Cognitive Bias In The Los Angeles Police Department

In looking at Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) history with using excessive force, there needs to be a way that hold these police officers accountable to prevent citizen-police tension and create transparency for the public. During the 1990s, 61% of police officers from the LAPD were white and considered aggressive with African American communities which suggest racial tension among the two groups (Suburbanstats, 2017). Eula Love and Rodney King are two victims of

It is no secret that the media is able to influence the general public’s opinion on most anything. Whether the subject is fiction or non, movies, documentaries, and the news especially, are capable of swaying the public’s opinions and perceptions one way or the other. Not even the world of law enforcement is safe from the media’s purview (Barlow, M. H. and Barlow, D. E. and Chiricos T. G., 1995), as media portrayals often romanticize law enforcement as a well oiled machine that always gets the bad guy, and has a perfect relationship with the public. On top of this, the media has displayed a poor habit of portraying crime as predominantly violent and racial, rather than showing the whole picture(Gilliam, F. D. and Iyengar, S. and Simon, A. and Wright, O., 1996). In this paper, the motives driving these depictions, as well as the scope and effect of the media’s influence on public perception of law enforcement, will be explored and discussed.

Lack of training and policing standards are closely linked to the myriad problems bedeviling police work, especially in small departments (Brodeur, 2010). All over the country, police departments report cases of officers being caught in uncompromising and unprofessional situations, resulting in disciplinary actions such as redeployment, suspension or sacking. These cases of unprofessionalism have led to questions being asked about policing, occasioned by recurring series of questionable and controversial encounters with police officers (Brodeur, 2010). The consequence of such encounters is increasing public distrust in law enforcement agencies.

Media bias affects just about anything in a society. It can portray certain people from different ethnic, culture, and religious backgrounds as second class citizens and deteriorates their images as a peaceful law abiding citizen. However, media bias also affects law enforcement. In the last few years, the media has painted police officers as a negative image. With the unfortunate events of Travon Martin, Mike Brown and others, the media has depicted law enforcement as a whole to be the bad guys. The story of Travon Martin is what brought attention to certain unnecessary forces that a few police officers had choose to use. On the night of February 26, 2012, Martin was shot by a police officer, George Zimmerman, whom was not charged for murder.

There is no question that police brutality, when it occurs, is one of the most egregious violations of public trust that a public servant can commit. Police officers, those individuals taxed with protecting the public from danger, should never be in a situation where they pose a threat to the public. Furthermore, there is no question that police brutality occurs. Moreover, generally when there are allegations of police brutality, there has been some type of underlying violent incident. In addition, while issues of brutality may seem clear-cut to a disinterested observer, it is critical to keep in mind that law enforcement officers are not presented with textbook examples of the appropriate or inappropriate use of force, but real-life scenarios involving quick decisions. There are many arrest and non-arrest scenarios where officers need to use force to protect self or others; and the degree of force required may be greater than what a disinterested observer would assume. Another recurrent issue in debates about police brutality is that racial bias appears to be a motive behind police brutality. When one considers that minorities are disproportionately likely to be arrested and convicted of crimes, one would expect to find a disproportionate number of minorities among those alleging police brutality. Therefore, while acknowledging that police brutality, when it occurs, is a serious problem, the reality is that most

Crime, deviance, and unethical conduct can found within almost every occupation and profession. Police ethics is the conduct that everyone is most concerned with. Police officers enter into an occupation that shares many characteristics of other career fields, but it also has unique responsibilities that deal with conduct and behavior. The PBS documentary: The Central Park Five, demonstrates two of the most common misconduct issues that the criminal justice professionals deal with noble cause and noble cause corruption. The film investigates the miscarriage of justice of four Black and one Latino teenager from Harlem, who were wrongly convicted of the brutal beating and rape of a white woman in New York City's Central Park.

