Introduction
Police officers are the individuals charged with the task of maintaining law and order and ensuring the security of the population.
To fulfill these roles, police officers are empowered to investigate suspicious activities and even use force to coerce suspects into compliance or deter aggressive parties from harming citizens.
As a rule, the society expects police officers to conduct themselves in a manner that is above reproach. However, this is not always the case and there have been cases of law enforcement officers engaging in police misconduct which includes any inappropriate behavior by a police that can be classified as either immoral or illegal or both.
Use of excessive force and racial/ethnic profiling are arguably the most problematic misconducts facing the police. Some researchers therefore suggest that more steps should be taken to control offenses such as use of excessive force and racial/ethnic profiling by the police.
They further on propose the use of stronger disciplinary measures to help deter officers from misconduct and also help weed out the offending officers from the forces.
Opponent’s Position
Jost (2012) argues that the racial profiling exhibited by law enforcement officers is a “police issue, not a race issue”. He notes that even in departments where majority of the police officers are White non-Hispanics, blacks and Hispanics are still overrepresented in arbitrary traffic stops.
The racial profiling is therefore the result of the training, culture and customs within the department that ingrains a profiling culture in the officers.
Jost (2012) also suggests that race and class are tied up with crime which results in racial and ethnic considerations being made when fighting crime.
Because of this, police officers are trained to target groups which may be more predisposed to breaking the law. To solve this problem, police officials need to come up with policies that ensure that profiling based on race or ethnicity does not happen.
Jost (2012) declares that police should do more to address the issue of misconduct and in particular to control the use of excessive force.
The author notes that it is only a small number of police officers who engage in the use of excessive force and this abuse of power tarnishes that reputation of entire police departments.
The author notes that the legal standards are loose and the city governments are not doing enough to address the situation.
For this reason, the Federal government should step in and take measures by giving guidance on use of force by police. (Jost 2012) recommends that proper training and better supervision could help in reducing excessive force by police.
Jost (2012) reveals that while the rates of police violence today are less frequent than in the 1960s, the use of excessive force is still present today.
He suggests that law enforcement agencies should adopt stronger disciplinary measures to deal with officers who are guilty of misconduct. The presently employed disciplinary measures are lenient with police officers who engage in offenses being allowed to remain on the force.
In cases where police officers are removed from the force, they are still able to find work within the law enforcement agency.
It is proposed that a system of “decertifying” where an officer found with misconduct is prevented from every taking part in police work should be adopted by police departments all over the country.
My Position
The use of force is sometimes unavoidable as police officers carry out their work. Kaariainen et al. (2008) state that police officers are constantly in interaction with hostile people who may present them with physical danger.
The problem of excessive force comes about since police may not know what level of force to resort to as a situation degenerates rapidly.
Additional training is required to police officers to be informed on the best way to resolve confrontations. Kinnaird (2007) states that an emphasis on non-physical means of eliciting the compliance of the offender would be best suited for to reduce levels of excessive force.
Many policies used in law enforcement agencies are made at the top level of the organization without consulting with the police officers who are supposed to implement.
This results in a tendency by police officers to disregard some of the policies since they are imposed on them without their input. This lack of support for the policies can be reduced by consulting with police officers at all levels at the formulation stage of the policies.
Kinnaird (2007) notes that including the opinion of police officers leads to increased support for guidelines and translates to lower levels of misconduct by police officers
Imposition of stronger disciplinary measures for misconduct might results in fewer reports of misconduct especially by fellow police officers.
Kaariainen et al. (2008) documents that police officers have strong bonds of loyalty towards colleagues as a result of isolation from the surrounding community. Police officers turn to each other for moral and emotional support and they place great loyalty on one another.
The “code of silence” which is an understanding among officers that they should not uncover any misconduct among each other therefore prevails in many departments.
Stronger disciplinary measures will only resort in less reports of misconduct since police officers will not want to jeopardize the careers of the colleagues.
Some police officers are more likely to engage in misconduct than others. With this consideration, better screening mechanisms should be employed when recruiting police officers.
Doing this will ensure that individuals who are predisposed to engaging in misconduct are prevented from joining the police department.
Kinnaird (2007) observes that there are a number of psychological tests which can be employed to identify depressive and sadistic applicants and prevent them from becoming police officers and therefore reduce future police misconduct cases.
The education level of police officers should also be considered when recruiting. A study by Manis, Carol & Kimberly (2008) showed that police officers with a college education were less likely to be reported for misconduct compared with police officers with a high school education.
Police officers with above high school education qualifications should therefore be employed.
Merging the Two Opinions
Racial and Ethnic profiling by police officers is prevalent and as Jost (2012) suggests, this is as a result of customers within police departments. Considering this, the issue would be best addressed by having police officers follower clearly outlined procedures when engaging in police work.
Police officers would be required to justify their actions and an emphasize place on following department policy. In such a scenario, police officers would be less likely to engage in misconduct since it would be easy to flag down those who deviated from procedure and engaged in misconduct.
Jost (2012) agrees that police officers operate with limited guidance and they have a lot of discretional powers especially when handling tense situations.
Coming up with clear guidelines of operation will reduce this discretional powers and result in less misbehavior. However, the police officers need to be involved in the formulation of the guidelines and their input and opinion should be considered.
Some incidents of misconduct are caused by ignorance on polices on the part of the police officer. Manis et al. (2008) report that some officers violate their departmental policies since they are unaware of the right courses of action. Police officers should therefore be kept aware of departmental policies.
As it has been noted, there are some stereotypical views held by police officers. Jost (2012) blames these biases for the high cases of ethnic and racial profiling experienced by some police departments.
These biases should be acknowledged and proactive steps taken to deal with them.
Screening mechanisms employed during recruitment can be used to single out people with extreme biases and stop them from joining the police department.
Conclusion
Our police force is troubled by cases of misconduct which decreases the effectiveness of law enforcement officers. Dealing with excessive force and preventing racial and ethnic profiling should therefore be a priority for our police departments.
This paper has argued that additional training, involvement of police officers in policy formulation and better screening mechanisms when recruiting police officers should be used to help decrease the levels of police misconduct.
It showed that while enacting new policies might be a good step, gaining the support of police officers by including their input in the policies will make them more effective.
References
Jost, K. (2012). Police misconduct. CQ Researcher, 22, 301-324. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
Kaariainen, J., Tomi, L., Ahti, L., & Joycelyn, P. (2008). The ‘Code of Silence’: Are Self-Report Surveys a Viable Means for Studying Police Misconducts? Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 9(1), 86–96.
Kinnaird, B.A. (2007). Exploring liability profiles: a proximate cause analysis of police misconduct: part II. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 9(3), 201–213.
Manis, J., Carol, A.A., & Kimberly, D.H. (2008). Exploring the impact of police officer education level on allegations of police misconduct. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 10 (4), 509–523.