Policing Tactics are Unjust In 2012, an African American was murdered every 28 hours by either police officers or persons of authority (Hudson). Of this amount, 43% of murders occurred as a result of racial profiling (Hudson). Police officers are tasked with the duty of protecting people across the nation; however, in a time of urgency, officers are instead harming the people. Although some believe police are behaving in a justified manner, the unnecessary brutality and racial profiling is caused by an inherent belief of white superiority and an internal fear of African Americans.
The objective of this position paper is to present both the pros and cons of community policing and to conclude with my judgment on which on which course of action should be taken. The objective is for the new community policing initiative is to strengthen and build trust and communication between civilians and officers. Many officers feel under appreciated within the communities that they work for and have struggled with trying to regain community cooperation, trust, and respect. The realization that has happened is that the philosophy of reactive incident driven approach must be changed to amore proactive problem solving style; such as a community policing initiative. Community policing is, in essence, a collaboration between the police
Working in the field of law enforcement and being ethically sound is important. It is important within our professional career that we are able to maintain a standard that doesn’t cross any ethical lines. Even in our academic we have to hold ourselves to an ethical standard, because we are trusted to do what is right. If we violate the academic integrity it put a mark on our ability to be trusted. Just as Dr. Steven Davis stated if someone is will to cheap to get ahead how can they be trusted
I do believe that a professional code of ethics is very important with the criminal justice field and any job that requires some sort of ethical decision. When it comes to law enforcement you should treat everyone the same no matter what. The first thing in Seattle police departments code of ethics is “Justice - I will treat people fairly and act in good faith. I will work toward racial and social justice for all” ( Seattle Police Department Manual). This can be very hard for an officer when it comes to doing their job.
Every day police officers face many challenges, most of which they will face alone. With that being said, in order to deal with these challenges, police officers use discretion (judgements made based off of their knowledge and skills) to decide how to react and handle certain situations. Police discretion has its pros and cons, but it depends upon how the officer uses it in order to fulfil his duties. Both of these aspects of discretion will be discussed further throughout the following paragraphs.
Officers cannot go out and make choices of their own freely without underlying consequences. Criminal justice officials are governed by laws, rules and codes of ethics when exercising discretion. Discretion varies among officers of different positions. Patrol officers and their
Sadly, during the last few years the relationship between the community and its police has significantly deteriorated. This has been due to the way some officers have handled certain situations in which the use of violence or deadly force could have been avoided. Because of this, some sectors of the community no longer trust their police; such distrust has gotten to the point that they rather take matters into their own hands than calling them for help. Although not all officers misbehave and abuse their power “it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch”. The media has also contributed in promoting the idea that most cops are bad by transmitting, over and over, videos of police officers abusing their power.
However, both concepts might play a role in either situation. Some individuals question whether or not “ethics” should play a big part in law enforcement. Ethics should play a part in professional standards of conduct because it sets a standard for how individuals should behave. It is very important for police officers and any other individual in the law enforcement field to properly abide by ethical standards.
The law enforcement are given the responsibility to uphold the law to protect the public regardless of race, religion or ethnicity. This is guided by the rules of policing that were set down in our Constitution. The United States law was created to establish a fair treatment of our citizens, to protect and ensure their rights of privacy are not violated against federal, state and local agencies (Hess, Orthmann, Cho, 2015) As member of the State Sheriff’s Association, there are some shared concern regarding the issues of our police officers engaging from various number of detailed pattern or practices of unconstitutional and unlawful conduct. Such as, officer involved in shooting, police brutality, allegations of racial profiling and officers’
The reason why come police officers oppose community policing is because they are resistant to change. According to the course text, police administrators, supervisor and line personnel frequently resist change of any kind and prefer the status quo (Miller, Hess, & Orthmann, 2014). In my opinion, officers are opposed to community policing because they are used to doing things a certain way and community policing requires changes in management styles, vision and mission statements, and the overall departments organization structure. In addition, most police officers will find change to their culture threatening (Miller, Hess, & Orthmann, 2014).
“This city sent a message, loud and clear, that this kind of reckless behavior exhibited by members of law enforcement will not and shall not be tolerated.”; stated by the victims’ brother, Anthony Scott. This goes to show that the police force is one of the most visible features of governance in the United States. The police force was set to be looked upon as a form of public organization committed with the obligation of enforcing the law. However, for as long as they have lived in this world, police departments have obtained a significant amount of public scrutiny over the issues of wrongdoing, corruption, unfairness, lack of professionalism, and an unnecessary excessive amount use of force. The occurrences of police misbehavior and police-public
One would think higher moral standards would substantiate police officers and other agents working in law enforcement to make good decisions to building community trust. This is necessary because people in this profession are expected to demonstrate and practice doing the right thing at all times. Unfortunately in the American society some police officers have been called out for misconduct and brutality. As a result of carrying out bad behavior people in the general public have very little trust for law enforcers. If higher moral standard represents the relationship and interactions between police officers and citizens, then officers need to be held to the same moral standards as other citizens which are to know the difference between right and wrong and choosing the right human behavior as it relate to moral principles.
Police officers are held to such high standards, and one way to maintain these standards is to know when to step back from a situation. In the scenario presented, the officer has several possible solutions; however, an officer must make the best possible decision in order to maintain his integrity and standing in the community. It would be unethical and a danger to the public to let him go and drive off. He could be released into someone else’s custody or I could take him home, however this might lead to charges of special treatment.
Police misconduct can lead to a lack of justice and sometimes involves discrimination due to the fact that some police officers think that they have enough authority to tell civilians what to do are the police . In order to control police misconduct, there is a movement for civilian agencies to go beyond their jurisdiction to engage directly in some investigations and to have much greater information into disciplinary decisions. In other words, police misconduct can be seen as false confession, false arrest, police corruption, false evidence, racial profiling, intimidation, and off-duty misconduct. So in order to have a better police legitimacy they need to control police corruption and to star thinking more about the
‘’Most officers enter law enforcement with minimal experience in the field or in handling the moral dilemmas that officers typically encounter. They learn how to perform their jobs, as well as recognize the organizational norms, values, and culture, from their peers and supervisors. While supervisors provide direct, formal reinforcement, officers’ peers offer friendship and informal rewards that, in many cases, hold greater influence than official recognition from the agency’’ (Fitch, 2011). Officers who come across situations where they are unsure what is morally and ethically best to do often turn to their peers for assurance and guidance. Good ethical behavior can easily be influenced by officers and those in law enforcement.
