Challenges Faced By-Law Enforcement Officers - Essay Example

Challenges Faced By Law Enforcement Officers Introduction Law enforcement officers are very important sector in any country in the world. They are the one responsible for the peace that is experienced in most of the countries and the safety enjoyed by most of the citizens of various countries. This important practice of policing has been percent for many years. In England, the system reeves, sheriffs and investigative juries had come into existence under the Anglo-Saxon to provide law enforcement and basic security. In the year 1829, the parliament passed the metropolitan police act; this promoted the police protective role as prevention to urban crime and disorder. Since then, policing has been a significant division of the public. Since policing is an important sector in the society. The police of the 21st century are faced with new challenges that need to be discussed. This easy is going to take the readers through the five most important challenges that the 21st centaury police are facing. These five main challenges include governance, cost and cuts, resources, crime and detection and operational priority. Considering the above challenges brings as to the main statement: The officers of Law Enforcement are faced with numerous challenges today as they risk their lives to defend and serve their communities. Governance The tripartite model of Police Authority, Chief Constable and Home Office is very unclear with the existing grate confusion over the roles and responsibility. A solution needs to provide for the professional governance of the police service which is in a confused mess. The removal of NPIA and the changes cried out in SOCA model are a sign the challenges are being treated with seriousness. There are numerous quangos and technical empires and fiefdoms. The skills and expertise contained inside the large number of departments need consolidation and identification, applying the formulae of money value for areas and individuals. The ACPO statue plus all of his 349 members need to be repositioned and remodeled so that there is an increment in accountability and transparency. For there to be confident from the public, the reposition must start from the top with the structure of governance that makes the people who found it accountable, instead of the self perpetuating oligarchy that currently pervades. The question that the readers need to ask themselves is that, should there be 43 separately governed different forces within Wales and England (May and Herbert, 2010)? Cost and cuts After many years of growth, the pressure in the service has heightened for them to demonstrate that they are efficient financially. Procurement and services that are shared are increasingly becoming more crucial. With no need of creating one national force or advocating mergers, most of the savings and cuts that have been projected can be delivered successfully by resource sharing and by the arrangements of smarter volume central purchasing. For example in the department of the Human Resource, why dose the existing 43 forces have 43 Human Resource departments? Massive saving could be easily attained when all the existing 43 forces have one Human Resource department. The same idea should also be applied in all the procurement areas. Services and equipments that are that are centrally sourced would provide savings worth millions. According to the HMIC prediction, £ 5 billion could be saved if procurement is properly carried out within a span of ten years. The challenge is signifying that like a public service, the police are low on waste and strong on value. Bodies tat carry out inspections like the Audit Commission and the HMIC are undertaking more inspection on the forces and the authority that governs them (May and Herbert, 2010). The cut in cost means that fewer policies will be complimented and new policies will be introduced. This wills contribute negatively towards fighting crime. This is to mean that the new introduced policy may result to criminals being relies early. Furthermore, the law enforcement may lack the machinery that vital for the facilitation of crime control. In addition, there will be a stop to the new recruits that are to be trained this will be disadvantages as there will be no new and law enforcement that are determined to handle the criminal issues (Hess & Orthmann, 2011). Due to the cutting in cost, there will be no funds for the existing police men and women to be taught new skills and ideas on how they will handle crime. As a result of the cut in the budget, the law enforcement department will invest less in the sector of information and technology and as a result, the criminals have a higher possibility to outdo the police ion there efforts to arrest them. Generally, in the law enforcement sector, most of the services will operate efficiently if there is adequate provision of the funds. However, as a result to the cuts in funds, most of the operation will be poor hence affecting the enforcement of law and order. Resources The forces must analyze the role that the senior offices have occupied right from the top to the from line management. Of a total of one hundred and forty three thousand police officers that are warranted, only 11 percent of the total warranted police offices can be spotted on the streets. It will be hard for the ACPO to justify three hundred and forty nine ACC ranks and above, when only about two hundred and twenty police officers are directly engaged in the delivery of the recommended duties. A significant analysis of the structure used for ranking has been passed with time. A suggestion has been provided that the rank of the Chief Inspector and Chief Superintendent are superfluous to the needs of operation. Civilization running at eighty two thousand, costing £2.7 billion has clearly increased in a high rate out of kilter. Flow chart creation, box ticking individuals and department, most of whom hinder the common sense policing delivery instead of supporting it, must be proved if they are really important or not. Assuming that forty percent of police officers that are warranted are given the role of the front line, this might result to a question of what the other eighty five thousand police officers are doing. It is true that some back office function needs a warrant officer; however there are thousands that need to be redeployed back to serve the community directly. When this measure is implemented, the police visibility will be increased in the streets and the rate of crime experienced in the streets will reduce. Furthermore, the implementation of such a measure will restore back the confidence of the police service to the public. The debate of the PCSO V’s Copper: some of the professionals argue that this resembles everything that is erroneous with the system, numbers of politics playing that are ill conceived, and lying to the citizens. More coppers should be removed from the streets; fifty percent of the systems of IT that are within the police station should be removed from places that they are not needed. The removal of fifty percent of the IT system will contribute to police not wasting most of their time on emails. There is need for an audit to be carried out to see the number of mails that travel through the system in a daily basis. The audit should further identify the number of the mails that are work related and could have been successfully solved by the supervisor. Sergeants and Inspectors must be given a chance to walk around wearing their uniform to meet with their Constables and have a talk with them while listening to their queries. Work flexibility should be introduced in the police force. Most of