Police Personnel & Establishment, Police Conduct & Accountability - Essay Example

Running Head: Police Operations Police Operations s Police Organization: A Historical Background In 1834, the Toronto Police was established in Canada as one of the earliest metropolitan police departments in North American Continent, followed by police forces in Montreal and Quebec City. In the USA, the first regular police service was set up in Boston in 1838, New York in 1844, and Philadelphia in 1854. Nevertheless, into the 20th century, law enforcement was carried out by private citizens working as militia. Metropolitan police agencies in the U.S. were first organized on a military archetype, and their growth in the second half of the nineteenth century was deeply inspired by Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police Force of London, established in 1829. The British system made use of a group of policemen and guards who protected the streets and usually charge fees for their services. Initial law enforcement undertakings in the USA were tentatively planned, as there was no supposed need for permanent, trained forces, and watchmen were frequently volunteers. In the eighteenth century, nevertheless, large urban areas for example New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago had established permanent police forces. Specialized, permanent state police forces were not customary in the America until the twentieth century. The 20th Century heralded pragmatic research and expertise to the world of policing. Innovative practice in identifying bodily characteristics for example fingerprints, first applied in the early 1900s concerned police agencies used more authority on criminal inquiries, crime deterrence, and other specialized jobs. In the period between 1920s and 1940s, nearly all large cities had special juvenile crime units; in the 1920s and 1930s, there was a growth of traffic divisions; in the 1940s and 1950s, police agencies established public relations positions; the 1950s introduced the first telephoto transmissions of documents, photographs, and fingerprints; and since the 1970s, police agencies have worked toward automated data collecting, sharing, and analysis. At the end of the 20th century, municipal police forces had specialized units for managing emergencies for example bombs, hostage situations, crowd control, undersea rescue, and violence. Forensic science highly-advanced evidence collection and analysis in the last decades of the 20th century, however trivial, rural police operations rarely had the resources or use scientific innovations. At the same time as the consequences of DNA testing were generally believed dependable, such experiments could take months lacking the necessary resources or skilled workforce to perform them. Since 2001 there were still a number of states with no regular system of preserving crime incidents and collection of evidence. Police Organization: An Introduction In accordance with the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1996 there were 922,200 permanent, local police workforce, of whom 663,535 had detention authority. Constant expansion for the last couple of decades show estimated 1 million local law enforcement employees all over the USA, about a quarter of them women and minorities. Data from 1997 show that, normally, local police officers were expected to have 1,100 hours of training, and, by 2000, over 37% of local police agencies were needed to have college education. In 2000, there were 88,496 federal officers, about thirty-one for every 100,000 people. The bulk of police officers are in Texas; California; Washington, D.C.; New York; and Florida. Since most U.S. police units have been set up and supported by the local populace, and for the reason that they were established at different periods, there are numerous forms in how the police agencies are structured and supported. Normally, city police are supported by the city and led by a police head, either chosen by the mayor or designated. Counties hire patrolman and sheriffs, who generally are responsible to an elected county official. State police agencies, which have broader jurisdiction, assist in statewide investigations and are responsible for traffic law implementation in the jurisdictions outside municipalities. Local law enforcement units also have an array of specific units, including those for transportation, parks, seaports, housing, and schools. Police Personnel & Establishment In the majority of Western police forces, conceivably the most important division is between preventives police and detectives. Terminology differs from country to country. Police tasks consist of safeguarding life and property, implementing criminal law, criminal inquiries, controlling traffic, crowd control, and other public security tasks. Preventive Police Preventive Police is also known as Uniform Branch, Uniformed Police, Uniform Division, Administrative Police, Order Police, or Patrol, designates the police which guard and react to crises and other events, instead of detective services. They are dressed in uniforms and carry out tasks that need a prompt acknowledgment of an officer's legal power, for example traffic regulation, stopping and detention of motorists, and more dynamic crime response and deterrence. Preventive police more or less always constitute the main part of a police service's workforce. Detective Police Detective Police, also known as Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Investigations Police, Judiciary Police / Judicial Police, or Criminal Police, are accountable for inquiries and detective work. They usually constitute about 15% - 25% of a police service's workforce. Detectives, contrary to uniform police, usually are dressed in 'business outfit' in ceremonial and exploratory functions where a uniformed presence would be either a distraction or threatening, although a requirement to create police influence still exists. "Plainclothes" officers get dressed in outfit compatible with that dressed in by the ordinary people for intention of mixing in. In some instances, police are authorized to act secretly, where they hide their police identity to probe crimes, for