The Development and Responsibilites of Police Officers Essay

Police officers have been a part of history for a long time, the earliest time is recorded back to the sixteen hundreds. When the first Europeans came over to the United States, they felt that it was necessary to protect themselves and their people from the inhabitants that were already here and had no interest in sharing their land with them. Any man and young boy that was physically able to protect their people was required to do so. There

Police Officer, also commonly known as policewoman, police agent, or police employee is a warranted law employee of a police force by definition. Their main duties are to protect and serve the United States. They keep their streets safe and enforce the rules to keep our country under control. Police officers work under a department or a city. The ranks that police officers can be very between places. In a city the ranks can be; Chief of Police, Deputy or assistant chief, Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, Commander, Major, Captain, Lieutenant, inspector, Staff Sergeant, Sergeant, Corporal, Master police officer, police officer, Trooper, Detective, Recruit, Cadet, Trainee, or Probationary officer. Frank's can be skipped or emitted and structure is often determined by individual municipalities. State and local law enforcement agencies employed more than 1.1 million people on a full-time basis including about 765,000 sworn personnel back in 2008. In 1838 the city of Boston established the first American Police Force followed by New York City and 1845 Albany New York and Chicago in 1851.

First, between 1890 and 1930, the management of the police force was centralized. Virtually every decision had to go to the top for approval, with the goal of limiting the low-level officer’s exposure to temptation. To reinforce the hierarchy, specialized units were created to deal with such problems as drugs, youth, guns, and gangs. As Bratton described it, [The department] was divided into little fiefdoms, and some bureau chiefs didn’t even talk to each other…. Each bureau was like a silo: Information entered at the bottom and had to be delivered up the chain of command from one level to another until it reached the chief’s office.

The United States uses police officers on three different levels to deal with citizens that violate the laws. The local, state, and federal agencies operate on different levels. Maintaining order and service functions, purpose of policing is to do investigation of suspected criminal activity and refer criminals to the American court. Police is needed to help maintain peace and order within the United States. Many critics feel that the policing is unorganized and nonfunctional. The police are able to do their job and help other agencies control the public. The local, state, and federal are able to aid each one if

Uchida detailed the beginning and progression of American policing in his article. Police departments were originally under the control of city governments and city officials and was heavily influenced by politics (Uchida, 2004, p. 12). Because of this political influence, there were no hiring or training standards. Elected officials would hire men that would agree to keep them in office and further their agenda with no regard for whether the men were the most qualified people to police (Uchida, 2004, p. 12). Politicians exchanged positions for political support and resources, resulting in an environment that fostered police misconduct and corruption. This system fostered loyalty to the person and/or party that helped the job-seeker acquire

As opposed to the old times, such departments had been fully entrenched in political affairs and were used as political mercenaries. In particular, they offered assistance to political allies and even harassed their opponents. The irony of this is that police departments were promoting the vices that they were expected to fight. For instance, they were fully expected to fight crime. However, it was widely known that the political machines that the police were protecting and acting to their interests ran activities such as prostitution, illegal gambling, racketeering, and even distribution of drugs. It was, therefore, impossible for the officers to act against their masters; all in all, they ended up protecting the vices that they were supposed to fight. By the turn of the 20th century, police were seen as agents of politicians, enforcing organized crimes in every city in the United States of America. This tarnished their reputation, and they were subjected to public ridicule by the citizens who needed

The initial policing was provided by local officials. It wasn 't until 1789 when the U.S Marshals Service was created followed by other federal services. The first actual police department that was created was in Philadelphia in 1751 followed by Richmond Virginia in 1807 and Boston in 1838. The way the first police departments were set up post-civil war era was a military style set up with ranks and levels to what officer authorities are ("police," 2013). In that sense not much has changed except some styles of rank of officers as well as some of the ways some situations and how they are dealt with. The biggest change that has happened is actual changing of laws and constitutions and how they are enforced by officers. The purpose of policing is to prevent crime and to maintain order while having the trust of the community in order to correctly apply the laws. In the beginning this was not always the case. The issue that presented itself back in that time was racism and the way the police department and officers would conduct the laws and enforce them when an African American would commit them and the severity of the punishment. On the other side is when a white person would committed a crime against a black person, the police had a hard time deciding whether to prosecute the white person or to let him go, which at that time it was socially acceptable and nobody thought anything of it. This was seen throughout American police history and I feel was the biggest issue in

