Structure-Agency Debate: The Dirty Work of Democracy by by Antony Atlebeker

In “A Sketch of the Policeman’s Working Personality,” Jerome Skolnick discusses and analyzes how a police officer’s personal outlook is affected by his or her involvement in police work, creating an “us versus them” mind-set, as well as the frequent inability to “turn off” the police mentality outside of a work environment. While he states that a person’s work has an impact on his or her outlook of the world according to a recurring theme in the sociology of occupations, police work has a particularly strong impact on those cognitive lenses (Skolnick, 1966, p. 2). Because of the nature of their job, police have a tendency to look at the world in a way that makes it

Stephens, D. W. (2011, June). Police Discipline: A Case for Change. Retrieved October 1, 2017, from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/234052.pdf

A considerable number of research has been conducted over the past 40 years to understand police culture. A variety of terms have been used in reference to it including: ‘cop culture’ (Reiner, 2010:118), the ‘working personality’ of the police (Skolnick, 1966, 2010:15), the ‘police mind’ (Fielding & Fielding, 1991) and, ‘police sub-culture’ (Waddington, 1999). Research has shown that police culture influences officer’s attitudes, behaviors’ and work ethics (Scaramella et al., 2011); and the way officers perceive society and their role within it (Reiner, 2000). Schein (2004: 17) defines police culture as ‘A pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and,

This essay will describe the mechanisms by which the British Police are held to account, and will touch upon the paradox of police governance, the balance of unwanted coercion of police, financial stewardship and police legitimacy. This essay will also divulge into a discussion on the topic; is policing political? There will be an argument for and against, and the advantages and disadvantages to both sides will be conversed to achieve an accurate conclusion. In addition this essay will start by portraying the significance of Police Accountability.

Ramsey mentions the prejudices present in today’s police officers. After reading this article I have thought about my own prejudices and how it would affect my police work. Ramsey explains that it is human nature for officers to have prejudices, but it is up to the individual officer to not let those prejudices control his/her police work. It would take self-discipline and self-control for officers to not let their prejudices surface and become a problem while working. However, officers are taught self-discipline and self-control at the Police Academy to prevent this problem.

In the last half century with our highly technological and multicultural society, police officers’ actions have been highly scrutinized and publicized, weakening society’s belief in the justice system. The paradox of law enforcement is that officers are charged with enforcing the law and preventing crime,

In order to impose control on their employees, “ administrators are socialized by the organizations they work in and adopt behaviors and preferences that are consistent with organizational goals, thereby minimizing the influence of their own personal values on bureaucratic behavior” (656 Wilkins & williams). According to Wilkins and Williams, police are an oddity, in that they have an innate culture that pushes them away from the social norms they are used to. This article for example, is all about how African American police officers are socialized from “Black to Blue”. What this means is that the socialization of most police departments is so strong, that police officers can lose their prior identity. The overarching and powerful socialization begins as cadets, and continues over the course of their career. It becomes strong enough that it essentially replaces their existing set of norm, and replace them with the police’s.

The two topics that I decided to research are the Militarization of the police which was first presented in Chapter 1 (Module 1.2) and Diversity in Police Departments presented in Chapter 3 (Module 3.5) and Chapter 7 (Module 7.4 and 7.5). I chose these two topics because they are actively being discussed, many issues and questions are centered around how militarized the police have become and how they, the police officers, handle themselves and other civilians. Another issue that has been receiving a lot of attention is the misrepresentation of certain communities within the police force. Using my Ronald G. Burns textbook and the outside sources that I’ve found, I will do an in-depth analysis each topic.

In today’s society police forces all across the nation are undergoing extreme scrutiny due to numerous instances that have taken place. While the media seems to be focusing on the negative aspects of these instances and stirring even more controversy, I think that a pivotal part of the story isn’t being told. This part of the story comes from the officers’ perspective; the perspective of the people that are sworn to uphold the law and to protect the citizens in their community. This paper is designed to bring light to that side of the story, the side of the officer, the importance of their position, the dangers that they face on a daily basis to protect members of the community, and how as a public we can better understand and appreciate what police officers do for us each and every day.

The job of a police officer is very difficult, it has evolved from just an ordinary individual with no experience and no uniform that kept watch of live stock by walking at night with fire torches to an individual that needs to be able to function under pressure patrolling the streets of our communities in uniforms with a marked vehicle and not to mention to receive income for their services. Police has evolved overtime; in this paper I will describe the impact of Sir Robert Peel on the evolution of policing and its history.

Today in the world there are many incidents in society that are caused from false assumptions which lead to wrong decisions being made. These incidents are mainly based off of beliefs of certain stereotypes, and citizens begin to wonder if the police force is doing their job through justice, or simply misusing their power by mixing their own social and racial conclusions within their job. This leads to the fact that equality never really exists anywhere, and even ‘prominent’ individuals such as police officers are guilty of this, leading to the conclusion that even the law cannot be trusted.

One of the recommendations is related to the monitoring and the assessment of the police work by the leadership in order to eliminate the prejudice and ensuring fairness police policy. First of all, elimination of racism should be done among the police officers. It must be a challenge to promote anti-discriminatory practice enclosed in the legal framework (Dalal, 2012). The prevention and the recording of the racial incidents consist of encouraging the population to report any hate crime. Furthermore, the recruitment of the people from minorities group among the police forces will increase the confidence in the criminal justice system. It is more than necessary that people start trusting again the British legal system. Moreover, police officers should be trained for racism awareness. Stop and Search power was a key issue in what means institutional racism and the personal factors are not reliable to support its basis. Macpherson recommends a strict recording of the stop and search incidents (Bowling and Phillips, 2003).

The "crisis" of policing elsewhere is essentially about the failure of relationships, particularly with people who are different, culturally and socially to the dominant group or class in society. The crisis is also about the development of policing in a technocratic and paramilitary direction which served to isolate the police from the community, and lead to a reliance on the patrol-car and the computer rather than on face on face contact with the people.16 Policing thus became alienated from the people it aimed to serve. Basically the police-community relationship is a form of inter-group relations, as both police and community regard each other as identifiable groups with specific

The professional model was a reformed system of policing put in place originally to remove corruption in the police force, such as through creating civil service systems to eradicate political influences from the police by removing patronage and ward influence among the process of firing and employment of police officers, and to improve the structure of the police. Standardized operation and training procedures, a strict division of labor through separate divisions for investigating, patrolling, and providing support services, and a para-military command and control system were part of the improvements to the structure of the police. A tough and aggressive style of policing emerged with police brutality a rising issue among citizens, particularly citizen’s belonging to minority groups. The strategy of policing became randomized patrols to discourage crime, quick response to calls requesting service, and reactive criminal investigation. A focus was placed on controlling crime through arrests, with officers judged based on the number of arrests they made, and the rate of crime became the main way to gauge the effectiveness of the police. In highlighting and asserting its crime fighting capabilities the police gave the public a distorted set of expectations of what the police could do against crime, and as a result the public image of police was damaged (CRJA 2600 Reader, Spring 2014, Week 3). Many questions arose over the police’s role in society and their ability to control

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.