ahmanson Recruit Training Center (Westchester), and the Edward Davis Training Center (Granada Hills).


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: From spring 2007 through the spring of 2009, new recruits could earn money through sign on bonuses ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. Those bonuses ended in 2009. Sign on bonuses were paid 1/2 after graduation from the academy, and 1/2 after completion of probation. Also, $2,000 could be added for sign ons from outside the Los Angeles area for housing arrangements. As of July 2009, new recruits earned starting salaries of $56,522–61,095 depending on education level, and began earning their full salary on their first day of academy training.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In January 2010, the starting base salary for incoming police officers was lowered by 20%. At the time If applicants had graduated from high school their starting salary would be $45,226, if they had at least 60 college units, with an overall GPA of 2.0 or better, their salary would start at $47,043, and if the applicant had fully completed a college degree, the salary would start at $48,880. In 2014 after negotiations between the city and the police officers union reached an agreement on police officer pay that would give pay increases to nearly 1,000 officers who joined the department since the salaries for incoming officers were cut. The agreement also raised starting salaries for officers to $57,420 with an additional increase to $60,552 after 6 months which would become effective in the beginning of 2015. The agreement would also change the current overtime payment system from a deferred payment system, which was implemented to cut costs, to a pay-as-you-go overtime system as well as increasing the overtime budget from $30 million to $70 million.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The LAPD Air Support Division's resources consist of 19 helicopters ranging from 5 Bell 206 Jet Rangers to 14 Eurocopter AS350-B2's, and also has 1 Beechcraft King Air 200.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Main airship missions are flown out of downtown's Piper Tech center at the Hooper Heliport, located outside of Union Station. The LAPD also houses air units at Van Nuys Airport.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Beginning in September 2013, the LAPD started a trial program for the use of body worn cameras with 30 officers in the Skid Row area. Reports from the trial program indicated that the cameras functioned well and that they assisted in deescalating situations although there were some technical issues with the cameras along with slight issues with the cameras falling off of officers during movement. In November 2014, in a sign of body camera purchases to come, the department chose Taser International as the vendor for body cameras to be used by the LAPD after their use in the trial program earlier in the year. On December 16, 2014, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the city would purchase 7,000 body worn cameras from Taser for use by the department. Patrol officers are now equipped with the cameras, and are required to use these devices while on assignment. 700 of the cameras were deployed to patrol officers in the Central, Mission and Newton patrol areas of the city beginning in January 2015. $1.55 million was raised from private donors to start the body camera program for the initial rollout phase in order to ease budget constraints for the city with another $1 million coming from the National Institute of Justice, a branch of the Department of Justice. Before all of the cameras were deployed to patrol officers, the Police Commission created a policy that governs the use of the cameras and video footage while consulting with department and city officials along with outside organizations including other departments who already use body cameras. The commission has created a policy that officers would have to turn on the cameras whenever they arrest or detain someone for interrogation and that many public interactions such as domestic violence interviews would not be recorded. Prior to the rollout of any body worn cameras, officers were able to carry personally owned audio recording devices since 1994 if they filed an application and obtained the requisite permission.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: After World War II, the LAPD began to issue the Smith & Wesson Model 10. During the 1960s and 70s the department issued the S&W Model 15 Combat Masterpiece. These guns were modified to fire double-action only. Some specialized units (specifically Motor Officers) were issued the stainless steel version, the Model 67. In the 1980s, LAPD patrol officers began to be issued the Beretta 92F and Smith & Wesson Model 5906 semi-automatic 9mm pistols. Following the North Hollywood shootout of 1997, LAPD officers were also given the option of carrying the Smith & Wesson Model 4506 and 4566 service pistols. Qualified officers were also issued patrol rifles called UPR (Urban Police Rifle). When William Bratton was appointed Chief of the LAPD, he allowed his officers to carry the Glock pistol, the firearm carried in the two previous departments Bratton led (the New York City Police Department and the Boston Police Department).


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Officers also have the option to choose from a variety of Glock, Kimber, Staccato or Beretta pistols, as well as Smith & Wesson, Colt, or Bushmaster AR-15 rifles.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The LAPD SWAT team carried the Kimber Custom TLE II in 2002, renaming it the Kimber LAPD SWAT Custom II. As of 2014, SWAT's primary weapons were the Heckler & Koch HK416, M4 Carbine, and FN SCAR rifles; the Colt 9mm and HK MP5 submachine guns; the Armalite AR-10, Remington 700, Barrett M82, and M14 sniper rifles; and the Benelli M4 Super 90 and Remington 870 shotguns. The LAPD also has 37mm launchers and modified "beanbag" firing guns.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The LAPD announced in 2009 that they would be increasing their number of a semi-automatic shotgun, the Benelli M4 Super 90; officers had to go through additional training and privately purchase the gun if they elect to switch from the standard pump-action Remington 870 which replaced the venerable Ithaca Model 37 "Deerslayer".


