Role of Politics in Police Decision Making

Role of political relation in Police decisiveness MakingShould politics play a role in equity administration decision making? This question has evolved over the years. Both concepts be interrelated besides separate entities and yet they overlap in purpose. The name politics john mean a range of things depending on prospect and the situation. In statuss of jurisprudence politics the meaning of politics depends on the biticular right enforcement organization or the size of the administration. In general, the term politics refers to the processes involved in governing a country or organization.Police administration administration activities that tone down, direct, and coordinate patrol personnel, resources and activities in the wait on of horror pr flushtion, apprehension of criminals, the recovery of stolen property and the performance of a variation of regulatory and helping services (Schm totallyeger 97). Police administration is the delicate forethought and ethical leadership of a law enforcement organization. Administration involves selection and take away of officers and support staff, policys, relationships with the partnership, stress and health management, nameing(a) with fellow agencies, and traffic with the semi policy-making aspects of each.Politics and policing have evolved over the past century and a half from four main eras in Ameri washbowl Policing. The Political Era, amend Era, Community Era, and the New Era. The Political Era occurred between 1840 and 1930 and was marked by a drastic changes in social order and by law enforcement doing the bidding of politicians. The Reform Era occurred between 1930 and the 1970s was known for traditional crime fighting and the removal of politics from law enforcement and from police creation the lap dogs of the political elite. The Community Era occurred between 1970s and nowadays day and it focused on community involvement in law enforcement. Finally the New Era overlaps with the Comm unity Era between 2001 and premise day focuses on large scale threats involving terrorism and political gos on mass surveillance (Schmalleger 100-101).Decision making is a main contribution of being an select authorized or police chief and appreciation the politics of the community is part of making the correct decisions. This due generally to the how the leadership of metropoliss ar structured. Society elects congressman, mayors and other political figures to create and put in place laws and policys to celebrate order and make sure that public money is well exhausted in the process. One of the purposes of the law enforcement is to make sure those laws and policys atomic number 18 followed. Harold Lasswell defined politics as who gets what, when and how (Schaefer 196). Politics involves the controlling of precedent and with that power comes control and influence over people and organizations. Society big buckss debates the approach of to a greater extent than police or less police. The deployment of more officers into senior high crime areas is a common political move.There are 2 main divisions of police politics personal politics and community politics. own(prenominal) politics deals mainly with internal influences in the law enforcement organization much(prenominal)(prenominal) as who gets promoted and why. The second is community politics which deals directly with the external control and delegation of the department. A fundamental value of our society is that policing should be domain to and at a lower place some control of the public. (Alpert, Dunham 96). Since the management above the Police party boss is generally the Mayor and city council both are involved in making decisions. The mayor of a city or town is elect by the community. The mayor then operates an impartial, verbotenside firm, to interview and then hire the Chief of Police when the position is va lurch. Below the Chief of Police in the chain if command is a deputy chief and various captains, in charge of patrol officers. A Police Chiefs actions are directly scrutinized by the mayor.Modern policing deepens the topical anesthetic community and police officers into community policing. The purpose is to combine resources to combat and prevent crime and increase the level of everyday life. galore(postnominal) of these changes are are in response to communitys great involvement in the political arena and the louder voicing of concerns (Carter 7). The internet has contend a large part in these movements largely in part due to social media. People are able to voice a concern, spread an agenda, and even display police brutality throughout the world. A witness to a crime or abuse of power that can upload a video to Youtube for the whole world to see, brings a lot of attention to issues in the past might have been kept smooth or covered up.Most non-specific crimes occur without regard to race, ethnicity, age, gender or lifestyle and because crime is one political factor that everyone can see on, m both cities pass on spend money for crime prevention and internment even with tight budgets (Carter 8). If the mayor or consorting politician of a city says that taxes need to be raised to hire more officers, or pay for equipment, its an easier sell than saying taxes need to be raised to deck a city, or build a unexampled stadium. In such a situation the tax raise would gain support, even if afterward the fact the money is used elsewhere, often the pockets of the political elite.Society is more likely to pay attention to a car accident or shooting as opposed to a rare bird evanescent over head. Violent crimes stand out, and that leads to more media exposure and curiosity. This also gives politicians more speaking ammunition for various political initiatives that are supposed to metamorphose crime rates in some fashion. Politicians use community policing as another means to relate to their constituents, because by supportin g various anti crime initiatives they are able to bond with the community, whether they actually are apart(predicate) of the community or not. Its simply another measure to become elected and gain power.Political campaigns often use the guise of a new approach(s) on crime to gain support by promising to succeed better services to the publicincreasing the quality of life (Carter 10). This is not to say that a politicians proposal isnt valid, but certainly if the approach doesnt succeed, their support will drop, and all that will be achieved is a politicians appointment, and subsequent battle for reelection against someone with standardised promises.The police administration cant just make decisions that they feel are outmatch without the taking into account the political views of the community. When or if they do they are either overridden by powers higher up, or state attorneys refuse to follow up on or simply override their decisions. Since political views and police administr ation are directly intertwined one will have an affect on the other. If a police administration failed to act or respond to a crime or issue under their purview, there would be a kick from the community. Without political support, law enforcement decisions would fall flat. Decision making in police organizations is a tedious, often politically motivated and a very perplex process. The reasoning empennage decisions must be sound and rational and gratis(p) of bias. Whenever a decision in law enforcement administration is made, the chief or top level management has to be aware of different points of view, if the extract being made intuition or emotional feelings, what the ramifications will be, what will be accomplished. (Morreale 2)One of the most politically polarizing issues in recent years, and best examples of politics and police administration clashing, has been the New York Citys Stop and Frisk policy. The continue and frisk policy involves randomly detaining individuals, the majority of which are of non-Caucasian ethnic descent, on the street while police search them for contraband such as drugs and weapons. The NYC police department engages in the stop and frisk evasive action without any legal motivation, such as genuine suspicion of move overting a crime, but that is part of the problem (Peltz). The law allows police to engage in these tactics simply by believing someone has or will commit a crime, but that doesnt meet probable cause standards and 88 percent of the stops resulted in neither arrests nor tickets (Peltz). Even if the political reason behind the crime was well intended, it has been used to racial profile people that oasist affiliated crimes. This is an example of policing and politics that dont coalesce because the practice was encouraged and set up by the mayor and carried out by police and in this finical case both sides were ill-timed since its an abuse of power on both sides.Generally it is against the code of a city or t own to advertise or do campaign work of any type while on duty. Take a patrol officer for example, if he was campaigning while on duty, he wouldnt be serving or protecting. Hed be using city taxes which pay for his salary to promote or bash a particular campaign. This behavior would should a bias for or against a candidate and would research as if the city supported that officers political views. An officer is certainly allowed to campaign while off duty, on his or her own time, as hanker as it does not breach a code of professionalism.Even when political campaigning is carried out while off duty there can be professional repercussions for an individuals beliefs and objectives. A couple examples of political campaigns and the retaliation suffered is seeming in the following stories. In Missoula County located in Montana, a $120,000 occlusion was reached in favor of sheriffs deputies who alleged retaliation because of their plans to run for sheriff and under sheriff. Detective Sg t. T.J. McDermott and running mate Detective Jason Johnson were subjected to a hostile working environment simply because of their campaign objectives (Haake). In another case in Cook County, Illinois, a $2.4 million lawsuit was settled between 21 deputies. The 21 deputies brought the lawsuit against Tom Dart because they were unfairly treated and even denied promotions when they backed his political opponent when he was running for sheriff in 2006 (Sun times Media).Ideally politics shouldnt play a roll in police administration, but more often than not they do because its simply unavoidable. You cant really ever separate an elected or appointed official from the political machine because part of their position requires the taking of sides and support of an agenda. The refined nature of balancing the needs and values of a small community, city or large metropolis are always in flux. What was undeniable five, ten, or fifteen years ago may not work in todays society. Whats needed in a particular area of the community or by a particular culture may be different than what is required by others. Society evolves and changes and so do the types of crimes committed within them. The political landscape and the police administration must change to meet the needs of the ever changing people for which they serve.Works CitedSchmalleger, Frank. shepherds crook Justice A Brief Introduction. 9th ed. Boston Prentice Hall, 2012. Print.Schaefer, Richard T. Sociology Matters. Boston McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print.Reed, Wilson Edward. The Politics of Community Policing The Case of Seattle. New York Garland Pub., 1999. Print.Alpert, Geoffrey P., Roger G. Dunham, and Meghan S. Stroshine. Policing Continuity and Change. Long Grove, IL Waveland, 2006. Print.Haake, Kathryn. Missoula County Pays $120K to 2 Deputies in Discrimination Settlement. Missoulian.com. Http//missoulian.com/, 14 Feb. 2014. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. http//missoulian.com/news/local/missoula-county-pays-k-to-deputies-in-disc rimination- settlement/article_d28b2df4-9a9b-11e3-9fc4-0019bb2963f4.html.Cook County to Settle Deputies Suit vs. Sheriff Tom Dart for $2.4M.89 WLS, Chicagos trounce Leader. Sun-Times Media, LLC, 14 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. http//www.wlsam.com/common/page.php?pt=Cook+County+to+settle+deputies %27+suit+vs.+Sheriff+Tom+Dart+for+%242.4Mid=85483is_corp=0.Mahr, Joe, and Christy Gutowski. 7 DuPage Deputies Sue Sheriff, Alleging Retaliation.Chicago Tribune. N.p., 22 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. http//articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-11-22/news/ct-dupage-sheriff-lawsuit-met- 1122-20131122_1_federal-lawsuit-16-year-sheriff-john-zaruba.CARTER, DAVID L. POLITICS AND COMMUNITY POLICING VARIABLES OF CHANGE THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT. JSTOR. Southern semipublic Administration Education Foundation, Inc. (SPAEF), 1995. Web. 01 Mar. 2014. http//www.jstor.org/stable/40861642.Morreale, Stephen A. Join Academia.edu Share Your Research with the World.Elements of Decision-making in Police Organiza tions. Stephen A. Morreale, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2014. http//www.academia.edu/778699/Elements_of_Decision- making_in_Police_Organizations.Peltz, Jennifer. NYC Stop-And-Frisk Controversy.The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 16 Oct. 2012. Web. 28 Feb. 2014. http//www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/nyc-stop-and-frisk-a-decade-rising- numbers_n_1970951.html.