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Introduction
Police departments are designed to guard ordinary citizens against crime and to punish those who commit it. However, the growing number of cases in which police officers committed crimes shows that unfortunately the authority given to them is being misused. Cases that incriminate the innocent, excessive use of force, lack of response to dangerous hate groups, and systematic racial profiling have become routine liabilities for police departments. These actions caused an outcry among the citizens of the United States and are threatening to undermine the protective role of police departments. Some of the negative outcomes for departments include negative publicity, lawsuits, and loss of trust among the population. This paper will examine the issues that liability brings to police departments.
Background
Liability issues are not a new development for police departments. Widespread corruption was often the cause of the most criminal actions performed by the police. Bribes from organized crime families, collusion with large industrial corporations, and the self-interest of some officers would lead to guilty people avoiding their punishments, cover-ups of misconduct, and a variety of other harmful actions.
However, through several investigations into the internal affairs of major police departments of the country, the issue was given light, and a large number of corrupted officials were arrested and brought to trial. The general public was shocked at the blatant disregard for the protective role of police by those who were revealed to be dirty, but overall it was a positive development for the profession. Liability issues decreased dramatically, and with the power of the organized crime syndicates lowering, people gained a new appreciation of the police force (Brown, 2013).
Unfortunately, corruption can come not only from a corrupting force but from the system itself. Even police departments that were considered clean were prone to create issues of liability. When anti-war movements and minority rights movements began to gain traction, the government chose to deal with the opposition in a highly unethical manner by spreading negative criminalizing propaganda about both.
The goal was to create alienate these groups from the general public and eventually dismantle them through arrests and negative publicity. Punishments for relatively harmless crimes were made much harsher, and arrests related to them became frequent to the point that the prison system became almost unable to handle the number of convicted people. Police departments of places with a high level of poverty and minority populations were especially involved in such activities. While they were not considered illegal, they became the origin of many liability cases of the modern era (Brown, 2013).
False Convictions
One of the most tragic outcomes of police liability is a false conviction of an innocent person. It is a direct failure of both the police department and the justice system as a whole. These cases are much more common than it may appear to the general public and only through the newest scientific solutions can those who were unjustly convicted be set free. The most scandalous cases revolve around people who were convicted solely based on evidence gained through pseudo-scientific expertise.
Methods such as hair matching, teeth matching, blood pattern analysis, and others have been debunked and discredited in recent years. However, this change in methods did not result in retrials of those who were convicted because of them.
The only hope for most of these people is DNA testing which became available in recent years. The process of appeal and subsequent trial in court is slow and is likely to be prolonged for especially complex cases, but it is a chance that most unjustly convicted inmates are willing to take. To solve murder cases with a lack of traditional evidence, police departments often employed new and unproven methods. Some of these cases resulted in life sentences for people, which makes it a life or death situation for them (Anderson & Scott, 2016).
Those who are freed are extremely likely to sue the police department whose faulty investigation led to their incarceration. These cases have three distinctly negative outcomes for the police department involved. The first is the fact that an innocent person had to spend years in prison which shows how faulty the justice system can be when the authority figures do not perform their job properly. The second is the money that the department would have to pay out if the case is lost. The third is the fact that the real criminal was never caught. The latter is especially damning for the police department as it diminishes their worth in the eyes of the public and may even inspire subsequent crimes (Gross, OBrien, Hu, & Kennedy, 2014).
Excessive Use of Force
Members of the police force are equipped with lethal weapons. Due to the extreme proliferation of firearms in the United States, it is considered a necessary precaution for both self-defense and resolving of dangerous situations. The danger that officers face daily often justifies certain fears that they might hold. Unfortunately, the same fears can lead to the officer murdering an innocent person.
These liability issues became extremely visible after the case of Rodney King. The tape of police officers beating him and their subsequent acquittal brought upon some of the most aggressive responses in recent history. The acquittal is perhaps the more problematic part of this event because it showed the public that despite the visual evidence of a criminal act, the police department and the justice system did not consider it to be one.
