An Incident of Police Misconduct From a News Source - Assignment Example

? Police Misconduct First School Affiliation This is a paper that is interested in looking at cases of police misconduct. I will look/identify a case of police misconduct and I will analyze the case in the viewpoint of a police supervisor and identify how I can handle such a case of police misconduct. I will highlight the disciplinary action that the officer who has shown misconduct will face and its intended purpose. By the end of the essay I will have efficiently identified, analyzed and explained a workable disciplinary action a police supervisor would take upon an officer who has shown traits of misconduct. Introduction Police misconduct represents unsuitable actions that are deemed unlawful, taken by those in the police force in connection with their formal responsibilities of say while making an arrest. Police misconduct is often an act that is not justifiable by the law and it mostly involves discrimination in the duties they are supposed to perform as police. In a bid to manage the misconducts by the police, there has been a fast emerging trend by the civilian /private agencies to go beyond review and engage in investigations directly and are known to have a greater input into decisions that regard discipline. Police misconduct can be of various types and degree. The following are some of the most common types of misconducts that police have been known to often engage in. The misconducts consist of, surveillance abuse, false confession, misconduct by an officer while off-duty, false arrest, intimidation, racial profiling, falsified evidence, police brutality, false imprisonment, and police corruption. There are more actions in which an officer can be said to have acted in a show of misconduct. One such instance is where a police officer believes that the end justifies the means. By this I mean that a police officer believes that his cause is noble just because it yield good results. Another misconduct is when a police officer shows selective enforcement. This is the act where a police shows leniency to some people just because they are family, friends or people he has known before. Another notable misconduct is when an officer of the law flashes his badge often as a way of soliciting services, for example when he want to get a discount or gain access to a place (Martinelli, 2007). This is classified as abuse of power. We can also talk of covering up for wrongdoing through lying under oath. An officer while on duty is not allowed to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. If so, the officer can be accused of misconduct and have to face disciplinary action. Every officer is expected to follow the set procedural policies while they are on duty and no violation of these policies is acceptable (Prenzler, 2004). It is believed that no police officer should rat out the other officer due to misconduct. The reason as to why this belief is there is because the police officers are thought to have shared a code of silence that makes them look the other way when they discover that a fellow officer acted in a manner that would suggest he did an action that amounts to misconduct. This so called code has been refuted by the police who say that it is non-existent and refer to it as a myth (Westmarland, 2005). Cases of police misconduct are often shown to be influenced by the education and personality of a police officer. In the news, cases of police misconduct are brought to the lime light in several occasions. Advancement in technology has enabled all squad cars in to be fitted with cameras that record the actions of an officer and this is one reason cases of police misconduct are being identified leading to a decrease in the cases of misconduct. Police officers must have the knowledge and skills to successfully do their tasks. High-quality, entry-level, area and in-service training programs are key to guaranteeing that officers not only understand the department’s objectives but have the capability to fulfill them. The departments of police and their workers must make to a routine of long term learning. Activities of the police officers that are in conflict, inconsistent, or incompatible with the values advocated for by the agency in charge of police adversely impact its popularity and that of its authorities. It is such activities and actions that detract from the agency’s complete capability to effectively and efficiently offer protection to the public, sustain serenity and order, and perform other important acts of duty. It is the moral obligation of each officer to ensure that they conduct themselves always in a way that shows the moral requirements that are required of them by the agency that oversees them. An incident of police misconduct If you are to unearth all reported cases of police misconduct, there is a high likely hood that the search will surprise you on how common these incidents are. In the United States of America, the statistics on police misconduct are not very accurate due to the fact that the government has never conducted a statistics study on the matter so as to come to a conclusion on the level of misconduct with the police force in the country. Statistics on police brutality have hence been conducted through projects that collect their statistics from reports in the newspaper regarding police misconduct. One such project was the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project that came to suggest that police officers were more likely to perform acts of misconduct ranging from breaking of simple rules to brutality than any civilian. The project also suggested that one out of 4.7 officers are implicated with acts of misconduct during their career as a police