Changing Police Culture: Policing in a Multicultural Society - Essay Example

Changing Police Culture: Policing in a Multicultural Society In every country in the world, law and order cannot be maintained without a legal system that is constitutionally established. Police system is one of the most used systems in maintaining law and order in the country. The qualifications that are needed for one to join the police force varies from one country to another. The main feature that is considered is the ability to pacify a chaotic crowd, and technique required handling crimes. Most of these techniques are learnt during a secluded police training period. During this period, individuals who are joining the force are transformed in such a way that they can handle the criminals within a society. The police force usually gets more experience as they move to the ground where they interact with the civilians. As a member of the police force gains more experience, he or she is entitled to a higher rank than those who do not have such experience. A higher ranked police officer is entitled to some privileges such as a high salary, a good office and many other privileges. Rank and file police officers are the ordinary officers who are found in the lowest positions in the police force. They are the ones directly interacting with the citizens and hence they maintain law and order. The culture of rank and file police officers has been crucial in understanding police work as they are the people who carry the day as ground men in police fraternity. The culture of rank and file police officers is ideally the expected norm and the general behaviour and the expectations of the police officers in their routines[Jan97]. The police culture is so crucial in understanding the police work and thus forms an important basis in trying to link the police work in connection to the culture. Learning the police culture is vital for any police officer who want to have a better stay at the police force. For instant, identify a criminal or handling a certain crime need a lot of intelligence. Intelligence therefore becomes a culture that need to be harnessed in the police force. Some of the crimes are very deadly to deal with and therefore needs a lot of carefulness when handling them. The police culture also includes organisational culture that focuses on making officers understand the institutions norms, values and beliefs. This understanding is crucial as every organisation presents its own of a kind beliefs, norms and values. It would be fundamental to make joining officers aware of the organisation culture so as to identify with the institution. The image of the police force is seen through this organisational culture. Police officers find themselves aligning themselves with the structural organisation and the expectations of the other police officers that aid in passing the organisational culture to incoming officers. For instance, an incoming police officer would learn much regarding the police force during training regarding the rules and regulations. However, he or she can learn other tactics like how to detect a lying person’s claim from a genuine one through the interaction of the suspects. In most cases, must assessment of a scenario in a more cohesive way considering that suspects may break the law yet have a concrete reason to do so thereby need for judgement based on the organisational culture. Organisational culture may be exhibited in a number of ways that include artefact, values and basic assumptions. Artefact presents the most-notable form of organisational culture. It encompasses architecture, smells, behaviour, attire, sounds, language, products and ceremonies [Jan97]. It is exhibited in making the new recruits learn on things like police jargon and how to relate with the superiors both in language and conduct. The police uniform presents another form of artefact that symbolises law and order. It also helps the public in easily identifying the officers. Organisations have however devised on making attires that make the public feel less intimidated by the officers to enhance good relations. They do so to ensure that there is a good relationship between the law keepers and the citizens. There have been, in various countries the notion of police reforms that have been established to instil a good relationship between the police and the civilians. They have been used to remove the instinct that the civilians administer to the police as their ‘enemies.’ To the police, the reforms are done to make them have a good relationship with the civilians and not to handle them in a brutal way but with care. The second organisation culture is values. Values have been fundamental in aligning police officers to the general code of conduct to communicate efficiency in the police force. Values give a guideline on the organisational conduct and hence emphasises on behaviour guidance. Basic assumptions form another basis of organisational culture[Nat12]. There are other organisational conduct that can be learned through observation. For instance, the assumptions are based on organization’s history and encompasses aspects of human behaviour and relationships in the institution. Police officers understand this behaviour through observing fellow officers react to a situation since these basics can be hard to explain or demonstrate. These may include bravery and secrecy. The attribute of police to communicate issues that requires high most secrets needs them to trust one another and therefore no information can be leaked out to the civilians or to the criminal under investigation. Rank and file police officers have had a considerable general culture of identifying themselves as teammates. The view of connecting themselves to each other through radio calls and partnership helps the force build an important aspect of teamwork, and essentially this strengthens the force in their everyday undertakings. Police officer’s relations are enhanced through teamwork and a greater sense of satisfaction ensures as in each other’s company, a feeling of belonging is achieved. Overall, secrecy is maintained within the force