Due to the proliferation of mobile cameras, similar events began to be recorded by both police and civilian cameras. The majority of such cases included African Americans being stopped or approached by the police for various reasons, and despite their lack of weapons, members of the police still apply an excessive amount of force or in worst cases shoot the person they stopped (Paoline, Gau, & Terrill, 2017).
Protests against these actions swept through the nation, but no change is seen so far while the number of innocent people harmed or killed by police steadily increases. This type of liability is often successfully defended as just in court. However, its effect on the public perception of police departments is just as often extremely negative. This issue undermines the role of police in a major way and sends a message that there is no internal force working on resolving this issue.
Police departments are slowly losing public support which can be dangerous for both civilians and the police. Increased distrust of police by the citizens they are supposed to protect is likely to exacerbate the fears that officers have when encountering potential criminals. Their current actions can be explained by overreliance on the arrest occurrence rates among the African American community, previous history of violent responses to officers, and in some cases personal biases.
However, if the public begins to show and even more negative attitude towards the police, their fears would only increase. The cycle of a liability issue occurring from fear, the public responding to it negatively, and the fear of officers increasing would occur much more often and on a larger scale. The levels of unrest might reach a boiling point, and the response from the law representatives would be even harsher. Until the issue of acquittal is present, it is difficult to see a positive outcome to these issues. However, if the justice system changes its outlook on such cases, it may serve to create a deeper trust between the citizens and police departments (Smith & Holmes, 2014).
The Saint Leo University Responsible Stewardship Value and Police Department Liability
Saint Leo University has some core values that are selected to showcase that the University is operating based on several positive principles. Responsible stewardship is one such value. It emphasizes that the resources available to the Saint Leo University are used to improve the community and fulfill its goals ( Core Values, 2018). Similar values can be applied to the work of police departments across the country. It is intrinsic to the nature of the profession.
Members of the police forces are funded by the taxpayers to provide protection. When their services are provided properly, they may be considered true heroes. It is not rare that a police officer risks their life to protect a person or assist in rescue efforts. In theory, saving lives is their priority, even when dealing with criminals. Unfortunately, the increased frequency of liability issues shows that this value may be not followed, or perhaps there are logical conflicts that prevent officers from fully committing to responsible stewardship. However, it should not be considered a dead-end situation.
Members of the government should be more attentive to these issues and propose new plans and projects to resolve them. Perhaps police officers on duty should have better protection if the true reason behind liability cases is fear. The development of more effective and non-lethal forms of protection may also benefit in cases where due to inaccurate information officers believe that the suspect is armed and dangerous. However, such system issues likely require systematic solutions. With the legalization of marijuana becoming a reality in many states, it is absurd that people who were jailed for its use and selling should spend decades in prison.
The punishment does not fit the crime and inflates statistics far beyond realistic proportions. If these statistics are used to judge how police departments should operate, liability issues would only increase in scope and frequency until the situation reaches critical mass. Even if the current views of the United States president are far from progressive, there is no point in continuing the same practices that were used to dismantle the Black Panther movement decades after it was destroyed.
Conclusion
The role of the police is to protect the innocent, investigate crimes, and arrest those that were found guilty. When these actions are performed incorrectly, they may result in tragic liability issues that can have grave consequences for the profession. While police departments should follow the value of responsible stewardship, the current situation does not reflect it is the case. Hopefully, the future will result in a swift and painless solution to these issues.
References
Anderson, D. C., & Scott, N. P. (2016). Three false convictions, many lessons: The psychopathology of unjust prosecutions. Sherfield on Loddon, UK: Waterside Press.
Brown, J. M. (2013). The future of policing. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Core values. (2018). Web.
Gross, S. R., OBrien, B., Hu, C., & Kennedy, E. H. (2014). Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(20), 72307235.
Paoline, E. A., Gau, J. M., & Terrill, W. (2017). Race and the police use of force encounter in the United States. The British Journal of Criminology, 58(1), 5474.
Smith, B. W., & Holmes, M. D. (2014). Police use of excessive force in minority communities: A test of the minority threat, place, and community accountability hypotheses. Social Problems, 61(1), 83104.
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