Impact of Police Culture on Everyday Policing - Essay Example

Running Head: Impact of Police Culture Impact of Police Culture on Everyday Policing [Institute's Impact of Police Culture on Everyday Policing What is Policing Policing can be elaborated as a process that is being used for controlling the crime. Policing comprises of many different essential activities that are used to improve the condition of social living. Some of these activities include maintenances of orders and laws, peace keeping, enforcing the rules and laws regarding different aspects of life, investigation and last but not the least crime controlling. In the society, the policing are considered to be very important and essential for making it crime free by applying the rules and laws. The laws and orders that are issued by the government are strictly applied by police. It is the role of policing that it monitors the society that whether every person is following these rules and policies or not By detecting and investigating any illegal activity that is being performed with in the society; the affairs of the society are controlled. The activities are aimed for making arrangements for making sure that all the laws and rules are being followed. Policing is a part of almost every civilized country as it is important to enforce the rules and laws with in the countries for establishing peace and living with harmony. In short, it can be said that policing includes all the activities that are being performed by the government body established for enforcement of law and prevention of crime. Policing can be said as a strong and powerful profession. The profession of policing does not only include the organization of police but it also includes other organizations like community police, security guards, custom officers and bouncers and so on. Hence any institute that is aimed to control the social activities for maintaining the peaceful environment come under the category of policing. 1 Roles and Responsibilities of Policing Policing can be known as the set of activities that are being performed for some objectives. Although many objectives are being performed by this group of activities but some of the most important roles and responsibilities of imposing policing are given as under: The policing are responsible for managing and controlling the crime within the society. Detecting the crime is also the responsibility of policing. After detecting the crime, punishing the criminal or offender is also the role of policing. Protecting the assets and life of the people is also the role of policing. Preserving the public tranquility. Enforcement flaws, rules and policies are one of the major responsibilities of policing. Development of sound relationships between the police and the public. Improving the quality of life. Dealing with every kind of anti social behavior. Protecting the human rights. Promoting the ethical values. The above stated are the few responsibilities of the policing. Although, there are many other objectives but these were the basic aims and objectives of policing. It can be observed that it is not easy to perform the duties of police and achieving all the objectives of policing. It is not easy to enforce the laws over the society and also to deal with criminals and offenders. The policing activities sometimes do involve a lot of risk in it. It is a profession that can give a lot of respect if the responsibilities are being performed sincerely with full dedication. The same profession can lead to disrespect, if wrong means are taken and the duties are not performed with sincerity. The policing activities require that the professional should be strong person who can face every kind of risk and danger. Apart of risk sometimes disrespect and anger for the people has also to be faced y the policing professionals. So, policing is something that can not be taken as a simple job to do instead it requires strong people for performing the powerful duties. 2 Police Culture There are different aspects, in which the term police culture stands for, in regards to policing. Almost in all parts of the world police force are being assigned the task which refers to "us versus them", in which us stands for the police force and them stands for the whole of the society. In the society there are different sets of people, such as senior police officials, and also criminals. The term policing also would refer to the attitude of the police, which they can use on the society due to having discretionary powers. This means that police use their choice in unlawful searches, untruthful testimony, and many more. Also the term means firm support from the police force to their senior officers and being loyal to them. The police force works in accordance to these aspects to achieve solidarity and trust of the people. Police have to work in such a way that they respect their senior officers and also remain loyal to their fellow officers. This will help achieve them respect in the society as a whole. To work effectively such aspects are to be kept in mind by the police force. The police have to face different challenges in the society where they have to deal with certain individuals which are frustrated and also meet up with armed or dangerous suspects. In such different situations, teamwork is quite essential, to back other fellow officers in order to effectively deal with problems. The officers have their own responsibilities and are responsible for their own judgments. They should understand that the responsibilities are full of risks and dangers and thus they should analyze the condition very carefully before making their decision or using their discretionary powers. The discretionary powers that they have can result in significant affects on the lives of the people and due to this they should scrutinize their decision before applying. There are situation faced by the police when they have to make split second decision as to what has to be done to avoid uncertain circumstances which can affect the lives of the people.3 Impact of Police Culture on Everyday Policing The culture of police can have significant impact over the society and this section of the paper discusses the impacts of police culture over the policing. The police culture can be discussed in terms of trust, discretion and misconduct. The police culture has deep impacts over these terminologies. The policing includes many different activities that try to bring the peace within the society. Police and society are the two terms that can not get separated. The police culture can affect the policing in terms of trust, misconduct and discretion. In the culture of police when any crime takes place and the criminal is caught then the excuses and justifications are made. The excuses and justifications can be termed as the important element of police culture. There was a change observed in the police culture and that was because of the racism. The racism has affected the policing to the large extent and it also changes