Police Legitimacy Has Been An Important Topic For Criminal Justice

“Even when officers do not use force, the knowledge that they have the authority to use it shapes the behavior of both the public and police officers” (Frydl, K. & Skogan, W., 2004). The presence of law enforcement changes the atmosphere of any situation they enter into due to the impact law enforcement has on society. A counter argument against law enforcement’s effect on crime control is the Kansas City Patrol experiment. During the 1970’s, this experiment divided an area in three separate conditions: a proactive, where officers patrolled the area double the normal about of time, reactive where officers entered an area only to respond to a call, and control; normal patrol of an area. The results stated that volume of patrol had no effect on crime or perspectives of policing, however the study did not prove that patrol has no effect because even in the reactive group, officers would enter the area for service calls. (Walker, Chapter 5). Therefore, this limitation may illustrate law enforcement still have an effect abide, although not as strong as we may believe

When given directions from a police officer, you must follow orders because it could end tragically bad for the both of you. Some of the public take Law Enforcement as a joke and would rather argue, lie, or fight instead of taking the situation you are put in seriously. Various cases of police misconduct have taken place with teenagers being the “victims”. Teenagers will act immature with the Law Enforcement because at that age they are rebellious and would like to prove who the bigger person is and sadly in some cases the situation will end tragically wrong. Many people view police brutality as excessive force towards “innocent citizens” when in some cases the culprits are responsible for causing this corruption. Various stubborn people when arrested will not follow directions when asked by an officer, which makes a cop’s job more difficult. “In tense situations, there are times when police are called on to make quick decisions in difficult circumstances in order to protect their own and that of innocent bystanders” (Dilascio). Officers as well get told what to do and it is in their training to handle a dangerous situation in the way they were taught. There have been many events where criminals are armed and or threatening the safety of the public, which creates a difficult problem for Law Enforcement. Law Enforcement then has to take matters into their own hands and try to fix the

Without police, the safety of the community is jeopardized. Without community support, police are dispossessed of their legitimacy and robbed of their effectiveness. This three-element definition of police makes it easy to understand why abuse of force by police is of such great concern. First, there is the humanitarian concern that police are capable of inflicting serious, even lethal, harm on the public. Second, there is the philosophical dilemma that in "protecting" the whole of society, some of its constituent parts, meaning its citizens, may be injured. Third, there is the political irony that police, who stand apart from society in terms of authority, law, and responsibility, also are part of society and act on its behalf. Thus, rogue actions by a few police, if condoned by the public, may become perceived as actions of the citizenry. Recent developments in policing have elevated concerns about police use of force beyond ordinarily high levels. In particular, community policing, which is becoming widespread as a result of financial incentives by the Federal Government, and "aggressive" policing, which is becoming widely adopted as a solution to serious crime problems, have come to the fore as perspectives of choice by policing experts. Community policing emphasizes

We learned in this course that, “people’s views of police legitimacy are more strongly linked to perceptions of the fairness of the procedures used by police to make decisions, than to the actual outcome of their encounter with police, or the effectiveness of the police controlling crime. “

Accountability in law enforcement is an element that is vital to effective policing across the United States. Furthermore, it is one of the fundamental principles in our democratic society. Additionally, accountability helps to bridge the law enforcement agency and the community in an effective crime fighting relationship. Consequently, it is imperative that officials hold law enforcement officers and agencies accountable for all positive and negative actions. The goals of law enforcement agencies should promote lawfulness and legitimacy in their day-to-day operations. Being lawful refers to being compliant with established requirements of the law and harmonizing with state and federal statutes and court decisions. Furthermore, legitimacy in law enforcement is the public’s belief about an agency and their willingness to recognize their police authority (National Institute of Justice, 1999).

This type of policing suggests that the presence of a police vehicle in the community will deter crime (Department of Justice, 2015). Traditional policing does not require direct communication between the community members and the police officers. They officers are not required to interact with the community in order to discover and resolve underlying problems. They are expected to show upon when the community asks for assistance and make a presence in order to deter further crime. The officers typically wrote tickets and presented criminals with fines in an attempt to deter them from further participating in criminal activity. The officers were not expected to play the role of a mediator during a dispute. There was also no follow up with the members upon a resolution. This approach can be seen as more aggressive than assertive.

