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How did history of policing impact current policing
Role of policing in modern society
Role of policing in modern society
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The system of policing as is evident in contemporary society contains multiple challenges to the system of policing itself, the community as whole and also specific groups in society. This is evident through the challenges that are presented through the factors of corruption, misconduct and mental illness. It will be argued that the evidence of corruption and misconduct in the police force provides detrimental affects upon particular groups in the community, which reflects upon the efficiency of policing. This will be illustrated through the example of the Rampart Scandal, which identifies these factors as failing the system. Consequently, it will also examine the effects that the role of mental illness plays on the community and the success of policing. This will be done through elaborating on the changes that have occurred in relation to the care of those that are mentally ill. However, although it will be discussed that these challenges will have beneficial effects on the community by focusing coming into contact with a marginalized group, it will also identify the effects of doing so without the appropriate training.
Challenges of contemporary policing are evident through the system of the police force itself, through the occurrence of corruption and misconduct. However, there are challenging definitions, based on the view of the author, which means these terms are often used interchangeably and can also be used in a specific and/or broadly manner. Corruption, in reference to police, is defined as ‘acts of commission or omission in return for some gain or promise focuses principally on bribery and on financial arrangements for not enforcing the law’ (Newburn, T, Newyroud, P 2008, p. 51). This further differs from that of mis...
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...the Rampart Corruption Incident: Final Report, Los Angeles Police Department, viewed 1 April 2014, http://www.lapdonline.org/assets/pdf/boi_pub.pdf
• Prenzler, T, Ransley, J 2002, Corruption and Reform: Global Trends and Theoretical Perspectives, Hawkins Press, Annandale.
• Reese, R 2003, ‘The Multiple Causes of the LAPD Rampart Scandal’, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. 16, pp. 85-95.
• Rose-Ackerman, S 1978, Corruption: A study in Political Economy, Academic Press, New York.
• Rutherford, S 2008, The Victorian Asylum, Shire Publications, United Kingdom.
• Westmarland, L 2005, ‘Police Ethics and Integrity: Breaking the Blue Code of Silence’, Policing & Society, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 145-165.
• Teplin L & Pruett, N 1992, Police as Streetcorner Pychiatrist: Managing The Mentally Ill, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 139–156.
The years of injustices at the LAPD came to a head-on August 29, 1970, during an anti-Vietnam war protest went from a peaceful assembly of the Latino community until a disturbance made the LAPD spring into action to “keep the peace” — through violent means, according to Edward J. Escobar by employing tactics to like “... [charging] the crowd, shooting tear gas, and beating fleeing demonstrators with nightsticks.” (Escobar Par 2), to make crowds disperse which — unsurprisingly — caused panic which induced chaos. Up until the police had overreacted to a peaceful demonstration of civil disobedience and gathering of Chicanos against the government’s actions in Vietnam, there was nothing illegal being done, the only offense the protestors had committed was going against the government. Once the dust settled, police had arrested over one hundred people, forty people injured, and three lay dead or dying. One of the dead was Ruben Salazar (Escobar Par 2). Salazar was journalist killed by a tear gas canister was made a martyr who died at the hands of the LAPD because of his history of giving voices to the more vocal critics of the police. His death was used by Mexican-American activists who referred to themselves as Chicanos. The Chicano movement was in its infancy but was quickly growing because the tension between the LAPD and the Latino community was no longer one sided, the Chicano side was now organizing to fight for their rights, but the LAPD being the authority still had the upper-hand. According to Edward Escobar the LAPD engaged in intimidation tactics, investigations, and smear tactics to undermine the movement, but is was to no avail (Escobar Par 5). There did not result in a single successful prosecution of a major Chicano movement figure (Escobar Par 27). The police not only suppressed the Chicano community by trying the bring down the full power of
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in 17 Americans suffer from a serious mental illness. That is roughly one person in an average high school classroom. These mentally ill people live a different life, and in some situations, they cannot fully comprehend what is happening around them. These people need a little more time and patience than the average person would need in any given situation. Because of this, they need to be handled differently by police officers when they come into contract. This is not happening and it is causing chaos. In “Police Confront Rising Number of Mentally Ill Suspects,” an article featured in The New York Times on April 1, 2014, writers Fernanda Santos and Erica Goode bring attention to the treatment of mentally ill suspects when being confronted by police officers. The article starts with the emotional story of James Boyd to capture the audience’s attention and to create distaste for the police, which is reinforced throughout the article. The authors then go on to have various professionals testify that in recent years the number of incidents between mentally ill people and police officers has risen dramatically. Santos and Goode describe the process of many police departments and compare them with Albuquerque’s, showing that their procedures when handling mentally ill suspects either is not used or there are no guidelines to follow. This article portrays the ignorance some people have when handling situations with mentally ill people and how that affects the lives of the mentally ill and could potentially affect the reader’s own life. Structural, material, and characterological coherence are evident in the article to effectively shed light on how police officers need to revise...
Police: Breakdowns that allowed corruption are still uncorrected, study finds. The chief concedes that mediocrity became a way of life at all levels of the department. The Los Angeles Police Department failed time and again to take steps that might have headed off the worst corruption scandal in its history, according to a sweeping self-indictment prepared by the department's own leaders. In a letter accompanying the long-awaited Board of Inquiry report into the corruption centered in the department's Rampart Division, Police Chief Bernard C. Parks called the scandal a "life-altering experience for the Los Angeles Police Department" in which corrupt officers took advantage of lax supervision to carry out criminal acts. "We as an organization provided the opportunity," Parks wrote.
