Policing Ethics
Over the last few years, ethics in policing has emerged as an important area with rising recorded cases that involve the police using excessive force. National Constitution and other relevant laws give police officers the legal framework from which they derive their powers in carrying out their duties. The original conception of the police force was that they would obtain the citizen’s goodwill while performing their policing duties. The understanding has changed since; police officers are now viewed as controllers of crime. However, the same law and constitution places limit for police officers on how far they go and do in enforcing the law. And so these restrictions are meant to curb cases of law enforcement agencies' frequent indiscriminate and illegal shooting of innocent citizens, physical injuries through whipping and assault and mistreating innocent citizens (Adams, 1999). Police abuse continues to persist with overwhelming barriers that make it easy for police officers to commit a violation of human rights and then escape without due punishment. While the police and public officers continue to deny any grave breaches of human rights when reports are released, both the administrative and criminal systems should make officers involved to take responsibility and deter any more incidents of police brutality from occurring. This essay is an examination of ethical violations that happen when police officers use excessive force in enforcing the law as well as policies that should be instituted to minimize occurrences of human rights abuse and violations by the police officers.
In policing, an ethical issue arises in a situation where a police officer is unsure of the right action to take, or where the course of action for such a police officer is hard to carry out and in situations where the wrong course of action is very tempting. In the early days, when policing began, violence was accepted as a norm since many people believed that it was a way of punishing wrong doers which the police were entitled. The police officers often violate ethical standards when they use excessive force which leads to serious physical injuries or death. The use of force does not depend on whether the officer has reasonable motivations to control in bad or good faith. This may also be depicted when an officer fails to intervene when a fellow officer is violating the constitutional rights of citizens. Ethical violations are noted when police officers shoot at innocent citizens who have no arms causing their death.
When ethical dilemmas in the context of policing have been identified, then strategies and policies should be framed to eradicate or minimize the ethical breaches of behavior. Styles of policing, police culture and police as an institution have been the central issues that have shaped the discussion of the role of ethics in policing. When these issues are fixed, then police violence will be highly mitigated when police officers are carrying out arrests. One of these remedies would include, hiring qualified individuals as police officers. The hiring minimum standards should go beyond “work-around”. The individuals who are recruited to the positions of police officers need to have personal and perfect command of their temper so that they are not moved in slight degrees of threats and anger. They should be people with an understanding of how law operates and a good command of the workings of the communities that they are serving. The officers who will be recruited need to be people who are of integrity and thus can work within the law.
Skolnick observed that there is always an inherent tension that is irreconcilable that results from the people’ perception of the role of police as enforcers of the law while protecting the rights of citizens. He thus suggested that police officers should give priority to duty which is to uphold the law and use their powers with considerable discretion (Skolnick, 1975). This means that they would need to be trained in changing their style of policing to enable them to work ethically and not depending on their desires. The values, attitude, and norms that make the police culture which guides the overall operation of the police institution need to be redefined so that they are in line with modern day professional practices. Cooperation with the public needs to be overemphasized with the use of force only justified as a last resort where other means are untenable.
The institution of police needs to be viewed as a profession and not as a bureaucracy. They need to be perceived as possessing professional values that provide public service. The governments need to emphasize ethical standards in the service of the police force. This would be done by having a code of ethics binding to police offices which they would be required to sign before they get to work. The officers need to be trained on professionalism and code of conducts when handling the citizens. The performance of the police officers should be measured using a professional metric than just apprehension and conviction. The police officer should act without fear and favor in his duties of any race, age, and gender.
In conclusion, Skolnick and Fyfe outlined a scale of actions which police officers can use in handling situations on the streets to avoid violence. This, he suggested, should start with the mere presence of police as a useful tool which can produce the desired outcome than the use of unnecessary force, effective verbalization, commend verbalization, firm grip, pain compliance, impact technique and deadly force to the extreme (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993). When these simple techniques are used ethical violations will be minimized.
Law enforcement agencies vs. military organizational structure
Law enforcement agencies have for a long time struggled with public perceptions which have been occasioned by changing demands of the profession (Terrill, 2005). There is an increasing need to align the leadership demands of the law enforcement profession to the needs of the 21st century. Thus, law enforcement has lately begun to incorporate leadership practices and models which are making the policing culture shift. Modern policing is primarily traced to England where Alfred the Great structured his defenses against an eminent attack from the Danish. This involved groupings of the country around families known as 'mutual pledge' to protect the families around their neighborhoods (Walker & Katz, 2012). The neighborhoods were the geographical administrative areas under the shire-reeve for counties. Magistrates presided over the courts where people arrested by the police were taken. This model was later taken to the United States by the settlers and has now evolved over the years. This essay is an examination of the organizational structure of the law enforcement agencies as compared to the military.
The typical Law enforcing officers and agencies found across The US such as the police are bureaucratic with military styles of operation. The police administration of departments is highly characterized with specialization of duties and tasks; action is undertaken by rules and regulations while there is a hierarchy of authority. This maximizes efficiency but does not offer flexibility in responding to human needs (Bittner, 1995). The law enforcement agencies are also characterized by quasi-military organizations where officers are noted to be wearing uniforms, carry guns and have ranks. The officers operate under a command structure which dictates how order flows from captain to lieutenant, sergeant and patrol officer (Zhao & Robinson, 2001). The commands move from the top to below the structure. For the military characterization the law enforcement agencies suffer from the subscription of the idea of being at “war on crime”. This makes the police officers to be susceptible to violence and abuse of power.
In the United States of America, there are between 23,000 to 25,000 law enforcement agencies operating in the public sector. Each of these enforcement arms is a representation of a criminal or a judicial duty. Duties and responsibilities of local enforcement agency such as the police are to some extent vague and overlap. This creates duplication of duties, lack of coordination and communication breakdowns. This makes the organizational structure of the law enforcement agencies complex. In New York, there is New York Police Department which has a force of 34,500 police officers, and then there exists the New York State Police whose jurisdiction is within the county and the state (Schmalleger, 2009). This makes duties to overlap across the government agencies that enforce law. With increases scenes of crime as well more threats to national security, the concern of the military and the law enforcement agencies is to ensure that the public is guaranteed of its safety. The current capital and financial resources has lately been inadequate to fully cover the security environments in which the military and other state law enforcing officers exists. For this reason, military leadership and police officers at all levels of government must find innovative means through which they must allocate these resources to the ever increasing needs of the society’s security.
The United States military and the police officers have a common duty to make us of the available resources in serving the communities. They both have an active population of officers on duties with family members. The key difference between the two arms, however, is that the military under the department of defense maintains installations and facilities across the State. The military enforcement agencies have exclusive jurisdiction for police and can investigate criminal activities which lay both on the domestic and foreign basis. The military organizational structure allows the military personnel to take part in the operations of interest which have a jurisdiction worldwide as well as on the borders.
In conclusion, it can be noted that both the military and local law enforcement agencies have much in common in their efforts to curb crime in the United States. While there exist different law enforcement agencies in different jurisdictions such as county police and county sheriffs, the overall duty of marinating peace and security within and without the borders of the United States lies with the Military. The military can overstep its mandate to investigate issues of national importance such as cyber crime and terrorism (Terrill, 2005). The federal bureau of investigation is the main arm of the government to enforce the law and normally overlaps the county sheriffs and state police officers in states.
References
Adams, K. (1999). What we know about police use of force. Use of force by police: Overview of national and local data, 1-14.
Bittner, E. (1995). The quasi-military organization of the police. The police and society: Touchstone readings, Waveland Press, Illinois
Schmalleger, F. (2009). Criminal justice today: An introductory text for the 21st century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Skolnick, J. H., & Fyfe, J. J. (1993). Above the law: Police and the excessive use of force (pp. 43-48). New York: Free Press.
Skolnick, A. (1975). The limits of childhood: Conceptions of child development and social context. Law and Contemporary Problems, 39(3), 38-77.
Terrill, W. (2005). Police use of force: A transactional approach. Justice Quarterly, 22(1), 107-138.
Walker, S., & Katz, C. M. (2012). Police in America. McGraw-Hill.
Zhao, J., Lovrich, N. P., & Robinson, T. H. (2001). Community policing: is it changing the basic functions of policing?: Findings from a longitudinal study of 200+ municipal police agencies. Journal of Criminal Justice, 29(5), 365-377.
