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Dustin Goff Leslie Wollcot ENC1102 11/15/13 Lit Review: Police Misconduct

The topic of police misconduct is a very important and touchy subject. Police officers play an important role in the United States and hold a position with which much responsibility and power is emplaced. This results in a fluctuation of public opinion when misconduct becomes public. Researchers attempt to understand and begin to find out ways in which conduct in police departments can be improved. The way people view police misconduct has been analyzed through many surveys, interviews, and data collections. Not only how these issues are viewed but how and why they occur is also greatly debated. There is also emphasis in studying how these issues evolve. Some researchers attempt to point out which areas could use reform to help with the issue of police misconduct. They also point out which existing reforms help or hinder progress. With this and continued research being done there is a hope from researchers that their work will help understand and stop police misconduct. Unfortunately researches have trouble with gathering data and implementing reform since police misconduct is a touchy subject. Since police officers hold such responsible positions when one performs an act deemed ill-behavior departments attempt to hush it as much as possible. One bad cop can tarnish the name of a department; this causes the departments to be very cautious when dealing with police misconduct cases. While it is not the easy topic to acquire data, it is necessary to benefit the community as a whole.

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Public Opinion

Researchers attempt to understand the general view on police conduct throughout the United States. The views of the public fluctuate depending on what is going on in the country. When mass media gets a hold of any case of police misconduct the publics general opinion of how well police officers perform their duty sharply drops. In between such events opinion always repairs back to a similar average of before the exposure (Brunson, 2009; Hassell, 2010). This creates a fluctuation in which public opinion goes up and down depending on whether a case of police misconduct has been exposed recently. Studies have also been done to determine how often the public views incidences of police misconduct (Son, 2004). Together these researches attempt to achieve an understanding of how the issue and visibility of police misconduct affect general public opinion.

Police Opinion

An important aspect when it comes to the discussion of police misconduct is how the officers themselves view these acts. Researchers attempt to understand how law enforcement officers view these incidences and whether they support or disapprove of the way fellow officers act. The general conclusion is that police officers have a similar opinion of the public (Hunter, 1999; Ivkovic, 2005). They have little respect for acts of misconducts within their departments. This then raises the question as to why this conduct occurs. Some speculate that this is due to a select few officers that crack under pressure (Ivkovic, 2005). Other researchers determine that this issue is dependent on how individual departments handle their officers (Hunter, 1999). When compared to normal citizens it also became evident that officers are exposed to misconduct a greater percentage (Son, 2004). All this combined it can be determined that officers

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view these cases more and have a similar distaste for them that the citizens they protect do. These studies create further curiosity as to why these acts of misconduct continue.

Reform

While research based on the opinions of the parties involved in misconduct is important, what is even more important is the reform to fix the misconduct. Without reform police misconduct will remain set as is and would have no factors to change it. Reform can be used to change the way police departments handle misconduct and can lead to these instances occurring less. Since there are many ways to implement reform, researchers tend to have different ideas. One of the many ideas that multiple professionals agree on is the implementation of a third party (Attard,2010; Hatch, 2005). The use of a third party allows less bias to occur when it comes to these tense situations. The idea of a group of civilians who overview possible cases of police misconduct is one reform in which researches believe can pick out those who deserve punishment. Another is the implementation of mediation. A mediator helps officers and those involved in possible police misconduct to come together and discuss the situation. This can create better relation between the public and police departments. The key seems to be outside sources being involved in matters of police misconduct.

Conclusion & Project Gap

Studies that have been conducted have put great emphasis on how people view acts of misconduct and also how views change over demographics. This provides interesting information on how the country as a whole feels when it comes to police misconduct. This information is useful in a way, however it lacks a clear answer when it comes to how the

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situation can be improved. Some researchers point out where reform can take place and this delivers a more direct answer to how things can change. Many of these points unfortunately are cut short by the lack of financial and political support. There is a lack of research when it comes to what happens to officers involved in incidences of police misconduct. Information involving punishment or lack of punishment is not apparent. This information could provide departments and politicians with the knowledge of how effective they are when it comes to deterring police misconduct. This research could also provide information on cases of misconduct that are covered up or not addressed by the departments. Since punishment of this sort is a touchy subject there would need to be different ways of compiling this information and understanding it.

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Project Proposal

With the lack of information on the punishment that comes from police misconduct something needs to be done to achieve this crucial information. This information can show how useful punishment techniques are and also can point out departments that are not punishing their officers. The issue that many researchers come across is how touchy this subject is. First off researchers could seek information regarding number of officers fired or punished for certain acts of misconduct. They can then compare these numbers to the rate of incidences regarding police misconduct. This would show how useful punishment techniques are as a whole and could breakdown to show which specific techniques are the best. The hardest part of attaining information on this gap is when it comes to finding out departments that do not punish their officers or at least not severely enough. This is due to the fact that these departments are going against what they public and politicians would like them to do. The best way to obtain information on this would be to open anonymous data collection lines. Researchers could open lines in which officers or administrators can anonymously report incidences of police misconduct that received no punishment. They would not be required to give specifics such as names since this would just be used to analyze the usefulness and prevalence of punishment. This data would allow researchers to amount of punishment that is lacking in departments and whether not an increase in discipline would help neutralize the problem of police misconduct.

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Works Cited Attard, Barbara. "Oversight of Law Enforcement Is Beneficial and Needed -- Both Inside and Out." Pace Law Review 30.5 (2010): 1548-561. Print. Brunson, Rod K., and Ronald Weitzer. "Police Relations with Black and White Youths in Different Urban Neighborhoods." Urban Affairs Review 44.6 (2009): 858-85. Print. Hassell, Kimberly D., and Carol A. Archbold. "Widening the Scope on Complaints of Police Misconduct." Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management 33.3 (2010): 473-89. Print. Hatch, Ryan P. "Coming Together to Resolve Police Misconduct: The Emergence of Mediation as a New Solution." Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution 21.2 (2005): 1-38. Print. Hunter, Ronald D. "Officer Opinions on Police Misconduct." Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 15.155 (1999): n. pag. Print. Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak. "Police (mis)behavior: A Cross-cultural Study of Corruption Seriousness." Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management 28.3 (2005): 546-66. Print. Son, In S., and Dennis M. Rome. "The Prevalence and Visibility of Police Misconduct: A Survey of Citizens and Police Officers." Police Quarterly 7.2 (2004): 179-204. Print.