When one thinks of police misconduct many not too distant stories might go through our heads. Most adults will remember how they felt when they saw the brutal beating of Rodney King on their local news station; or the outrage they experienced when they heard that the evidence in the OJ Simpson trial had been tampered with. But thanks to new guidelines, procedures and even civilian groups who now “police” the police, instances of police misconduct may soon start seeing a decline.

Many of the problems and conflicts between the community and the police are based on situations involving police misconduct and race. Other issues occur because of an experience one has had with the police because he or she is minority. Early resentments from White officers cause a different outcome when handling a police situation that involves a different race as oppose to his or her own. This begins to shape the perception of the residents that witness these actions. It has been shown that an officer’s attitude and behaviors when dealing with a minority is harsher and unfair. Several situations like the Rodney King story and police brutality where a minority was the victim is viewed by the public and discriminatory behavior solely caused by a person’s race or ethnicity. This creates distrusts and suspicion with regard to the way a police department handles these issues. The public is disappointed and reluctant to construct a relationship with his or her fellow officer.

The corruption began in the 1980’s but peaked during the early 1990’s (Law, 2017). After Hurricane Katrina hit, the police department became known for the prejudice, abuse and criminality that spread throughout the department (Ramsey, 2015). These problems surfaced and of course, the department faced backlash, leading to distrust between officers and black civilians (Ramsey, 2015). Incidents like these have become a common theme amongst police distrust.

“Ethical issues regarding corruption and off-duty behavior have become an increasing challenge in criminal justice” (Writing, 1999-2013). Within the criminal justice system, ethics can be complicated by the moral implications of actions. Differences in cultures and different circumstances can affect the individual moral compass. However, all departments of criminal justice operate by a certain code of ethics and by certain standards. But those standards and ethics often become challenged due to issues relating to police brutality, off duty conduct and corruption that we hear about all of the time through the media.

Law enforcement officers may also feel as if they are above the law, allowing personal bias and prejudices to guide their actions and who their actions target. Though the law does not facilitate around racial bias, “those enforcing the law are abusing their discretion by discriminating against individuals based on racial profiling” (Neubauer & Fradella, 2017). Racial profiling can be a result of formal, institutionalized rules within law enforcement agencies that may encourage racial profiling, whether they are aware of their actions or not. It is difficult to change such an action when it occurs worldwide, and most of the time it goes unnoticed or unreported. The criminal justice field needs to act against the practice of racial profiling and discrimination that occurs between law enforcement personnel and members of the community; a community that includes individuals who rely on the criminal justice field to serve and protect

Ronald Weitzer “Incidents of police misconduct and public opinion” Department of Sociology, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA .

Although, racial profiling has been practiced for many years, it is now becoming more popular and a serious problem for today’s society and law enforcement. Depending on the treatment of the organization and its management staff to all of its employees will dictate a positive or negative working environment. In the past, most studies viewed the problem of misconduct as one of the individual problem officers, the so-called bad apples on the force (National Institute of Justice, 2016). The police officers training is very important and must be effective and efficient because police officers rely heavily on their training for judgment and decision-making that has to be swift and smart. Despite training to avoid discrimination, officers may still rely on cultural stereotypes and act on their perceptions of a person's characteristics (such as age, race or gender) (National Institute of Justice, 2013).

Martin Luther King Jr., an American Baptist minister, African-American civil rights activist, and non-violent protest leader, once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (Ali-Dinar 1963 p.1). Such an iconic and fearless leader recognized the unjust behavior within society as a result of racially motivated police brutality and societal discrimination. Though his efforts were not in vain, today’s media representation of law enforcement impacts the societal cultivation of police officers in a negative way. Media outlets, in the forms of television, radio, or social websites, create a cynical view of police officers, which influences societal beliefs and creates negative connotations.

Racial Bias are a direct correlation to police violence against African Americans, stereotypes perpetuated by social constructions and media representation along with individual prejudice help by police officers view African Americans as a threat especially African American men. Police trust this ideology of “threat” to assist in their use of excessive force against African Americans to comply. (Tyler, 2011; Tyler et al., 2015, Skinner, Haas,2016).