Police Professionalism and Responsibility
The effectiveness and success of police work in delivering civic duties and responsibilities depend on police professionalism and responsibilities, thus guiding police operations, actions, and decision-making processes. Professionalism under the police service needs to engage in conduct and observe qualities attached to police work. The police need to view their positions as police officers as a profession as compared to viewing it simply as a job. Police officers work to serve people at different levels and with a wide range of issues, and thus they need to have relevant professionalism to meet the needs of the people (Sklansky, 2011). In this regard, the police professionalism needs to adhere to basic principles and values such as integrity, intelligence, and maturity to guide their operations in the common good’s interest. Principles and values guide the police to meet the public needs and interests in terms of the general police force’s conduct and performance.
Police professionalism and responsibilities are consistently developed in police training and professional development. The police training and professional development equip the police with the relevant knowledge and skills required in maintaining a high level of professionalism and responsibilities (Fyfe, 2013). The fact that police work far from their roots or work in different cultures requires them to be rational in their operations, an aspect that arises from professionalism and responsibilities. Police professionalism and responsibilities are founded on different principles and values to guide them in their actions and decision making to ensure that they serve the public and meet their civic duties and responsibilities with efficiency and effectiveness.
Foundation of police professionalism and responsibilities
Professionalism and responsibility are developed among the police through various components and dimensions directed towards meeting the public needs. The foundations of police professionalisms contain different values guiding the police decisions making process and interaction with different cases and matters presented before them (William, Brower and Klay, 2016). The foundations of police professionalism include scholarship, collegiality, integrity, enthusiasm, honor, pride, independence, and leadership. The different aspects ensure that police maintain a standard of professionalism to enhance their obligations and serve the public devoid of discrimination.
Police professionalism is founded on scholarship and professional development through training and advanced studies to ensure that they offer competent services in their careers (William, Brower and Klay, 2016). In this case, police professionalism is improved and advanced through other combinations of aspects that include acquired experience, interaction with mentors, interaction and following of lead colleagues, and continuing education. The different forms of activities equip officers with professional expertise to address the different situations presented to them.
The ethical code of conduct is a significant basis for police professionalism and responsibilities. The police ethical code of conduct is directed to ensuring that the police comply with the police department’s rules such that they abide by high-levels of integrity, self-discipline, and high behavior standards (William, Brower, and Klay, 2016). The police officers need to accept responsibilities for their actions, collective responsibilities to ensure that their profession meets their rightful role. Therefore, the integrity aspect of the ethical code of conduct ensures that the police act professionally at all times.
The police profession is a noble profession whose professionalism and responsibilities must be guided by honor to the people, their country, and the constitution. The police’s honor entails the police operating under high respect dictates, observing moral right, and aiming towards the achievement of the greatest achievement in their operations (Fenwick, 2016). The police honor their duty by taking the oath of office; thus, they make their lives secondary to unarmed citizens. Therefore, honor aspects among the police ensure that they work devoid of betrayal, maintain integrity, character, and public trust, thus ensuring that they develop strong interactions and relations with society.
The effectiveness and success of police professionalism and responsibility are dependent on the collegiality aspect that involves companionship and cooperation between partners who share responsibility. The police in a police department or a region are required to cooperate in conducting similar duties and responsibilities to achieve common goals and interests (Fenwick, 2016). Police officers rarely achieve their goals and objectives through working individually, and thus they have to work in groups where the different parties contribute different in skills, knowledge, and expertise to achieve different goals and objectives. IT is important to note that police officers have different capabilities, skills, training, and specialty, thus requiring them to engage and operate together for success in their duties, responsibilities, and attain high professionalism.
Police professionalism and responsibility are founded on the enthusiasm that takes the police profession’s approach with strong excitement and strong feeling to actively participate in operations, duties, and responsibilities. Enthusiasm among the police makes them always look forward to taking the duties and responsibilities attached to their profession (Lowrey, 2018). The fact that the police are eager to engage in community service will consistently face issues and challenges faced by society to offer solutions through the best practices.
Police independence is a significant determinant of the police professionalism and responsibilities where the police have discretion and liberty to make decisions and take actions. Police independence ensures that the police can own their professions and work to deliver in their best way possible towards meeting the common good (Lowrey, 2018). Police evolution and reforms empower the police making them independent, characterized by autonomy in decision making, freedom from control, undue influence, and direction. Therefore, police independence empowers the police to observe high professional standards and meet the duties and responsibilities attached to their profession.