Police Agencies in modern society are a part of the American fabric to serve and protect the American public. The United States currently have more than 15,000 police agencies, (Walker & Katz, 2011). Police Departments across the United States face similar critical issues policing. All police officers face dangers in the job of policing the dangers can emanate from internal and external origins. Police officers have continued to evolve to serve communities by finding better less than lethal alternatives to weapons used. In addition, police departments have continued to keep up with

A growing number of entry-level criminal justice practitioners have college degrees. This paper will explore whether or not law enforcement agencies should require applicants to have a post secondary degree as a condition of employment and will college-educated police officers will be resistant to organizational change.

Numerous police agency’s and police officials work on a distinctive local, state, and federal level and role. It has its individual area, sectors, and function, and work according to local streets parts inside policing. In order for any local, state, and federal police division to work successfully it must hire chiefs, deputy’s, and sheriffs who retain leadership and who uses creative thinking skills to teach comprehensive, and aggressive instruction to make the police division a tougher department by holding all its workers tasks for doing his or her job according to its agency’s guidelines and procedures known as code of conduct. “Municipal police work for municipalities such as towns or cities, county police and deputy sheriffs work for counties, state police work for states, and federal police work for the federal government. Some have the same duties as one another or very similar duties, and some have different or additional duties. Their jurisdiction is sometimes the main difference. For example, a municipal police officer normally has primary

In his article "Lack of Skills Leads to Violence", James J. Fyfe states that with "training...more comparable to that provided social workers, schoolteachers, psychologists and lawyers", police would become more adept at preventing violence. I believe this to be true, yet I think that many police departments confuse quantity with quality, and divert funding to the wrong places in an effort to better themselves. Training needs to be at the forefront of any reform. A police force that is educated and experienced, with knowledge of the community will be much more successful at preventing violence.

Law enforcement in the United States consists of local municipal, county, state, and federal agencies. These agencies make up a very large and very complex enterprise. Throughout the United States, there are almost 18,000 different law enforcement agencies at the local, county, state, and federal levels. Along with the law enforcement agencies also comes private security industry that is made up of over a million people. Each of these agencies have some similar characteristics in common with each other, however to completely generalize a typical police department is very risky.

All organizations, especially law enforcement agencies, require leadership. Maintaining a dependable leadership structure is key to the success of any organization. The philosophy of the modern style of police leadership involves a leader who is strong, competitive and unreceptive to change. Police leadership is based from an autocratic style which is founded on integrity and courage, embracing teamwork, involvement and shared leadership (Cordner & Scarborough, 2010). This style of leadership works well in an emergency situation in which rapid decision making and strict control is needed. The negative aspect to this style of leadership is the inability of the organization to function with the absence of leadership.

Over many years the idea of a policing body took many forms. In many societies they were just a group of hired men that served a particular person, needless to say they were not acting in the best interest of society. Usually these groups were made up of workless men whose only ability was his strength. As more years role by the policing body adopted a more sociological or philosophical approach. These tactics included using the people themselves to police them selves. An example of this would be in early china where the people were expected to report on the neighbors and families for crimes committed against the state and ruling body. The idea behind this was to instill fear and unknowingness in the public to give the ruling body an upper hand. In other societies instead of punishing the wrong doer for a criminal action the ruling body would punish the families of the wrong doer. This would created a society that one would prevent crime on the idea f not wanting to harm one's family and two would created a society that would turn in a brother or neighbor to prevent harm done on one's self for another's actions. This would free up the government to deal with other matters.

The earlier development of the law enforcement was developed by a man named Sir Robert Peel also known as the “Father of Modern Policing” (Bennett & Hess, 2007). He was born February 5, 1788 in Chamber Hall near Bury in Lancashire (Bloy, n.d.). He was the one who greatly influenced and set forth the fundamental principles of the police force. He developed an organized force called the London Metropolitan Police in 1829 that protected the people who were victimized due to high unemployment, poverty, and crime. An organization is “an artificial structure created to coordinate either people or groups and resources to achieve a mission or goal” (Bennett & Hess, 2007). The police’s goal is to protect and serve their community. Although the term of a police officer is mixed up with a peace officer “all police officers are peace officers, but all peace officers are not police officers” (Walker & Katz, 2011). The principles that Sir Robert Peel set for the police include: