Policing-the-police-short-essay

Watch the video “Policing the Police” on youtube and write a very detail short essay on it.

No plagiarism

Cite your source

Also, Give a 100 word helpful response to each of these essays starting with “I agree with….”

1) In the Frontline video of, Policing the Police, police accountability and officers abusing their powers is analyzed in New Jersey. It goes into one of the most violent cities and how police officers try to prevent that, expanding on how more police stops are conducted to try and stop any crime from happening. This video goes into the actual views from officers themselves and why they do what they do, no matter if there’s probable cause or not. But, like many officers, excessive force is always used and I think its unnecessary. Also, trust has a lot to do with violent arrests, police don’t trust suspects and civilians don’t trust police. Because of this, nothing might ever change.

As for changing a troubled police department, I believe more extensive training should be done and all officers should go through more training every year. Especially with everything going on in the world and all of the deadly force incidents, officers should have to go through training in the police academy for months and learn how to use less than lethal weapons, too. In my opinion, there have been man publicized deaths by police officers, that could have prevented if a taser or another weapon was used. Every police force should be coming up with ways to prevent deadly force.

A publicized case involving the a police department is Rodney King and the Los Angeles Police Department in 1991. Rodney King was beat by several police officers during a traffic stop. Not one officer was beating him, four were. This incident was caught on tape and all four officers were charged with excessive force and assault with a deadly weapon but, were acquitted of all charges. After that, the LA riots began, proving that police officers abuse their power and he public has been sick of it or more than 20 years. When will it stop? Soon I hope, and I hope changes to all police department policies are altered to prevent any more of these cases.

2) After watching Policing the police, I see how there are problems that offices face as well as can create. One scene keeps playing through my head in particular, the scene where they stop a pedestrian and almost immediately throw him to the ground. I can almost understand why the Newark police are aggressive in these situations but this example in particular is just an excessive use of force, that apparently was swept under the rug as much everything else seems to be.

The job of the police is to maintain safety and help provide justice to the communities they serve. To serve their communities they must be a part of it and some level of trust and rapport. In policing the police, the Newark PD officers in the gang unit didn’t really seem to see a problem with their actions, they believed they were justified, even after the DOJ investigation told them their practices were breaches of people’s rights. No one enjoys admitting they are wrong, most people get defensive, but part of fixing a troubled department is getting the officers to honestly review their practices and admitting that they need change and improve their practices. Without the officers actually accepting their problems there is no way that there can be change. Part of changing policy, is getting into and being part of the communities the officers serve, like Sgt. Peppers. There has to be an understanding that the officers are doing their absolute best to be involved with people and doing their jobs with investigations. Increasing community relations seems to be the biggest element in fixing a troubled department, aside from having proper infrastructure and leadership. When the community is happy and the majority of citizens trust the police, more can be done, the more people who see things, say things, and intelligence about crimes a lot of the time, is one of the most important things an officer can have.

One incident, that happened recently was when a Utah nurse, Alex Wubbles, was arrested for doing her job as a nurse. She was forcefully arrested because she would not take a blood sample from an unconscious patient, who was not under arrest and the police had no warrant for. Though an on going investigation it does seem that the nurse was unjustifiably arrested. The officer was extremely aggressive and temperamental, for no other reason than the nurse was unable to provide, by law, the patients blood sample. I believe this is one act that detracts from the public’s view and trust of the police and requires a change of policy/training of officers, unless this is strictly an isolated incident, but either way the officers involved should be punished.