officer. The topic of misconduct by the police is known to always elicit strong emotions from the public who are opposing these acts. My research also involves identifying a story in the newspaper where misconduct was evident. I have identified the case of two officers namely, David Cari, 36, and Dennis Spaulding, 30. The two were police officers from East Haven. This is an area that has got a large population of Latinos. The two police officers were accused of harassing the Latinos in East Haven, a town in Connecticut. This is one case that elicited fierce public outrage on the matter (Schwirtz, 2013). The charges brought forward against them were that they had engaged in several acts that amounted to police misconduct. They were accused of false arrest, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and excessive force especially while dealing with Latinos. The town of East Haven has a continued increase in the number of Latino immigrants. This has led to the police officers in this area very vigilante in a bid to curb crimes. Some of the Latinos were evading tax on registration of cars by using foreign or fake registration numbers. This is one factor that had led police in the area to be very vigilante to try and curb this issue. However the two officers, Cari and Spaulding, did not know that there is a limit to being vigilante. They crossed a line to which their action were only identifiable as being out of order and to have engaged in massive misconduct. This was one case of racial profiling because they seemed to be so bound to harass the Latinos. They would pull over a person as they wished even without any good reason. They were then observed to have punched, slapped and kicked Latinos even with handcuffs on (Schwirtz, 2013). Officer Spaulding was more notorious of the two. He had at several occasions been heard making remarks against the Latinos. He was known to single them out in traffic and stop them and threaten to arrest them for no infraction at all. Although it’s the two officers who faced the toughest charges, to which the jury found them guilty of, the acts of false arrest, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and excessive force were known to run in the whole department of the town. The two officers were at one instance videotaped kicking a grocery owner while he lay on the ground handcuffed. At another instance, they confronted a priest who was called Rev. James Manship. The reason was because the father had been investigating cases of police misconduct following several complains from members of his congregation (Schwirtz, 2013). This case of these two officers led to massive change up in the administration of East Haven police department. As a police supervisor, I would deal with the root problem of the causes that led to the misconduct as well as incur disciplinary action to the officers involved. The main problem in the above case was on how the officer viewed the Latinos. There is evidence that this was a racial profiling problem that had led to several acts of misconduct to be performed on the Latinos. For the officer, as a police supervisor I would suspend them from duties as an officer indefinitely and recommend that the two officers should each visit a psychiatrist who will help them with their personality so that they can change how they view other people who are considered as minorities in the United States of America. This compulsory suspension would help the officer reflect on his life and come to realization if he is ready to serve and protect. This being a case that was also observed to be in the whole police department in the town, I would recommend that every officer visits a therapist who will help them deal with the stereotype they had against the Latinos. Conclusion Police misconduct is a moral decadency that has found itself in the police officers departments. These are vices that should be dealt with accordingly in both a moral perspective and in a legal perspective. Most of these cases of police misconduct are due to the educational level of the police and due to the personality of others. Therefore, I suggest that to fight this beast in our society, we first have to change our personality and be flexible or liberal thinkers. Most of the police misconduct cases in the United States of America are registered to be conducted against those of the minority races. This is racial profiling that is among the common police misconducts. The police have to start by the way they view people. They should stop being stereotypes who believe that a person of a minority race has to be a criminal. As good citizens, we must help the police not to stray into evil ways. We should be vigilante as citizens to ensure that acts of police misconduct are eradicated from our forces. In case you spot an act of misconduct in the forces, it is your obligation as a good citizen to come forward and help solve this issue. I have given an example with a case that the two officers were found guilty and how as a police supervisor I would deal with officers engaging in similar acts of misconduct while on duty. References Martinelli, T. J. (2007). Minimizing Risk by Defining Off-Duty Police Misconduct. The Police Chief. Prenzler, T. (2004). Stakeholder Perspectives on Police Complaints and Discipline: Towards Civilian Control Model. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 37 (1): 85–113. doi:10.1375/acri.37.1.85. ISSN 0004-8658 Schwirtz, M. (2013). 2 Officers Accused of Harassing Latinos Now Await Verdict. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/nyregion/2-officers-accused-of-harassing-latinos-now-await-verdict.html. Westmarland, L. (2005). Police Ethics and Integrity: Breaking the Blue Code of Silence. Policing and Society. Read More