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In August 2021, the department chose to replace the service weapon issued to new officers with the FN 509 MRD-LE. Issuance of the new sidearm began in early 2022.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The department presents a number of medals to its members for meritorious service. The LAPD awards medals for bravery, service, unit citations, ribbons for assignment and time-specific service, and marksmanship:


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: The LAPD Medal of Valor is the highest law enforcement medal awarded to officers by the Los Angeles Police Department. The Medal of Valor is an award for bravery, usually awarded to officers for individual acts of extraordinary heroism performed in the line of duty at extreme and life-threatening personal risk.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In a 2020 survey of Los Angeles residents, two-thirds said they believe the department is doing a good job maintaining public safety, while 88% supported community policing, 82% supported an unarmed response model, and 62% supported redirecting some money from the department to community initiatives. There were differences of opinion along racial lines, with three in five white and Asian residents and one in three black residents trusting the LAPD to "do what is right".


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Over the years, the Los Angeles Police Department has been the subject of a number of scandals, police misconduct, and other controversies. According to one study, during the lengthy tenure of William H. Parker as police chief (1950–1966), the LAPD was "outwardly racist," and the tenure of police chief Daryl Gates (1978–1992) was marked by "scandalous racist violence" among the LAPD. Following the Rampart Division CRASH scandal of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the United States Department of Justice entered into a consent decree with the LAPD regarding systemic civil rights violations and lack of accountability that stretched back decades, requiring major reforms. The consent decree was lifted in 2013. The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California stated that the decree "accomplished its purpose by and large" and that the department "has made serious culture changes", but cautioned against backsliding and said there was more work to be done regarding racial disparities and treatment of the homeless.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: James E. Davis served two terms as LAPD police chief, heading the department from 1926 to 1929 and from 1933 to 1938. During his first term as chief, Davis called for violence against criminals while leading a Prohibition vice squad, and the department was known for controversies including accusations of conspiracy, blackmail, and murder. Davis also formed a Red Squad to combat labor unions; headed by Capt. William F. Hynes, the squad arrested hundreds participating in strikes. In March 1928, Christine Collins reported her nine-year-old son, Walter, missing. Five months later a boy named Arthur Hutchins came forth claiming to be Walter; when Mrs. Collins told the police that the boy was not her son, she was committed to a mental institution under a Section 12 internment. It was later determined that Walter had fallen victim to a child rapist/murderer in the infamous Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, and Arthur Hutchins admitted that he had lied about his identity in order to meet his favorite actor, Tom Mix. The widely publicized case was depicted in the 2008 film "Changeling".


