Unethical Police Operations Paper (final Edit) Cjs/241

Unethical Police Operations Paper

Mark A. Fekete, Nicholas Passage, Lawrence Yarbrough, Paul Blackburn

CJS/241

05/30/2016

Dr. Tommy Sickels

Unethical Police Operations Paper

Describe the extent of police corruption, misconduct,

and brutality in the United States.

Police corruption, misconduct and brutality are all types of abuse by police authority.  Some examples of police misconduct in the United States are selective enforcement and police harassment. A big police misconduct issue in the United States currently is the dispute over discrimination and excessive use of force.  This has been all over the news in the last couple years with many different cases of both excessive force and racial discrimination.  Police corruption is when an officer or department uses misconduct as a way to gain things illegally.  Examples of corruption are bribery and extortion, officers might accept a bribe in exchange to look the other way for something or to gain knowledge and information of a crime.  This happens but does not seem to be publically advertised near as much as misconduct and brutality.

Police brutality has been a very visible and public topic for the past several years.  Many think that police are acting with brutality towards criminals when detaining them and while in custody.  This topic can go either way depending on your stance with law and opinion, it seems to be split in the United States.  Some think that what the police do is justified and the other half say it is police brutality.  It can be very hard to determine the difference between brutalities and doing what needs to be done to keep society and yourself safe in certain situations and that seems to be a very hot debate recently.  Many officers are torn on how to handle situations because they are in fear of their life but know if just one small thing is not done perfect they will turn into the person being put on trial and as a person of the law that should not be a feeling they have when they go to work every day.  It is one thing to be completely excessive with no justification but if a criminal is acting in a way that is dangerous or is believed to have a weapon then they should either cooperate and it will be gentle or they should suffer the consequences of being put down in a way that officers need to in order to neutralize the situation quickly and safely.

Research two current cases within the last 10 years:

one case on police corruption and misconduct and one case on police brutality.

As a team, we agreed on the story about ex-Milwaukee police officer, Ladmarald Cates. After he responded to a 911 call in July 2010, he raped the 19 year old woman who placed the call. The case is a clear demonstration of an officer of the law abusing his authority, and allowing corruption into his trusted position.  Also we will be covering the Michael Brown case. Michael Brown was an unarmed black teenager, which was shot and killed on Aug. 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, MO. Excessive force was used in the situation.