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Accountability in a Police Department and the Community essay assignment
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The Internal Affairs office within the department should front line the investigation into police misconduct reports or lawsuits. Internal Affairs should be in charge of Receiving and recording complaints concerning police misconduct Investigating complaints and other indications of misconduct on the part of police, Investigating incidents involving the police use of deadly force, homicide or serious injury, or possible breach of integrity or ethical standards by a member of the police agency, Evaluating policies related to police ethics and behavior, Providing administrative trial mechanisms for reviewing instances and accusations of police misconduct, Prosecuting employees who are revealed by evidence to be responsible for serious misbehavior, Providing commanders with intelligence on deviancy and misbehavior occurring within the agency, and Informing complainants and victims of police misconduct of actions on their behalf by the police agency.(Gaines, 2012) The police chief should start by ensuring that all officers are aware of the departments code of ethics as well as the expected behavior of all officers. He or she should institute mandatory ethics classes for all officers on a regular basis. Constant over-site and records of all police and public interactions must be kept. The police chief should require all officers to be trained on Body Cams and that all officers will have their cams active at all times during their shift. The same can be said for the officers vehicle cameras. This will reduce the conflict between the public and the police by proving that the issue did not happen. If the officers refuse to use the cams or refuse to activate them than department punishment can be approved. A picture is worth a thousand words and if the officer has video and audio of the interaction with the public there can not be any doubt to what actually happened. The chief will also need to work with community leaders to continue to have a transparent department that does not need to keep information under wraps so to speak.
Gaines Larry K. POLICE ADMINISTRATION. 2012. Delmar, Cengage Learning. Prior editions, published by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.,
Unfortunately, people in today’s society are sue happy. Police are under scrutiny constantly. It is important to conduct a serious investigation under any and all claims, but it is also important that the officers that are accused know that the department has their backs. It makes doing their job extremely hard when they know that can be accused of wrong doing at any given time. This makes continual training very important. It leaves less room for error on the police officer. If an accusation is made I would utilize civilian review as well as internal investigation. Civilian review one model of external review for the police organization, in which a civilian body reviews the police department’s actions and findings through investigation, adjudication, and the recommendation of punishment (Gaines, L., & Worrall, J. (2012). Kerstetter (1985) identified three models: civilian review, civilian input, and civilian monitor (Gaines, L., & Worrall, J. (2012). I would not be so quick to pay out a settlement because people are so sue happy. By using these models it puts some of the control in the community’s hands. Once it is realized how much money is wasted on false law suits, the citizens can step in and make recommendations on is the complaint is reasonable , thus be a bit responsible for money being wasted on unneeded lawsuits. Then when the funds are being overspent paying people out the community is at fault for allowing these payouts as well.
Reference
Gaines, L., & Worrall, J. (2012). Police administration (3rd ed.). United States: Delmar Cengage Learning