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: When Frank L. Shaw was elected mayor in 1933, he reappointed Davis as police chief, and the LAPD––already considered "nationally notorious" for police corruption––entered a new phase of widespread criminal activity. In 1936, Davis sent members of the LAPD to California's state borders, along Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon, to institute checkpoints blocking the entry of migrants, or "okies". The police began raids and mass arrests of populations including the homeless and disabled; those taken in by police were given the option of leaving California or serving a 180-day jail term. The so-called "bum blockade" ended after significant negative publicity, including a suit filed by the ACLU in federal court.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: By 1937, the LAPD was leading a vast intelligence operation wiretapping politicians, judges, and federal agents. Some records of police surveillance were taken under subpoena after Harry Raymond, a former officer investigating corruption in the force, was the victim of a car bomb. During the trial that followed, LAPD captain Earl Kynette was found guilty of Raymond's attempted murder; Davis acknowledged that he had known Raymond was under police surveillance.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In the late 1930s, the LAPD engaged in widespread racial profiling of Mexican Americans. The LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department used the 1942 "Sleepy Lagoon murder" of José Gallardo Díaz to justify a coordinated crackdown: the police identified primarily-Mexican American communities, cordoned them off with blockades, and carried out mass searches and arrests. The police detained hundreds of Mexican Americans before indicting 22 for murder. Twelve of the defendants were charged with murder and incarcerated; all convictions were later overturned. Members of the LAPD were accused of participating in anti-Mexican American violence during the Zoot Suit Riots that followed in 1943; despite the LAPD's insistence that the riots were caused by Mexican American crime, there was broad consensus that the riots were the result of racial discrimination.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Parker, who served as chief of the LAPD from August 9, 1950, until his death on July 16, 1966, was frequently criticized for racist remarks, his refusal to acknowledge police brutality, and his demands that the police not be subject to the same laws as citizens; the last of these contributed to ongoing conflicts with the FBI, with the agency refusing to train LAPD officers until after Parker's death. Parker adopted the rhetoric of Los Angeles as the "white spot" of America, first popularized by "Los Angeles Times" publisher Harry Chandler, and explicitly set it against the "black picture" of the nation. The Los Angeles City Council once confronted him with a recording in which he referred to Mexican Americans as not being far from "the wild tribes of Mexico"; in the 1960s, he claimed that "by 1970, 45% of the metropolitan area of Los Angeles will be Negro" and that the city should support a strong police force because "if you don't, come 1970, God help you"; he described Black participants in the 1965 Watts riots as acting like "monkeys in a zoo". The Los Angeles Police Department was not integrated until the 1960s.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Early in his tenure as police chief, Parker launched an extensive public relations campaign for the LAPD. In the 1950s, he was a credited consultant for police procedural drama "Dragnet", even offering the show departmental support in providing case examples and fact-checking; he popularized the term "thin blue line" in both his speeches and in a TV show he conceived and produced for Los Angeles NBC network KNBC; he hired "" creator Gene Roddenberry as a speech writer; and he introduced the department's first press office. These efforts were seen as tied to his efforts to curry public favor and extend the reach of officers of the LAPD.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Bloody Christmas was the name given to the severe beating of seven civilians under LAPD custody on December 25, 1951. The attacks, which left five Hispanic and two white young men with broken bones and ruptured organs, was only properly investigated after lobbying from the Mexican American community. The internal inquiry by chief Parker resulted in eight police officers being indicted for the assaults, 54 being transferred, and 39 suspended.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In 1962, the controversial LAPD shooting of seven unarmed members of the Nation of Islam resulted in the death of Ronald Stokes, and led to protests of the LAPD led by Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In the 1970s and into the 1980s "biased policing", also known as racial profiling, was commonplace in the department. This policing alienated the department from minority residents and gained the department a reputation of abuse of power and bias against minority residents.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: A major controversy erupted in 1979 over the shooting of Eula Love by two LAPD officers; no legal consequences befell the officers responsible.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Early in his tenure as Chief of Police, Daryl Gates re-instituted the use of the chokehold (placing an arm or flashlight over someone's throat) in order to subdue suspects. In 1982, this technique was used and led to the death of James Mincey Jr. Following Mincey's death, the Police Commission barred the use of chokeholds by officers unless in a life-threatening situation. An investigation found that sixteen people had died after being restrained by police chokeholds.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In 1986, Officer Stephanie Lazarus killed her ex-boyfriend's new wife. Despite the victim's father's insistence that Lazarus should be a suspect in the homicide, she was not considered by the police and the case went cold. In the 2000s, detectives revisiting cold cases deduced that Stephanie was a suspect. DNA evidence led to her arrest and conviction.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: Also in 1986, the department purchased a 14-ton armored breaching vehicle, used to smash quickly through the walls of houses of suspects. The ACLU questioned the constitutionality of the vehicle, and the California Appellate Court later ruled the vehicle was unconstitutional, violating lawful search and seizure.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: In 1988, African American baseball sportscaster and retired Baseball Hall of Fame player Joe Morgan was detained at Los Angeles International Airport by LAPD and L.A. Airport Police officers after being falsely identified as a drug dealer. He was released when the LAPD realized their mistake. The city cleared the detective of wrongdoing, but Morgan subsequently filed a civil suit against both the LAPD and the city for the unlawful detention; the lawsuit was settled in 1993, and Morgan was awarded $800,000 by the Los Angeles City Council.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: On August 1, 1988, as part of Chief Gates' "Operation Hammer" directed against gangs, SWAT teams raided four apartments at 39th Street and Dalton Avenue. According to an investigation by the department's Internal Affairs, the team leader, Captain Thomas Elfmont, directed his men to "hit" the apartments "hard", to "level" them, and to leave them "uninhabitable". The police detained 37 people, making seven arrests. They found six ounces of marijuana and a small amount of cocaine. The seven were beaten by the police and at the police station forced to whistle the theme to the "Andy Griffith Show". Those who refused to comply were beaten again. Nobody was charged with a crime. The city paid four million dollars to settle the matter.


title: Los Angeles Police Department

text: On September 4, 1988, LAPD officers raided the home of Roger Guydon looking for drugs. They found nothing. In 1991, Guydon won a $760,000 lawsuit against the city.