Do People Make Cops Overestimate Their Power?

Policemen not only have to follow a set of rules and legislation, but they also must behave in a decent manner while on duty as well as off duty. Unfortunately, nobody is perfect, and police officers also make wrong decisions that could jeopardize the integrity of their police department. Often people do something that they know is wrong. However, they still do it because they feel no harm will come to them or they think nobody would ever find out. For instance, cheating on a test is wrong, but people do it because they think they can get away without the professor finding out.

The topic of police in general, and the brutal beatings, shootings, and arrests that have occurred over the past couple of years in the United States has hit the media full force, leaving many wondering what actions should be taken to keep the peace. Many question the system as a whole, and the training police officers receive, as well as their mental health. Across the borders, police are trained differently and follow various policies that may seem ridiculous or foreign, however, when comparing and contrasting two police systems, the similarities may be alarming, and the differences may be great, but knowing the strengths and weakness of each different system, can help towards progressing to have a better system and better training for police officers.

Police officers are faced each day with a variety of situation in which they must deal; therefore we should ask ourselves the following questions: Should police officers enforce the law equally in all situations? In what situations should police officers be allowed to not enforce the law? What types of situations would they be required to fully enforce the law? Why does police discretion exist? What are its strengths and weaknesses? And what is the relationship between police discretion and police ethics?

Police officers are individuals who enforce the law upon their community to ensure that their citizens remain safe. In the past couple of years, officers of the law have been involved in acts of brutality that seem to go beyond the proper measurements of protection for their citizens. Policemen are supposed to protect their citizens from danger and from harm, not impose a threat on them. The fact that officers have a history of abusing their power indicates that their trust amongst the community has been corrupted. Those who have been affected of police brutality feel as though they have been deceived. They no longer feel that police officers will protect them, but rather abuse them, and that is a problem. We have began to live in a community in which an individual feels frightened when seeing a cop, rather than feeling protected. Some individuals may argue that police brutality is not a problem due to the fact that it is not consistent enough to catch the attention of needing a solution. However, that idea means little when the level of brutality has led to the death of several innocent victims in some cases. We must not wait for there to be a pattern of death at the hands of police officials to consider this a problem. One death indicates that preventive measures must be taken to ensure that these officers are no longer put in the position to abuse their power to begin with.

Lack of training and policing standards are closely linked to the myriad problems bedeviling police work, especially in small departments (Brodeur, 2010). All over the country, police departments report cases of officers being caught in uncompromising and unprofessional situations, resulting in disciplinary actions such as redeployment, suspension or sacking. These cases of unprofessionalism have led to questions being asked about policing, occasioned by recurring series of questionable and controversial encounters with police officers (Brodeur, 2010). The consequence of such encounters is increasing public distrust in law enforcement agencies.

Have you ever asked yourself what it would be like to become a police officer. Becoming a police officer isn’t an easy take because they have to risk their life everyday to protect and serve the community. They have to go through the dangers of arresting criminals when there is a chance that they could die. However, in today’s society only a small amount of the police officers actually serves their community and protect citizens from danger. Right now, most police officers abuse their power to the point where they don’t seem to care for the safety of the community. They would usually arrest innocent people, make accusations, and even use their power as a source to show their dominance. If you think about, whenever you are stuck in traffic

With the legitimate use of force and the confrontational nature of their interaction of community, the police work offers opportunity to officers to abuse their authority when their authority is perceived as being threatened. For example, police have to be suspicious even in regular duties like patrolling the district. They remain suspicious to everyone in the street. Most of the time, police officers work on their own without much monitoring, for instance, no one guide them when they patrol, when they face challenges from the public, they have to make the decision on their own of whether respond to the challenge by abusing their authority. It is the vagueness of their work train the police to be suspicious to any minor change in the surrounding environment in order to maintain the social order. The ambiguities also offer room for them to make choice as well as the possibility of corruption.

The United States of America has many horrible police officers. This has created a stereotype that all police officers are terrible. One of the main reasons police officers have been target lately is, because many innocent people are harassed by them daily. There are multiple ways to classify these police officers as horrible being, but police brutality, corruption, and how they handle violent protest are three of many classifications.

Police have many roles to take on an everyday basis. The main goal for an officer is to keep criminals off the streets and to try and maintain a safe environment for people to live. Many people disagree with some of the decisions officers make to enforce these rules and causes a lot of controversy. Today many people don't respect our police officers because of actions made by others. A major issue today is police use of force, stop and frisk.

Since a very young age we have been taught to put our trust into police officers. If we are in distress, they are always there to help since it is their job to protect and serve the common citizen. So what happens when the individuals we are supposed to trust to bring justice are the ones causing the injustice we see in the news? Recently, several police officers have been under fire for their excessive use of force. The number of casualties caused by police officers in the recent years have citizens demanding a reform in the system that officers work under.

In the United States of America, law enforcement has the ability to make their own judgement, while encountering criminals. Although discretion is at all levels of the police department, law enforcement agencies can easily make unlawful decision. Researchers determined that police officers are prohibited from using offensive language or speaking discourteously, abusing their authority, and using unnecessary force (Carroll, Kovath, & Pereira, 2004). Law enforcement officers are expected to respect their community and ensure that all citizens are kept safe. Some police activity can occur in a private view without supervision from the public, which allow police officers to make a reasonable decision. Police often make quick reaction when it comes

In recent years, society has heard cases of police brutality at an increasingly shocking rate, thus creating a sense of distrust among communities towards police officers and other authority figures. As the first line of defense against crimes such as home invasions or crimes against persons, police officers are expected to be an ally towards victims; however, it seems that society is now viewing officers as the perpetrators of crimes as opposed to the protectors. This has already posed an issue because community members are choosing not to seek police help when needed, and when they do decide to seek help, forgoing police assistance results in being uncertain of where else to go.

Police officers are often viewed as oppressors and unjust by the community, when in reality they are just doing their jobs. The job of a police officer is to apprehend criminals and detect crime, and the maintenance of public order and to the extend and complication of this duty police officers often need to make split second decision that is not often view by the public as what we call “self-defense” which is a right we all have as human beings and stated in the Universal Declaration of

Many people know of the police officers of today’s world and that it is their job to enforce the laws set by their government, but not many people know the history of your typical everyday United States police officer or how they came about. The idea for neither your everyday police officer nor his or her department they work for or how a police department operates, originated in the United States. Over the years though America has made changes and adapted its system over the years to make it more suitable for its countries beliefs and practices.

This places the police in a difficult situation, whereby they have to assess the situation and decide whether the situations warrants brutal force, but in that split second before making the decision, they could be harmed or even killed (Slansky 83). This is what makes it easy for some officers to feel justified in their abusive brutal actions. Avoiding this quagmire calls for adeptness in the roles of the police, as well as strict discipline that their training can only enhance. Without these qualities, the poor judgement of a police officer means that they compromise on the rights of civilians when they overstep the boundary in efforts to protect their own rights.