Corruption In The Graham V. Connor Case

Being an officer of the law is a challenging, unique job in which most of its true challenges are largely unknown, such as police deviance and the rotten apple theory, namely noble-cause corruption. Along with this, some under-recognized challenges are “suicide by cop” and the accurate representation of the force continuum, as well as its ties to the Graham v. Connor case and the use of non-lethal force when dealing with suspects. These challenges add a lot to the true narrative of what it takes to be an officer of the law and not only make the job more dangerous but also more stressful for officers – especially when law enforcement takes the blame for things like “suicide by cop” instances.

Deviance Within Law Enforcement Police Deviance

Deviance, while somewhat common, is something oftentimes romanticized by biased online magazines or news outlets – both of which exaggerate the use of excessive force and police brutality, especially against blacks and Hispanics. Corruption Corruption, concerning deviance within law enforcement, can be any act “under his or her official capacity and receives a benefit or something of value (other than his or her paycheck) for doing something or for refraining from doing something” (An Introduction to Policing, Chapter 8, Section 4). This can be either the department or organization as a whole or singular officers, further broken down into three subcategories by Lawrence Sherman as the rotten apple theory, pervasive and unorganized corruption (pervasive meaning the police department as a whole), and finally, pervasive and organized corruption. The rotten apple theory is, as stated previously, a small group/individual officers participating

This, according to Caldero and Crank, leads to the slippery slope that causes “golden apple” officers to become “rotten apples” (An Introduction to Policing, Ch. 8).

Use of Force Racial profiling is the act of an officer initiating activity with a person based solely on race, without prior reasonable suspicion to initiate contact with said person, and police brutality is the excessive or unnecessary use of force against a civilian. Both of these things tie into the use of force, whether that be getting a little too rough when restraining an arrestee or escalating a situation to higher levels of violence that may or may not have been needed, things that are bound to happen in high-stress situations when the first thing on any good officer’s mind is how much danger others and the suspect him/herself is in at that moment. There are policies in place to prevent officers’ excessive force from going unnoticed, including conclusions made in the 1989 Graham v. Connor court case and the use of non-lethal force by officers. The use of force, of course, is described in greater detail by the different levels of force shown in the use of force