Code Of Ethics In Law Enforcement : The Concept Of Discourse Community

Discourse communities are all around us—we all belong to a discourse community. A discourse community is a body of persons who share common and unique modes of communication or discourse (“Discourse Community”). In order for a community to identify as a discourse community, the community must possess six defining qualities that categorize it as a discourse community. As defined by John Swales, a researcher and professor of linguistics, discourse communities “have a broadly set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback, one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, an acquired lexis, and a threshold level of members with a

A discourse community comprises of a group of people sharing a common and distinct mode of communication or discourse, especially within a particular domain of intellectual or social activity (Oxforddictionaries, 2017). Some of the discourse communities I consider to be a part of, include an Indian joint family, my peer group, high school education in India, the Apple community and education at Pace university.

A discourse community is a social collective that shares ideas, goals, values, and themes. Discourse communities existed in all facets of life, and are important to each individual’s social life. We all belong to varies discourse communities. The people you hang out with, the social networks you belong to, and even your favorite sports teams are discourse communities. Today we will look at a specific one; we will look at the discourse community of Mixed Martial Arts.

James T Porter describes a discourse community as a group who “Shares assumptions and what objects are appropriate for examination and discussion”, in other words; a group of people who are in some way or form connected. So, take engineers for example where every member pays the same price for entry, an engineering degree. This would mean that from day one every member is indoctrinated with the same way of thinking and share a common knowledge at the core of their education. The shared goals of the community are to design, develop and create new feats of engineering in their respective fields. In order for engineers to accomplish their goals, they need to work together and communicate. But, how exactly does an engineer communicate if they are

It is important that police officers be ethical especially while on the job. An officer’s

The criminal justice system is one of the most important components in the public service system. Since it is a system that citizens encounter daily it would be most beneficial for those who are employed to behave as ethical leaders. Leadership skills and ethical behavior are both parts of the duties of any officer serving the law. Often employees are placed in quick decision situations that can have fatal outcomes if not handled properly. By ensuring that all officers of the law have a set of functioning ethical leadership skills can not only develop a well-rounded individual, but also builds the relationship between the community they serve to protect. The police and other officers of the law have great discretion and power over an individual which makes having responsible, ethically behaving persons on the front lines even more important. With the right training and education, ethical officers can set the bar and improve the quality of life of the community they serve as well as other officers.

In his article “The Concept of Discourse Community,” Professor John Swales defines what a discourse community is, following with a list of six different points that a group must align with in order to qualify as a discourse community. These parameters are as follows: “a broadly agreed set of common public goals,” “mechanisms of intercommunication among its members,” the use of “participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback”, use or possession of “one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims”, “some specific lexis”, and “a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise” (471-473).

My first interviewee officers jack Davidson, patrolman from Somers point police department. When interviewing Patrolman Davidson, I found the following to be his impressions of the police force in general. Officer Davidson spoke of why ethics and character are important in the field of law enforcement. His response was that ethics and character go hand in hand. In law enforcement it seems that there are so many reasons to do the right thing. The reasons began with public opinion and also should include their influence on the youth who will be growing up to be citizens of the city, state, or country. If a police officer does not behave with

A discourse community is a group of people that share a set of common goals and use communication to achieve these goals. My discourse community is the Bartlett High School Band. The band has a set of goals that we set up at the beginning of the year during leadership. I have been a part of this discourse community for three years. I was a part of a similar discourse community for one year, which was the Bolton High School Band. The Bartlett Band is a discourse community that has multiple methods of communication, a set of common goals, and a lexis.

Life is like a massive highway that have infinite routes anyone can choose take to reach some type of designated goal. Those various routes lead to distinct exits, where one can discover a group or groups that share similarities dealing with viewpoints, beliefs, or understanding towards a particular goal. These groups can be identified as discourse communities. According to, “The Concept of Discourse Community,” in the textbook, Writing About Writing, John Swales stressed that in order to be classified as a discourse community the group has to have all six defining characteristics. Swales emphasized, “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, utilities and hence processes one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims, acquires specific lexis, and has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise” (Swales, 221-222). Keeping this key detail in mind, there is numerous type of discourse out there.

