Cross-Culture Awareness and Respect
Running Head: AWARENESS AND RESPECT
Cross-Culture Awareness and Respect
Brittney
Kaplan University
CJ246-01
August 31, 2010
There are many reasons as to why it is necessary for police officers to have diversity training. In this paper, we are going to discuss three of the reasons that I feel are some of the most important. It is very important for police officers to have an understanding of different cultures, which is defined as “beliefs, values, patterns of thinking, behavior and everyday customs that have been passed on from generation to generation”, so that way they can be of more assistance when responding to calls of different cultures. There are still some cases in the United States of America today that are considered illegal here, but in other cultures, they are completely acceptable.
If an officer(s) are responding to a case of child abuse, for example, the best instance that I can use to describe how badly no knowledge of different cultures can affect the call’s, is the one that the text books points out:
There is a young Vietnamese boy who had been absent from school for a few days with serious injuries. His father had rubbed heated coins on specific sections of his neck and back in hopes that it would cure him. When the child’s condition seemed to have improved, the father had sent him back to school only for the reporting of the bruises on his neck, from the coins, to get Child Protective Services involved. Even though the father was extremely cooperative and had admitted to leaving the bruises from the coins, in not so well English, he was still arrested and incarcerated. While he was in jail, his son’s condition had got worse and he had died from his original illness. Once his father had heard of this, he then took his own life in jail.
This example goes to show that if there had been an officer that either knew the Vietnamese culture, at least to know some of how they practice medicine, or even if there was someone that had did
Cross-Culture Awareness and Respect
Brittney
Kaplan University
CJ246-01
August 31, 2010
There are many reasons as to why it is necessary for police officers to have diversity training. In this paper, we are going to discuss three of the reasons that I feel are some of the most important. It is very important for police officers to have an understanding of different cultures, which is defined as “beliefs, values, patterns of thinking, behavior and everyday customs that have been passed on from generation to generation”, so that way they can be of more assistance when responding to calls of different cultures. There are still some cases in the United States of America today that are considered illegal here, but in other cultures, they are completely acceptable.
If an officer(s) are responding to a case of child abuse, for example, the best instance that I can use to describe how badly no knowledge of different cultures can affect the call’s, is the one that the text books points out:
There is a young Vietnamese boy who had been absent from school for a few days with serious injuries. His father had rubbed heated coins on specific sections of his neck and back in hopes that it would cure him. When the child’s condition seemed to have improved, the father had sent him back to school only for the reporting of the bruises on his neck, from the coins, to get Child Protective Services involved. Even though the father was extremely cooperative and had admitted to leaving the bruises from the coins, in not so well English, he was still arrested and incarcerated. While he was in jail, his son’s condition had got worse and he had died from his original illness. Once his father had heard of this, he then took his own life in jail.
This example goes to show that if there had been an officer that either knew the Vietnamese culture, at least to know some of how they practice medicine, or even if there was someone that had did
Bibliography: Shusta, Levine, Wong, Olson, & Harris, 2008, pp. 21 Shusta, Levine, Wong, Olson, & Harris, 2008, pp. 22