Police Mentality Research

An article in the Washington Post revealed that across the nation 963 people were shot and killed by police in 2016. This puts police in a losing situation. Not only have they lost the trust of many, but they are now portrayed as the enemy. A police officer’s duty is to protect the people and enforce the law. After the shootings, people don’t see them as protecting anyone, but instead harming the population. More than often now the perception is that they are the bad guys who take advantage of their power.

Courtney Brown PSYCH 2302 8 December 2014 Chapter 14: Psychology of Law Enforcement There is no doubt that being a police officer is a stressful job. Every single day, a police officer not only has to protect himself, but the community around him. He, or she, vowed to protect that area, and the town’s safety lies on their shoulders. I don’t know about anyone else, but that seems like a heavy burden to carry.

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.

A police force is a constituted body of persons empowered by the state to enforce the law, protect property, and to limit civil disorder. Their powers include the legitimized use of force. The term is most commonly associated with police services of a state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of the responsibility. The police forces are often defined as being separate from military or other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors. Law enforcement, however constitutes only part of policing activity (Carter & Radelet, 1999).

A considerable number of research has been conducted over the past 40 years to understand police culture. A variety of terms have been used in reference to it including: ‘cop culture’ (Reiner, 2010:118), the ‘working personality’ of the police (Skolnick, 1966, 2010:15), the ‘police mind’ (Fielding & Fielding, 1991) and, ‘police sub-culture’ (Waddington, 1999). Research has shown that police culture influences officer’s attitudes, behaviors’ and work ethics (Scaramella et al., 2011); and the way officers perceive society and their role within it (Reiner, 2000). Schein (2004: 17) defines police culture as ‘A pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and,

In community oriented policing, it is essential for officers to have a good rapport built with the citizens in the community. In order of the officers to be able to do their job affectively, it is essential that the officers have the trust and respect of the community. In Leadership, Ethics and Policing (2nd ed.), Ortmeier and Meese state that police organizations utilizing the community oriented policing procedures are more likely to commit serious ethical violations due to the increased amount of discretion, as well as the use of creative policing techniques. They go on to further state that this discretion can lead to discrimination during enforcement of the laws. Additionally, the more vocal personnel in the group may consider themselves the spokesperson for a certain community, and officers must identify those personnel and determine if their interests are what are best for the community. Given the trust placed in an officer’s hands, unethical and sometimes criminal behavior results as a conscious act on behalf of the officer. Peer pressure, social factors, psychological factors are the fundamental basis of the misconduct of officers, not to mention the unwillingness to violate the code of silence between fellow officers

As described by the textbook in relation to the police subculture, the components of the police subculture include Control, Territoriality, Use of Force, Danger, Unpredictability, Suspicion, and Solidarity (Schmalleger & Worrall, 2009). While knowing that each piece is essential to the make up of the police subculture, to me the most important component would have to be the suspicion part of the subculture. Since it’s the polices priority to protect the area they are responsible for, officers develop a keen sense, which is developed through training and experience, allows them to gain a “six sense” about their area’s an instinctively know that there is something amiss (Schmalleger & Worrall, 2009). While developing suspicion, police officers

In policing, officers are given the role to serve and protect citizens, and carry out justice. In addition, are expected by society to protect lives and property. When a police officer fails to comply with these general principles, he or she is considered deviant. Corruption and misconduct have been present in society since the beginning of policing. An infamous case in American policing history is the Michael Dowd case, where a former NYPD officer was convicted for engaging in numerous criminal activities. When analyzing the film The Seven Five, several aspects in the case can be applied to concepts found in the Introduction to Policing book, including, police culture, personality, minorities in policing, ethics, and patrol operations.

In my opinion, I think police officers are people the society should normally look up to an illustration of discipline and protectors of law and order. As citizens, we see police officers help in dangerous situations, enforce the law, and help protect our rights. Some people see police officers as an extension of the government. As a result of that, people take their actions more highly by the public. An example made by Study.com was “Not everyone cares how a librarian treats customers, but everyone does care about how police officers treat members of the public. This kind of scrutiny often leads to a lot of criticism, and criticism from the public feeds into the idea of the 'us vs. them' mentality of a police subculture.”

Although majority in our Society seem to dislike police officers because they term them as “Bullies” who enjoy handing out summons,stop and frisk people and making arrests because they have the right to do so, Police officer however make some of this decisions because they believe they are keeping the society safe.

Police subculture – The effect on community policing – William Courtice Relationships between employer and employee can arguably have significant impact on the outcome of corporate goals and initiatives (Rousseau, Ho & Greenberg, 2006). The dynamics of the relationship between police services and police officers are similar to civilian corporations; therefore the outcome of police initiatives are impacted both positively and negatively by that relationship. For the past 30 years, a shift from traditional styles of policing to a community-oriented style of policing has been occurring (Liederbach, Fritsch, Carter & Bannister, 2008, p.272); however, according to Chappell (2007) an underlying resistance to change has existed through a subculture

A majority of the population have erroneous beliefs concerning law enforcement agencies. Many believe police should not have the authority to use force, no matter what the situation. Often people believe everything can be resolved in peaceful terms with no one injured or killed. Likewise, people do not understand the need to use force and the responsibility of use of force by the police. Sometimes problems cannot be solved in a

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.

The duty of a police officer is to serve as protectors, save lives, put away criminals, and help maintain order in society. The ideal policeman is always supposed to be good, follow through with their duties to society, there is always a bad cop. The “bad cops” make up only a small part of the police force and is hardly noticed by the superiors and other in the criminal justice system but by society or people who come into altercations with them ,43% of police officers agree with this sentiment: “Always following the rules is not compatible with the need to get their job done.” (US Department of Justice). Being a police officer is a dangerous job, and at times they are bound to be put into situations when some force or excessive force is

The attitudes toward police have drastically changed within the last 100 years. People used to see police officers as highly respectable and very influential people. When a police officer was around people felt as if they were safe. Unfortunately now day’s people have the wrong idea of police officer. When people see an officer their first instinct is that they are trying to catch them doing something wrong or that they are just out looking to arrest someone. That is a very false misconception and gives police a bad name. People see the 1% of officers who are bad to represent the other 99% this makes it hard for officers to do their jobs when they are really there to help protect the people. Attitudes have gone from