Police within the Community
Police Offices all over America are being put in the spotlight, not for the good they have done, but for the bad. All you see in the news is all the bad officers have done and a little amount of the good. That’s what the news wants you to hear. The news enlarges the situation with bad officers. This makes it seem like all officers are bad when in reality they aren’t. All the bad cops have ruined it and made all the good officers look bad. For all the officers to have good training we need to fund the police to give them what they need to teach good ethics.
Knowing all this information people can see it from a different perspective. This will help them see that not all officers are bad ones. The majority of officers are good and the news makes it so we only see the bad.
Fund or Defund?
When looking into this information you have to be aware that some of it is incorrect. Looking at all statistics will show more about all the good officers in America. Funding and defunding the police can affect society and the police departments.
Starting with funding the police from Jill Suttie who is a Greater Good’s former book review. She got the information from Geoff Ward’s research. Geoff works for the department of criminology at the University of California. “We’ve funded policing agencies that actually made us safer—like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Security Exchange Commission”.
Philip V. McHarris, Thenjiwe McHarris are New York Times authors who explain how they feel. “The solution to ending police violence and cultivating a safer country lies in reducing the power of the police and their contact with the public. We can do that by reinvesting the $100 billion spent on policing nationwide in alternative emergency response programs, as protesters in Minneapolis have called for”.
The Good and Bad in the World
There is a lot of information about officers out there in the world today. This is how it is with bad police officers and good ones. The bad ones ruin it for everyone who does good in the world.
With a lot of information in the air, Rodd Wagner a writer for The Forbs shows the good in police officers. “The officers apparently never saw a gun, but as they rushed to follow the man, he fired through the door. The parole officer was struck and injured. Lyday, Badge 1069, was killed“. Wagner goes on to quote the lieutenant of the department. “He’s a hero,” said the lieutenant”.
There was a big outrage when Eric Garner died with protests and news outlets covering it. History.com editors explain a little bit about what began the outrage. “Garner dies after losing consciousness as a police officer locks him in an illegal chokehold, and within hours, a video of the incident begins to spark outrage across the country”.
Bringing the Community Together
To help solve violence different types of policing may help. Communities and departments will benefit. One type is community policing when officers make connections with the public. Traditional policing doesn’t focus on that.By trying different policing there is a chance bettering the community will come out of it. Nicole Gibbs is an Executive Administrator for the Movement Forward. She tells her ideas about different policing. “Community policing has been defined as a “philosophy, management style and organizational strategy” with the end goal of building community relationships and not only solving crime but addressing the causes of crime within a community”.
Nicole Gibbs is an Executive Administrator for the Movement Forward. She explains in the same article how traditional policing can have an effect. “Traditional policing can separate police departments from the communities they serve.”
Violence on the Job
Police have a bad reputation for many things but one of them is violence. People see officers as violent people. They don’t think officers may need to use violence in the situation. Officers are always trained to protect the community and themselves. In some cases, they need to use force when acceptable.
People often think cops use violence all the time. When that isn’t true. Clark Neiley a Senior Vice President for legal studies tells the people’s perspective. “There is a raging debate about how often police violate people’s legal rights by using excessive force. Some people claim it happens relatively infrequently and represents only a tiny fraction of interactions between police and the public”.
Clark Neiley a Senior Vice President for legal studies shows another side of things. “Others, myself included, argue that police employ force—including lethal force—far more often than they should, and that it makes little sense to try to calculate the number of times police use excessive force as a percentage of total encounters”.
Having Hope in Officers
There is a lot to both sides but it can all goes away when working together. Police help with our everyday lives and our society wouldn’t be able to live without them. Some changes to happen but that will take time.
Looking back, police officers are some of the best people you will meet. Some are rotten apples but you’re not able to do anything about that. Putting more into training and community policing can help with the problems.
About the Contributor
Avery Arp, Staff Writer
Avery is in her Junior year and is attending the CTC for Public Safety and Security Services. She enjoys spending time with her family and hanging with...
