Police Mentality Research

A majority of the population have erroneous beliefs concerning law enforcement agencies. Many believe police should not have the authority to use force, no matter what the situation. Often people believe everything can be resolved in peaceful terms with no one injured or killed. Likewise, people do not understand the need to use force and the responsibility of use of force by the police. Sometimes problems cannot be solved in a

An article in the Washington Post revealed that across the nation 963 people were shot and killed by police in 2016. This puts police in a losing situation. Not only have they lost the trust of many, but they are now portrayed as the enemy. A police officer’s duty is to protect the people and enforce the law. After the shootings, people don’t see them as protecting anyone, but instead harming the population. More than often now the perception is that they are the bad guys who take advantage of their power.

Courtney Brown PSYCH 2302 8 December 2014 Chapter 14: Psychology of Law Enforcement There is no doubt that being a police officer is a stressful job. Every single day, a police officer not only has to protect himself, but the community around him. He, or she, vowed to protect that area, and the town’s safety lies on their shoulders. I don’t know about anyone else, but that seems like a heavy burden to carry.

With the legitimate use of force and the confrontational nature of their interaction of community, the police work offers opportunity to officers to abuse their authority when their authority is perceived as being threatened. For example, police have to be suspicious even in regular duties like patrolling the district. They remain suspicious to everyone in the street. Most of the time, police officers work on their own without much monitoring, for instance, no one guide them when they patrol, when they face challenges from the public, they have to make the decision on their own of whether respond to the challenge by abusing their authority. It is the vagueness of their work train the police to be suspicious to any minor change in the surrounding environment in order to maintain the social order. The ambiguities also offer room for them to make choice as well as the possibility of corruption.

As stated in the reading police have subcultures that help to guide officers actions some being good and others not so good. Pollack (2017) list three factors that help to form these subgroups, "police typically form a homogenous social group, they have a uniquely stressful work environment, they participate in a basically closed social system” (p. 129). The Ramparts scandal took place within the Los Angeles police department which was known as one of the worst police corruptions. These group of police officers had formed their own subculture one where illegal activity was the norm and getting paid on the side from stealing drugs and falsely accusing people was acceptable. If the police officer Perez wasn't caught stealing drugs and forced to get a lesser sentence by turning evidence against the department who knows how many more years the subculture at the LAPD would have continued.

A police force is a constituted body of persons empowered by the state to enforce the law, protect property, and to limit civil disorder. Their powers include the legitimized use of force. The term is most commonly associated with police services of a state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of the responsibility. The police forces are often defined as being separate from military or other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors. Law enforcement, however constitutes only part of policing activity (Carter & Radelet, 1999).

As described by the textbook in relation to the police subculture, the components of the police subculture include Control, Territoriality, Use of Force, Danger, Unpredictability, Suspicion, and Solidarity (Schmalleger & Worrall, 2009). While knowing that each piece is essential to the make up of the police subculture, to me the most important component would have to be the suspicion part of the subculture. Since it’s the polices priority to protect the area they are responsible for, officers develop a keen sense, which is developed through training and experience, allows them to gain a “six sense” about their area’s an instinctively know that there is something amiss (Schmalleger & Worrall, 2009). While developing suspicion, police officers

In policing, officers are given the role to serve and protect citizens, and carry out justice. In addition, are expected by society to protect lives and property. When a police officer fails to comply with these general principles, he or she is considered deviant. Corruption and misconduct have been present in society since the beginning of policing. An infamous case in American policing history is the Michael Dowd case, where a former NYPD officer was convicted for engaging in numerous criminal activities. When analyzing the film The Seven Five, several aspects in the case can be applied to concepts found in the Introduction to Policing book, including, police culture, personality, minorities in policing, ethics, and patrol operations.

The Thin Blue Line of Sub-culture Police officers everyday are involved in their own sub-culture, which shapes their behaviour and attitude towards society. This sub-culture is made through the bond shared through serving the community and looking out for one another day in and day out while performing his/her duties as law enforcement officers. Sticking together allows them to conquer their battles against any hardships or crisis situations faced in their day-to-day agenda. The us versus them mentality, which police officers have been labeled with raises suspicion on how law enforcement officers truly feel about the sub-culture and the community, which they serve.

In my opinion, I think police officers are people the society should normally look up to an illustration of discipline and protectors of law and order. As citizens, we see police officers help in dangerous situations, enforce the law, and help protect our rights. Some people see police officers as an extension of the government. As a result of that, people take their actions more highly by the public. An example made by Study.com was “Not everyone cares how a librarian treats customers, but everyone does care about how police officers treat members of the public. This kind of scrutiny often leads to a lot of criticism, and criticism from the public feeds into the idea of the 'us vs. them' mentality of a police subculture.”

Although majority in our Society seem to dislike police officers because they term them as “Bullies” who enjoy handing out summons,stop and frisk people and making arrests because they have the right to do so, Police officer however make some of this decisions because they believe they are keeping the society safe.

Police subculture – The effect on community policing – William Courtice Relationships between employer and employee can arguably have significant impact on the outcome of corporate goals and initiatives (Rousseau, Ho & Greenberg, 2006). The dynamics of the relationship between police services and police officers are similar to civilian corporations; therefore the outcome of police initiatives are impacted both positively and negatively by that relationship. For the past 30 years, a shift from traditional styles of policing to a community-oriented style of policing has been occurring (Liederbach, Fritsch, Carter & Bannister, 2008, p.272); however, according to Chappell (2007) an underlying resistance to change has existed through a subculture

In recent years, society has heard cases of police brutality at an increasingly shocking rate, thus creating a sense of distrust among communities towards police officers and other authority figures. As the first line of defense against crimes such as home invasions or crimes against persons, police officers are expected to be an ally towards victims; however, it seems that society is now viewing officers as the perpetrators of crimes as opposed to the protectors. This has already posed an issue because community members are choosing not to seek police help when needed, and when they do decide to seek help, forgoing police assistance results in being uncertain of where else to go.

Police officers are often viewed as oppressors and unjust by the community, when in reality they are just doing their jobs. The job of a police officer is to apprehend criminals and detect crime, and the maintenance of public order and to the extend and complication of this duty police officers often need to make split second decision that is not often view by the public as what we call “self-defense” which is a right we all have as human beings and stated in the Universal Declaration of

The attitudes toward police have drastically changed within the last 100 years. People used to see police officers as highly respectable and very influential people. When a police officer was around people felt as if they were safe. Unfortunately now day’s people have the wrong idea of police officer. When people see an officer their first instinct is that they are trying to catch them doing something wrong or that they are just out looking to arrest someone. That is a very false misconception and gives police a bad name. People see the 1% of officers who are bad to represent the other 99% this makes it hard for officers to do their jobs when they are really there to help protect the people. Attitudes have gone from