Assignment 1: Key Issues Facing Law Enforcement

Every day, law enforcement officers encounter danger while carrying out their duties. The foremost duty of law enforcement officers are to serve and protect citizens. Most law enforcement agencies do this successfully. However, many people view law enforcement officers as the enemy. People need to be better informed about law enforcement and why officers take specific actions in certain circumstances. In our society, police are in a very dangerous position when it comes to the amount of force they can use when dealing with an individual. Officers use discretion when deciding the best course of action for the situation, whether it be physical force, persuasion, or coercion. They must take the correct course of action, because if they are too lenient or to forceful, even when dealing with petty things, they can be reprimanded by superiors and the public. Should police use force? Which circumstances warrant use force and what are the limits of force they can use? These questions are often asked when police are compelled to use force.

I would review the existing training curriculum and see what works and what needs improvement.

There are many key issues that have to be considered by law enforcement agencies when building relationships with the communities they serve. First and for most they have to adequately and fairly address complaints made by members of the community. The police have to provide the same service to minority communities as they would provide a predominately white community. The effect of providing good service could mean that the community will slowly build their trust with police officers. In the long run this will reduce tensions and build trust between the two groups. By building trust the police know they can count on the community when it comes to crime prevention. Reducing the publics fear of crime translates to increased cooperation between

First, there is lack of information and knowledge on the right police training philosophy, learning approach and training program objectives (CALEA, 2010). This lack of knowledge has immense negative effects on police training, especially because it affects not only senior commanders of police departments but also management, police trainers and other staffs. The other ingredient to police training that lacks is community understanding and support for police training programs (Mitrani, 2014). It is found out that the communities that are served by officers do little to support or appreciate post-academy training programs, which have numerous benefits to communities (CALEA, 2010). For instance, post-academy and field training for newly posted officers helps in the utilization of individual and department creativity, stakeholder collaboration, and effective problem-solving skills and techniques that would improve communal safety and

There is a significant health issue facing the public as well as law enforcement every day, suicide. The numbers surrounding suicide are shocking effects people of all backgrounds. In the year 2010 more than 38,000 adults committed suicide. Then in 2011 around 1 million adults admitted to attempting suicide, while 8 million had serious suicidal thoughts. Law Enforcement officers are at an even higher risk then most due to experiencing such a large number of risk factors. These factors include but are not limited to poor physical health, access to fire arms, domestic abuse, substance abuse, exposure to violence and suicide; depression, anxiety and other mental diseases. These factors lead to an above average number of officer suicides every

A critical issue that law enforcement faces from the time it was created to present day, is a lack of police training. The most recent data research done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics about police training across the United States was done in 2009. It reported that in the year 2009 basic training programs averaged 761 hours of classroom training (about 19 weeks). A third of academies also had additional mandatory field training with an average length of 453 hours. The topics with the average most instruction time in these training programs consisted of firearm training (60 hours), self-defense (51 hours), health and fitness (46 hours), patrol procedures (40 hours), investigations (40 hours), emergency vehicle operations (40 hours), criminal law (36 hours), and basic first aid (24 hours). In Texas, only 618 hours of basic training are required by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education.

List 5 significant challenges to the MA DOC then explain how each got to be a challenge.

Alcohol and other drug use are associated with a wide array of other public health problems. It is the leading preventable cause of birth defects in the United States, whereas fetal exposures to maternal illegal drug consumption are a serious and a growing concern. The use of injection to administer illegal drug has become a significant factor in the spread of Aids while alcohol use increases the likelihood of unsafe sexual practices, thus contributing to the spread of HIV/Aids. Much more, it has an enormous impact on the criminal justice system in the country-America. According to Keck, ‘‘a survey suggests that about 35% of those committing crimes are mostly under the influence of the concepts-(alcohol and drug use), (2003). Having said that,

