police Misconduct Case Study
The district attorney declines to press charges and both juveniles are released. They flee the jurisdiction and are never found. Your partner is brought before a police investigation Board and suspended from the Department after 20 years service.
Justification for Answer Choice #1
The District Attorney (DA) had no choice but to drop the charges and release the suspects because my partners actions apparently violated one of the most fundamental rights of all criminal defendants under the U.S. Constitution. It also created a very damaging appearance of improper conduct on the part of the police department that could undermine the respect for police authority in the community. My partner's actions demand serious professional consequences, especially because he is one of two detectives responsible for investigating homicides in the department. A slap on the wrist would not provide the guarantee that similar conduct will not be repeated. In addition to…...
mlaReferences
Dershowitz, A.M. (2002). Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. New York:
Bantam Books.
Friedman, A. (2005). A History of American Law. New York: Touchstone Books.
Schmalleger, F. (2009). Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the 21st
1).This study reports that it is important to weigh both "...legal and extralegal factors" in the attempt to understand police misconduct. Furthermore, "...implications for issues of racial and ethnic stereotyping..." must be given consideration in incidents of police misconduct and allegations of misconduct on the part of police officers is critically necessary.
The work of Judith a. Greene entitled: "Zero Tolerance: A Case Study of Police Policies and Practices in New York City" states that: "The police reforms introduced in New York City by William ratton are now hailed by Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the epitome of "zero-tolerance" policing, and he credits them for winning dramatic reductions in the city's crime rate. ut the number of citizen complaints filed before the Civilian Complaint Review oard has jumped skyward, as has the number of lawsuits alleging police misconduct and abuse of force. Comparison of crime rates, arrest statistics, and citizen complaints in…...
mlaBibliography
Coping with Police Misconduct in West Virginia: Citizen Involvement with Officer Disciplinary Procedures: A Review of Existing Law, Legislative Initiatives and Disciplinary Models. West Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (2004)
Seron, Carroll (2004) Judging Police Misconduct: Street-Level vs. Professional Policing. Law and Society Review 2004 December. Online available at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3757/is_200412/ai_n9471549/print
Kane, Robert J. (2004) the Social Ecology of Police Misconduct. Nov 2003 Criminology Vol. 40 Issue 4. Online available at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2002.tb00976.x
Giles, Howard; and Dailey, Rene (2003) Communicating Police Misconduct: Alleged, Variably Reported, and/or Real? Institute for Social Behavioral and Economic Research 2003 Online available at http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=isber/coppac
Police Excessive Use of Force and the Supreme Court
Supreme Court Case on Police Misconduct
Graham V. Connor 1989 Landmark case set the precedent for U.S. Supreme Court in matters relating to unethical Police decisions or immoral practices by the police (Baker & Thomas ., 2012). This paper presents discussions on how the U.S. Supreme Court analysis injustices by the police in the process of investigating or making an arrest a crime.
Case: Graham V. Connor 1989
The arrest was by a Charlotte Police department patrol officer who observed Graham enter a convenience store and exited in a suspicious manner. Graham's quick entry and exit of the convenient store was because of the long line at check-out that he could not endure owing to a need to quell a diabetic episode. The Police officer moved in to stop Graham, who was with another individual as they drove away. Heeding to the officers instructions, Graham…...
mlaReferences
Baker, & Thomas R. (Producer). (2012). Procedural Justice And Legitimacy Of The Police And Courts And Perceptions Of Obedience Among Female Inmates. Treatises and Dissertations Paper 4709.
U.S Department of Justice. (2012). Community Oriented Policing Services Use of Force Retrieved 14th Sept, 2015, from http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/default.asp?item=1374
Public Perceptions of Police Misconduct
Police Misconduct
Public Perceptions of Police Misconduct Divided Along acial Lines
Public Perceptions of Police Misconduct Divided Along acial Lines
For anyone paying attention to the news of late, the conduct of the police has been under increasing scrutiny. The news media and the internet world are currently following a number of major stories concerning alleged police misconduct. These stories are as diverse as the New York Police Department (NYPD) warrantless spying on Muslims (Sacirbey, 2012) to the pepper spraying of Occupy protesters on a University of California campus (Newcomb, 2012). This essay will discuss evidence that suggests communities view police misconduct differently along racial and generational lines.
