Why Is Michael Dowd Considered A Major Crime?

Crime, deviance, and unethical conduct can found within almost every occupation and profession. Police ethics is the conduct that everyone is most concerned with. Police officers enter into an occupation that shares many characteristics of other career fields, but it also has unique responsibilities that deal with conduct and behavior. The PBS documentary: The Central Park Five, demonstrates two of the most common misconduct issues that the criminal justice professionals deal with noble cause and noble cause corruption. The film investigates the miscarriage of justice of four Black and one Latino teenager from Harlem, who were wrongly convicted of the brutal beating and rape of a white woman in New York City's Central Park.

In the second part of Parenti’s book, Lockdown America, he discusses policing practices and their proactive strategies aimed at preventing disorder. In this section of the book, Parenti advances his argument by looking at crime through the eyes of law enforcement. Parenti looks at the policies of Bratton, the New York Police Commissioner. Bratton revamped the police force in the city, rewarded those that succeeded and were aggressive in doing their job and those that did not keep up with him were fired or put on the sidelines. His goals was to be efficient on every level, and being efficient meant enforcing the law even for minor offences.

During this decade of much turmoil, the policing were seen as brutal and racist. To improve this image of the police at this time, the department as a whole started changing its practices (“Policing the Social Crises of the 1960s”, n.d.).

Michael Dowd worked for the New York City Police Department for precinct 75 for ten years and five months. Throughout his career, he committed extortion, narcotics trafficking, protection of drug operations, engaging in personal drug use, committed thefts and admitted to the courts that he had committed hundreds of crimes. At the beginning of it all, East New York in the late 80s was extremely poor and there were about 3,500 murders a year and a lot of crime. The 75 was known to be the deadliest precinct in the country, leading the city in homicides and shootings; the calls did not stop (Russel, 2015).

Law enforcement officials and their supporters, on the defensive over allegations of racism and police brutality, called out civil rights activists, police critics and President Barack Obama himself for fomenting an open-season-on-cops atmosphere (Williams, 2014). New York police officers feel as the organization are turning their backs against police officers only to please the public. The public may not understand how it feels to be a police officer dealing with the daily struggle on how it is to protect the city of New York. Public figures may see these cases with racism as the main

For years police corruption has been a major problem in American society but where is the line between moral and unethical police corruption, many modern movies address this vary issue. Some films portray how types of police corruption can have a positive influence on society, while others show the dark side of police corruption. Many law enforcement agents join the criminal justice with the basic idea of "justice for all," however, most of them do not realize that the nice guy doesn't always win. Even though there are vast amounts of movies which specifically address police corruption we will use three main movies for our argument today, mostly LA Confidential, however, also Training Day.

NYPD had a long history of reactive investigation of crime, controlled by a strong centralized

Kelling and Sousa (2001) try to answer with their research the question of whether police mattered in New York City during the intense crime-drop of the 1990s, particularly analyzing if the “broken windows” theory of policing played a major role. Firstly formulated by Wilson and Kelling in 1982, this idea suggests that disorder leads to destabilized neighborhoods by generating a sense of absence of effective social control, and thus leaving room for serious crime to arise. For them, maintaining the order would reduce neighborhood fear and eventually crime would decrease.

In 1994 a report by the Mollen commission on police corruption in New York exposed disproportionate corruption within the department. Violent crime, including gang type activity, cops in uniform routinely storming drug locations and stealing narcotics, money weapons and whatever they felt like taking. On duty police officers riding alongside drug dealers, providing protection while the dealers carried big amounts of drugs and cash. The commission also found cops who became drug dealers themselves starting up their own drug dealing networks and delivery centers. (Neighborhood Explanations) Although most officers are honest and hard-working, the Mollen report exposed serious, violent activity by some in the department.

Throughout this summer, the different films presented have given insight to many justice themed topics. Some of these topics are how police are portrayed in popular culture and what we need to change in our justice system today. Additionally, the most important idea recognized after watching these films is how popular culture is able to show the general public something they might not be able to understand or view in person. The films Serpico and Modern Times, show the topic of how police are portrayed in popular culture very well.

The eighties were a decade of fear, particularly in New York City. The twenty-four-hour news cycle was brand new and was delivered proudly to an already demoralized nation by CNN. We seemed to be drowning in crack cocaine, satanic ritual killings, the game Dungeons & Dragons was stealing our children’s souls and Ozzy Osbourne was making our kids commit suicide. The seventies had brought us NYC heroes like Frank Serpico and the law enforcement team of David Greenberg and Robert Hantz, also known locally as ‘Batman and Robin.’ At a time when the city desperately needed heroes, these real life cops spawned movies inspired by their crime fighting exploits. Later, Greenberg and Hantz would each be arrested for separate crimes. Sometimes we create

At a point in his life, he was shot in the face during a drug bust in an apartment building. His two fellow officers who came along with him for backup left him to die lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. This is a very harsh real life example as to why it is so hard to find people willing to speak out against those corrupt law enforcement officers (LEO). In an article written by the retired officer himself, he states “And today the Blue Wall of Silence endures in towns and cities across America. Whistleblowers in police departments are still turned into permanent pariahs. The complaint I continue to hear is that when they try to bring injustice to light they are told by government officials: ‘We can’t afford a scandal; it would undermine public confidence in our police.’ That confidence, I dare say, is already seriously undermined.” (Serpico 2).

This paper will discuss a police problem depicted in an award winning TV-show Southland. This scripted TV-show was based on lives and work of Los Angeles Police Officers.

Police departments have a challenging job that allows no margin for error even in the toughest of situations. With the amount of cases dealt with daily it comes as no surprise that mistakes do occur, but in the face of these issues, different strategies exist to aid in the response process. Internal Affairs, Civilian Review Boards, Standards and Accreditation,and Civil Liability Lawsuits exist to provide justice to members of society that face police scrutiny and also allow for cops to be held accountable for their actions. While all these methods are used frequently the NYPD is facing criticisms from a civilian review board for their sexual misconduct ranging from distasteful comments among coworkers to sexual abuse and rape. Although the

The Seven Five documentary highlighted police corruption outside of the typical blockbuster movie’s viewpoint. The documentary was based off particular New York officers located in the 75th district. The documentary discuss points from all sides of the corruption. The views from the powerful corrupted officer, the officer who was compelled in to the scams of things, the criminals who were dealing with the officers, and officers who were out to catch the corrupted officers. The documentary does not influence you to side with the good officers or the bad officer. It described the good