Training and development are categorized into several classes. The sponsors of training and development are senior managers. The clients of training and development are business planners. Line managers are responsible for coaching, resources, and performance. The participants are those who actually undergo the processes. The facilitators are Human Resource Management staff. And the providers are specialists in the field. Each of these groups has its own agenda and motivations, which sometimes conflict with the agendas and motivations of the others. The conflicts that are the best part of career consequences are those that take place between employees and their bosses. Tempting as it is, nobody ever enhanced their career by making the boss look stupid. Training an employee to get along well with authority and with people who entertain diverse points of view is one of the best guarantees of long-term success. Talent, knowledge, and skill alone won 't compensate for a sour relationship with a superior, peer, or customer. Typical roles in the field

Criminal justice administration mainly focuses on crime prevention and punishing any illegal activities. Criminal justice administration is wide and it entails law enforcement and the judicial administration. Some of the jobs that relate to criminal justice administration include; security coordination, juvenile delinquency administration, law enforcement and being a courtroom official. Additional crime is also part of criminal justice administration. This field entails terrorism prevention, immigration policies and social policies. Other duties that criminal justice entails include; police officer, community relations advocate and correctional officer. For an officer working with the criminal justice administration, his work involves law enforcement (Bharti, 2008).

The success of implementing a program like this requires that both parties be well informed and well educated on the changes that will take place. One of the first steps is to market the concept of community policing both internally (within the department), as well as externally(within the community).  Marketing community policing internally often involves collapsing the existing structures of authority that are in place as well as the specialization within the department.  The case study mentioned that although the senior administrators in the department played a critical role in the reform, it was also necessary that line level officers be active participants in the process.  After all, two important components of community policing are empowerment and ownership.  Officers were given ownership of certain areas that were

Over the last several years, most police departments have been facing numerous financial challenges. The main reason is law enforcement agencies are expected to do more with less and the stagnant economy. The combination of these factors has been placing pressure on many departments to begin imposing budget cuts. Evidence of this can be seen with a survey that was conducted by the University of North Carolina. They found that 67% of police departments made some kind of budget cuts for 2011. The most severe reductions were occurring in large police departments such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Detroit. (Delfem, 2011, pp. 199 - 205) This is illustrating one of the most pressing issues affecting a wide variety of police departments across the country. To fully understand what is happening requires: examining the situation, how they are able to interact with other agencies (i.e. state / federal) and recommending the way this relationship can be improved. Together, these elements will offer specific insights about how police departments can effectively address this problem.

These issues represent a minor illustration of perceived misgivings of community policing. The fact remains that there is no long-term study data available that indicating the community policing approach is superior. As such it would be wise to consider continual analysis of its effectiveness as an approach while not abandoning all other law enforcement strategies based on the preliminary beliefs suggesting the benefits of community policing. The best strategy would be to maintain an open mind and continue to build upon the increased community collaboration created through community policing efforts. At the same time, agencies should be prepared to situationally use alternative strategies to combat crime when it appears community policing may not be the optimal choice using data to demonstrate why other options may be better

Approaches of both community policing and traditional policing models differ in a variety of ways. The characteristics of the policing models are quite different from each other, and community based policing was considered laughable when suggested for the new approach in the early 1970s. Due to community policing’s new operating beliefs, new and unfamiliar expected officer behaviors, and that officers were being held legally responsible for their actions and inactions; the idea and implementation wasn’t widely accepted until 1980’s. Traditional policing was primarily dominated by rampant corruption and lawlessness that affected all levels of the police administration; therefore citizens had little trust if any, in the police officers of the time.

In today’s society it seems as if all the violence that is occurring is revolved around race. Negative law enforcement involvement has been one of the major controversial topics that our generation has been faced with. Race, violence and authority is a very well-known racial disparity that will take some time to be seen otherwise. After the incidents occur, what really shakes the nation is that there is no real accountability. No one wants to admit that an injustice occurred and a small altercation lead to a casualty. Leadership within the justice system often gets challenged with such scenario. Does one discipline and makes an example out of his law enforcement officer (LEO), or does one address the public so that there is no uproar on such final decision.