Goodman, B. & Dewan, S. (2007, April 27). Prosecutors Say Corruption in Atlanta Police Dept. Is Widespread. The New York Times. Retrieved December 18, 2013, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/us/27atlanta.html
Mental Illness has been prevalent all throughout our history from Isaac Newton to Abraham Lincoln to Sylvia Plath and so on. These illnesses can be as minor as a slight bipolar disorder or as severe as schizophrenia. In recent years, mental illnesses are becoming more prevalent in our criminal justice systems than anywhere else. Mental illness is becoming an association with crime and based on the information that has been found, this paper will attempt to further define the problem of mental illness within our criminal justice system and offer alternatives or insights as to how to possibly help with this problem.
For example, when considering the Rampart Scandal, Grant notes that “Rafael Perez, the main snitch in the Rampart scandal… admitted to hundreds of incidences of perjury in order to attain false convictions, false arrest and fabrications of evidence” (4). Along with confessions of personal involvement in illegal actions such as stealing and reselling a large amount of cocaine from the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department’s evidence room and the shooting of an unarmed man, Perez exposes some horrifying details which point to the institutionalization of police corruption. One of these accounts elaborated on “a secret fraternity within the LAPD consisting of more than 30 anti-gang officers (the CRASH unit) wherein supervisors awarded plaques to officers for wounding or killing people” (14) and “corruption was so common…that they had standard procedures to cover-up if something went awry” (8). This record certainly represents an institution which is not as virtuous as it is often made out to be, suffused with undisclosed misconduct, some of which we may never discover. In turn, the information Perez provides forces even skeptical readers to view police forces in a new light, shifting their opinions
American policing originated from early English law and is profoundly influenced by its history. Early law enforcement in England took on two forms of policing, one of which heavily influenced modern policing and it is known as the watch (Potter, 2013). The watch consisted, at first, of volunteers which had to patrol the streets for any kind of disorder including crime and fire. After men attempted to get out of volunteering by paying others, it became a paid professional position (Walker & Katz, 2012). The three eras of policing in America are shaped by these early ideas and practices of law enforcement. Throughout time, sufficient improvements and advancements have been made from the political era to the professional era and finally the community era which attempts to eliminate corruption, hire qualified officers and create an overall effective law enforcement system.
For years police corruption has been a major problem in American society but where is the line between moral and unethical police corruption, many modern movies address this vary issue. Some films portray how types of police corruption can have a positive influence on society, while others show the dark side of police corruption. Many law enforcement agents join the criminal justice with the basic idea of “justice for all,” however, most of them do not realize that the nice guy doesn’t always win. Even though there are vast amounts of movies which specifically address police corruption we will use three main movies for our argument today, mostly LA Confidential, however, also Training Day.
Both of these articles were focused on the Strategy of Policing, but the author’s approaches to the ‘hot topics,’ couldn’t be more difficult. Williams and Murphy focused on the different eras of policing, and how the racial conflicts have overlapped policing efforts. Whereas, Kelling and Moore focused on how police have evolved with the eras. The articles were dramatically different, however, the policing eras: Political, Reform, and Community Orientated eras were influenced largely as the main focuses for each academic article.
Drug addiction has been a massive rising issue looming over the United States for the better half of a century. As the number of Americans using illegal drugs increases, the number of illegal drugs entering the United States increases as well, thus causing the war on drugs. The drug war essentially is a campaign of prohibition that aims to reduce illegal drug trade. Today, the war on drugs has influenced police officers and other law enforcement personnel’s to become corrupt. The articles “Police Corruption is Fueled by the War on Drugs” by Joseph D. McNamara and “In Drug Fight in Texas Border, Some Officers Play Both Sides” by Manny Fernandez, for The New York Times, explore the relationship between police corruption and the war on drugs. McNamara’s article better represents the impact that the current war on drugs has on the American police considering the fact he better illustrates each point he presents.
Hasisi, B. (2008). CRIMINOLOGY: POLICE, POLITICS, AND CULTURE IN A DEEPLY DIVIDED SOCIETY. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 1119-1145.
The focus is on the issues of police accountability in modern society, and in particular why their accountability is more important than other professions. This is not surprising considering the amount of power and discretion police officers have, and the level of trust that the public holds with these civil servants. Police officers accountability is the biggest thing in their profession which has been an issue of concern they have to be accountable to the police department who want the officer to be an effective and responsible person, to people in the community who have best expectation from an officer and being accountable to themselves for their acts. An ordinary citizen of a country cannot obtain the powers that police officer’s have.
The role of the police service is to “uphold the law fairly and firmly; to prevent crime; to pursue and bring to justice those who break the law; to keep the Queen’s peace; to protect, help and reassure the community; and to be seen to do this with integrity, common sense and sound judgement” (Saulsbury; Newburn 1996, p.xii) to further protect the life, liberty and property of the people. The police are primarily responsible for covering activities such as catching criminals, maintaining public order, and to provide a balance between crime prevention and investigation to major issues such as terrorism and organised crime (Newburn, 2008). This should constantly be taken into account regularly by every member of the police force, as a guide to his own conduct. This essay will be highlighting and explaining the key roles of the police.
Police work in general pose the potential for gradual deterioration of ethics and an increased sense of deviance, which leaves the opening for the "dark" side of criminal justice involving putting up with conditions of deviant behaviors. Although police deviance can range out with a broader spectrum then police corruption, it still includes all acts that are inconsistent with norms, values, and ethics. This corruption leads to the misuse of authority, which leads to personal gain. Deviance in a police force is bad because it undermines the integrity of policing as a whole which then leads too hiring and training candidates in the same manner that leads to issues, such as the rotten-apple argument; an officer alone is deviant and it was simply
Vicchio, Stephen. “Ethics and Police Integrity.” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. July 1997: 8-12. EBSCOhost. Web. 12 Nov 2013