Nowadays, hardly anyone has any illusions concerning police and how police officers perform their duties. Certainly, police do provide the citizens with decent protection, offering enough security, investigating crimes, and even preventing ones. But saying that police is one hundred percent flawless and has no corruption among the officers would definitely be a lie. Despite the fact that legally, police are supposed to make sure that the law is being complied with, often, police appear on the other side of the barricade.
According to the recent records, police brutality and misconduct still exist, and its “legacy” seems to have been going on for years. A case study simply known as SOS takes the readers eight years back to 2005 and tells a story of police officers involved in “aggravated kidnapping, theft, burglary, home invasion, armed violence, and false arrest” (Hagedorn et al., 2013).
Another case study deals with a similar issue, yet approaches the problem from a slightly different angle. The case study notoriously known as Guerrero and Martinez reports about a group of policemen who were helping a gang steal from the residents of the city. As the report says, policemen were simply “using their authority to pull people over or enter houses” (Hagedorn et al., 2013). According to the case records, the two officers were accused of multiple thefts, multiple previous concerts with a group of persons, and covering up the latter. The given case study shows that the availability of “big money” often leads to officers breaking the law. As it is mentioned in the case, the corrupted policemen got what was coming to them: “Martinez pleaded guilty in December 2011 to charges of conspiracy and racketeering, and Guerrero pleaded guilty to similar charges in July 2012” (Hagedorn et al., 2013).
The given cases show that, sadly enough, power abuse among the members of the police department is still an issue, and it is probably going to be as long as the means to coordinate the actions of policemen are going to be provided. Alternatively, the means to enhance moral values among policemen should be provided. Despite the attempts to eliminate the possibility of police corruption, there will always be loopholes that will help avoid the rules.
It could also be argued that restricting policemen’s ability to use weapons or mere physical force can backfire greatly. For instance, during arrest, a criminal can possibly maintain armed resistance, which leaves no other choice than to use brutal force in response. However, in the cases described above, police officers were clearly abusing their power, which means that police corruption and misconduct have to be stopped.
Therefore, it cannot be denied that corruption rates remain just as high among the present-day police as they used to be several years ago. Although the situation does not seem as deplorable as it might have, the harm is still obvious, and the situation needs to be addressed. At present, it is clear that some regulatory measures must be undertaken by the government authorities in order to stop the arbitrary rule of police and make sure that even in the most tempting situations, police officers should follow the letter of the law. However, without the initiative from people, both the victims of the police injustice and all those concerned, corruption among police officers are unlikely to be tackled any time soon.
Reference List
Hagedorn, J. et al. (2013). Crime, corruption and cover-ups in the Chicago Police Department. Web.