in this sense of cohesion. The brotherhood sense is carried out through passing on the rules and regulations, tactics and narration of police norms by the older generation of police to the incoming ones. Police work is perceived as an isolation from the community, and this encourages police solidarity. Police encourage sharing of secrets among themselves and avoiding letting their bosses know these secrets as some of them may raise questions as they conflict with their departments. Another twist on the police culture is the socialization aspect. Police officers sometimes find themselves socially avoided even when they are not on duty. In such sense, police officers are in some way stigmatized, and those seeming to be close to the officers are shunned too by the public. The police officers would too be concerned and doubt a non-police pose friendly to them. Under normal circumstances, the public maintains a distance from the police and the police too would be suspicious to a friendly non-police as having a hidden agenda. The moral authority of the police further distances them from the public and this makes the police rely on each other for support and companionship. The attitude of ‘we versus them’ develops in the mind-set of both the police and the public. The police officers, therefore, would be more loyal to fellow officers more than anyone else. Police culture has been the hardest to reform because of equally important reasons that have been fielded forward. One of the reasons for failure of reforms on police culture is from the officers themselves. Public officials and activists have been constantly putting forward recommendations to the police force on the things they want to be changed. These recommendations however are not received well by the officers who defy by rubbishing the initiative as politics. The general attitude that the police hold on ‘we versus them’ notion further sparkles a tussle of superiority with the police keen to protect themselves from the perceived ‘enemies.' This notion of the social divide among the police and the public officials heightens defiance and no matter the necessity of the reforms, they are mostly not carried out. Moreover, the involvement of non-police personnel to account for changes in the police force sparkles defiance as the police claim that the academic, and political literates do not understand police work and it is at their best interest to leave the matter to the police[Dan12]. This continued tag of war eventually makes nothing achieved by the end of the day. Resistance to change is further demonstrated when police officers are asked to do their old jobs in a new way. However, the police maintain that they are bound to do their tasks regarding the way they were taught at the academy. They are also challenged by the demand to carry out more tasks that were initially out of their span. The police officers are categorical in dealing with their traditional roles and fear facing new responsibility that would pose new challenges in their work[Ste07]. Moreover, they have invested a lot in training and practical experience and the suggestion of having to take up a new approach would be seen as an abuse of the sacrifice they had earlier made in horning their skills. Translation of fundamental principles has challenged the police force. The initiatives of community policing and problem solving have posed a difficulty in putting it into practice. Theoretical concepts need to be challenged into work in every day’s encounter and place it into orders to which officers on the ground can be held accountable. With many failing to comprehend such concepts, little is bound to happen in the police departments if the orders are not clearly outlined. Of more concern is the way the enforcers are left out in airing their views and instead people outside the police force are given the opportunity to contribute. The police officers feel underestimated and resent such reforms[Joh06]. Practically, the result of such reforms are devastating as the actual enforcers lack goodwill to undertake the reforms. Lastly, the U.S had seen it of importance to introduce voluntary programs for the police officers after work. A lot of federal money was given to this officers who did extra work of few hours. However, the mental fatigue and overall tired officers so them do less of a good job as they could not concentrate. Moreover, the Antinarcotics were supposed to carry out a program on ‘community-oriented narcotics policing’ for extra hours daily. The study revealed that the officers had no slightest idea on the program and thereby the project had led to waste of federal government money. Such bad ideas from the civilians were a proof of incompetence and thereby a weak point that would see the police fail to try out reforms by the public citing this as evidence. The rank and file police are the ones that are mostly used as experimental objects on most police reforms, and the idea of not involving them in the development of these ideas has proved catastrophic to police reforms in the U.S. Overall, it is important to note that the culture of rank and file police has been an important tool in gaining information about police work. The general behaviour of the culture of these police has been influenced by the nature of their work. Notably, reforms in the police force have failed mostly due to lack of understanding of the policy developers and the reforms enforcers. Having not to intervene thereby would lead to futile results of reforms and as a result nothing would have been achieved at the end of the day. The stakeholders should consider involving both parties, and if possible they should let the officers themselves forward their proposals for consideration. Making rank and file police officers be always the ones implementing the policies yet they are not involved in the decision process makes them unappreciated and they mostly retaliate by making sure that the reforms forwarded fall short of success. References Jan97: , (Chan, 1997), Nat12: , (Nathan Pino, 2012), Dan12: , (Sabet, 2012), Ste07: , (Savage, 2007), Joh06: , (John Bailey, 2006), Read More