Historical Perspectives
The infamous 'Third Degree' was probably first coined in the 1870s by police officers and was intended to describe the brutal interrogation methods employed to gain information, confessions, and guilty pleas from suspects (Leo and Koenig, 2010, p. 4-14). By the…...
mlaReferences
Brown, Andrea, Ruzich, Joseph, and Cox, Brian. (2010). Jurors say evidence made Burge's denials hard to believe. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 11 June 2012 from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06-28/news/ct-met-burge-trial-jurors-20100628_1_jurors-jon-burge-chicago-police .
Coffey, Sister Benita. (2012 Jan. 25). Chicago's ban on torture should spur others to act too. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 11 June 2012 from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-25/news/ct-oped-0125-torture-20120125_1_torture-chicago-police-cmdr-solitary-confinement .
Honan, Edith. (2012 June 7). Occupy Wall Street lawsuit over NY arrests can go forward. Reuters. Retrieved 11 June 2012 from http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/07/us-usa-newyork-occupy-idUSBRE8561H120120607 .
Kies, Marianne F. (2011-2012). Policing the police: Freedom of the Press and the Right to Privacy, and civilian recordings of police activity. George Washington Law Review, 80, 274-310.
misconduct of police officers and abuse by law enforcement in the United States. In the past few years, there has been an increase in instances of police misconduct and behavior and lack of reprimanding of such law enforcement officers. These are one of the most stringent and acrimonious human rights desecrations in the nation. Police have taken part in baseless and unwarranted shootings, austere beatings, lethal chokings, and rough treatment without cause. Whereas the percentage of continually abusive and delinquent officers on any force is usually minimal, more often than not, responsible authorities fail to undertake decisive action to contain or reprimand such acts (Human ights Watch, 2016). Police misconduct takes into account unlawful or unethical actions or the violations of people's statutory rights by police officers in the conduct of their day-to-day duties. Instances of police misconduct comprise of police inhumaneness, duplicity, fraud, intimidation, torture to force admissions,…...
mlaReferences
Burr, V. (2015). Social constructionism. New York: Routledge.
California Innocence Project. (2016). Police Misconduct. Retrieved from: https://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-face/police-misconduct/
CBS News. (2016). Police officer charged with fabricating story that black man shot her. MSN. Retrieved from: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/police-officer-charged-with-fabricating-story-that-black-man-shot-her/ar-BBwyRoK?OCID=ansmsnnews11
Clinard, M. B., & Meier, R. F. (2015). Sociology of deviant behavior. Nelson Education.
Police eform in Post-Authoritarian Brazil
A majority of new democracies entail an unbelievable illogicality of an immensely feeble citizenship coalesced with a stern description of the constitutional guarantees. In order to explicate this disparity it would be prudent to contemplate the significance of political institutions regarding representation of citizen, which were prevalent subsequent to the military establishments attributed as troublesome and a majority of the new restrictions. A few defined in the autocratic establishment, were implemented by quite a few new establishments prominently by the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 (Pinheiro, 1996).
The prominence out of such institutions of Brazil were the excessive illustration of lesser populated regions on the contrary to the regions with greater population: Sao Paulo in recent times incorporates 60 Congressmen (which is analogous to 11.9% of the entire constituents of a Congress) depicting a voting strength of 20,774,991. This strength makes up 21.9% of the entire voting population…...
mlaReferences
Amnesty International (2002). 'Subhuman': Torture, overcrowding and brutalization in Minas Gerais police stations. London, Amnesty International.
Bailey, Willian C. 1984. "Poverty, Inequality and City Homicides Rates." Criminology. Vol. 22. no0 4. November.
Beato F., C.C. Accion y Estrategia de las Organizaciones Policiales In: Policia, Sociedad y Estado: Modernizacion y Reforma Policial en America del Sul.1 ed.Santiago: Centro de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2001a, p. 39-56.
Beato F., Claudio Chaves, Renato Martins Assuncao, Braulio Figueiredo Alves da Silva, Frederico Couto Marinho, Ilka Afonso Reis, Maria Cristina de Mattos Almeida. 2001. "Conglomerados de homicidios e o trafico de drogas em Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil, de 1995 a 1999." Cadernos de Saude Publica. Rio de Janeiro: v.17, n.5, p.1163-1171, 2001b.
Course Number
Police Corruption
A Problem with the law
Name
[Date]
Summary
This paper will focus specifically on police corruption and the ways in which to lessen and decrease instances of police corruption. The first section includes an introduction explaining the effects of police corruption from rapes to murder and how it impacts society. It also expresses the need to act, as the United States becomes more like the exceedingly corrupt African countries of Nigeria and South Africa. Comparison of other countries reveals a lack of authority and government as well as public safety concerns.
