Just little of work patrol officer do has to do with crime and often not especially serious, sometime there could be some serious incidents and patrol officers also have to prepare for that. Essentially, their main works are restoring order and providing general assistance. They rarely use the criminal law to restore calm and order as making arrests. The next biggest job after patrolling in policing is criminal investigation. Criminal investigations are usually responsible for the collection of information about crime potentials.
An integral component to the infrastructure of government is law enforcement. In recent years, police actions, particularly police abuse has come into view of a wide, public and critical eye. While citizens worry about protecting themselves from criminals, it has now been shown that they must also keep a watchful eye on those who are supposed to protect and serve. This paper will discuss the types of police abuse prevalent today, including the use of firearms and recovery of private information. I will also discuss what and how citizens’ rights are taken advantage of by the police.
Usually if not always the people who deserve to be held accountable by the brutal violation of human rights getaway from the due punishment and continue to do their foul crimes (Collins 1). The brutality of police officers believes that the Sean Bell case was just another case that could be included in the long list of the murders that were carried out by these people who are supposed to be serving and protecting human rights (Collins 1). The murder of Sean Bell stirred the rage of many people, especially the Black community against the New York police department. Sean's case was more evidence of the system that denied justice to the rightful people. Everything started in the early morning hours on Saturday, November 25, 2006.
Police Corruption and Misconduct All over the world many police officers abuse the power they are given. In general the job of police is to protect and serve its citizens, to keep them from harm. But instead there are many officers who do the opposite. According to Pollock (2010), “police corruption does not occur just in the United States” (p. 175). In general, the police comes into contact more often with citizens then any other government official.
Methods to prevent corruption will then be explored, such as more rigorous recruitment procedures and the reinforcement of the motivation to do what is right. Lastly, it will be explored why in fact it is so hard to reduce corruption in the police force and subsequently why it will never go away. Before it can be examined why police corruption occurs, it must first be defined, what police corruption means, as there are many widely accepted definitions. Punch as cited in Palmer (1992: 103) defines corruption as, “When an officer receives or is promised significant advantage or reward…for doing something that he is under a duty to do anyway, that he is under a duty not to do, for exercising legitimate discretion for improper reasons and for employing illegal means to achieve approved goals.” Barker and Wells as cited in Palmer (1992:104) offer a similar definition, “Police corruption is any prescribed act which involves the misuse of the officer’s official position for actual or expected material reward or gain.” (For a more detailed explanation of corruption, see Ivkovic 2003:595). As a part of their job, police are given a number of rights and powers, such as the ability to exercise discretion.
When I think of people that work for the police force; I think of people who feel they have all the power in the world or think they are super heroes. Unfortunately in the police force, it is more about the power than being a super hero. The fact that you can cross boundaries, order people around, and intimidate others. It is funny what a badge can do to someone’s mind. Authoritarianism is something very common and very well used in police forces all over out nation, and even with in the police force itself.
In addition, it is not uncommon to observe police officers working part-time jobs with private security officials in order to safeguard valuable assets. Certain jurisdictions throughout the States, have giving special private security officers arrest powers as a result of the lack of public security officers available. One major difference that has been slowly but steadily changing is the mandatory training required for both the public and private security officers. The training and education a public police officer must complete in order to be hired by any department, is on average far more in-depth than that of a private security officer who usually is forced to submit to a standard drug test and a basic back ground criminal investigation check. But the educational opportunities that exist in modern day, the availability of these educational opportunities and the
Crime will always be committed as police are not always looking over people’s shoulders to ensure people will not break the law. With the help of citizens who see crime happening and reporting it helps the justice system ensure citizen’s safety. “The justice system does not respond to most crime because so much crime is not discovered or reported to the police. Law enforcement agencies learn about crime from the reports of victims or other citizens, from discovery by a police officer in the field, from informants, or from investigative and intelligence work. Once a law enforcement agency has established that a crime has been committed, a suspect must be identified and apprehended for the case to proceed through the system.
Personality Traits of a Police Officer Policing today is very complex. Police officers are expected to be all things to all people and to make split second decisions under varying stress conditions. Police officers must be effective at what they do. The decisions made by a police officer could potentially affect the lives of many people. Being an officer of the law takes a certain quality of person and some personality types certainly do better in positions of authority than do others.
If the responsibilities were limited in the community it would result in more chaos and more crime, and people would no longer seek police assistance. Agencies at the local level represent the largest number of police officers and include municipal police, county sheriff’s department, county police, coroner and a medical examiner, special district police (Walker & Katz, 2011). City police departments are the most complex division of law enforcement because the functions that officers perform vary. The primary responsibility of city police officers is protecting and serving the people. City police officers are responsible for maintaining order, responding to emergency calls, and dealing with violence, and serious crime.