Police Ethics and Services Delivery - Assignment Example

Police Ethics and Services Delivery Question One Corruption refers to the misuse ity for self-interest purposes. It is intended towards benefiting the person who has the authority. For corruption to take place, there are two occasions; when there is the misuse of power that is coupled with personal gain. There are many different types of corruption. They include; corruption of power, kickbacks, opportunistic thefts, shakedowns, protection of illegal activities, case fixing, direct criminal activity, internal payoffs and padding. These are the nine different types of corruption that exist. Corruption of authority occurs when a policeman receives certain gains by the virtue of his or her authority. The power bestowed upon the policeman becomes the basis for achieving his or her gains. For example in a bureau that processes confidential documents, a police may be paid some money and with his or her authority, an authority can be given so that the person is served first before all who are in a queue. Kickbacks occur in situations where there is a price paid to a policeman for the acknowledgment of their referral of certain offenders for a business. For example it happens when a defense attorney pays a policeman some money for the sole purpose of referring any offender to the office of the attorney. It means that any time a policeman apprehends an offender, and he or she refers the offender to the office of the defense attorney to ensure that he gets a payment in the long run. This is what explains the meaning of a kickback. A payment can also come in situations where a policeman refers an offender to somebody for business purposes and in return, the policeman gets remunerated by a meal such lunch or dinner. In this case, there is the misuse of power for self gains. An opportunistic theft is a type of corruption which occurs when a policeman takes advantage of a particular situation to steal. This happens most of the time in crime scenes. For example in a situation where a bank robber is caught with a lot of money, the police can take advantage of the circumstance to steal some money from the offender. In another situation like in a crime scene, a policeman may make away with the tangible property that he or she has found on the crime scène. This explains opportunistic corruption. A shakedown is a type of corruption where policemen take money or any other values from criminals in exchange for the favor of not being arrested. This is a situation where a police can arrest a criminal but doesn’t take him or her to cells because of a given fee or payment offered to the policeman or woman. Protection of illegal activities is also a type of corruption where police officers protect the activities that are against the practice of law. For example in a situation of drug traffickers, some policemen and women often involve in the actual encouragement of such activities. The drug barons can pay the police a lump sum amount of money. The police will use his or her authority to steer such activities by avoiding issues such as inspection of the vehicles of the drug dealers. This is the protection of an illegal activity. Fixing case is a type of corruption where police officers use their powers to get somebody out of a given crime. They use their power to control those who will be prosecuted. For example in a situation where the person who has committed the crime is a police’s relative, then the police can use the powers bestowed on him or her by the powers of the land to ensure that the person is out of fix. Directed criminal activity is where policemen directly involve in illegal activities for their personal gains. For example, a policeman who works in a bank can participate in the actual bank robbery so that he or she can gain in the form of the property he or she gets from that. The final type of corruption is the padding and internal payoffs. Padding refers to the situation where a policeman interferes with a certain criminal investigation exercise by incorporating fake evidence. This can be done practically by using the power of authority to end a given study that mostly happens when the policeman gains from this criminal. Internal payoffs refer to the departmental corruption where a police officer can be paid to take a holiday for the self-gain of a person who is at the highest pinnacle of authority. Question Two Force in this extent means the amount of effort required by the police to make an unwilling subject abide by his or her authority. According to this research, the police should use acceptable levels of force on an incident or to carry out duties such as arresting of criminals and that several factors should be considered by the police before they employ its use anywhere..These factors include; the location of the encounter, the type of people involved the mental capabilities of those who are involved and lastly whether drugs are involved. The police should quantify the force they use in relation to these issues. For example; when considering the type of people involved we can use an instance of gangs. In this respect, the police are expected to use a lot of force for their defense and also in order to subdue the criminal activities but in situation where the person involved in a crime is mentally impaired