The other section explains and identifies the different forms of corruption that happen with police officers including: opportunistic theft, tampering of evidence, and accepting of bribes. When police officers commit these crimes, they are often not prosecuted. This is due to the lack of evidence of witnesses against them. Most police officers are trained to avoid getting caught and know how to…...
mlaReferences
Aremu, A. O., Pakes, F., & Johnston, L. (2011). The moderating effect of emotional intelligence on the reduction of corruption in the Nigerian Police. Police Practice and Research, 12(3), 195-208. Retrieved July 30, 2014, from Beggs, J., & Davies, H. (2009). Police misconduct, complaints, and public regulation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.California Innocence Project. (n.d.). Police Corruption Cases \ Police Misconduct Statistics \ CIP. Retrieved August 1, 2014, from http://californiainnocenceproject.org/issues-we-face/police-misconduct Einstein, S., & Amir, M. (2003). Police corruption: paradigms, models, and concepts: challenges for developing countries. Huntsville, TX: Office of International Criminal Justice.Gottschalk, P. (2012). White-Collar Crime and Police Crime: Rotten Apples or Rotten Barrels? Critical Criminology, 20(2), 169-182. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10612-011-9133-0 Lee, H., Lim, H., Moore, D. D., & Kim, J. (2013). How police organizational structure correlates with frontline officer's attitudes toward corruption: a multilevel model. Police Practice and Research, 14(5), 386. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15614263.2011.635483#.U9sEofldWa8 Punch, M., & Gilmour, S. (2010). Police corruption: apples, barrels and orchards. Criminal Justice Matters, 79(1), 10-12. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09627250903569890#.U9sFwldWa8 Roleff, T. L. (2003). Police corruption. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15614263.2010.536724#.U9sFVvldWa8
In places such as Richmond, that have an already checkered past in their relationship with the public, the public perception is further damaged by the rise in crime. This is true of the police department in the rest of the country as well. The rise in crime affects the perception of the public with regard to the police department, and not the government. In actions such as racism and extralegal searches the police department and not President Bush is implicated. Many of the harmful effects of current police actions and policies are the result of government policies. The police has thus become somewhat of a scapegoat as a result of the latest government policies.
The profile of violent crimes has also changed dramatically and dangerously. Fewer police officers mean more violent criminals, which raises the crime rate.
Government policy, rising crime rates, and police actions have therefore combined into a cycle…...
mlaSources
Barbash, Fred (2005, June 28). Court Backs Town In Lawsuit Over Domestic Violence. In Washington Post online (Washingtonpost.com).
Lucas, Scott (2001, April 23). Good cop, bad cop - police violence against African-Americans - police in movies and TV - Timothy Thomas. In New Statesman.
Maclin, Tracey. (1998, Summer). Terry v Ohio's fourth amendment legacy: Black men and police discretion. In St. John's Law Review.
Seron, Carroll (2004, Dec). Judging Police Misconduct: "Street-Level" versus Professional Policing. Law & Society Review, Blackwell Publishers.
body worn cameras for the police, and the policy for using them.
The Policy
Most police executives claim that their biggest problem is not about the choice of the technology to adopt; it is finding the appropriate combination technologies to use in a particular jurisdiction depending on such factors as its funding levels and crime problems. Deciding on the suitable combination, however, requires one to understand fully how each technology works. Leaders in police departments who have adopted body-worn cameras claim that the cameras are quite beneficial. According to them, the cameras are important in documenting evidence, training officers, resolving and preventing the public's complaints, enhancing police transparency, accountability and performance (Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program ecommendations and Lessons Learned). Furthermore, since the police can now use the cameras on their cell phones to take video recordings of their encounters, the body-worn cameras ensure that the police departments capture the events…...
