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Police Accountability
Police accountability is an effective way to regulate police officer’s behavior. Police accountability is applied in different ways and with different approaches. Some of these approaches include routine supervision, regular performance evaluations and early intervention systems. Police accountability is implemented by using external and internal controls. External controls include citizen complains reports and internal controls consist of early intervention systems. On the other hand, early intervention systems enhance a police officer’s accountability and overall performance. Police accountability refers to holding each police officer individually, as well as the agency as a whole, accountable for effectively enforcing
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Individual accountability is indeed important to develop a strong foundation in any agency. Michael Phibbs, Sergeant on the Richmond, Virginia Police Department, published an article on the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin titled Analyzing Organizational Performance. Sergeant Phibbs gives an insight of the effectiveness of police accountability and how holding ones accountable for their actions betters the agency. Phibbs also stated, “Employees’ level of engagement forms the foundation for this success. Collectively, personnel make the difference in life-and-death situations by expending energy and effort to protect citizens’ safety every day” (Phibbs, 2011). By providing police officers with early intervention systems, the NYPD will better the officer’s performance. As Phibbs mentions, “personnel make the difference in life-and-death situations by expending energy and effort to protect citizens’ safety every day”. The main duty of police force is to protect the community they serve, and by utilizing early intervention systems, aside issues interrupting the officer’s performance can be prevented. Early intervention systems and individual accountability go hand by hand. By evaluation an officer’s performance, the officer is in pressure of taking into account his everyday actions. An early intervention system helps on the evaluation of the officer’s performance, which will also hold him/her accountable for their
Police corruption is a difficult issue cities have to deal with and one of the oldest problems in the police force. Corruption can be defined as the mistreatment of public power for personal benefit or private and the use of excessive force either emotional or physical. In this essay I will explain in detail federal indictments of Los Angeles Country Sheriff officers use of mistreatment of jail inmates and visitors. Another topic I will explain is the transfer of Los Angeles Country Sheriff hired officers with questionable background. Finally I will end by analyzing the hiring of new Sheriff deputies under the “Friends of the Sheriff” program. There are several ways police departments could take to reduce police corruption. The three areas I think should change are the training officers further in how to diminish abuse, improving personal character of officers, and incentives program.
Although accountability has always been an issue, the injustices that are currently occurring make it priority. Police officers are getting “special treatment” and are not facing charges for crimes they have committed. Police officers are not held accountable for their a...
Although that gives the report a sometimes odd tone, defending a system that it admits failed badly, it also provides for some of the document's most evident soul-searching. One passage in particular warns of the consequences when police let down their guard. "Essentially, many of the problems found by this [Board of Inquiry] boil down to people failing to do their jobs with a high level of consistency and integrity," the report states. "Unfortunately, we found this to be true at all levels of the organization, including top managers, first-line supervisors and line personnel. Clearly, pride in one's work and a commitment to do things correctly the first time seems to have
Policing relies on the public trust, police legitimacy and accountability, which can be destroyed by unjustifiable police shootings (Squires and Kennninson, 2010). Within this country, there is a recognition that the police do not always adhere to the rule of law (Newburn and Reiner, 2012: 809), which has led to consistent public outrage at the lack of effectiveness and legitimacy the police has maintained. Therefore the deliberate decision to enforce police to attend to the streets unarmed was employed to reassure the public that the police were not to be feared (Waddington and Wright, 2010). Ultimately, concerns derive from the belief that the police are completely ineffective when dealing with gun crimes (Farrell, 1992: 20). However, whilst arming police with guns can act as a protector when on duty it can also cause an increase in police misconduct. This issue will be discussed throughout this essay.
Police corruption, misconduct, and brutality in the United States have been issues since the creation of watch system in the United States (Grant& Terry, 2012). New policy and training is now in place and the corruption, misconduct, and brutality has gone down since the beginning of policing. This is a huge issue that impacts all police organizations in the United States. The extent of police corruption, misconduct, and brutality is hard to track in the United States. A lot of these crimes go unreported, tossed aside, or the officer responsible gets little or no punishment. This is huge issue in the United States criminal justice system.
Within our police system in America, there are gaps and loopholes that give leeway to police officials who either abuse the authority given to them or do not represent the ethical standards that they are expected to live up to by society. Because of the nature of police work, there is a potential for deterioration of these ethical and moral standards through deviance, misconduct, corruption, and favoritism. Although these standards are set in place, many police officers are not held accountable for their actions and can easily get by with the mistreatment of others because of their career title. While not every police abuses his or her power, the increasingly large percentage that do present a problem that must be recognized by the public as well as those in charge of police departments throughout our country. Police officials are abusing their power and authority through three types of misconduct known as malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance and these types are being overlooked by management personnel who rarely intervene even though they know what is happening. Misconduct is wrong because it violates rights and causes people to be wrongly accused of crimes or be found not guilty and set free when they are still an endangerment to other people. The public needs to be educated on what is happening in the police system in hopes that someone will speak out to protect citizens from being violated by police officers.
Police officers are faced each day with a vast array of situations with which they must deal. No two situations they encounter are ever the same, even when examines a large number of situations over an extended period of time. The officers are usually in the position of having to make decisions on how to handle a specific matter alone, or with little additional advice and without immediate supervision. This is the heart of police discretion. As we shall find, the exercise of discretion by police has benefits and problems associated with such exercise. The unfettered use of discretion can lead to the denial of citizen rights. Strategies that control the use of discretion are, therefore, very important. The benefits and problems of police discretion and controlling strategies are the focus of this essay.
Police corruption and misconduct come apparent in many different forms. A basic definition for police corruption is, when an officer gets involved in offenses where the officer uses his or her position, by act or omission, to obtain improper financial benefit. The main reason for such corruption is typically for personal gain, such as bribery. Police abuse of authority occurs in three different general areas such as physical abuse, psychological abuse, and legal abuse. Physical abuse is such abuse where one uses excessive force or physical harassment. The psychological abuse occurs through disrespect, harassment, ridicule, excessive stops, or intimidation. Finally, legal abuse is abuse that occurs during unlawful search and seizure or manufacturing evidence (Pollock, 2012). One source describes police corruption in eight different ways. They include: corruption of authority, kickbacks, opportunistic theft, shakedowns, protection of illegal acts, the fix, direct criminal acts, and internal payoffs (Roebuck & Barker, 1974).
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.
Social media present images of police that misrepresent & twist the realities of every-day police officers work. Though more confidently presented than lawyers and judiciaries, police officers are more often than not presented as useless rule-breakers. Stating back to the year of 1993 police officers constantly rate among the top three institutions out of thirteen in public confidence. Police rates are much higher than the rest of the criminal justice system. Large majorities of adult citizens are fulfilled or very pleased with the police services in their various regions. Though there is difference in fulfilment levels across city powers, most fall within the 80-90 percentage range. The majority of school-age children trust their local police, but a big portion do not, and this disbelief is mainly strong among nonwhite students. These problems com on when researchers found that some of the social values were found to effect the police behaviors mainly when it came to race, gender and class. Differences in police behavior tend to display the deviations in the way the society view, deviations in police force comes more slowly than in society at large. During the revision, the work-related culture of police changed in a number of ways. Not enlightening on related police who engage in delinquency remained the main characteristic of this work-related culture. Nonetheless, the more
In order to have effective policing I believe integrity and ethics play a huge part in helping build trust within communities. Sound conduct by police improves community interactions, enhances communication, and promotes shared responsibility for addressing crime and disorder. There are three ways that police departments can strengthen community relationships just by training officers about procedural justice, bias reduction, and racial reconciliation. If we implement these concepts, we can create an environment in which effective partnerships between the police and citizens can flourish.
All organizations, especially law enforcement agencies, require leadership. Maintaining a dependable leadership structure is key to the success of any organization. The philosophy of the modern style of police leadership involves a leader who is strong, competitive and unreceptive to change. Police leadership is based from an autocratic style which is founded on integrity and courage, embracing teamwork, involvement and shared leadership (Cordner & Scarborough, 2010). This style of leadership works well in an emergency situation in which rapid decision making and strict control is needed. The negative aspect to this style of leadership is the inability of the organization to function with the absence of leadership.
Police corruption is a nationwide problem that has been going on for many years. Not only is corruption a problem on our own U.S. soil, but police practices of corruption go as far east as Europe and Asia. Many studies, polls and examinations were taken to find out how exactly what the general publics’ opinions of the police are. Officers receive a lot of scrutiny over this issue, but for good reason.
Consider for once how lucky one is for not having the physical appearance of a criminal, and even tough such thing does not exist, America 's Police Department seem to have a pretty good idea of what a criminal should look like. As Benjamin Spock once said: "Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal.” Thus, unfortunately, being victim of police 's power abuse is a reality that many people have been suffering from in the past years. The abuse of power by police officers is a known fact, and the government should address it by improving the selection processes of new officers, increasing monitorship, and implementing punishments.
In order to understand the attitudes towards police work and the actions of police officers one can make use of the Structure-agency debate which has three distinct perspectives; structure, agency and structuration. This essay shall argue which position is best to apply by drawing on sociological theories and concepts.