A subculture is made up of the symbols, beliefs, values, and attitudes shared by members of a subgroup within a larger society according to our book: Criminal Justice in America 7e. Like a subculture of any professional group, police subculture is defined as a specific set of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors exhibited by those in law enforcement according to study.com. The subculture of the police helps exemplify the “cops world” and roles each officer plays in it. The dynamic of ‘us’ (the police) in contrast to ‘them’ (the public) can create both a positive and negative attitude for the police.…
When we hear the term police officer, we automatically picture a person wearing a navy blue uniform, holding about twenty-three pounds of equipment and have an air of authority surrounding them.We look to them for protection against all the negative people and influences that are out in our world. Jerome Skolnick argued that police culture rises from the common tensions that are associated with the job of being a police officer.…
The blue wall of silence is an unwritten rule found in police cultures related to individual characteristics and the environmental conditions of police work. The blue wall of silence encompass a culture of solidarity and discourage reporting fellow officers, which diminishes organizational goals and the public’s trust. These rules are either established under unethical practices deemed acceptable within the cultural environment or out of fear of retaliation. When unethical behavior is found at the individual level, it requires interventions practices or the removal of the individual to remedy the problem. However, under the subcultural initiation process, the problem is a product of learned behavior common to the social and organizational structure…
The most important lesson of chapter 1, tells how the American police service have changed over time, and why it cannot be understood properly if it is examine alone. For example, in a crime scene, an officer has to gather his information from the witness otherwise he or she would never solve the crime, however, in working with the communities make their job a lot easier to find suspects. Many cases are still out there unsolved because they law enforcements can’t do the job alone. At the beginning of the 20th century, cities were staggering under the burden of machine politic, corruption, crime, poverty, and exploitation of women and children by industry. The police was less involved because during this…
I was assigned to read the article, How Police Justify the Use of Deadly Force were written by William B. Waegel, and the article was published 1984. In the article, Waegel mostly discussed how police would do in danger situations and how they feel when they shoot, and subculture in their workplace. The questions for this assignment—“How does the police officers’ workplace subculture help the police? What factors help create the officers’ workplace subculture?”…
Policing, is an occupation described as hours of boredom, followed by extreme moments of fear and terror, with coffee and donuts thrown into the mix at times. It is also a culture perceived by the public as corrupt, aggressive, racist, and above the law which empowers them. In an occupation where these extremes exist, it is necessary to have characteristics to reinforce the collective and impersonal nature of the work. Cultural characteristics by definition are: the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time : a particular society that…
Police history can be traced back to the 18th century. When looking at the subject of police work there is significant culture and history that follows along with it. There are many topics that can be analyzed when identifying and describing the elements and the significances that are associated with policing. An element that plays a significant factor to police work, and that attributes to the policing culture is the amount of stress that an officer will face while performing his or her duties. Another factor that plays a role in police culture can be found when one examines how women and ethnic minorities have achieved equality in law enforcement.…
Police subculture is one that is questioned with police brutality, use of excessive force in administering order, cover-ups for fellow police officers, corruption, and other unethical issues in the police system. An efficient police system would mean a flawless one, where there is no corruption or any form of misconduct where recruitment and training would all be fair. The police have time and time again been on the frontline for assault against a particular society, such as the black community who continually are being harassed by the law-enforcement. The moment a police officer swears the oath, he also commits himself to serve all of mankind, regardless of age, color, ethnicity, social status, or race.…
The role of the police is to enforce the law, not to question it. This means that the police have been used to do society 's racial dirty work--to return runaway slaves to their masters and to enforce segregation in the South. We have only to think of Southern sheriffs like "Bull" Connor to remind us of how the white power structure has fought to maintain its privileges. However, it also pays to remember that it is always easier to admit the sins of the past than it is to identify those of today. Few people today would defend a sheriff like Connor, but while there is widespread agreement today that racism is a serious problem,…
The United States government and the police must have a relationship because the laws and how the American criminal justice system is set up and ran. The rights of the people are established by the government and in most cases have to be carried out and enforced by local police. The local police vary from size throughout the United States. As the government set out to make new laws, it is the police who have to make sure that laws are being followed. The police also have a professional obligation to the public and the first component of the Criminal Justice system is the police, and different levels of policing focus on different levels of crime. The United States government has policing on the federal, state, and local level. A local law enforcement agency can run from a huge local police department to a small local police department depending on the number of people living in the community or jurisdiction of that police department. Next, would be policing on the state level, this would be your state troopers. The state police are mostly seen on the highways, but they have other duties that go beyond jus t regulating our highway. Last would be federal police agencies, federal agencies have the responsibility to enforce the laws that are only on the federal level, but unlike state and local police, federal agencies have nationwide jurisdiction. Overall the Government makes the laws for these different police agencies to enforce, the relationship between the government and police seems to be an up and down situation. The police system is not perfect and at times those imperfections in the system show because of this it makes it hard for policing around the United States. Throughout the years because of the corruption and wrong doings in some police agencies for the most part the government has to take a neutral stance in the way they follow up on police misconduct and wrong doing within…
Throughout the history of the United States, the ranks of police officers have been dominated by white males. As a result, the underrepresentation of minorities and women has long been a problem in policing. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act made discriminating against any individual based upon their color, sex, religion or national origin illegal, thus paving the way for more minorities and women to become police officers. Before the implementation and enforcement of these acts, it was extremely difficult for minorities and women to get a job in policing. Experts in the field of law enforcement maintain that diversity in…
Police History Kenna Puckett CJA/214 October 20, 2014 Eric Crawford Police History Policing in the United States dates back to the 1800s, but the police of the modern world are much different from the first police that took patrol. The first patrols did not have cars or two-way radio communication, but they started off always evolving policing and law enforcement organizations. In our current time the government has a direct relationship with law enforcement which affects policing practices. Federal, State, and local governments all play a role in policing practice. Although the law enforcement industry is ever-changing, sometimes it is important to understand where it came from and where it is going. Sir Robert Peel…
America is a very diverse place where people from all over the world choose to reside. With all of these different cultures blending together into one melting pot, we have to learn how to live with each other. For all these cultures to be able to dwell together, there needs to be order, rules, and guidelines established into the community. Without people that can fulfill those duties in a country there would be no kind of structure within the United States. The people who we count on to enforce these rules in the United States are the police. The citizens hold the police on a higher scale than regular civilians hold each other to. This takes places because civilians view the police in the United States on a pedestal because; they are the enforcers…
In the United States today, the average citizen is unaware of the corruption that goes on in our Criminal Justice System. Law enforcement and Police Officers are abusing their power. If this goes unnoticed it could grow larger and cause bigger problems in our country. The United States Criminal Justice System is one of the best in the whole world. In other countries there is little or no policing. Police officers in the US are well-trained and it is hard to reach their position without a strong education. A huge quality of a perfect Police Officer is a perfect control of temper because a quiet determined manner has more effect than violent action. But everyone isn’t perfect and there are Police Officers out there that abuse their power and create a dangerous environment for the people around them.…
Topic: Abuse of power in the police force – There has to be an invisible sun that gives us hope when the whole day is done.…