mlaReferences
Colorado Public Radio - In-Depth News and Streaming Music. (n.d.). Police Body Camera Recommendations Head to Lawmakers - CPR. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.cpr.org/news/newsbeat/police-body-camera-recommendations-head-lawmakers
COPS Office: Grants and Resources for Community Policing. (n.d.). Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program Recommendations and Lessons Learned. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p296-pub.pdf
Draft Recommendation: A Body Worn Cameras. (n.d.). Draft Recommendation: A Body Worn Cameras. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://sonomacounty.ca.gov/Community-and-Local-Law-Enforcement-Task-Force/Community-Policing-Subcommittee/Draft-Recommendations/Body-Worn-Cameras/
PoliceMisconduct.net - (n.d.). The Cato Institute's National Police Misconduct Reporting Project. Police Body Cameras - Policemisconduct.net. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.policemisconduct.net/explainers/police-body-cameras/
Police: History, Structure, and Functions
The policing system's development in Britain was closely followed by a similar development in America. Policing by the initial colonizers assumed two forms: "The Big Stick" (for-profit, private agency policing) and the "Watch" (communal as well as informal) (Spitzer, 1979). Community volunteers primarily charged with warning citizens of imminent danger made up the latter system. The night watch was first implemented in the year 1636 in Boston. New York and Philadelphia implemented night watch system in the years 1658 and 1700, respectively. This system did not prove particularly successful in controlling crime. Supplementing the "watch" mode of policing was a group of official law enforcers, labeled "constables," who were often salaried by a fee system, based on number of warrants served by them. Policing's informal procedure continued for several years following the 1765-83 American evolution. Only in the 1830s did the U.S. first introduce a municipal,…...
mlaReferences
Davis, Rowenna. (2009). Policing the police, The Guardian. Retrieved from on October 5, 2016.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/feb/28/convention-modern-liberty-police
Lewis, M.A. (2011). "Perspective: Peel's Legacy," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. The FBI. Retrieved from on October 5, 2016.https://leb.fbi.gov/2011/december/perspective-peels-legacy
Lundman, Robert J. (1980). Police and Policing: An Introduction, New York, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Spitzer, Stephen, (1979). The Rationalization of Crime Control in Capitalist Society, Contemporary Crises 3, no. 1.
Police: Building Trust Between Police and Communities
Building Trust between Police and Communities: Police
Police Trust, Integrity and Ethics in Bridging the Gap in Community elations
The death of Eric Garner in the hands of New York police, and the shootings of 12-year-old ice Tamir and Michael Brown in Ohio and Missouri respectively, have and continue to brew a wave of public mistrust in the police service. Such incidences often spur massive public protests that eventually destroy relations between police and the communities they serve. A study conducted by euters on 3,600 citizens between December 2014 and January 2015 found that a significant 27.6% of adult Americans do not trust the police to be fair and just (euters, 2015). In December, 2015, President Barrack Obama signed an executive order creating the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, whose primary aim is to build confidence and trust in the local police. This text explores…...
mlaReferences
IACP. (2010). Building Trust between the Police and the Citizens they Serve. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (ICAP). Retrieved from http://www.theiacp.org/portals/0/pdfs/BuildingTrust.pdf
Miller, L. & Hess, K. (2007). Community Policing: Partnerships for Problem-Solving (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
Raines, J. (2011). Ethics in Policing: Misconduct and Integrity. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Reuters. (2015). Do Americans Trust their Cops to be Fair and Just? New Poll Contains Surprises. Reuters.com. Retrieved from http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/01/15/one-third-of-americans-believe-police-lie-routinely/
Police Interviews
The author of this report has been asked to conduct two interviews of police officers with six basic questions being the crux of both interviews. To protect the anonymity of the officers as well as a way to get the most honest and complete answers, the identity of the officers as well as the departments they have or do work for will not be identified in any way, shape or form. The answers garnered were insightful, honest and illuminating. The perspective they offer is perhaps not nearly as known as it should be given the reporting going on as it relates to the incidents in Ferguson and other places where cops have been shot or allegedly unarmed and/or innocent people on the street have endured the same. While there are two sides to each story, both the police and the people have the right to have their voice heard…...
mlaReferences
Cooper, H. (2009, July 22). Obama Criticizes Arrest Of a Harvard Professor. The New
York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/us/politics/23gates.html?_r=0
Reyes, D. (1994, November 2). Only One Drunk Driver in 500 Is Caught: Enforcement:
Even with tough Highway Patrol policy, probability of arrest in California is small.
The charges were quietly dropped against the suspect and an Internal Affairs investigation cleared them of all wrong doing. (Terruso, 2011)
Explain the outcomes of the cases. Did you agree with the outcomes? Why or why not?