the decisions of the police. Police culture plays a significant role in observing that what are the conditions of law and order in the society. If the police culture is honest and true then the enforcement of law and order will also be proper. But if there is any cheating involved in the police culture which is a normal act today; then the laws will not be followed strictly. All the people related to the job of policing do interact with each other and the strong relation of trust establishes among them. The police culture is rich of the elements like attitude, trust, power and authority. But the most important element should be the sincerity. If the police are not sincere then the policing will not be applied properly and none of the laws will be followed. The culture of police plays a great role in the daily policing. The negative police culture will definitely make illegal use of the power given to it. The culture of police has developed its own new philosophy; command and confront, which means to have a check of the streets from time to time, and be aggressive in your approach which means not to accept that the police department is doing anything wrong. The Philosophy has been split in two cultures; cultures management and command, and patrol officers. Both the sub cultures have conflicts between each other. The police officers are held accountable for their actions while they are on their duty, by the management. Police officers discretionary powers have created conflict in the subculture. This is because the police officers have to decide which person should be arrested as they do not have the powers to arrest every one for every crime they commit, so they have to decide on the merits given to them by the management. In such circumstances split second decisions are to be taken which decide whether the discretion powers were used appropriately by the police officer or not. The main conflict is that discretion means freedom of choice, but here the police officers have use their discretionary powers appropriately, as management can hold them responsible for using their powers inappropriately. The decisions taken by the police officers are the main conflicts between these sub cultures. The officers having discretion powers do not like to be told that what they should do or should have been done. They want a freedom of their choice so that they use their discretion powers to good advantage for the citizens. They do not like to be scrutinized by their senior officers and want to make their decisions on their own. The sub culture of command and control covers up all the wrong doing of police officers while on duty. The management then is taught the lesson that they should make decisions within the certified rules and regulations. When police officer makes a wrong decision there mistakes are being covered up by the command and control sub culture. When both the sub cultures are combined the officers often have a negative point of view and are unlawful to their duties. They do not perform their duties because of which the society suffers. Also the officers may have a negative attitude when their discretion powers are taken away and have mandatory powers to arrest. When officer can arrest people who commit some specific actions, which are already been told by the management to the police officer, such as domestic violence the officer can arrest that person, this arrest is known as a mandatory arrest. Such arrests creates a negative attitude in the officers mind as they do not have discretion powers rather have been told what they should be doing at a specific action or violence. 4 Conclusion It can be concluded that by policing we mean all the activities that are used to enforce the law and order, prevent the criminal acts, detect the criminal acts, and punish the offenders and to establish the peace within the society. Every person who is dedicated to these activities is known as police and he is then responsible for making the arrangements for the establishment of peace. Policing is the set of activities that do exist in almost all countries of the world. For any country or society the importance of policing can not be denied. The reason for this immense importance can be that a nation that is living without laws will hardly be having any ethical values. There are many different responsibilities of the policing and all these responsibilities have been mentioned in this paper. Policing is not a very easy job to perform rather it involves a lot of risks. The paper also discusses the police culture which can be described as different aspects of police culture. The police culture differs at every place and it totally depends upon the police. The police culture can be positive as well as negative. It is obvious that the police culture of any society will also affect its everyday policing. Everyday policing includes that to what extent the rules and laws are being followed by the people, what is the state of peace in the particular society and what are the ethical values of the society. It is definite that the police culture will have great impacts over the everyday policing. Police culture does have attitudes and powers that can be used in a positive as well as in a negative sense. Police culture is closely related with the terms like trust, misconduct, excuses and discretion. It should be the priority of the governments to select the sincere people so that the positive police culture is generated and the objectives of policing can be achieved. References Gill Aberdare, What is policing Term papers- Gill Aberdare (2008) http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Policing/185393 Accessed April 19, 2009 Janet B. L. Chan, Changing police culture, published by Cambridge university press, 1997 Johnson Westwood, "Police culture and the code of silence" http://www.opcc.bc.ca/Reports/2001/POLICE%20CULTURE%20AND%20THE%20CODE%20OF%20SILENCE.pdf Accessed April 19, 2009 Kim Loyens, Police culture or the professional culture in police organizations (2008) http://m08.cgpublisher.com/proposals/153/index_html Accessed April 19, 2009 Lila Stansups, How does everyday police culture affect you when you are in the presence of a police officer (2007) http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/271960/how_does_everyday_police_culure_affect.html Accessed April 19, 2009 Louise Westmarland, Gender and policing, Published by Willan publishing, 2001 Metropolitan Police Service- History of the Metropolitan Police Service (no date) http://www.met.police.uk/history/definition.htm Accessed April 19, 2009 Philip Rawlings, Policing: a short history, Published by Willan publishing, 2002. Robert G. Hall, A brief discussion of police culture and how it affects police responses (2002) http://www.cacole.ca/Resource%20Library/Conferences/2002%20Conference/2002%20Presentations/Hall,%20R.%202002.pdf Accessed April 19, 2009 The culture of the police service (no date) http://www.bullying999.co.uk/culture.htm Accessed April 19, 2009 Read More