A discourse community is a group of people or communicators who share the same common goals or interests and use different forms of communication to achieve these goals. Some of these forms of communication may range from reading, writing, the use of technology such as blogging and emailing, and even visual art such as painting and drawing. As an English major focusing on the aspect of creative writing, the discourse community I so happened to be associated with is of the English subject. The discourse community of the English literature is made up of many people, genres of literature, and even terms. The discourse community of English literature can be traced back to as early as the year C.658 with the development of Anglo-Saxon literature. Some influential eras of English literature include : Romanticism, Victorian literature, Medieval Theater, Poetry, and the Elizabethan Period. Of course with every discourse community there are a vast number of people who help to make it up. In the discourse community of English some of these people include author and playwright William Shakespeare, author Mark Twain, author and poet Jane Austen , and a slew of famous African-American authors some including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Lorraine Hansberry, and poet Maya Angelou.

Numerous police agency’s and police officials work on a distinctive local, state, and federal level and role. It has its individual area, sectors, and function, and work according to local streets parts inside policing. In order for any local, state, and federal police division to work successfully it must hire chiefs, deputy’s, and sheriffs who retain leadership and who uses creative thinking skills to teach comprehensive, and aggressive instruction to make the police division a tougher department by holding all its workers tasks for doing his or her job according to its agency’s guidelines and procedures known as code of conduct. “Municipal police work for municipalities such as towns or cities, county police and deputy sheriffs work for counties, state police work for states, and federal police work for the federal government. Some have the same duties as one another or very similar duties, and some have different or additional duties. Their jurisdiction is sometimes the main difference. For example, a municipal police officer normally has primary

Among the other challenges mentioned is the absence of a strong leader whom police enforcement officers can emulate and look up to for inspiration. This is confirmed by Edward J. Tulley who said that a person must do the right thing always even if nobody is looking. The sad thing however is that there is nobody now who is willing to set a positive example.The lack of training or formal education is also a reason why law enforcement officers commit misconduct. I believe that no person would intentionally do something that is wrong. The problem however is that when people are faced with an ethical dilemma their lack of understanding of better ways to deal with the situation sometimes impels them to make a wrong decision. The task now is to make ethics a part of the training for law enforcement officers so that compliance with the code of ethics becomes a matter of instinct. The absence of a stringent hiring and selection process is also a barrier for compliance with high ethical standards. The conduct of interviews and psychological testing are important because there are people whose psychological profiles do not match with the profile of that of a police officer. While it is true that there are some people who can be educated and trained to become ethical police officers there are some whose personalities do not match that of a police officer

Police “officers work and live in a constantly changing environment in which they are exposed to a myriad of ethical conflicts. When either unprepared or unaware, police officers are more likely to “go with the flow” than they would be if they were adequately prepared to face potentially ethical risks.” (Gilmartin & Harris, 1998) Most ethical violations are committed because the officer is exposed to a situation in which he was inadequately prepared. The lack of time to think about the situation before committing an ethical violation has detrimental life changing consequences. Police work can be very exciting and very rewarding but if not properly prepared and trained an officer can easily find himself involved in an ethical violation. Understanding the issues and being mentally prepared will help police officers become more responsible and make better

Discourse communities are all around us, which can include a sports team, academics, and many others. However today I am focusing on a discourse community that relates to my major, criminal justice. In order for me to understand swales six characteristics I interviewed a homicide detective relating to criminal justice. A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field. A discourse community is defined by six characteristics. The six defining characteristics of a discourse community require a set of common goals, there must also be mechanisms of communications within the community as well as feedback among members. Genre, the fourth characteristic, describing the various methods of output. The last two are terminology, and expertise. In order to really understand that criminal justice is a discourse community, I had to do research, and interview an expert in the field. To be a part of a discourse community, one must be credible, possess factual knowledge and draw on the values of its members to be accepted into the community. At the same time a person must learn typical ways people in that community communicate and argue. They share a certain genre which is a type of writing. Members of discourse communities provide information and feedback that are imperative in order for that discourse community to grow. My interviewee, Carol Mims, is a child homicide detective. She is an alumni here at