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.
Power and Control in the Police Force Society reaffirms patriarchal masculinity as “men” being able to protect society, especially those who cannot defend themselves. This idea of masculinity in societies has created systems of control for the protection of the people known as the police. However, some members of these organizations abuse their power and control, causing violence towards others. As law enforcement came into power it has been run by a patriarchy system, the practice of men protecting society from criminals. Earlier on it was believed that women were too fragile to defend their own and to this day this mentality still holds, as such strong viable men must come to their “rescue”.
The rule advocates defending their colleagues when they do an error, misbehave or commit a crime. In fact, scholars assert that this is one of the highest forms of peer pressure among law enforcing agents. The names associated with the Blue Code of Silence include Veil, Cocoon, curtain, as well as the blue shield. Due to rules, the ethics and culture of police has been questioned. Police culture refers to professionalism in fighting crime and the impartial image.
The police personality fosters and “us vs. them” mentality that cops are always the good guys and everyone else is a potential bad guy (The Brotherhood). There is a subculture in Police work that in some cases can carry severe penalties towards officer’s if they were to “rat” on another officer. This subculture code of “Don’t give up another cop” has been described as the code of silence, or the blue curtain of secrecy (Pollock 119). In this subculture police officers are often ostracized or deemed unfaithful to the badge if they were to turn on another officer and testify against them during an investigation. Police officers must trust other officers to back them up in a struggle that could potentially be a life or death situation.
Body-mounted cameras enable the police to police themselves better. Still, the problem of racism remains. And the bigger problem about that is: the government cannot solve this problem. The aim is to dispose fear and suspicion, so trust between police and public can develop. For this, civil right actions are needed, police department for police department has to mend the
A police officer tends to be authoritive because of the constant danger he or she is in while on the job. Having this trait will help the officer handle all situations and help the officer pay close attention to what is going on around him or her. Suspicion is more or less a belief or opinion that is solely based on facts but does not require proof. Suspicion is also a feeling of doubt, uncertainty, or slight indication that something is up. An officer tends to be suspicious after working the job for awhile because of the criminal acts that go on.
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.
Police brutality is a growing problem in policing. There are laws that are strict on crime, and many times depending on the situation the officers need to react a certain way. Police brutality is excessive force to a major extent, and is not treated kindly. Police brutality can occur when an arresting officer feels threatened, by the arrestee, the arresting officer will defend him/her self but if something in their head snaps it becomes a beating. Police brutality is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer.
Proactive, or preventative, patrol is focused or targeted more on specific hot spots, crime problems, or offenders. The goal of proactive patrol is to detect crimes in progress and deter crime by having a routine police presence (Grant & Terry, 2008). There are a couple different downfalls to policing agencies using one form of patrol over the other. One downfall is that if only one of these patrol styles were adopted, the police would lose some of their discretion. Conditions of an officer’s reaction to certain responds would change (Grant & Terry, 2008).
“Professional Courtesy in Policing" Ethics, or moral conduct, are of major importance in the Criminal Justice Field. If the police force condoned unethical behavior, there would be very little, if any, justice being served. But what is unethical behavior and how do we judge moral conduct? Just as we all see this world through different eyes, we come to decisions through different life experiences. Due to the uniquely stressful work environment, Law Enforcement have created an occupational subculture with its own informal code of ethics.