instance organized crime or narcotics crime, impossible by other methods. In some instances this kind of policing shares some facets with surveillance. In spite of prevalent impressions promoted by media, various US police departments favor not to maintain officers in non-patrol bureaus and divisions beyond a particular period of time, and rather continue policies that restrict police service in such divisions to a particular period of time, after which officers must, moved out or return to patrol missions. This is realized partially based upon the observation that the vital and essential police work is done on patrol in which officers become familiar with their beats, deter offense by their presence, react to crimes happening, handle emergencies, and apply their expertise. Detectives, on the contrary, generally probe crimes after they have taken place and after patrol officers have reacted initially to circumstances. Inquiries generally take weeks or months to finish, in which time detectives use much of their time away from the streets, for interviews and courtrooms. Rotating officers also supports cross-training in a diverse skills, and prevent gangs that can play a role in corruption or other immoral activities. Auxiliary Tasks Police may also engage auxiliary organizational tasks, for example issuing weapon licenses. The level that police have these operations differs among countries, with police in France, Germany, and other European countries managing such tasks to a greater level than British (Bayley, 1979). Various law enforcement agencies have strongly armed units for controlling hazardous situations, for example the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers encounter. Police Specialized Units Specialized preventive and detective groups are present within many law enforcement organizations either for controlling specific kinds of crime, viz. traffic law implementation and crash study, murder, or scam; or for situations needing specialized ability, for example undersea exploration, aviation, bomb squad disposal, and cyber crime. Larger areas also hire specially-selected and trained quasi-military units armed with military-grade arms for the aims of managing particularly brutal circumstances beyond the capacity of a patrol officer reaction that include high-risk warrant service and fortified suspects. In the USA these outfits have various names, however are generally known as SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) teams. Since their situational authorization usually concentrates upon removing innocuous passersby from hazardous people and unsafe situations, not aggressive resolution, they are usually provided with non-lethal strategic tools like chemical agents, "flashbang" and concussion bombs, and rubber bullets. Police Conduct & Accountability Study of police corruption is at times made more complex by a policy of silence that supports absolute allegiance to cohorts over the issue of justice. If an officer violates these rules, they may face death calls or even be left for dead. One method to combat such corruption is by having an autonomous or semi-independent establishment probe, like the Federal Justice Department, state Attorneys General, local District Attorneys, a police department's own in-house affairs, or specially selected commissions. Nevertheless, autonomous establishments are usually not employed excepting the most serious cases of corruption. Use of Force Police agencies also find themselves under disparagement for their application of force, especially lethal force, when a police officer of one ethnicity takes life of a suspect of another race. In the USA, such occurrences generally set off demonstrations and claims of racial discrimination against police. In the USA ever since the 1960s, fears over such issues have all the time more considered for law enforcement agencies, courts and administration at every echelon of government. Events in the America have portrayed American police as critically deficient in proper control. The truth that this development has happened with the increase of the US civil rights movement, the "War on Drugs" and a steep rise in vicious crime from the 1960s to the 1990s has raised doubts over the role of administration and scope of authority of police and has put the criminal justice system increasingly difficult. Police agencies and the local administration that supervise them in some areas have tried to alleviate some of these problems by means of outreach programs and community policing to help the police more access to the problems of local communities; by increased hiring diversity; by modernizing and updating police of their role to the community and under the law; and by improved supervision within the agency or by civilian commissions. In areas in which such measure have been absent or deficient, local administration have been forced by legal action started by the US Department of Justice to enter into consent decree settlements to implement such measures and submit to supervision by the Justice Department. It is believed that police forces have been accountable for imposing many prejudiced standpoints. Discrimination against older people and against teens, racial discriminations etc are the views which police have been blamed for being involved. Some police agencies are faced with usual allegations of racial profiling. Recruitment The societal status and reimbursement of police can bring about problems with recruitment and self-esteem. The areas deficient of the resources or the need to pay police suitably, lacking a practice of qualified and fair law enforcement, or deficient of satisfactory supervision of the police frequently deal with a shortage of good quality workforce, a need of professionalism and dedication among their police, and extensive distrust of the police among the community. These conditions often formidably add to police dishonesty and cruelty. Policing Strategies The introduction of the police car, two-way radio, and telephone throughout the last century changed policing into a fast strategy that concentrated on reacting to calls for service (Reiss, 1992). During this change, police command and control