A Law Enforcement Officer For The Past 19 Years

Although the economic environment and social relationships have changed, police officers remain the centerpiece and foundation of civil law enforcement — but without community support and trust, they will never be capable of doing their job effectively. Public trust is the cornerstone of successful policing, the currency by which they are allowed to operate. One act of misconduct, perceived or otherwise, reflects wholly on the department and is one of the most substantial hurdles to overcome as an active stakeholder within the community, not an enemy of it. Strong leadership can steer the department through adverse periods of municipal distrust by fostering a culture from within that promotes openness, fairness, and high ethical standards. Creating buy-in from internal stakeholders establishes a strong foundation and promotes esprit de corps, upon which a very successful strategic communication and outreach campaign to external stakeholders (latent, expectant, and definitive) will thrive and ensure widespread support.

Police officers all take the same line of oath when they enter onto the force. Unfortunately, there are some that don’t respect their oath enough to stay out of trouble. If anyone takes a moment to google the term “police officer busted”, a million articles come up just within the past year. It’s sad to say that a few bad apples of mix are giving the force a bad name. Other officers take their jobs with pride and integrity. For some, it’s too much not to give into the criminal life while trying to protect others. The article I chose this week discusses an officer in Fairview Township who has been on the force for 17 years.

Loving, K. (2014). 3 Ways For Law Enforcement To Improve Public Relations and Trust. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from

When the public looks at us as public servants they expect officers to be of the highest ethical, and moral standard. When the police deal with the public, unfortunately it is usually when something is wrong. To be able to fix things that are wrong in society you have to be a person of integrity with moral values. The public would never trust someone who does not have integrity to fix there problems. In order for officers of the Las Vegas metropolitan police to perform their duties the community needs to be able to trust them. When a officer is trustworthy, he or she can be relied upon to be honest, reliable, and loyal, which to me means they have integrity. But its also equally important to be respectful, responsible, fair, caring, and demonstrate good citizenship. An officer with integrity does exactly what he says, and says exactly what he means. There is no conflict or doubt between his thoughts and actions. His actions are consistent with the values he claims to

The quotes above illustrate that trust played an important role in the implementation and conception of community policing across the districts. In these districts, trust is also a driver for the implementation of community policing, but here the participants refer to trust more in the sense that the police need to break up with the negative image which associates them to the different corrupt practices.

Most police officers are just trying to protect and serve — they would never consider discriminating against another person due to their race, and they try to responsibly deescalate situations whenever possible instead of resorting to violence. However, there are problems endemic to law enforcement culture, and many institutionalized problems that affect the work police do. No matter how good a police officer tries to be, it’s hard to make the world a better place while working from within an imperfect system. Law enforcement is something society will always need, and we are grateful to those who protect and serve, but the current system has issues it needs to address.

What is trust? The dictionary meaning of trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. The second meaning is, confidence placed in a person by making that person the nominal owner of property to be held or used for the benefit of one or more others. But what can we really define as trust? In this paper, I will discuss how trust is used every day in different situations, how we deal with trust in various relationships, and how we as individuals practice trust within ourselves.

In today’s world, many people dispute over the corruption and lack of respect citizens receive from police officers on a day-to-day basis. People claim that police officers mistreat them with an unnecessary use of force just because of the power they posses over them. Whether its police corruption or not, people need to first understand what an officer deals with from when he puts on his uniform to when he takes it off at the end of the night. The four basic responsibilities of the police are to enforce laws, provide services, prevent crime, and preserve the peace of the people in their community. It is a police officers job to use his power in protecting the civilians of wherever he or she is located to serve. At times yes, a police officer

The relationship between a police department and the community is an ideal that has become very prominent in recent years. Cultivating trust between the two sides is not something that comes easily, and its something that can be broken in one negative interaction. For police to effectively and adequately do their job, the public must believe that they will police in a respectful and fair manner.

New officers need to know that no profession demands a higher ethical standard than law enforcement. Whether or not there are other careers that require a similar dedication to doing the right thing, it is undeniable that there is a tremendous degree of expectations placed upon police officers. Every officer knows, or at least should know by now, that they live in a fishbowl. Friends, relatives, neighbors and strangers watch every move law enforcement officers make, both on and off duty. The fact is that the public scrutinizes police officers more than most other professions, either because they are cynical or hope to catch them screwing up or because they are hopeful

The lack of moral courage within our law enforcement departments threatens our reliability in the members of the law enforcement community. In a society where we rely on law and order to protect our rights and liberties, we depend heavily on those appointed to enforce the law in a just manner. The unwillingness of a person in uniform to intervene in the name of justice undermines the expectations of its community members. It will also diminish the progress of an ever-developing and ever-changing society. It is an unjust act to allow an injustice to perpetuate when an officer is in the position to prevent it in the first place. This continued lack of moral courage only leads to distrust and civil disobedience.

The roles of police in the community play a critical role in public trust. Police agencies must rely on the role of them community and when the community does not trust the police it effects individual morale. Police morale has been more effective in the wake of incidents involving police officers using force. As a result many cities

Police officers are given a lot of power because it is needed to help protect citizens and the community. However, police often abuse their power by the over use of force, corruption, sexual misconduct, bias based policing, and failure to maintain police ethics. (Peak, 2011)

There is a perception of distrust between law enforcement and the community. This distrust stems directly from the dangerous words police use when communicating with the community. (Willis, 2015, p.) Simply choosing better words can help build relationships between law enforcement and the community. It is necessary for law enforcement to have trust with their community. There are many things that hinge on the police-community relationships, the ability of law enforcement to perform their duties, are the most important. Law enforcement must be willing to rely on the public to observe the law. They must always demonstrate absolute impartiality to the law.

With such statements of promise and commitment, that are generalizable to other police departments throughout the United States, why is it today, that we have this growing “problem” with law enforcement that includes a lack of trust between the public and police. This past year, we have seen a rise in the number of news reports on police shootings, abuse of authority, and corruption. While the loudest voice of all, is that of the Black Lives Matter group, there have been complaints throughout the country from a growing number of communities.