The Criminal Justice Professionals often than not find themselves in situations that present dilemmas as they go about with their law enforcement duties. An example of such a scenario is the arbitrary stopping and frisking of individuals by Police in their efforts to apprehend criminals and prevent crime. The rights of the community in such a scenario are violated and coincide with law enforcement duties. It is prudent to understand that achieving this balance between the duty and right poses a great challenge for any law enforcer (Braswell, McCarthy, & McCarthy, 2014). In recent times, there has been a growing perception that the Police have overlooked the upholding of individuals’ civil liberties in order to meet quantifiable law enforcement gains.
The handling of such scenarios is crucial as it determines how effective law enforcement is within community level and fighting crime. The Police ought to employ the law regardless of the situation at hand. There is need to offer identification and request suspects clearly to comply with the law (Pollock, 2012). An officer is supposed to base his stop and frisking on particularized suspicion that a suspect is engaged in wrongdoing. This is well captured the United States v. Cortez ruling by the Supreme Court regarding the apprehension of suspects on reasonable suspicion grounds (Pollock, 2012). This, however, demands much due diligence from the law enforcers as cases of racial profiling have arisen due to the discretion accorded to the police in their law enforcement endeavors.
Failure to manage the frisking and stopping of individuals effectively may lead to an outcry from the public. The recent Brown case, for instance, illustrates the fine line that the police have to balance when apprehending suspects (Braswell, McCarthy, & McCarthy, 2014). This case spiraled out of context with the law enforcement being accused of racial profiling and being trigger happy. Another consequence of mismanaging suspects is the degradation of public trust on law enforcers. Many might perceive the Criminal Justice Officials as the bad guys rather than being public servants or communal security custodians. It might also translate to less cooperation between the community members and the law enforcement officers.
References
Braswell, M., McCarthy, B. R., & McCarthy, B. J. (2014). Justice, crime, and ethics.
Pollock, J. M. (2012). Ethical dilemmas and decisions in criminal justice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
