Second, the role of social stigma in policing is addressed in terms of its influences on the vicious cycle of police corruption and police abuse of force. Lastly, the issues of police conscience in assignments and suggestions
Law enforcement officers come from many different cultural backgrounds and family situations affecting their ability to be a police officer both negatively and positively. The social learning theory by Albert Bandura is one theory that could be used to describe the motives behind police misconduct. Bandura’s social learning theory states behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning (McLeod, 2011). It further describes how individuals act based on peer associations, attitudes, positive and negative reinforcement and modeling (McLeod, 2011). All of these factors may be predictors of law breaking and crime in general, but could also be related to law enforcement officers.
For example, police brutality. One of the main complaints of police brutality is excessive force. Often officers do no know how to distinguish aggressive, necessary force from excessive force. “The Phoenix Police Department is now dealing with accusations that officers stepped out of line and beat up an innocent man. The state’s attorney general is learning about the claims and offering up help in investigating the claims (Fox 10, 2013).” Often claims are brought up in regards to police brutality when an officer is defending his or herself.
It is difficult to hold prosecutors accountable for acts of misconduct. Since prosecutors are often viewed as the “good guys” by the public, many times unethical, as well as illegal acts will be tolerated by the courts and criminal justice system as a whole. Prosecutorial misconduct is considered any action taken by the prosecutor in a criminal case that is against the law and/or unethical. Prosecutorial evidence can be anything from harassing witnesses on the stand, pressing unfounded charges against defendants, tampering with evidence, withholding evidence, up to taking bribes. Prosecutors can sometimes get away with misconduct as it is extremely difficult to prove that misconduct had actually taken place.
While perpetrators of bullying may feel justified in their actions, Article 1 aims to focus more on the interpersonal conflicts that perpetrators face in relation to the situation they find themselves in. The study aims to focus on bridging the gap between individual and situational factors that may encourage an individual to act as a perpetrator, seeing how stressful work environments have long been assumed to create conditions that eventually lead to the bullying within the workforce (Hauge et al., 2009). There are not many studies from the perpetrator’s point of view, simply due to individuals underreporting their behavior, but analyzing a situational dilemma that results in deviant behavior (i.e. bullying) offers insights on what triggers a perpetrator to finally snap. Comparison of Population Each of the three articles depended on self-reported questionnaires in order to understand the phenomenon of workplace
Police have two types of perceptions of the police mission, either a crime fighter or public servant. Police perception of themselves as crime fighters leads to certain decisions in their use of force, definition of duty, and their use of deception. If one views police as crime fighters these assumptions may include; criminals are the enemy and are different from good people, the police are the arm that fights the enemy using any means to get the job done, good people accept and understand that police are in a war and must be allowed deference in their decision making because they are the experts and only they know the enemy. The book states the definition of public servants as “professionals who are paid by the public and whose jobs entail pursuing the public good. If one views police as public servants, other assumptions include; criminals are people too just like the rest of us they shop, pay taxes, and have a family, police have limited ability to affect crime rates because the history of law enforcement originates in order maintenance, not crime control, and lastly they assume that police as public servants serve all people, including criminals meaning to not judge on decisions about an individual not being able to receive services.
POLICE MISCONDUCT IN NARCOTICS: A Closer Look into the Corruption of Policing By Gregory Agoglia ASU College of Public Programs Abstract: The purpose of this research is to see whether there is a relationship between the location of agencies and the number of corrupt officers within certain regions. To do this, we sent out a survey all over the country and even did some field studies. The main reason the survey was done is because we wanted to find out if corruption in policing occurs mostly in rural or urban areas. We tried to do the study within a one month time period. The results showed that most of the corruption occurs in the urban areas, more specifically, in our nation’s capitol.
This view is that sometimes the criminal justice system fails and non-law-abiding citizens get away with certain acts. “We need to remember that our justice system, due to exiting law and community attitudes, may also support tyrants or various forms of injustice and corruption on occasion, leading to suffering and oppression in our communities” (Braswell, McCarthy, & McCarthy, p.6,
| Checkpoint | Issues in Policing | CJS/210 Prof. Beeler | Karen Spangler | 10/26/2012 | The issues that face law enforcement agencies today are ethics and corruption, profiling, and the use of force, within police departments. Police officers must adhere to a higher standard of ethics because of the amount of power that the uniform and badge that they wear holds. It is when an officer uses and abuses this power to their advantage or gain, that it becomes a problem. The saying, "a few bad apples spoils the bunch", is apropos when referring to police corruption. Profiling is when law enforcement inappropriately considers a person's race or ethnicity when deciding how and if they are going to interact with a person in an enforcement
It is evident that crime and deviance play an important role in society today and form the “out of ordinary” actions that take place as a subsequence. Crime is a well-known term to many and is believed to involve a breach of rules or laws implemented by authorities that lead to convictions or punishment for those involved in the criminal activity. However; deviance is a term which creates much difficulty in terms of a specific definition, but the closet definition came from two men; Downs and Rock who believed that “deviance may be considered as banned or controlled behaviour which is likely to attract punishment or disapproval”. Haralambos and Holborn Sociology, Themes and Perspectives seventh edition, 2008. This demonstrates that there is some concept of difference between criminal and deviant behaviour.