Blue Walls Of Silence Case Study

Everyday police officers are faced with two difficult decision to make. Whether to intervene in the situation and how to intervene when they observe something suspicious or illegal happening. Police discretion is defined as having the power to make decision, and choosing how to respond to a given situation depending on the circumstances. Even though, there are law in place it is still up to a police officer own discretion. Ultimately, police officers have the choice to enforce the law and how to carry it out in public. In the text book “Policing America” by Ken Peak he states that there are two criminal law in discretion. “the formality and the reality. The formality is found in the statute books and opinions of appellate courts; the reality is found in the practices of enforcement officers” (82). He also, demonstrate when should each criminal law be use. However, there are negative and positive aspects of police discretion. Also, there are pros and cons of allowing patrol officers to make discretionary decisions.

Discretion is defined as the authority to make a decision between two or more choices (Pollock, 2010). More specifically, it is defined as “the capacity to identify and to document criminal and noncriminal events” (Boivin & Cordeau, 2011). Every police officer has a great deal of discretion concerning when to use their authority, power, persuasion, or force. Depending on how an officer sees their duty to society will determine an officer’s discretion. Discretion leads to selective enforcement practices and may result in discrimination against certain groups of people or select individuals (Young, 2011). Most police officer discretion is exercised in situations with individuals (Sherman, 1984).

Throughout the years, how police officers and police departments view domestic violence has changed drastically. Before the 1960s, police were not properly trained on how to handle any domestic violence cases. The police did not even want to know about it because they felt like it was none of their business. It is something that they believed happened in the home and needed to be dealt with both partners. They needed to work out their issues and not involve the police. “In 1967, the International Association of Chiefs of Police stated in its manual that arrest should only be employed as a last resort,” was stated by White et al. (2005). Departments did not even know how to tell their officers how to handle domestic violence situations. Police barely did anything to help victims feel safe and reassured. A victim could have been brutally beaten, but if police were not present an arrest would not be mad. Back then, police would not even arrest the batter if they had a good excuse. As officers were becoming more aware of domestic violence and as it be came more of a concern, officers still felt uncomfortable dealing with the situation. Police were also, “Required that the police be present at the time a misdemeanor domestic violence incident occurred in order to make an arrest” (Çelik 2013). How could a victim call 911 when a misdemeanor domestic violence incident was occurring? How did police believe that there would be time between blows and screaming to pick up the

A great deal of society views law enforcement officers as heroic and honorable individuals, whose main purpose is to protect and serve the community. For many officers, this description is accurate, however for others; violence and brutality against innocent citizens is part of getting the job done. For years, minorities have fallen victim to police brutality based on racial profiling, stereotypes and other

Today, police discretion is a very important aspect to the criminal justice field. There are different substances where discretion is not discipline enough or not monitored enough even though having discretion is not always bad. There are still ways to abuse it and today police officers have their own way of using police discretion for different situations. Discretion can be defined as someone having the power or authority to make a decision based on what they feel should be done in a certain situation. Police officers are taught how to handle certain situations according the law. But when the officer is on duty no one is there to make sure that they are making the right decisions that follow the law and according to the law, there are not set guidelines in the law for police discretion which give the police officer an advantage. Discretion is used by police officers when they are facing a decision with a bunch of results that could handle the situation but the officer has control to pick which result they would want to choose.

As all officers know, domestic violence is a serious problem throughout the United States. Unfortunately, it is also a crime that some officers perpetrate in their own homes. When officers - who are sworn to protect and serve in their communities - abuse their power and control at home, they violate the law. When this occurs, the victim, the family, the agency, and the entire community suffer. Officers are trained to maintain control, to use weapons, and to justify their use of force on the job. Officers also need to understand, however, that the core behaviors that make them effective on the job must not be used against family members and intimate partners (University of Florida).

Police Agencies in modern society are a part of the American fabric to serve and protect the American public. The United States currently have more than 15,000 police agencies, (Walker & Katz, 2011). Police Departments across the United States face similar critical issues policing. All police officers face dangers in the job of policing the dangers can emanate from internal and external origins. Police officers have continued to evolve to serve communities by finding better less than lethal alternatives to weapons used. In addition, police departments have continued to keep up with

The theory used in this study will center on if law enforcement agencies regularly train and practice non-lethal means will have lower cases of excessive force within their organization. Law enforcement officers are authorized to use force when necessary, but when the level of force is excessive, however, the actions of the police come under scrutiny. The resulting effects can include; public outrage, scandal, negative reputation for not only the officer but the law enforcement community.

