External Mechanisms Of Accountaability

Within the Serpico movie there was many examples of the lack of police accountability compared to police being held accountable. In that era of policing corruption was at an all-time high. When Serpico tried to do the right thing and make police accountable for their actions he was almost killed. In today’s society things have changed. Police are being held more accountable especially due to the fact with all the technology that is now being

• Accountability: where every police officer is held responsible for his or her actions, omissions and decisions. Signifying that while on duty, the decisions he or she makes should be informed and within the provisions of the law. The actions taken to control a situation should be done so with respect to the constitutional rights of the public (Baker, 2011).

Even though more attention is being directed to citizen oversight boards and what they have the capacity to do, little attention is being devoted to how the police officer him/herself feel about them. There is no accurate number as to how many police oversight agencies there are in the United States. Although, by 2001 almost 80 percent of large departments had some form of citizen oversight boards (De Angelis, 2007). This number shows that many agencies are moving to find a way to hold police officers accountable for their actions. Since most

Keeping track- to me this is something that is just common knowledge. Paying attention to your surroundings, asking questions or providing information, just being involved will and can improve the accountability.

1. A single catastrophic event, often followed by civil liability litigation, leads to the chief of police being replaced (Swanson, 2012, pg. 650). This forces changes because it addresses a single incident and forces change. A good example of this would be the failure to adequately respond to an incident. This can be seen when an incident unarmed person is killed by the police. This can be a result of inadequate training or a trigger happy force. None the less the reason, the

In a democratic country law enforcement officers are expected to undertake their duties with dignity and respect thus following both the rule of law and its procedure. Law enforcement officials whose duty is to enforce the law should abide by the law and should be accountable for both their decisions and consequences of it. But the main issue is – quis custodiet ipsos custodes – who controls the controllers? This critical issue is of importance because the history of policing is littered with scandals in which police officers broke the law and also in which the police organisation failed to detect the deviance (or colluded in it; or tried to deflect investigations by defensive opposition). I will be examining in this article police corruption and its prevention and I shall focus on three main aspects: definitions of corruption; the forms it takes in different societies; ways of preventing

While the Reform Era worked to professionalize police, as society became more complex, so did the role of the police officer. The Community Policing Era was developed as a result of the need to develop cooperation and positive relationships between the police and public. What developed out of this era was an essential element of community policing – public accountability. Police officers became accountable to their supervisors who in turn became accountable to the community. Accountability can be seen as an honest evaluation of achievement based on clearly defined objectives. Many of these objectives are defined by complex community and social problems; as such police officers require the capacity and flexibility to work on them in a variety of styles and employing a variety of strategies.

Police misconduct and the ‘code of silence’ is a global phenomenon that has been present since the formation of formal police agencies. Police leadership can shape the influence and direction of their departments through recruitment, training, field training officers (mentors), policy, and discipline. Frontline supervisors act as the bridge between the administration and the frontline officers. Supervisors exert some informal influence over officers, but must also serve their superiors and the agency mission. There is no clear cut method to curbing the ‘code of silence’ and agency transparency is needed to appease the public such agencies serve. This is a two way street, the public must respect the authority of said officers and submit to lawful and reasonable request. Police administrators must maintain open lines of communication and trust with their subordinates if the ‘code of silence’ is to ever be weakened.

A system called “CompStat” was used to track crime reports and other data in an effort to track areas with high crime rates and gang hot spots. Karoliszyn reports that “after patrolling these hot spots for a year, murders had dropped by 60 percent. By 2003, murders were the lowest they had been since 1964” (338). With these statistics, Karoliszyn proves the effectiveness of the system when actually used in the workforce. There is a flaw in his claim. The author only proved the system’s effectiveness in one city, and in one year. As with a great majority of statistics, these numbers could vary either towards or against the system’s value if done in different cities and in different amounts of time. With more data spread across the spectrum, a bigger picture could be seen regarding the reliability of a precognitive policing system.

Numerous police agency’s and police officials work on a distinctive local, state, and federal level and role. It has its individual area, sectors, and function, and work according to local streets parts inside policing. In order for any local, state, and federal police division to work successfully it must hire chiefs, deputy’s, and sheriffs who retain leadership and who uses creative thinking skills to teach comprehensive, and aggressive instruction to make the police division a tougher department by holding all its workers tasks for doing his or her job according to its agency’s guidelines and procedures known as code of conduct. “Municipal police work for municipalities such as towns or cities, county police and deputy sheriffs work for counties, state police work for states, and federal police work for the federal government. Some have the same duties as one another or very similar duties, and some have different or additional duties. Their jurisdiction is sometimes the main difference. For example, a municipal police officer normally has primary

Police accountability is relevant to the Los Angeles county because there have been many incidents that have resulted in use-of-force both unnecessary and excessive police-civilian shootings. To increase police accountability, I propose that this

The book that I will be analyzing is titled “The New World of Police Accountability”. This work was written by Samuel Walker, an author of 14 books and the Isaacson Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The research that he has conducted includes “police accountability, including oversight of the police, early intervention systems for police officers, and the mediation of citizen complaints against police officers” (Walker 243). This book was published by Sage Publications Inc., on January 4, 2005. The authors perspective while writing this book was to take the research he had developed over a number of years and argue how police accountability has changed. The mains points of this writing involved examining

Crime measurement and statistics for police departments are very important when it comes to money allotment, staffing needs or termination and it is also used to determine the effectiveness of new laws and programs. There are three tools used to measure major crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reports, National Crime Victimization Survey and the National Incident Based Reporting System- which is currently being tested to replace the Uniform Crime Reports. Although there different tools used to measure crime, crime rates can be deceiving. Each different tool reports a different type of rate, crime rates, arrest

Policing requires members to balance both between the wishes of the public and of politicians regarding how they are to enforce and appropriately uphold the law in their respective areas (Phillips, 1984). The most important element of accountability can be seen of the knowledge that the police as an institution and as individuals must not be subject to undue influence by any individual, be it as within the general public or as a part of the law enforcement community. Where law enforcement acts objectively and neutrally in the upholding of the law, the general public becomes aware of the knowledge that as long as the law is obeyed and remains unviolated, there is no reason to fear the legal and penal justice system. On the other hand, if law enforcement is seen to be influenced by external bribery or internal governmental pressure, the wider public becomes aware that the only true law is that of the economic or political influence being brought to bear on law enforcement members, therefore invalidating the notion of due process, and making a mockery of the entire system of justice in

Supervisors shoud offer effective and productive supervision to ensure that the Standards are being met to promote effective performance and underpinning skills learnt by the knowledge that promotes good practice and service