Police Misconduct Essay

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What role does the police/correction subculture play in fueling law enforcement misconduct? Instead of practicing a professional code of ethics, some cops develop a personal code of ethics in which loyalty to their fellow officer’s trumps serving and protecting the community. This tribal mentality can be attributed to three causes. First of all, police officers are an identifiable group with uniforms, badges and guns. Secondly, this group shares a common way of life. They share similar dangers, setbacks, and rewards that outsiders rarely see outside of the movies. Thirdly, these dangers foster an "us against them" mentality not just against criminals but politicians, bureaucrats and concerned citizens who are perceived as impediments to enforcing the law. Police administrators and the law specify the broad parameters within which officers operate, but the police subculture tells them how to go about their tasks, how hard to work, what kinds of relationships to have with their fellow officers and other categories of people with whom they interact, and how they should feel about police administrators, judges, laws, and the requirements and restrictions they impose. The effects of formal pressures and the pressures generated by the police subculture often lead police officers to experience a great deal of stress in their occupational, social, and family lives which can result in cynicism, burnout, and retirement, as well as other of physical and emotional ailments (Miller 45). Many officers fail to recognize the extent to which the police subculture and their chosen occupation affect the way in which they view and act toward others. Police officers develop resources to deal with the isolation from the community that result from the job and the police socialization process. These police subcultural attributes include “protective, supportive, and shared attitudes,

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