Essay On Police Corruption

The professional or reform era ascended due to the impact of the steps taken to separate police works from the influence of local politicians (Kelling & Moore, 1989). Even though time has carried us to the community era of policing, still corruption is a serious challenge for effective policing. Some police officers do not even understand what an act of corruption is, while others rationalize

Police brutality can be described as the misconduct of police officers such as police corruption, harassment and discrimination. Three potential causes of police brutality are a corrupt law enforcement system, racial profiling, and inadequate training. Police officer’s duties are to maintain peace, enforce laws, and protect the American general public. In today’s society, the media continue to emphasize the amount of force police use as essesesive

Intensive Supervision Programs are ineffective at reducing prison overcrowding, reducing correctional spending, expanding the sanctions available for law violators, enhancing public safety, creating a less punitive environment than prison, and lastly promoting the rehabilitation of offenders. ISP’s began to sweep the nation around the 1980’s and 1990’s in order to assist with prison overcrowding and correctional spending. This program was also designed for offenders who deserve more than parole, but not necessarily prison. Many obstacle’s came with the development of Intensive Supervision Programs including how to determine if these programs are effective or not. There are many type of offenders, ranging in multiple ages and committing various crimes.

Capitalism and Commodification of Crime The connection between economics and crime activities is multifaceted and complex. Perhaps as a result of this density, there has been thorough coverage of the issue of crime in connection to capitalism which has become elusive to administrative or mainstream criminology, more especially in the United States, regardless of some occasionally high-profile and ostensibly elaborate attempts to address it. The modern market system is capitalism. It has been grafted into almost the entire economic system. The idea behind this modern economic system, capitalism, is that it is not an economic activity’s usefulness-it’s the fulfillment of the actual need of an individual-that is vital, but it’s only its commodification

The notion that crime and poverty have their roots in the lifestyles and preferences of the poor has a long history in American political culture; the concept of poverty-related issues is severely misled by racial and ethnic stereotypes (Beckett, 1997). The communities who live in poverty largely consist of lower class workers and people of color, and the war on crime, started by Ronald Reagan, only exemplified the stigma of the lower classes being cruel and dangerous. Reagan’s war on crime pressured federal law enforcement agencies to shift their attention to street crime, which had tremendous racial connotations, instead of white-collar offenses (Beckett, 1997). Political institutions are responsible for “protecting members of society from

One of the theories it speaks of is the Pyrrhic defeat theory. This theory states that the criminal justice system is created to function in a particular fashion in order to create an image of crime where crime is actually seen as the “threat from the poor”. (Reiman, 2010, p.5) “Reimans’s theory suggests that those who have power to change the system benefit from the way it operates: they can go on committing harms and accumulating wealth without punishment, while the country remains focused on street crime and poor minority criminals.”(Leighton 2010) In order to accomplish this “The system must actually fight crime-or at least some crime-but only enough to keep it from getting out of hand and to keep the struggle to substantially reduce or eliminate crime.”(Reiman, 2010, p.5) This means that by creating an image that our system is trying to fight crime, but at the same time allowing certain crimes to exist and scare society, it benefits the wealthy in several ways. First, it promotes that the wealthy population is

Policing policies including broken windows and zero-tolerance policy have different limitations on what can be stopped. The broken windows theory gave police a wide discretion when stopping citizens. During the time when broken windows was implemented, citizens were able to get away with low-level crimes. Once zero-tolerance began, the officers became more strict in stopping citizens which would make them feel targeted for the wrong reasons, like the color of their skin. The zero-tolerance policy was implemented to update the police’s discretion of what to stop and to keep crime down.

Individuals need to find a way to deal with their environment. In “The Power of Context,” Malcolm Gladwell introduces the power of environment and how society influences people’s behaviors. He suggests The Broken Windows Theory, which argues that crime is contagious because little acts of crime, such as graffiti and broken windows, develop into bigger crimes, such as murder. This is reinforced in “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’Brien, because the piece explores how people deal with the negative affects of war. In "Wisdom," Robert Thurman introduces how important “selflessness” is.

