Police Training Research Paper

This ensures the maximum safety of both civilians and officers.Training is another important factor when analyzing officer conduct on the job. There are three main elements that warrant the need for training. The first is social evolution. Police forces must change and adapt to the changing of times. For example, the 1960’s and 1970’s focused primarily on guns and the physical control for offenders to gain compliance; while the present day police duties require social skills such as human behavior, emotions, attitudes and reactions (Kinnaird 204).The next element in policing that necessitates training is legal mandates or the understanding of civil liability as well as the ever-changing laws (205). Police departments have begun to spend more

It is important to make the distinction between these often-confused terms.Often times the public can be quick to judge police officers and to label a necessary physical situation as brutality. Many people, in particular, officers themselves, feel that the public does not understand the day to day pressures of being a police officer and the many difficult gray situations where it is questionable as to how much force should be exerted. Although the specific actions that constitute excessive force or brutality may be easy to determine in articles and police manuals, for officers at the moment it is often not easy to decide how much force is actually necessary (Lawrence 19). Often times the stress of going years without using one’s weapon then immediately being thrown into an intense situation which involves force can “unhinge” even veteran officers (Armstrong

Williams 8). Officers frequently are given the difficult task of determining the good guys from the bad. To effectively solve this problem, most of the time, officers must simply rely on their instincts. A policeman must have the “ability to be proactive and sniff out suspicious behavior well before it explodes like a match into a keg of powder” (Armstrong

Royster has apprehended thanks to fingerprint matching made possible due to a prior arrest for jumping a turnstile (Patricia Williams 10). A group of the population could see this as the reason to allow for the persecution and use of force on individuals who may not seem to be deserving of such treatment. However, Patricia Williams contests saying,

“We must not tolerate a policy that makes walking down the street or pausing on a street corner or just sitting in a car an inherently suspicious activity” (10). Many members of minorities who have experienced police brutality first hand might agree with this statement. Farrar 8It is a common opinion that many problems exist within the structure and attitude of police forces today. Racial profiling, in particular, is an extremely popular criticism of officers. Studies show that blacks were four times more likely to be searched or frisked by officers than whites (Armstrong Williams 8). USA Today noted, “Racial Profiling is discriminatory, breeds distrust and wastes to life resources; yet it persists