Assignment task: As we saw in the last chapter the police are often torn between their roles as law enforcement officers and public servant. The idea of community policing or problem-oriented policing has emerged in the last several decades and grown in popularity. Why does Pollock think that community policing may not only be effective, but also keep the police officers from suffering from too much cynicism and burnout when they regard the public as their enemies?
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Corruption and the use of Excessive Force are usually the greatest threats to an otherwise good police unit or department.
1. The acceptance of gratuities is seen by many as the first step in corruption creeping into the police force. On what side of the argument do you fall, should gratuities be allowed or not? Does the acceptance of gratuities make an officer more willing to do things to get more benefits?
2. Due to reports of unethical and sometimes criminal abuse of force by police officers, many units have adopted what is known as the force continuum methodology to help officers understand and later substantiate their legal use of force decisions. When an officer is threatened they may obviously use force to restrain a subject, but that force must be reasonable aka "just enough to get the job done". The continuum describes that officers are able to match or exceed by 1 level the use of force exhibited by the subject they are dealing with, so use of force escalates from the use of open hands, fists, intermediate tools such as pepper (OC) spray, batons, rubber bullets or Tazer devices and finally to the use of deadly force in their service weapon. Should the officer have the power to escalate their use of force themselves or do we think that they lack the judgment or authority to do so themselves? Why or why not? If they lack it normally what could we put in place to enable them to do so?