then the police are expected to use the slightest force in apprehending the criminal. In a case where the crime is located in a crime-prone area, then the police are expected to use a lot of force because of the expected likelihood of retaliation from the criminal gangs in the given area. According to my view, this is what should be done. A terror prone zone should involve the use of a lot of force by the police because the policemen are not sure of the innocence of anyone in that place. In a case of a criminal who is intoxicated, the police are expected to use l force to a defined level to apprehend the person because he or she is under the influence of a drug and, therefore, might not know what he or she is doing and this is true from my viewpoint because the person may not know what he or she has done, or it can be accidental. According to many readings and this study, many law enforcing agencies have their ways of defining the level of force used by a policeman. They have different parameters that they use to ascertain the level of force used by the police. They have specific criteria that they use to know whether force should be used in a particular incident or not. Question Three Noble cause corruption refers one where police officers do bad things by the virtue of their powers expecting good returns or outcomes. An example of situations of noble cause corruption is where the policeman fabricates evidence. In this respect, the officer may do anything in his or her capacity to ensure that evidence is fabricated by all means. The officer may hide out a document that is vital for providing evidence but later it gets discovered. The officer might have been paid for the act, but then the law catches up with the police when this is discovered. In this view, the police officers view bending of laws as the best alternative for that is greater and good. Another example is lying in courts and is a noble cause corruption whereby the police try in the best way possible to conceal evidence by saying lies in court and can be as a way of trying to end the investigation or dissolve the court case due to minimal evidence from the witnesses. The police officer frustrates the evidence by uttering lies. The policeman might have been paid for this instance because one may have been paid to act in that way, and so it would be again to return the favor. Question Four The defense attorney must protect the client’s confidence at every peril hence that all crosscutting issues that occur in the event of the client case, the lawyer should be able to help out. The lawyer or defense attorney should help from the beginning to the end. The defense should not disclose any information about his or her client to anybody intended to steer the client to confide more in his or her defense attorney. The defense attorney should not assist the client in situations where the actions of the client are fraudulent. This means that in a position where the defense attorney knows that the customer is likely to get involved in a fraudulent activity, and then the law restrains the defense attorney from helping this kind of a client. The defense attorney should disclose information in situations where a client shows signs of committing a given crime or even in a situation when the client shows signs of committing crimes that are detrimental to the sovereignty of the nation. Question Five Punishment refers to the authoritative imposition of a penalty for a given offense. According to this article, punishment has various rationales. The first rationale is for the purpose of incapacitating the felon or the criminal. When the criminal is punished through detention, then he or she cannot do anything that harms other people and therefore he or she is incapacitated. The other reason is for the purpose of restitution. The people who were hurt by the criminal need to feel that something is being done as a compensation for what has taken place The other reason is that of retribution in the sense that the criminal did some harm to the society, and thus the society is paying back by ensuring that the person is detained. Rehabilitation is the primary rationale for punishment. It is done to ensure the felon is corrected and that by the time the criminal walks out of the detention facility, he or she shall have become a changed person. Question Six The FBI has dropped the mission law enforcement as their primary mission. They have changed it from law enforcement to national security. It was mainly to mark a change in the advances of this agency after the 9/11 attacks. References Kim Clare (2014).FBI drops ‘Law Enforcement’ from its mission statement. Retrieved from www.msnbccom/the-last-word/fbis-main-mission-now-not-law-enforcement Glen Cassisdy.The Purposes of Capital Punishment. Retrieved from home.page.ch/pub/rfm@vtx.ch/punishment.html Martinelli T.J. (2006).Unconstitutional Policing: The ethical issues when dealing with Noble cause corruption.New York. Cambridge Press. Portland State University (2012).Criminology and Criminal Justice Senior Castpone,’Police Use of force:A review of literature ‘Criminology and criminal Justice senior castpone Project.paper 6 Attorney General v observer (1990).A.C 109 Road Profiling Factsheet. (2009).United States Department of Justice. New York. Cambridge Publishers. Read More