was centralized. August Vollmer initiated other transformations, including education requirements for police officers (TIME Magazine, February 18, 1966). O.W. Wilson, a student of Vollmer, assisted him reducing treachery and introduced professionalism in Wichita, Kansas, and then in the Chicago Police Department. Strategies applied by O.W. Wilson included rotating officers to different community to lessen their susceptibility to corruption, creating a independent police board to assist oversee the police force, a rigorous appraisal system for promotions within the department, and an forceful, recruiting drive with high police remunerations to attract competent officers (United Press International/The New York Times, February 22, 1960). Throughout the professionalism period of policing, law enforcement agencies focused upon coping with lawbreaking and other major crimes, rather than broader focus on crime prevention (Kelling and Wycoff, 2002). A study in the 1970s found this style of policing to be unsuccessful. Patrol officers in cars were disengaged from the public, and had deficient contact with the people (Kelling et al, 1974). In the late 20th Century, many law enforcement agencies began to implement community policing strategies, and others applied problem-oriented policing. Broken windows policing was yet another, related method started by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, who recommended that police should pay more consideration to trivial "quality of life" crimes and unruly behavior (Kelling and Wilson, 1982). By building these models, intelligence-led policing has appeared as the leading idea guiding police strategy. Intelligence-led policing and problem-oriented policing are parallel strategies, both which involve methodical application of information (Tilley, 2003). Despite the fact that it still needs a generally acknowledged definition, the core of intelligence-led policing is a stress on the compilation and examination of information to conduct police operations, rather than the opposite. Issues in Policing As police officers are empowered to exercise physical force, as well as lethal force, involves over the misuse of power have long been a fundamental and warranted matter. The racial and ethnic structure of original police units generally reflected those who controlled political authority, with non-whites usually disqualified from the police service as regular officers. Not until the 1960s minorities were inducted as police officers. Despite the fact that misuse of power by police officers is a valid fear, in accordance with a assessment of police agency data, police officers apply force in only 0.2 % of their connections with the public, the bulk involving physical force without the making use of a weapon. In the past, the minority populations of metropolitan areas have faced unfriendly relationship with the police. During the middle of 19th Century, self-styled nativist movements disputed the addition of immigrants on police units in Chicago and New York. Despite the fact that police forces sheltered black residents from white gangsters in the 1940s and 1950s, the 1960s saw racial uprisings, in Chicago after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr., resulting in the deaths of 9 people, and the 1965 disturbances in the Los Angeles district of Watts, resulted in 4 deaths. Disturbances spread to Los Angeles in 1992 after the not-guilty judgment in the case against 4 white police officers who had been shown beating Rodney King, an African American. New York had also disreputable scandals in the late 1990s of police torturing of the Haitian migr Abner Louima in 1997 and the killing of the West African migrant Amadou Diallo in 1999. Such infamous cases have prompted a review of police policies and the manner in which internal inquiries are performed. Police Agencies in the Future Social science has assisted police profession just as forensic science has. Most recent metropolitan police forces have modified to the different requirements of their neighborhoods, with specific forces and resourceful choices to conventional police methods. One of the influential developments has been concerning community policing, an effort to make police officers more familiar to the residents and merchants of a neighborhood. Community involvement in policing has also influenced the inquiries and style of police mistreatment and dishonesty, with the public claiming a bigger role. Apprehensions of "racial profiling," the supposed leaning of police officers to hunt minority groups, has generated efforts to train police about the cultural disparities between cultural and ethnic groups. Police reorganization has been slow-moving, since issues are usually discussed at the national level, while new policies are designed by local departments. This state of affairs will almost indeed develop as the need for interagency collaboration strengthen, and because federal police agencies act together with local agencies to create a national computer database for collecting data and distribution of intelligence. References Bayley, David H. (1979). "Police Function, Structure, and Control in Western Europe and North America: Comparative and Historical Studies". Crime & Justice 1: pp. 109-143. "Chicago Chooses Criminologist to Head and Clean Up the Police", United Press International/The New York Times, February 22, 1960. "Finest of the Finest", TIME Magazine, February 18, 1966. Kelling, George L and Wilson, James Q. (1982). "Broken Windows" (subscription), Atlantic Monthly, March. Kelling, George L and Wycoff, Mary A. (December 2002). Evolving Strategy of Policing: Case Studies of Strategic Change. National Institute of Justice. Kelling, George L; Pate, Tony; Dieckman, Duane and Brown, Charles E. (1974). The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment - A Summary Report. Police Foundation. Reiss Jr, Albert J. (1992). "Police Organization in the Twentieth Century". Crime and Justice 51: p. 51. Tilley, Nick. (2003). "Problem-Oriented Policing, Intelligence-Led Policing and the National Intelligence Model". Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, University College London. Read More