Ethical Considerations Of Undercover Policing

Literature Review: Police Isolation Danielle Hoover CRIMJ465 November 14, 2015 Abstract Police Isolation is when a police officer becomes secluded from society and family based off his or her career as an officer. It appears police isolation begins early in one’s career. It is connected mainly to all the interconnections of being an officer.

Over the years, the nature of policing has changed and developed drastically. Their role not only entails crime fighting and emergency response, but also social enforcement and social peacekeeping. Bound by a code of ethics, this highly demanding role asks police to remain professional in their dealings with society, and ensure they uphold the law impartially and fairly. When it comes to enforcing the law, it is important to look at the methods and approaches taken by police in order to combat crime, and whether or not they meet current ethical standards. Although this may be the case, it is also important to acknowledge that aspects of police culture such as loyalty, deception and protection of colleagues will ultimately shape the nature of approach to resolving crime, gaining helpful information and protecting fellow officers. Police officers are granted large amounts of discretion within their roles, however, when officers deliberately abuse this amount of discretion and become display misconduct, it becomes challenging to limit discretionary authority of police officers because of the frequent circumstances they encounter where deception may provide highly constructive outcomes. Throughout this essay, methods used by police officers including entrapment, wiretapping and planting of evidence will be assessed for their strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, the ethical standards of these methods and approaches will be assessed as to whether or not they prove as ethically

Analysis- officers working the well-defined problem seek Intel on the crimes from public and private sources. Not using the Intel that you would find in the system but the officer actually seeking out a more community

This special bond between fellow police officers is what is often coined as the police subculture. The police subculture is “a distinctive set of beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviors that are shared amongst the majority of officers working in police organizations”. (Reference.com). Since a police officer’s job is to combat criminal activity, often times they see civilians as irresponsible and possible threats, which is partially true considering both the innocent and criminals are civilians. Therefore, the only other individuals police officers can trust fully are other police officers. From this connection, aspects of friendship, cooperation, and reliability arise which supports the idea of police officers against civilians, or “us versus them”.

Tetzlaff-Bemiller, M. J. (2011). Undercover online: An extension of traditional policing in the united states . 5(2), 813-824. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=55aa80b7-28ab-4e79-bcdc-1faa9e027f67@sessionmgr112&vid=1&hid=104

The Criminal Justice System is just like every other agency or corporation ever. Police integrity and ethics are fundamental to effective policing and helps with building trust within communities. Sound conduct by police improves the community interactions, enhances communication, and promotes shared responsibility for addressing crime and disorder. (USDOJ, 2014) Restoring ethics starts from the beginning, and that is too look harder into the employees or officers that you are going to hire. The thing is that it is much harder than it sounds. People can change or lie on their interviews. So you will never be able to fully prevent every person who might break ethical codes from entering into law enforcement. What you need to do first is let all new officers be aware of what they are getting themselves into.

Kappeler, Sluder, and Alpert (2009) discussed a series of opportunity and organizational aspects of policing that contribute to deviance. These aspects are identified as legitimizing police deviance through the authority of law, public perception, isolating police/citizen encounters, and limiting and subverting police supervision (p.61). The police enjoy a legal authority and operational justification to operate in a way that would be seen as criminal behavior if any normal citizen would engage in

World over, the criminal justice system work closely with undercover police units that are used to do unearth a series of sensitive evidence against law offender. By definition, undercover work as largely used is when police officers do not reveal their identities. As many opine, this form of policing takes a wider berth of forms and situation within which they operate. There is a general acknowledge among the justice system and the public on the need to have undercover policing in order to subvert threats to public safety such as terrorism

Police officers not only have to follow a set of rules and legislation, but they also must behave in a decent manner while on duty as well as off duty. Unfortunately, nobody is perfect, and police officers also make wrong decisions that could jeopardize the integrity of their police department. Often people know something they do is wrong. However, they still do it because they feel no harm will come to them or it they think nobody will ever find out. For instance, cheating on a test is wrong, but people do it because they think they can 't get away without the professor finding out.

However, for much of America’s history, its police agencies themselves have been quite distinct from the military, serving numerous roles that range from “crime fighting” to “social peacekeeper” (Winright, 2014, p. 10). However, in recent years the crime fighting role of the police – sometimes referred to as “the military model of policing” – has become increasingly emphasized, often to the detriment of other police roles (Winright, 2014, p. 10). In conjunction with this, and in response to changing threats and mandates, police agencies have increasingly come to resemble the military in their tactics, equipment, and training (Bieler, 2016). Increased police militarization in response to changing law enforcement roles and specialized criminal threats is a necessary component of modern policing, but poses real dangers of abuse, escalating violence, and miscasting of the police role that warrant significant oversight and

For the police department to be effective in their varied missions, they depend on the trust and confidence of the community. The public’s trust and confidence are severely reduced when individuals’ civil rights are compromised (International Association of Chiefs of Police, 2006).

Throughout all realms of the criminal justice system, it is hard to use discretion when arresting or prosecuting people. Another difficulty that police in our democratic society face is the discrepancy between their own personal freedoms and upholding the law, their job (Barkan, 2012). Police officers are allowed to think what they want or say how they feel, a right granted to them in the Bill of Rights. However, under the badge, police officers are required and expected to abide by the laws of the United States. Sometimes, the level of authority police hold in this situation can get them into trouble legally. This is what we call police misconduct (Barkan, 2012). One of the most notorious police scandals in history was the LA antigang Rampart Division scandal. In 2000, Rafael Perez, an LA police officer was arrested for stealing drugs. In exchange for a plea bargain Perez notified authorities of other corruptive instances in the Rampart Division. More than 70 officers were scrutinized for these acts (Barkan, 2012).

The use of informants in law enforcement has caused problems in law enforcement agencies. Police have come to overly rely on informants to help capture criminals, and doing this has caused them to use less more effective tactics. For instance, going undercover or doing sting operations. Some law enforcement agencies seem to favor some informants over others, and that has caused informants to be suspicious when working with them. In some cases, officers have even befriended their informants and have worked together to commit

policing is a pivotal part of effective policing, this paper will examine 2 articles that will discuss

Abstract In an exploration of requirements of undercover detections, what does an individual find ethically correct and incorrect? How does the undercover detective create a persona that they work as without morally destroying who they are? Every time a government or state official make the choice to go undercover they are briefed and give the information of what is approved and what is not. When going through the different articles, it was brought to light that detectives have to go through murky waters to gain the trust of some of the hardest criminals.