Race and Sentencing

Race and Sentencing

The police misconduct and corruption are forms of abuses of police authority. These acts occur in different aspects of procedural, criminal, civil violations. These violations are regarded as procedural acts when the police go against the set police department rules and regulations. They are regarded as criminal misconduct when it goes against the police when against the state and federal laws. The criminal violations are unconstitutional when these acts by the police are against the citizen’s civil rights as guaranteed by the constitutional. The most common form of misconduct includes the excess use of force or deadly force, discriminatory arrest, physical harassment, and selective enforcement of the law. The topic on police defiance has been a much deported topic raising queries and with corruption across the police culture and endemic across the globe.

Police corruption has been defined as any form of deviant, dishonest, improper, unethical or criminal behavior by a police. The officers are said to act in a corruptly manner when they exercise or not exercise their authority act perform their duty with a primary motive of furthering private or departmental advantage (Porter & Warrender). The following are some common forms of police violation as perpetuated by the police officers. 

Forms of Corruption among the Police

Myth of the rotten apple

This is a concept that was coined by Knapp Commission to indicate the standard policy among the police to explain the corruption of a rotten apple in a clean barrel. The concept of rotten is used to implicit the behavior the deviant individuals who carries out the deviance in an environment that has set conditions for such act. The correction agencies uses this theory to explain the rogue officer in an attempt to reduce the backlash by the public against policing when an act of corruption (Barnhart, 2010). 

Gratuity 

This refers to the receipt of free meals, services and other discounts. This receipt of fringe benefits is a form of violation of code of ethics as this receipt of financial reward or gain put the officer in compromising positions to payback in the future. These officers will tend to offers these inmates some special favors or abilities.

Perjury

This is a form of corruption that where an officer leaves out some important pieces of information with an aim of shaping and fixing a criminal prosecution. This form of presentation of evidence occurs where the officer testifies untruthfully. It simply an act of placing lies in reports thereby leading to some acts of slippery slope of criminality. This act has been carried out even by decent officers who have an honest believe that a guilty defendant will let loose unless they give false testimony (Barnhart, 2010). 

Police brutality

These include use of excessive force, forms of ridicule and other forms of disrespect. The excessive force is the use of violence in an extreme degree and does not correspond to legitimate police function (Barnhart, 2010). The common concept has been seen by the police as a way of teaching a lesson to those resisting authority. 

Profanity

This is the use if obscene and profane language by a correctional officer. The irony of this is that one of the correction aims is to promote effective use of verbal communication. The profanity occurs by using words related to religious connotations, words such as excretory functions, and words with sexual functions (Barnhart, 2010). 

Recommendations of reducing corruption among police officers

• Implementing risk management and ethical leadership; this can be by setting up proper administration in the police and correction policies. This requires hammering down on corruption to provide an opportunity to management thereby provide an organized way to reduce errors in communication, assumptions, and corruption. This is attained as there will be tighter hold on the police and corrections management. 
• Promoting good decision making through policy, training, and supervision structured in a line of discretion.
• Ensuring that management procedures are adhered to by all levels of command. This may be affected by use of management techniques such as Organizational Psychology or organizational development techniques. These will be essential in coming up with a way to plan and create change effectively in the workplace (Tancredi, 2013).
• The screening and recruitment process; the police recruitment process should follow proper standards and selection procedures. A check of the candidates criminal history, educational background and work experience to ensure that  people criminal history and mental problems do not end up in the police force (Kumssa, 2015). Appropriate checks and balance methods with thus be useful eradicate flawed and corrupt practices in the recruitment process.
• Training and monitoring; the training course offered to the police should be structured to improve their skills, knowledge and values. The training should go beyond the physical acquisition of skills aimed at offering laws on police procedures and regulations, criminal law and basic investigations (Kumssa, 2015).
• Use of the stick and carrot method; it has always be said that the police corruption is caused by low remuneration level. This encourages them to solicit bribes. To curb this, there is need to come up with proper and competitive salary scales and consecutively ensuring the police officers follow a strict and tough policy measures to deal with those officers engaged in the corruption. This approach requires having excellent policies and ensuring proper follow-up (Kumssa, 2015).

References 

Barnhart, T. (2010). Deviance and Corruption. Retrieved from http://www.corrections.com/news/article/23579-deviance-and-corruption

Kumssa, A. (2015). Police Corruption:A Perspective on its Nature and Control. Donnish Journal of Political Science and International Relations , 001-008.

Porter, L., & Warrender, C. (n.d.). A Multivariate Model of Police Deviance: Examining the Nature of Corruption, Crime. ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS).

Tancredi, N. (2013). Ethics in Criminal Justice with an Emphasis in Policing and Corrections.