Issues In Law Enforcement

Police officers face many challenges when trying to maintain communities’ safe and crime free. Over the last two years there has been a major surge in the amount of communication devices available to the public and the amount of news coverage that we are exposed to. “The public has increasingly turned to cable television, the Internet, and social media for news and information. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter that were not around 10 years ago today have 1.1 billion and 500 million users, respectively” (NCCPSAFTEY). Because of these changes in technology law enforcement has to constantly develop new strategies for effective policing and they have to transform contemporary strategies. This easy access to news information can be
With each new case about police brutality, the mistrust of law enforcement has increased. This causes communities and law enforcement organizations to suffer. Many times the use of excessive force, and police misconduct have been documented and have increased the public’s concern for safety and the ethical behavior of law enforcement. The issues with this is that law enforcement agencies are criticized as a whole for the actions of a handful of officers. Law enforcement organizations across the country are constantly faced with issues of accountability and integrity. There are two high profile events that have negatively affected trust in law enforcement; the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the killing of Eric Garner in New York. Both of the police departments associated with these high profile cases are examples of open systems. Opens systems are organizations that are involved in a progressive interaction with their environments. The managers of open systems have to constantly make changes to their organizations based on their environment to maintain balance. External factors that can have an effect on open systems are the media, courts, politicians, and the characteristics of their employees. The needs of the communities they service also effect they type of policies that they are going to employ. For example, a police station in the Bronx is going to have
The most important factor that affects public trust in law enforcement is probably each officer’s discretion of police discretion. After being trained, police officers normally work under very little supervision. Many organizations have started to implement body cameras on officers to track how they have acted in key situations, but it is very difficult to constantly monitor all officers. Technology fails and as it’s been seen on the media, body cameras are not always functioning correctly. According to Wilson (1968) there are three different forms of policing that can be found in organizations; Service, Legalistic and The Watchman. Discretion by police officers is mostly used when a watchman type of policing is being used. Watchman organizations are normally more concerned with maintaining order and are more likely to let a person go with a warning. According to the National Research Council, “Discretion is used along with arrest powers to persuade, threaten, and discourage potential lawbreakers” (National Research Council, 2004, pp. 70-71). Legalistic police agencies on the other hand are more concerned with enforcing the law no matter how small the crime may be. Organizations that follow Legalistic style of