The current El Paso Police Department is a prime example. A recent slew of investigations by local news stations in the Sun City revealed several “corrupt” cops who had overstepped their boundaries, or had hidden behind their badge to commit crimes. And sometimes, that “thin blue line”, as one officer called it, can divide an entire community— or even a police force. “There will be corruption everywhere you go, but of course it depends on the city that you are in,” Officer Doe said, as he drove through the city. “We are human too.
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.
In chapter five of Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice, Pollock states when one asks most people what the role of policing is in society, the response is some version of “catch criminals” or “fight crime”. (p.105) The majority of police officers are professional and ethical; however a small minority abuses their power. This leads to close suspicion by the public of all police. Police have great power in our society to arrest, use force and also have the power of life and death. Police have two types of perceptions of the police mission, either a crime fighter or public servant.
The police today must contend directly with a number of issues that carry a racial subtext both in fact and in perception: crime, drugs, disorder, civil unrest, and police brutality. While some can look at the same glass and call it half empty, while others call it half full, there is ample reason to suggest that even the most optimistic observers would agree that the police face a major challenge
I believe secondly people believe police and political corruption feed off each other, which is a known opinion by most (http://www.coha.org,2004). This means a lot of people already believe that the negative actions of an officer will over ride the positive in the entire police force. People don’t look for the positive to feed off each other but the negative. This positive can
To answer the question, many things are done daily to prevent police brutality. Nearly every case of police brutality presents a legal dynamic of related but separate civil and criminal cases. Once a citizen claims police abuse, there is almost always a contradictory allegation by the police accusing the citizen of being the initial aggressor and primary criminal actor against the police. (Lawson T.F. 2013) Police often blame the victim of police brutality when accused of being too brutal with their use of force.
To start off the Sean Bell case was an example of Police brutality. Police Brutality is one of the most serious issues of human violation that is unaddressed because of the cover up by fellow police officers during internal investigations. There are many instances when police officers engage in the activities of rough physical behaviors such as shooting, beating, torture and other unnecessary brutal acts among citizens which often result in injury or sometimes even death. Suspects of a crime, the victims, as well as their families, who are seeking justice, are usually disregarded. 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).
In some states, the individual must be convicted of two serious felonies for the three strikes law to apply, while in others any felonies count towards the third strike. Critics of the three strike law express many strong arguments against their harsh legal statute. Our society has ultimately had an issue with the three strikes law. Some people have said that the law “destroys the flexibility of the courts and the judge, it is unjust in certain conditions, and it adds more criminals to an already crowded and expensive criminal system”
If the only reason to pull someone over depends on his or her race, this causes a discriminatory impact. Police departments begun to review data on stops and change police officers behaviors, arguments and attitudes towards the leading of stereotype based discriminatory treatment. (Racial profiling, 2012) This researcher frowns much upon racial profiling but with surveys conducted every day on who is likely to commit a crime, and what age, and what sex, and what minority group then people tend to lean towards these surveys proving that race is a huge part of crime involvement. In conclusion, criminal profiling works as an investigative tool to help solve crimes. Criminal profiling has come a long way and still needs a lot of improvement.
Police corruption is a problem that can be traced back to the early days of policing. It is a serious problem within most police forces today, as it is widely know that is it something that is not only hard to calculate, but also hard to reduce and near impossible to eradicate. The following will explore what corruption is defined as and reasons for why police corruption occurs. Reasons that will be covered that can be deemed as the cause of corruption are, the police cultures’ solidarity and loyalty, that a high level of discretion is used, which cannot be monitored, and that there is a corrupt hierarchy within the police force that is difficult to control. 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.