Police Abuse Of Powers Of Police Officers - 1772 Words

Na’Darius Nealey English 4 Period 4B Ms.K 2 September 2014 Police Abuse of Powers Police officers are given a lot of power because it is needed to help protect citizens and the community. However, police often abuse their power by the over use of force, corruption, sexual misconduct, bias based policing, and failure to maintain police ethics. (Peak, 2011) The over use of force would include: unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and rough treatment. Policing is a very dangerous field, the use of force is expected but the question still remains, how much force should police use? Police officers are given a continuum of force to help prevent excessive use of force, but there are still many officers that do not abide by†¦show more content†¦(Peak, 2011) Police corruption contributes to the misuse of police powers because it involves the use of favoritism, bribery, shakedown, and perjury. Police corruption can be caused from discretion, low managerial visibility, low public visibility, and politics. Police officers are given a wide range of discretion on how to handle situations and that often leads to the abuse of power. Also, managers are not always watching over the officer’s shoulder to ensure that the right thing is being done, and the public does not often see the actions of the police. Which means they can get away with a lot of wrongful actions. Politics can create corruption in policing because politics can affect hiring standards, promotions, discipline, and adequate budget. There have been instances where a political leader would tell management who they want to be promoted. That is wrong because promotions should be dependent on your work ability, not because of political influence. There is also external corrupti on that will convince the officer to engage in payoffs and gratuities. For example: drug dealers would give police officers a percentage of their profit so that they can continue to sell and not go to jail. (Locke, 1996) Drugs are also a cause of police abuse of power. There are two types of drug corruption. Type one drug corruption is when an officer is seeking personal gain. This type of drug corruption includes giving information to