The situation involving the New York City police officers is still in the court system. So far I agree with the outcome. This is because they were deliberately breaking the law by selling automatic weapons to criminal elements. Moreover, they were also working with organized crime to sell cigarettes that were stolen from the police evidence room. This can erode the confidence of the general public in the department's ability to objectively enforce the law. When this happens, it will affect investigations and their outcomes. As a result, they had to be stopped before the situation became worse. (ashbaum, 2011)
While the case in Elizabeth, resulted in the suspect suing the department for violating his…...
mlaReferences
2010 NPMSRP. (2010), Police Misconduct. Retrieved from: http://www.policemisconduct.net/2010-q2-npmsrp-national-police-misconduct-statistical-report/
Johnson, K. (2007). Police Brutality Cases on the Rise. USA Today. Retrieved from: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-17-Copmisconduct_N.htm
Rashbaum, W. (2011). 8 Officers Charged with Gun Trafficking. City Room. Retrieved from: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/officers-accused-of-smuggling-guns-in-federal-corruption-case/
Terruso, J. (2011). Elizabeth Police Brutality. Star Ledger. Retrieved from: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/elizabeth_police_brutality_cas.html
To the extent that crime is a function of larger social issues, it is unrealistic to expect those underlying social problems to be rectified by law enforcement efforts. Even with respect to specific incidence of criminal behavior, law enforcement authorities must address two competing interests that fall within the purview and responsibility of law enforcement.
Specifically, poverty, unwanted pregnancy, lack of educational and vocational opportunities, and perceived social "disenfranchisement" within communities contribute heavily to crime in those areas but none of those social factors are capable of being redressed directly by law enforcement authorities. Likewise, even within the realm of law enforcement responsibilities, emphasis on quality-of-life-oriented policing and crime prevention-oriented policing conflict with the goal of preventing crime in light of empirical evidence and anecdotal experience demonstrating that efforts directed at the former do not necessarily achieve the goals of the latter appreciably.
In that regard, directed police patrols and crackdowns…...
The decree also requires a negotiation with the police union and representation by attorney. (Simmons, 2008) Thus there are problems and countermeasures that could effectively bring down the power of investigating complaints.
(d) Critique the effectiveness of citizen oversight as a police management tool, and early warning device:
The tracking system essentially consists of identifying personnel who are exhibiting chronic misconduct patterns. This system could check the unconstitutional violations both with the citizens and within the department as a whole. The intervention systems are good in managing the police and are based on the principle of preventing misconduct by monitoring the police. It was as stated by the Christopher Commission's analysis of one thousand eight hundred Los Angeles police officers showed that the top five percent of the officers were involved in 20% of complaints and the top 10% accounted for 33%. (Simmons, 2008)
Following that the early warning system is installed…...
mlaReferences
Alexander, Arthur. (2005) "Panel Polishes Police Oversight System"
The Register-Guard, p. d1.
Fielding, Nigel. (1995) "Community Policing."
Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Essay Topics on Police Brutality
1. The Historical Roots of Police Brutality in the United States
Explore the historical origins of police brutality in the U.S., tracing its roots from slavery, Jim Crow, and racial discrimination to the present day.
Discuss the systemic factors that have contributed to the perpetuation of police brutality, such as institutional racism and excessive use of force.
2. The Impact of Police Brutality on Communities of Color
Analyze the disproportionate impact of police brutality on communities of color.
Examine the consequences of police brutality, including physical injuries, psychological trauma, and mistrust between law enforcement and the communities....
Sensationalized Titles and Public Perception of Police Brutality Incidents
Sensationalized titles in media coverage of police brutality incidents exert a significant impact on public perception and understanding of these complex events. While attention-grabbing headlines may initially attract readers, they often distort or exacerbate underlying issues, leading to biased and potentially harmful narratives.
1. Emotional Manipulation and Polarization:
Sensationalized titles evoke strong emotions and foster a sense of urgency, often polarizing the public along preconceived lines. By focusing on inflammatory language and loaded terms, such as "excessive force" or "brutal attack," headlines can trigger immediate outrage or sympathy, without providing necessary context or nuance.....
Recent Supreme Court Decisions and Their Impact on the Criminal Justice System
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) plays a pivotal role in shaping the criminal justice system through its decisions on constitutional rights, prosecutorial practices, and sentencing guidelines. Recent years have witnessed several significant SCOTUS rulings that have had a profound impact on the system, shaping the way criminal cases are investigated, tried, and adjudicated.
Miranda Rights and Police Interrogations
Miranda v. Arizona (1966): Established the "Miranda rule," requiring law enforcement officers to inform suspects of their rights to remain silent, have an attorney present, and stop being questioned....
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