n order for police to effectively police an area they must have cooperation. With this comes the ability to lower the crime rate and make the community feel more secure, but how is this done? Police alone cannot make people feel secure and community members cannot make others feel safer alone either, this come when they are both working together. This is linked to police legitimacy by how the community feels about the police. If there is a negative feeling towards to police than the people are going to be less likely to follow the laws, and not obey the people who enforce them.
Legitimacy is the feeling that you need to follow the laws set forth, this sets the standard at which people go away from their self-interests and allow people to appeal to them to gain social control. This is complete control is just ushers in compliance and cooperation. Contribution of legitimacy to cooperation with the police and other community members help fight crime and produce security. Therefore, it is important for police to be active in the community and have a good outlook for them.
Some citizen’s views about the legitimacy of the police take two forms of cooperative behavior among community residents: cooperation with the police in their ability to respond to crime and working alongside other agencies and people in the comunity to maintain social order and control. The community can also judge police on their ability to maintain crime in the area, if there is a spike in crime than we are not going to see the police as doing their job, however if there is little crime we feel like there is something there. This leads the community to be able to get behind the police and be more involved with them.
Legitimacy can be threated heavily by bad publicity as seen in recent years, but this can also help the police in a way. Voluntary support of the police has been surging since people have started targeting police, this is a way for police to be involved in the community without being there. With people sticking up for the police or making sure that community members are following the most basic laws that police may not have time to handle.
With all this legitimacy of the police and their ability to govern and police are still holding strong in most communities. re is often time when police go to areas that are rough and police are seen badly so that they can improve their outlook with the people. Without legitimacy of the police it is nearly impossible for laws to be enforced, with this comes the idea of how effective can they be if no one sees them as legitimate. However, this is being challenged in recent years with the growing number of people who are looking to cops and helping them. With them come more and more urgency to feel secure in the communities as people look to the police for help and guidance for the law and how they want their community to look.
Since the 1980’s prison populations in the U. S. have increased at alarming rates, now with research we can see why this is happening. However, when the average person looks at this they see two things; one is the police are doing their job and getting criminals off the street, or police are just targeting people and this is way to control them. Now there is always a call from community members to their elected officials, local, state, and federal, to tackle the crime problems in their area. However, what this leads to is more political hands in the pot.
What this also calls for this is more government accountability in what they are doing. With this going on though it makes the public’s view on crime hazy. So, to start off the laws are made by government officials who take stats from all over to look at crime, they also want to keep their federal funding coming. This is an ethics issue where there can be research that shows that crime in the area is down but they will leave certain parts of it out. When making these laws they also look at moral values, so what is right and what is wrong.
These agencies look at all of this before implementing a policy or law in place. One agency is the Bureau of Justice Statistics; they collect, analyze, and publish information on crime for the government and influence policy. They must be accurate with their data since it is essential to guide and inform Local, State, and Federal laws and policies on crime and the administration of how to improve justice in certain areas. They also use this data to know they are creating the proper laws. If the data shows that certain crimes are on the increase, then they will see this and can handle it through laws and policies.
If they make laws without looking at the research first though they risk compromising their credibility or their ability to operate. This research considers what crimes are on the rise, including gangs, rape, robbery, and anything else. They can send this down to local officials and have them police these areas more; which is hotspot policing. However, when people see this they often look at as police are targeting this area for some reason. Citizens don’t always look at the police as trying to help, or they don’t see what the people making this policy see. Citizens look at this as them forging their stats to gain more funding.
The Department of Justice wants the public to be more understanding of crime and how crime works, therefore they release the finding and statistics so that the public can see them a possibly gain a more credible knowledge on this. It is important for these agencies to release their findings, it is also important to have these findings so that we can make credible laws. We can also make laws that won’t make the public see police as a force that is just targeting them and trying to get their funding up. Being a police officer in today’s world is something that can be extremely stressful and often lead to suicide or the harm of others.
This is a factor in today’s world that we pretend not to see because we don’t want too. Being a cop in America you’re supposed to be a big tough macho man or women, and we do not want to see any weakness in these people. The people who are in law enforcement see this as well, they do not want to look weak or venerable to the other officers or to criminals. Officers see unimaginable things on a daily bias and go to some of the most horrendous crimes imaginable as well, yet they are supposed to remain strong always and that is because of us.
We as citizens often forget that these are humans too and are facing the same struggles as we do. These men and women are there to elp us but we are often not there to help them when it is needed. This is because of our culture and the way that we see the police. It can also be the simple fact that they do not want to lose their position either. If a cop is feeling down or mentally disturbed they could face being let, go or put on leave until this issue is addressed and fixed which some officers see as a negative blemish on them so they choose to ignore it.
However, when they choose this option it leads to other issues. This can lead to domestic abuse on a loved one, divorce, and even suicide on their end if nothing is done about it. Cops are offered help through their agency, this is talking to their commanding officer or along those lines, there is also mental help available to them. This is often the case when they must shoot someone or witness a heinous crime; in this case, they would go and see professional help and have them review them.
Cops are also offered a toll-free line where they talk anonymously with other officers about what they are going through and it being another officer they can possibly relate or help the cop. This again though the cops must be willing to seek the help that they need and we as a culture do not allow this. Even their own families can have an influence on them since they don’t want to look week in front their significant other or their children and this needs to be changed before we can do anything to help them.
Some things that we could do to help them are allow them to take more vacation or do something with that, or even go do another job for the department. This would allow them do get away from the stress of being an officer and relax and calm down. Being an officer is not easy task and citizens are not making it any easier for them. We must allow police to be human and understand that they make mistakes and often are going through difficulties just like everyone else, when we realize this then we can work on the issue. We must also push for more ways to help these people in anyways that we can and not just expect them to be the perfect person.
