Police Subculture Deviance Enters Into Law Enforcement

Gaines, L. K., & Kappeler, V. E. (2014). Policing in america (8th ed.). (S. Decker-Lucke, Ed.) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America: Anderson Publishing. Retrieved January 2017

In dealing largely with disorderly elements of the society, some people working in law enforcement may gradually develop an attitude or sense of authority over society, particularly under traditional reaction-based policing models; in some cases the police believe that they are above the law. In other cases, police corruption and misconduct may be explained by individuals and individual faults- behavioral, psychological, background factors, and so on.

Every culture is composed of four elements: “values, norms, beliefs, and expressive symbols” (Peterson, 1979, p. 137). Each police officer is influenced by the police organizational culture during training. After graduation fro the police academy, the officer is influenced by the more experienced officers of the department. Research conducted by several authors has found that peer influence never ceases even after years of experience in the field.

Police behavior plays a gigantic role in whether or not an officer will be willing to use excessive force against a suspect such as their background, training, morals, and composer in stressful situations. In Worden’s article he explains three theories about police behavior that comprise of existing research on police behavior and they’re training. These are sociological, psychological, and organizational theory. He explains sociological theory as the premise that police behavior is

“Somebody didn’t sleep through ethics training” (Ayer and Fuqua, 2001). This statement made by an officer in the movie Training Day, best exemplifies a major theme of the movie. Training Day should be shown to rookie officers as an example of how a police subculture can allow officers to abuse power. The movie is an over exaggeration, but provides depth and detail into certain situations officers may find themselves in. This paper will look at the specific concepts of a police subculture that officers may encounter.

Police “working personality” is limited by an unquestionable tacit within the police subculture, surrounded by shifting perceptions, depending on the situation.

Law enforcement (police) subcultures have specific set of moral values and a certain mentality exhibited by those in law enforcement. It’s always the public against the police so they form an alliance for supportive reasons. However, people may believe police subculture is breaking down. Police subculture is breaking down because it is inconsistent with the formal morals and values related to the culture and that police are not the same as each other in their qualities and attributes. Examining ethics and its relation to the police subculture is important to help delineate not only the grey area of ethics but also the grey area within which the police operate (McCartney and Parent, 2015). For example, police officers are known to defend their own whether its something right or wrong. However, if another officer feels that the situation interferes with their morals, then it becomes inconsistent with the other officer’s

Subculture: Pattern’s that distinguishes a certain group of individuals from the general population. An example being that officers tend to act in certain ways that differ from the larger culture, they could be considered a subculture.

Kappeler, Sluder, & Alpert (1998) explain that through the police subculture deviance enters into law enforcement. The police character that is develop can be attributed to several paradigms such as psychological, sociological, and anthropological. The individual personalities of officer and the authoritarian personality, characterized by cynicism, aggression and conservatism, is that the psychological paradigm analyzes (p. 85). The socialization process which officers experience when they go through the academy, training, and field experience, contrast that dispositional model of the police personality, and this is the focus of the sociological paradigm.

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.

The way of the policing part has made a culture particular to that facility. Like any authoritative society, police society comprises of generally imparted dispositions, qualities and standards. What separates police society from other authoritative societies are the strains that begin in the nature 's domain. (Paoline, Meyers and Worden 2000) It is by and largely acknowledged that there is an immediate association between police work and an “exceptional occupational society”. (Chan 1999, Skolnick and Fyfe1993, Manning and Van Maanen 1978, Reiner 1992) Loftus (2010) used the term ‘sociological orthodoxy’ that tackles about conventional aspects of police culture. These aspects are discussed as: a sense of mission towards its role as a police and having the zest of crime-oriented tasks and guarantees thrill; the gala of mannish exploitation; enforcing and engaging to the use of force and unofficial practices; distrust; pessimism, social segregation and narrow-mindedness towards those who challenges the rules and regulations mandated. (Reiner 1992, Bayley 1996) The effect of authoritative society is regularly oblivious by parts of the association (Clampitt2010) As a result, police officers may be unacquainted of the exertion of pressure that is being pushed on them by the organisation, or the influence

Anne Robinson (2006) found that these are significant issues because the 2002 survey of their police staff members by Unison found that: 1) over half of respondents did not feel valued by their forces 2) the principal reason for staff wishing to leave the service was that they felt undervalued 3) 63% perceived there was a status divide between police staff and officers. US police culture mirrors some of the issues about acceptance and the differential status of civilian staff present in the UK.

Police officials are recruited from different ethnic groups and each ethnic group has its own culture. This is evident in the societies in which police officers live. However, despite this conformity to different sets of values, there is one mind-set that takes over when a police recruit consents to the formation of a dominant monolithic police culture. Halttunen (2015) asserts that organisational culture is influenced from both inside and outside. The police culture is derived from the external and internal factors that are present in occupational settings. The notion of a single occupational culture that is now being deabated has been endorsed by both past and contemporary police scholars (Paolline III, 2003:204). The addition of other ethnic

Subcultures within police departments are an unfortunate everyday occurrence, but the issue goes much deeper than just that of officers failing to report misconduct of a few. These types of subcultures will erode any department’s ethical standards and policies because the clear line between right and wrong becomes blurred. Police subcultures are destructive and not only threatens the officer’s wellbeing, but the department’s reputation and its ability to maintain good order and discipline among the officers and the community.

Lastly, the fact of the matter is the police behavior and the factors that are associated with them be it legal or extralegal cannot effectively explain certain types of decisions police make because the situation coupled with the degree of evidence ultimately dictates the officers response and or actions. with such issues alone, and must partner with members of the community who share a mutual responsibility for resolving problems. The phrase, a community gets the kind of policing it wants, provided by the evidence of previous and recent studies holds to be true because the more tolerant of a difference the community has, the more inclusive the style of policing that is manifested there. According to the findings of Wilson, strands of inclusion, exclusion and coercive inclusion have varying degrees within particular programs, policies, as well as practices of policing institutions. To an extent one can agree with the observations made by Wilson, Smith, and Sherman, although they do not directly state how community difference may yield behavior differences of police they make a valid point when stating that invoking the law and strength of evidence play a major role in police behavior.. To further elaborate, as mentioned in the findings of observational studies, police behavior also depends on both the local political structure as well as the community influence. In the community policing model/perspective officers are encouraged to spend considerable time and effort in