Criminal Justice

AREAS OF INTEREST IN POLICING AND SOCIETY Name: Institutional Affiliation: Identify and discuss ten areas that you found most interesting in Policing and Society 1. Policing the Globe- This topic was the most interesting as it involves a wide range of criminal activities that are common in most nations while providing an opportunity to learn policing measures catering for various countries (Palmiotto and Unnithan, 2010). 2. Future of Policing- Topic was interesting because it gave me a chance to understand the direction of policing regarding advancement thus allowing me to identify career areas I will venture. 3. Police use of excessive force – was an area of interest as it...

Police and Special Populations Student Name Institutional Affiliation Course Name Date Police and Special Populations The police are people given authority by a state to enforce law and order in a country, to keep the public safe and to prevent criminal activities. Special populations are groups of people who are disadvantaged in society and are in need of police protection. These groups can be categorized according to race, age, gender, and special groups, for example, the homosexuals. Positive interactions between the police and the special populations foster greater development in a nation. The interaction between the police and people of different racial groups differs. For example,...

Police Discretion Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation There are numerous cases in the US history where members of the public or the police department questioned police discretion. In a 1914 case of Weeks v. the United States, Fremont Weeks was arrested and convicted for transporting lottery tickets via mail. The police seized documents which were used to facilitate the transportation in his house although the search was unwarranted. The court ruled that unwarranted seizures violate Weeks’ constitutional rights. The fourth amendment of the US constitution exempts all Americans from gratuitous searches and seizures (Palmiotto & Unnithan, 2011). In the 1961 case of Mapp v. Ohio, police...

CompStats and the Broken Windows Theory Student Name Institution Affiliation CompStats and the Broken Windows Theory CompStats and the broken windows theory are policing theories used to combat crimes. CompStats was first introduced in 1994 by the NYPD in New York after the windows policing approach failed to produce the expected results. The windows theory was formerly used to deal with minor crimes. It was believed that dealing with minor offences such as vandalism would prevent the occurrence of major crimes. CompStats, on the other hand, was deployed to provide timely and accurate information on crimes. Moreover, the deployment of CompStats in New York City reduced the crime rate by 76 per...

Views on Police Discretion Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Views on Police Discretion The freedom to make certain decisions while observing the constraints of the law depending on a current situation is what makes a police officer effective. According to McCartney & Parent (2012), discretion is a necessary tool in police work. Discretion allows officers to gauge the best situations when they can make an arrest, assist someone, draw a weapon or even shoot a bullet all depending on positive outcomes. If police officers were not allowed to use discretion, then there would be too many arrests made for the tiniest of things done that are against the law. A person could be smoking...

Police Subculture Student’s name Institution of affiliation Date The police subculture puts barriers between the police and the community in a number of ways. The subculture is characterized by self-differentiation. According to Wesley (1970), the police subculture makes the police officers to serve the public in an unfriendly manner. They view the public as hostile and untrustworthy and serve in an ‘us vs. them’ manner despite sharing a number of cultural aspects. Consequently, they unite become secretive. The public also views the police as different and this theme of us vs. them gets entrenched across the police public-divide thus hindering effective policing. The police subculture...

Community Policing and Problem Oriented Policing Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Community Policing and Problem Oriented Policing Community policing and problem-oriented policing are diverse models aimed at addressing the issue of crimes within distinct American communities. While the two models have been found to be effective when combined, they have several similarities and differences that must be considered before doing so. Firstly, Community policing is an effort towards repairing the rupture instigated by the innovation of the patrol car. Therefore, this model ensures a positive relationship between the police and the community by creating efficiency in the police department...

Police mistreatment of Homosexuals Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Police mistreatment of Homosexuals The Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transsexual (LGBT) community is constantly discriminated and harassed by police officers. Notably, mistreatment hinders successful policing in those communities because trust is broken and communication inhibited such that officers are prevented from attending to the communities. For instance, the United States has a history of exploitation of the LGBT people especially the people of color, youths and transgender individuals. The LGBT community is often harassed by police officers because of their sexual orientation. Before the 1990s, homosexuals were...

Community Policing Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Community Policing Community policing has been transforming steadily since the 1960s following the Civil Rights Movement. The introduction of this model helped expose the weaknesses of the tradition policing model. While the origin of this model is the crisis in police-community relations, numerous other factors have influenced its development over the past decades (Palmiotto & Unnithan, 2010). The social and political upheavals that surrounded the civil rights movement encouraged the introduction of measures of restoring trust and improving relationships between officers and communities. Moreover, community programs were initiated...