Law Enforcement Deviance Essay

Law Enforcement Deviance
Michelle Slate
University of Phoenix - Axia
April 22, 2012
Instructor Yolanda White Johnson

Law Enforcement Deviance
      Never before, had the city of Los Angeles been involved in a scandal like the one it faced within the department’s Rampart Area. Allegations of perjury, false arrest reports, evidence planting, police brutality, and even murder plagues the department. What started out as an attempt to stop the growing number of “gang related” crimes in the Rampart Area of Los Angeles, had turned into one of the worst scandals to disgrace the city and permanently tarnish the department’s reputation yet. Perhaps the worse misconduct came from the department’s managers who ignored warning signs and failed to provide leadership, oversight, management, and supervision to the unit (Rampart Review, 2000). The repercussions of this deviance by the LAPD will be felt for many years as the public struggles to regain trust and the department struggles to regain creditability.
      The use of excessive force is an example that is cited in the Rampart Independent Review. These acts of deviance are not exclusive to the LAPD, as there have been many incidences nationwide regarding the use of excessive force and abuse of drugs by police. Excessive force continues to be a major problem today. One of the most notorious cases of excessive use of force by officers was the case involving Rodney King (Mangan, 2000). The LAPD altered the injuries to Rodney King as minor scrapes and bruising. Officers reported that King attacked them and resisted arrest. From the video everyone and anyone could clearly see the Rodney King was in no position to have had attacked police.
      In this case four officers were accused of the beating which was caught on tape by a witness. After trial in state court all four officers were acquitted. Anger over this caused the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Only after this did a trial in federal court take place. Two of the...