Two fundamental goals of the police are to decrease crime and improve the quality of life for citizens. Which of the following is the greatest threat to effectively reaching these goals? Be sure to define terms or concepts your reader may not understand. You must use at least 4 articles / readings from class.
A) Police cultural dimensions, such as machismo and aggressiveness
B) The public’s (inaccurate) opinion of policing, resulting in ineffective community policing tactics
C) The true complexity of the job of police officers
D) The possible use of race or location as parts of police decision-making
B)
Two fundamental goals of the police are to decrease crime and improve the quality of life for the citizens. Unfortunately these goals are difficulty to complete because of many circumstances. One of the biggest threats to the goals of the police is the public’s (inaccurate) opinion of policing which results in ineffective community policing tactics. Through the news, movies and TV shows, the media depicts out who the police are which, in reality is untrue and hinders the reality of police work and their tactics. Even some police officers tend to have inaccurate views of policing and are hesitant to switch their policing styles to community policing.
To say that the greatest threat for police to effectively decrease crime and improve the quality life for citizens is the inaccurate view of policing, the opinion of the public has to be explained. Most of the public’s view comes from outside sources such as the news, television and movies because many do not have first hand experience in the police job. The media and the realties of police work vary in many different ways. The media depicts the police job in two main ways. First they depict them as violent, quick on the gun and have most of their job including violence such as shootings, car chases and fighting. On the other hand they also depict them as lazy, unintelligent, fat and someone you would not want to be around because nothing good happens when they come.
While the citizens have an inaccurate view of policing, the police also have inaccurate views of their careers, which result in ineffective community policing tactics. Many police officers think of their work as a masculine job, while community policing consists of communication with the citizens. This takes away the professionalism of the police and makes them seem as though they are not the crime fighters they are meant to be (Herbert, 2001).
The realities of the police differ greatly then what the public describes it. While the public views the police as violent, most of police work does not deal with violence from day to day. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2010 the number of fatal work injury rate for police per 100,000 workers was only 18. From this chart the rate of police fatal injury rate is less then the rate for farmers, fishers, roofers, drivers/sales workers and truck drivers, and refuse and recyclable material collectors. From this chart, one can conclude that most of police do not have fatal injuries throughout their career, 18/100,000 are really good chances, compared to what the public would view the police work as. Through that chart, it only explains the fatal injuries for the police and not their encounters with danger. The police do not even fire their weapon as much as the public believes. The annual rate of weapon discharges per 100 officers annually is ranges from 2-6 (Wiley 2000).
That rate most likely decreased too considering the rate of crime has decreased since then.
Through these inaccurate opinions of policing, it resulted in ineffective community policing tactics. This harms community policing in many ways. Community policing is a way to deal with citizens in a cooperative way that does not deal with arrests. Community policing focuses on the needs and satisfaction of the citizens (Garcia, 2005) Through these opinions of police, it harms them because citizens do not want to cooperate with police, which hinders community policing because that has to do with the interaction of citizens. The Community police officers and regular officers describe themselves as a different type and regular officers do not have respect for the Community policing officers. The public views the police officers as lazy so when community policing happens they don’t cooperate because it is more work for them. If they viewed them as protective, they would more likely to accept them. For example, my family has a negative view on the police, but when my tires got slashed, they called the police to help, but the police did not come to respond for 2 hours. This just furthered their negative view on police. Most officers do not view socializing with the community as important which does not help the publics view towards them and then when community policing tries to workout, it fails.
There are many threats to the police, which deter them from effectively reaching their main goals of decreasing crime and improving the quality of life for citizens. The biggest threat towards police work is the public’s (inaccurate) opinion of policing, resulting in ineffective community policing tactics. Through this threat the police and the community do not work together and then little gets done.
Reference Page:
Garcia, Venessa. “Constructing the ‘Other’ within Police Culture: An Analysis of a Deviant Unit within the Police Organization.” Police Practice and Research. 6. (2005): 65-80. Print.
Herbert, Steve. “‘Hard Charger’ or ‘Station Queen’? Policing and the Masculinist State.” Gender, Place and Culture. 8. (2001): 55-71. Print.
Wiley, J. (2000).
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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2011