Introduction The effective attainment of justice can be greatly hampered by vices such as police corruption. When the police force is corrupt, there are heightened likelihoods that justice may be compromised. Corruption in the police force can be related to the application and/or abuse of force, or bribery, among other vices. It is worth noting that the police have an instrumental role to play in the criminal justice process, because of their responsibility of maintaining law and order. The police corruption issue appears to prevail in various nations and cities.

For instance, “policymakers typically emphasize the instrumental purposes of their policies” (Best 220). According to Best in Social Problems, “they claim that the policy is intended to make a difference, to correct or improve a particular troubling condition in society”. Policies can also serve symbolic purposes because the policies embody values to help promote the structure of society (Best 220). Overall, these policies affect the way criminals associated with these crimes are prosecuted in the United States by providing explanation for prosecution. For example, with the War on Drugs, “many policymakers insist that legalizing drugs is unthinkable” (Best 221).

Many people’s perception of the police is that they are corrupt. In Kevin Grant’s Article Ethic and Law Enforcement, Grant states, “it also constitutes one of the most significant obstacles to positive police-public relations in today’s society.” Recently displayed in the media has been the corruption or appearance of corruption of police departments all over the country. Grant’s list, which includes, acceptance of gratuities, association with known criminals without a supervisor’s knowledge or consent, disclosing confidential information to unauthorized persons, disclosing information about ongoing investigations, falsifying documents, sexual or ethnic harassment of citizens, co-workers, or subordinates, and failure to protect and follow

The U.S. justice system is considered the fairest of all but if confessions are inadmissible and true criminals are released then our society will progress under great peril from continued violent acts. Law enforcement officers are mandated by Miranda to advise subjects in a custodial interrogation of their rights under the Fifth Amendment and their right to a counsel under the Sixth Amendment. The policies of police departments everywhere had to be changed due to Miranda; as this decision provided a fundamental shift in the tactics being used by investigators to interrogate suspects. No longer could officers pray on the ignorance of the law or intimidation of authority in order to compel confessions. “The courts have made it very clear that the use of physical force or physical abuse or even the threat of this type of conduct on the part of police will render a confession involuntary” (Wicklander & Zulawski, 2002, p.

However, Anderson refuses to neglect the truth: they are the villains. Slamming any pre-existing admirable outlook readers may have had, Anderson inquires, based on his observations, “the authorities, particularly the police, paid scant attention and sometimes abused the victims themselves” (Anderson, 27). Philadelphia is notorious for its high crime rate, marking the police as almost a necessity to the function of everyday life. However, due to the mistreatment of citizens, people began to refer to the police as “ineffective” and “unworthy of trust.” The safeness of an area is key to the number of individuals using that public space, ultimately deeming the police a negative factor. In addition to the negative safety element, policemen also partake in plain acts of racism.

There is a saying: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As long as there are people in the world with the intention to do harm, or crime, (which unfortunately is a great percent of mankind), there will be abuse and corruption. The Criminal Justice System was implemented to protect against such acts against citizens of the United States. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. The implementation of the U.S. Patriot Act in 2001 is an example of such massive abuse of power that has ultimately led to countless unjust arrests, unjust government surveillance on citizens, and most importantly it has stripped U.S. citizens of their civil liberties.

Everyday, America is constantly forced to see that one strand of punishment doesn’t work well for the whole society. This particular idea can be concluded seeing that even after our correctional system implemented the philosophies of: deterrence, just desert, restorative justice, incapacitation, and rehabilitation crime still continued to occur. I believe America’s dominant correctional philosophy should be deterrence; the other philosophies mentioned before should be included as well to help reach the main goal of lowering our crime rates. With this thorough concept of applying all the philosophies to power deterrence, this will not only create a balance, but fill the void in the shortcomings of each individual correctional philosophy. The