After watching the video “Blue wall of silence” I find that the “code of silence” between officers is what in most cases leads to the public confidence in them to diminish. No one is going to respect the police, more specifically the good ones if they’re covering up the misconduct or brutality of one of their own. As they’re impeding that officer be held accountable and it sets the wrong example for other officers in thinking it’s ok to not disclose certain things. In the video, someone mentions “don’t rat on another cop if you do there will be real consequences” and it’s disgusting and wrong as the police are supposed to protect and maintain order, not be the cause of it. In this case, police accountability is a must so that those officers

In the year 2002, there were 26,556 complaints filed by citizens against the large police departments for their police officers use of force. This was a rate of 6.6 per 100 full-time sworn police officers and with 10.9 per 100 full-time sworn police officers responding to calls. The complaints filed showed that 22,238 or 84% of them being received by the larger municipal police departments. The Sheriffs’ offices had 2,815 uses of force complaints which were 11% and the rate of 3.4 per 100 sworn police officers. The county police departments had 763 of the use of force complaints which was about 3% which was a rate of 2.9 per 100. The State law police department had 749 file uses of force complaints which were about 3%. That was the lowest rates of 1.3 per 100 officers.

In the United States of America, the blue wall of silence have been used in many decades, which police officers are forbidden to report any unlawful actions taken by their fellow officers. Unlawful action can be describe as police brutality, misconducts, crimes, and false police reports. In the 1970s, the New York Department (NYPD) faced many police corruption including a fellow officer, Frank Serpico, that tesify against bribery and corruption with the department. Although Frank Serpico was almost killed during a drug bust and left to die, he continue to fight in order gain a full recovery and exposed the truth behind the New York Police Department. He also discussed with the media on how police officer can do to in order to regain the community

Domestic Violence is one of the most common crimes that occur, however not all of them being reported. There are many effects and causes to this behavior in law enforcement officers that have been studied by many researchers doctors, authors, and the media. The victims of domestic violence from law enforcement officers (mostly being women) are affected by this greatly on a higher level than regular women who aren’t married to police officers or, as they have much more to lose if such acts were ever reported on their spouses. There are many theoretical causes of domestic violence from law enforcement officers, which effect their victims greatly, making it almost impossible for them to report any offense without some type of

Domestic Violence is one of the most common crimes that occur, however not all of them being reported. There are many effects and causes to this behavior in law enforcement officers that have been studied by many researchers and doctors, authors, and the media. The victims of domestic violence from law enforcement officers (mostly being women) are affected by this greatly on a higher level than regular women who aren’t married to police officers, as they have much more to lose if such acts were ever reported on their spouses. There are many theoretical causes of domestic violence from law enforcement officers, which effect their victims greatly, making it almost impossible for them to report any offense without some type of consequence of

Police discretion by definition is the power to make decisions of policy and practice. Police have the choice to enforce certain laws and how they will be enforced. “Some law is always or almost always enforced, some is never or almost never enforced, and some is sometimes enforced and sometimes not” (Davis, p.1). Similarly with discretion is that the law may not cover every situation a police officer encounters, so they must use their discretion wisely. Until 1956, people thought of police discretion as “taboo”. According to http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/ 205/205lect09.htm, “The attitude of police administrators was that any deviation from accepted procedures was extralegal and probably a source of corruption.

Law enforcement officers handle violence, criminal behavior, serving communities, patrolling high crime areas and helping citizen to feel safe in their homes. Domestic violence has force officers to investigate patterns of abusive behavior in sexual situation and domestic violence within homes. Some cultures believe domestic violence to be a natural occurrence and this make it hard for officers to solve and prevent domestic violence. Companies have used local law enforcement to aid them in cases where working involves in these situations at work and there’s a need for police intervention when necessary. I think women are the mostly affected by domestic violence and there’s a need to protect them. In the police department today there are domestic polices to help protect people in violent situations. Police Department conducts background checks and they search for anyone involved in domestic violence, abuse to a child, neglect of a minor and any other possible past or existing court cases that could be related to these incidents. The two things for all officers to do are to protect and serve the people. The combination of these agencies gives our nation a good feeling of what freedom is all about. Since they work hand and hand training has to be at the top of their list to improve their skills with good intelligence and proper monitoring systems. Both of these agencies collect and analyze data to be able to infiltrate groups to take