The idea that the police are basically a crime-fighting agency has never been challenged, no one has troubled to sort out the remaining priorities. Instead, the police have always been forced to justify activities that did not involve law enforcement, in the direct sense, either by linking them constructively to law enforcement or by defining them as nuisance demands for service. This view, especially in the minds of the police, has two pernicious consequences,. First, it leads to a tendency to view all sorts of problems as if they involve culpable offenses and to an excessive reliance on quasi-legal methods for handling them. The widespread use of arrests without intent to prosecute exemplifies this state of affairs. These studies do not involve

The operationalization of police legitimacy includes police misconduct measured by official records. THis may be a biased measurement since it only includes officers being caught and different precincts may have different methods and strictness on misconduct. Police responses to the community was operationalized as mean number of arrests for violent crime per police officer. This replicated the measure created by Wilson and Boland (1980) on police aggressiveness. THe second step for second step of measuring responsiveness used low disadvantaged precincts for the standard of average arrests for violent crime. The adequate amount of policing was 2.6 and under or over policing was one standard deviation higher or lower than that. It was no surprise that Extremely disadvantaged areas had no ammount of under policing but had 82 percent over policing. The theoretical ratio of officer arrest was consistent with Klinger’s (1997) police arrest description that lays out victim deservedness.

But it is taught to maintain the respect and confidence of officials, subordinates/ peers, and the public (Davis, 1991). Those who use illegal means not only taint the relationship of the community, place the community at risk. The goal of police work is to prevent crime without force (Bohm, RM, and Haley, 2014). Police cannot solve, respond, or investigate crimes without the trust and cooperation from the community. many times, citizens are the ones reporting crime.

believe that nowadays with the big communication era, social media, cell phones with cameras and Human rights evolution, people had loss respect for law enforcement, and I believe that principle number 4 applies more, “the degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force”, how? Well there have been many videos where police excessive force is used and in most cases are inexcusable, therefore, on other cases police officers are very clear on voice commands towards possible offenders, but sometimes they do not obey or follow orders and it is when policing become hard to apply. When they seem to be a threat to public order or even to themselves, law enforcement cannot

Police legitimacy is an important factor when it comes to community support and relations regarding the police. The police legitimacy model (Tyler, 2004) has been generalized and supported in Israel. The main predictor in Israel like many other western countries is the fairness the citizens feel about the process. Police legitimacy is significantly associated with public support for the police (Factor et al., 2014) For Jewish citizens the more religious they were the less legitimate, they viewed the police. One factor for this may be that the police limit the freedom they feel they can practice their religion such as laws prohibiting certain religious practices.

There is a perception of distrust between law enforcement and the community. This distrust stems directly from the dangerous words police use when communicating with the community. (Willis, 2015, p.) Simply choosing better words can help build relationships between law enforcement and the community. It is necessary for law enforcement to have trust with their community. There are many things that hinge on the police-community relationships, the ability of law enforcement to perform their duties, are the most important. Law enforcement must be willing to rely on the public to observe the law. They must always demonstrate absolute impartiality to the law.

From the deviance course at Salem College it has been ascertained that policing is a form of social control. This means that policing is seen as a tool that law enforcement can use to keep

The philosophy of Robert Peel that “the police are the public and the public are the police”, is one that perfectly sums up the relationship between the police and the rest of the community (Lentz & Chaires 2007). This quote suggests that law enforcement needs approval from citizens and residents of neighbourhoods to perform their duties correctly. Meaning, this requires the police to maintain an informed relationship with the community. By doing so they are reducing the reoccurrence of the themes in crime prevention mentioned above.

When comparing the legitimacy framework for Israel and other western nations, including the United States they all share similar important factors for police legitimacy including procedural justice and fairness of the process. In Israel the amount of people who see the process as fair, the amount of neutrality and transparency, the respect police give, and the ability to participate have been lacking. This is largely due to the increased amount of counter-terrorism in recent time, especially during the Intifada and other uprisings. The amount of community policing in Israel was found to be weak. The Israeli police should consider increasing the implementation of community policing to improve community trust and support.