the works have been lost as a result of rigid and outdated working arrangement that pays little attention to the preference of the front line staffs and the public demand (May and Herbert, 2010). Detection and Crime The reduction of crime and the increment of detection has been a problem that has been historic. A target should be set for senior police officers that will show that they have achieved their expectation. The connection of performance to the senior officers and providing then with bonuses has whittled away the front line officers and the public confidence in the figures of crime. The Gaming practice that has been uncovered by Dr Rodger Patrick, who s a former DCI with the force of the West Midlands confirmed that the officers who are senior either condone or encourage the practice that is linked with the so called Cooking the Book and have encouraged this for many years. Stats may not be significant, however, the practice of deceitful manipulation are destructive and self serving. Some of the technique that has been identified by Dr. Patrick is; Cuffing: This is where the police officers formulate a crime to disappear from the official figures by either recording them as not serious crimes or recording them as reports that are false. For instant, a robbery in which a laptop or mobile hone has been stolen with violence may be recorded by the officers as theft from a person. Although the phone or laptop was violently accrued, the recorded statement of theft from a person is not classified as a violent crime. Stitching: This is where the law breakers are charged with a crime despite the police officers having insufficient evidence. The police clearly understand that the prosecutors will never continue with the case. However, when going through the police record, the crime appears top has been solved. Skewing: This is where the activity of police is directed at crimes that are easier to solve to boost the rates of detection. This is mainly at the expenses of crimes that are more serious such as crime of child abuse or crimes related to sex. Nodding: This is where the rates of clear-up are boosted by persuading the offenders that are convicted to confess to crimes they have not committed. This is mainly in traded by inducement like a low sentence. This is called by the academics as gaming, however the police officers refers to it as book messaging, figures fiddling or good housekeeping. This is like the activities of police that is believed to have ended in the 1970s. The police officers that are currently serving confirms that the tricks is still being applied by the police force and have provided various examples on their implementation. In the first scenario, a suspect shot at one of his target at a close range, however, he missed the target and the bullet broke the window that was behind the target. Instead of the criminal act being recorded as an attempted murder, the criminal act was recorded as criminal damage. The second scenario, a man robbed in a city’s red light district, this is an area that the man had been passing through innocently. However, the police were not in a position to record the statement without informing the offender’s wife that he had been the area. However, the query was finally withdrawn. One of the detectives who have not been identified requested for any crime to be named and he or she will show or tell on how the crime can be fiddled. The vice-chairman of the police federation known by the name Simon Reed who represents the officers of the front line said that the above research that was carried out was suppressing. It demonstrated that the officers that are senior are controlling and directing extensive exploitation of crime figures. The public is being misled, politicians are claiming that criminal acts are reducing, and the chief officers at the police force are reworded with bonuses that are related to performance. The Constabulary chief inspector known by the name Denis O’Connor, publish a report that was official on the way the police officers are recording crimes of violent act. Furthermore, he admitted that the figures may be skewed by the incentives that are wicked around the targets of government performance. Dr. Patrick identified that watchdogs such as Police Standard Unit and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) had a general tendency to minimize the nature and scale of gaming. HMIC have failed to handle the problem. Tere not examples of publicly criticized chief police officers by this type of manipulation crime figure inspectors. Instead, HMIC privately tended to refer widespread gaming to the police authority or to the Home Secretary instead of holding the chief constable to account as a result of the risk of political embarrassment. The accountability of the HMIC should be to the parliament instead of the Home Office. Furthermore, it should be drawn from other professions and not only from the senior police ranks (May and Herbert, 2010). Operational Priorities The police force should refocus the policing priority back to the principle of peelian. The main stress should mainly be on the property and life protection, the detection and prevention of crime. Anything that is different from the crime detection and prevention, and the protection of property and life is a distraction. Conclusion Most of the challenges that the police force is facing is mainly related with its operation in handling and solving criminal cases. The first thing t be done in the police force is the repositioning which should start from the top official to those at the front line. This repositioning will increase the accountability of the police force. When addressing the challenges facing the police force, it is vital to consider the governance. For there governance of the police force should be well understood by each and every police. This will allow a good understanding of the flow of information incase of an incident. Furthermore understanding of the governance will allow quick flow of the information and quick action which will result to efficient operation of the police force. Even though the police force face some challenges when it come to cost. This is mainly because of the cut of the budget allocated to the police force. However, the police force can solve this issue of the cut in cost. The police force can easily solve this by reducing the department that are and combining some duties and responsibility to be done by one department. For example the police force can have one department when it comes to Human Resource department. The roles and duties carried out by the numerous Human Resource departments can easily and effectively be undertaken with a central Human Resource department. This will enable the police force to save some good amount of cash that may be used in ensuring the efficiently and effective running of the police force and the delivery of duty. In addition, the police force have spent a good amount of cash in purchasing computers for the police force even to areas that they are not being properly utilized. This is to mean that the police forces are using the computers purchased to serve the public for their personal use like emailing. The removal of about half of the computers will help the police force to focus on their work and reduce the time wasted in the internet or mailing. Bibliography Hess, K. and Orthmann, C. (2011). Management and Supervision in Law Enforcement. New York: Cengage Learning. MAY, T. AND HERBERT, N., (2010). What are the 5 biggest Challenges facing police force today? Web < http://thinbluelineuk.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-are-5-biggest- challenges-facing.html > accessed June 20, 2015. Read More