The Public 's Trust Act Of Law Enforcement

Ethics is a crucial part for anyone holding a position in public office. Public trust is crucial to maintaining a democratic republic. Law enforcement plays a major part in keeping citizens safe and helping keep society from falling into anarchy. In this aspect, it’s important that law enforcement officers maintain integrity with the amount of power that they hold while performing their duties. “Over the past few decades, great strides have occurred in the law enforcement profession.

New officers need to know that no profession demands a higher ethical standard than law enforcement. Whether or not there are other careers that require a similar dedication to doing the right thing, it is undeniable that there is a tremendous degree of expectations placed upon police officers. Every officer knows, or at least should know by now, that they live in a fishbowl. Friends, relatives, neighbors and strangers watch every move law enforcement officers make, both on and off duty. The fact is that the public scrutinizes police officers more than most other professions, either because they are cynical or hope to catch them screwing up or because they are hopeful

To me trust is being able to count on someone during good times and during bad times.

Society in general have showed the distrust, protests and many questions for the like hood of the police profession. The reputation of the police profession is that of the 6 pillars of policing in the modern world as outlined by the President’s Task Force on the 21st Century Policing, which sought to recommend steps forward. Under the banners of ‘Building Trust and Legitimacy’, ‘Policy and Oversight’, ‘Technology and Social Media’, ‘Community Policing and Crime Reduction’, ‘Officer Training and Education’, and ‘Officer Safety and Wellness’ – here are concise definitions for each one and what they mean for American policing ("Final report of the resident’s task force on 21st century policing," 2015).

“To Protect and Serve” (Dorobek) is the official motto of the American Police Academy and to do that requires a balanced relationship of trust and support between police officers and the people they serve. In different ways, civilians and police officer’s both have a responsibility to uphold the law. It is a police officer’s responsibility to defend their community. A civilian’s civil duty is to support their police force to ensure they can carry out their job in the safest and most peaceful manner. However, a gap in communication has damaged the relationship between officer’s and the members of the communities they serve. In order to put an end to police brutality and repair the relationship between the American Police Force and the communities they serve, the enforcement of body cameras, new and better methods to train, and special prosecutors in police misconduct investigations are all essential.

Loving, K. (2014). 3 Ways For Law Enforcement To Improve Public Relations and Trust. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from

According to Leach (n.d.)., "The practice of racial profiling has no place in law enforcement. It is an activity that undermines the public trust vital for an effective community policing organization." A comprehensive change to organizational culture and policy can help to prevent the problems associated with racial profiling. The problems associated with racial profiling include the undermining of trust on the part of the community. Mistrust undermines the effort of police officers to serve and protect. To restore trust, "law enforcement agencies must address both the concerns of the community at large that are relevant to discriminatory policing, and the allegations of racial profiling made by ordinary citizens," (Leach, n.d.). Therefore, the following suggested policy and training initiatives are designed with the goal of increasing public trust as well as law enforcement effectiveness.

Having trust makes one fell safe and free of fear enough so that they can focus on other things.

In this country we are seeing an increase in ethical violations in the field of law enforcement. I will go into detail about some of the main ethical issues we are seeing today and what can be done to prevent such acts from happening. When one officer is being unethical it has a huge effect on how the public views law enforcement as a whole. Many officers go undetected for a long time before getting caught, but an officer committing ethical violations will have their day it’s just a matter of time. In order to improve this growing problem we must first understand why there is such a problem in the field of law enforcement.

With all the recent issues that are currently seeing on the news from the Travon Martin Case, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Corruption in Law Enforcement there really needs to be some policies put in place to address untruthful officers. Unfaithful Officers are a subject that has been in the news for many years and will continue to be. Being labeled as an untruthful officers is not a brand an officers would like to wear. The essay will discuss how important trust is when working in Law Enforcement, Termination or not of officers who are caught lying.

What is trust? The dictionary meaning of trust is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. The second meaning is, confidence placed in a person by making that person the nominal owner of property to be held or used for the benefit of one or more others. But what can we really define as trust? In this paper, I will discuss how trust is used every day in different situations, how we deal with trust in various relationships, and how we as individuals practice trust within ourselves.

There are many possible solutions that will help change the public perceptions of the police. These solutions consist of the use of social media, training chiefs to be stronger leaders, and annual in-service training for the officers. The use of social media, such as department Facebook pages has many great benefits. A few benefits of police department’s using social media include building a relationship and a sense of engagement with the community, telling the real stories before the news can, gaining back their reputations, allows citizens to ask questions, and spread information more quickly (Burger, 2013). This has worked for many departments, but will only exist as a starting point. Another solution is training chiefs to be stronger leaders. Many chiefs are not trained to recognize officers engaged in use of force, so when use of force happens the department chief turns his head to it in order to save the departments reputation. If chiefs are trained then many use of force cases could be prevented. Another good solution is an annual training for officers that encourages a very limited amount of force unless necessary and how to behave in hostile situations. The best way to do this is through in-service trainings which have been proven by recent studies.

Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. From the time, we were born in an infant stage babies interaction with the mother determines whether an attitude of trust or mistrust will be incorporated into his/her personality. When the mother responds to the infant’s physical need and provide ample affection such as love and security, then the infant will develop a sense of trust. Therefore, when the mother is inattentive, resentful or inconsistent in her behavior, the infant develops an attitude of mistrust, and will become anxious and fearful.