Abstract
Over the past years, the criminal justice system has experienced both praises and criticism involving the manner in which various officers enforce law and order. While most officers strive to ensure sanctity and order prevail among all equals, a section of the officers overlook the art of humanity and apply undue force to innocent and suspected individuals. Unfortunately, the blanket of corruption shields the officers from prosecution in the effort to safeguard the exposition of the inner affairs of the police culture. Corruption broils police brutality and individual victimization with unwarranted allegations as a weapon to silence their sufferings. However, despite the increasing number of victims, the coordination of the society with legislators and the police officers of good will could subdue the vices and ensure that perpetrators of police violence are apprehended and prosecuted. Further, stringent technological measures that strive to monitor police behavior should be put in place to eradicate unscrupulous behavior from officers as well as erode the unethical culture of subjecting innocent souls to physical and mental torture. This research will strive to create an integrated link between the influence of social and organization culture as the contributing factor to police behavior as well as develop initiatives to sustain the law enforcement arm’s integrity and moral sanity.
Introduction
The practice of enforcing the law in the society is an integrated system that requires the coordination of various arms in the government as well as understanding the social-behavioral change of the target society. Under the criminal justice system, the police officers are the next element that associates with the citizens to maintain order and sanity amongst the people. They are bestowed with the powers to apprehend and prosecute the law offenders while observing the stipulated rule of law. Unfortunately, some officers apply unwarranted physical force on the citizens through beating with intent to intimidate and shroud their illegal acts such as obtaining bribes to facilitate unlawful deals. On the other hand, the affected citizens, dominated by the naivety to understand the existing rights of defense when their freedom is infringed, choose to mum on the matter, holding the assumption that the cases remain predetermined in favor of the rogue officers.
The principal-agent factor between the police force, the courts, and the society set the ground to unravel the integrity in the police ladder continues to diminish in the presence of law and the nation’s broad conscience of their rights. At times, officers tend to harass innocent citizens to acquire personal gains such as monetary bribes or physical assets. On the other hand, the racial culture also critically tore between the weak trust between the law enforcers and the public. Research carried out in Seattle revealed that African Americans were more susceptible to unwarranted police frisks and searches compared to the native citizens. In fact, they accounted for more than 50% of the total police checks in Seattle despite accounting for 33% of the whole population. That said, the populace continue to lose confidence in the police, increased fear of arrest and therefore opting to suffer in silence.
It’s within the tenets of law that a police officer is required to apply force to any suspect if he gathers suffices conscience of a noble person that his life would be in danger. However, the predetermined assumption by a citizen of a possible arrest without grounded reasons, broils the vices of corruption, illegal detentions, sexual harassment as well as silencing of individuals who opt to castigate the officer's heinous acts. However, the practice of community policing where the police interact with the citizens to reduce crime is yet to sustain the sanctity of equality in maintaining law and order. Monetary muscles further characterize the self-centeredness acts by high ranking officers who rent-seek the legislatures to sideline the call to enact strict n punishable laws on rouge agents. As a result, the country’s economy loses economic resources through bribe while similarly suffers the aggravation of moral decadence in the society. The criminal justice system has had trying times with police conduct and integrity to include police corruption, police violence, and controlling police misconduct. The criminal justice system is working diligently to control these issues and is constantly implementing new tactics to help reduce future issues.
Police corruption
A major factor that has for long eroded the police integrity is corruption. By definition, corruption portrays an unscrupulous act performed by a person through free-will or coercion with intent to accumulate personal gains. Traced from the early 1840s, where officers acquired jobs and promotions by bribing senior officers, corruption acts are attributable to the continuous loss of public confidence in the police officers. An ungrounded hypothesis across the society holds that a law enforcer would require a token as a motivation to undertake a particular task (Rabe-Hemp, 2011).The belief intertwines with the codified organizational culture in the police force that demands an officer’s undivided attention to serving all people without malice. Consequently, the exclusive group of law abiding police officers sails in the condemned culture of accelerating corruption with the fellow officers due to predominated mistrust.
Similarly, the perceived code of silence under the police ethics shrouds the efforts of whistle-blowers within the force to castigate the elements of corrupt “individuals in Blue.” From a theoretical perspective, social-culture in an organization integrates the mindset of naïve entrants in the force to absorb the character traits of their seniors in an attempt to stick with the norms. Victims of social –culture are easily susceptible to the drive of corrupt activities by senior officers in the force. A bureaucratic system of rule in the police force is the core factor that sublimes the natural human character of an officer and leaves his strong conscience embedded into the chain of passive corruption (Rabe-Hemp, 2011). All in all, police culture ladder incorporating the rule of law with an emotional intelligence based leadership could subdue the adverse flames of corruption and tame the “fathers” of corrupt activities.
Police violence
While unraveling the heinous act of police violence on innocent and culprit individuals, there begs the perplexing question on how many people gain the courage to report malicious physical and emotional damage at the hands of law enforcers? What inhibits their courage to air the sentiments? Is it fear of victimization or a mind-instilled culture of the meat eaters protecting the grass eaters with the purpose to advance selfish interests over the society? The missing links to the undefined silence by the victims gradually broil to police brutality and violence. In the course of maintaining law and order, a section of officers often overlook the code of conduct and apply excessive force including live bullets to tame no-harming individuals. Such acts are shelved through by corruptible senior officers to safeguard the force’s public image at the expense of the victims (Rushin, 2014). That maintains the data for the deaths occurring in the hands of police. There lacks a credible database to ascertain the individuals that suffer from police brutality thus melting the firm basis to hold accountable the perpetrating officers. For instance, police officers shot Amadou Diallo in New York claiming that he was armed, while in essence, the victim was reaching for his wallet (Corsianos, 2011). Such cases don’t see the light of justice due to the chained organization culture in the police force that strives to protect the force’s integrity while overlooking the unethical behavior of reprobate officers.
The National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) maintains that the data for the deaths occurring in the hands of police suffers a setback of incomplete records of all victims (Klinger, 2012). Ideally, this could be attributed to the weak whistle-blowing culture within the police force as well as the society for fear of victimization. Having no clear data collecting method that prevails in the secrecy of information disclosure by willing whistle-blowers, the effort to bring the culprits to accountability remains a daunting task.
Controlling Police Misconduct
There exist the essence to include the social behavior of individuals and the cultural beliefs and practices that exist in the target society drawing the focus to understand the practices of police corruption and brutality. According to structuration theory, the social grounds that stand in society are subject to following and manipulation by the activities of a human being. A person may develop a course to follow but also creates space for flexibility within which he or she can adjust the obligated practice to suit the prevailing situation. The same applies to the police culture whereby the same individuals that develop rules are the same that manipulate them in their favor. On the positivity, the inclusion of public participation in developing law enforcement standards could form a stable ground to mitigate the condemned culture of police violence and brutality. A long-term plan that incorporates the courts, society, law enforcers and the legislature (Hendrix, 2013). Amongst all, the community must unite to inculcate moral uprightness in the young generation as a buffer to deter the intervention of the police force. Similarly, the organs of governance must strive to develop uniform policies that uphold sanity in law enforcement as well as holding violators to accountability. More specifically, whistle-blowing within the force must be viewed to the positivity as a subdued element in mitigating intentional police brutality.
Combating Criminal Justice Issues
Though the law stipulates the limits within which a police officer can apply force, it becomes increasingly difficult to assess a situation when an officer uses excessive force. The legislature could intervene by introducing technological cameras that monitor the police officers performance in the line of duty. In essence, this could help account for immediate time and individual that uses force unlawfully to maintain law and order. Further, improvisation of conducted energy devices such as teargas as well as the use of rubber bullets to disperse rowdy crowds would minimize the level of injuries to the victims (Hendrix, 2013). The great approaches bear the perpetuation of creating a balance between the individual’s life and their associated rogue behavior which could be mitigated through social, cultural, behavioral change.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the pursuit of sustaining police integrity in an avenue that is intertwined with a rigid social organization culture is not all lost. Integration of arms of the government, the social organizations, policymakers, scholars and the society would create a foundation to erode the cloud of public mistrust against the officers as well as build a culture of shared responsibility among fellow officers over their colleague’s actions. Public participation in law enforcement procedures and entitlement to individual rights when police apprehend one will cement the proliferation of personal confidence to whistle-blow on unwarranted police behavior. Therefore, safeguarding police integrity is not an individual but a shared responsibility for all.
References
Corsianos, M. (2011). Police corruption. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Social Issues, 2, 592-599.
Hendrix, N. (2013). Experience criminal justice. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Klinger, D. A. (2012, January 23). On the problems and promise of research on lethal police violence. Homicide Studies.
Rabe-Hemp, C. (2011). Police corruption and the code of silence. Police and Law Enforcement, 129-142.
Rushin, S. (2014). Federal Enforcement of Police Reform. Fordham Law Review 82(6).
Wihbey, J., & Kille, L. W. (2016, July 28). Excessive or reasonable force by police? Research on law enforcement and racial conflict. Retrieved from http://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/criminal-justice/police-reasonable-force-brutality-race-research-review-statistics