Factors affecting police professionalism and responsibilities
Police professionalism and responsibilities have great significance in meeting duties and responsibilities attached to the police profession, but there different factors and aspects affecting the operational effectiveness in attaining professionalism and responsibilities (Gupta, 2016). The promotion and reward systems are vital in determining police professionalism and adherence to the different duties and responsibilities. Police professionalisms and responsibilities need to be fairly rewarded to encourage all the parties to effectively offer their services most professionally. Unfair promotion and rewarding demoralize the police officers, thus inclining them to abandon their professionalism and responsibilities. Therefore, police rewarding and promotion needs to be backed with key performance indicators and a central standard system to ensure fairness and clarity in rewarding the police for their professionalism. The rewarding and promotion need to be fair and reasonable to promote professionalism and adherence to responsibilities.
The police need to be consistently encouraged and motivated, thus maintaining high professional standards and handling the different duties and responsibilities. The police officers’ encouragement and motivation need to be done in different ways and forms because police as a profession is not an easy take (Lowrey, 2018). In this case, police salaries and benefits need to be standardized and sufficiently improved to meet the police personal and family needs. The salaries and benefits need to be standardized with those of other parties in the criminal justice system, such as the judges, department of special investigation, and prosecutors, to ensure that they are reasonable. The large disparities in salaries and benefits among the police and other officers within the criminal justice system need to be reduced. Therefore, police professionalism and responsibilities need to be encouraged and motivated by improving their salaries and benefits.
The rules and regulations in police department policies determine professionalism and the implementation of responsibilities among the police officers. The rules and regulations in police departments need to be modified to align to work circumstances and the environment. The work environment is dynamic, and thus the rules and regulations in police departments need to be regularly modified to address unclear and inadequate rules and regulations (Lowrey, 2018). The police departments and heads need to have research committees to survey and study enforcement rules and regulations and problems that prevent the police from exercising professionalism in their operations. Therefore, police departments’ rules and regulations need to be modified and aligned to the environment needs to ensure that police can effectively and easily incorporate professionalism in their operations.
The presence of adequate modern, advanced, and capable tools and equipment to handle police work is a significant factor in determining police professionalism and the implementation of duties and responsibilities. Police operate in a dynamic environment that requires the adoption of new operational techniques, adoption of new technology, and information technology to implement different duties and obligations with high professional standards (Mak, Wong and Chang, 2011). The scarcity of relevant equipment, tools, and materials reduces the police’s effectiveness in delivering their duties and obligations. The tools and equipment to implement police work make police work easy; thus, police can deliver different duties and responsibilities with ease while maintaining high professional standards. Therefore, the government and police agencies need to research the tools and equipment required to implement police work to revolutionize operations through the incorporation of professionalism in all police operations.
Additionally, police professionalism and delivery of duties and responsibilities are achieved when police manpower is directly linked to the workload. Imbalance of police manpower rates and workloads affect police operation, and delivery in duties and responsibilities since the low number of police are overwhelmed with workload reducing their professionalism (Mak, Wong and Chang, 2011). The police manpower rates need to be decided based on the workload or the annual number of crimes and issues reported. More so, the allocation of police needs to be done based on police departments’ location since the difference in population changes from one place to the other. An equilibrium between police manpower and the prevailing workload ensures that police deliver on the different duties and responsibilities while maintaining police professionalism.
Importance of police professionalism and responsibilities
Police professionalism has a wide range of advantages to the police, the general public, and the government in ensuring that law and order are maintained in the society. In this regard, police professionalism and responsibilities ensure that police establish appropriate boundaries with society and other stakeholders (Gundhus, 2013). Professionalism in police work creates boundaries between aspects considered to be appropriate professional behavior. Police chives and executives support a vibrant work environment, but limitations must be put to prevent conflict and misunderstandings in implementing duties and obligations. Police officers that maintain their professionalism maintain boundaries in conversations and interactions with colleagues, superiors, public, and family members, ensuring that they meet their professional responsibilities.
Police professionalism and responsibilities encourage personal police improvement to meet the set of professional standards. In an environment where police observe professionalism and responsibility, it creates a conducive working environment, thus encouraging colleagues to engage in similar professionalism (Gundhus, 2013). Professionalism among the police amounts to personal growth and supports career development, thus improving their operations and delivering public services. A sense of professionalism in police service encourages individual police officers to engage in programs and training to improve professional performance.
Police professionalism is vital in promoting and encouraging accountability among police officers in the different police departments, thus creating a sense of responsibility, honesty, and trust between the police and the public members. Police officers are required under the police policies to offer the best help and services to present their police department in good light (Williams, Brower and Klay, 2016). Professionalism requires the police to be accountable for their actions and decisions made, thus improving the respective police departments’ reputation. The accountability arising from professionalism creates the right impressions about the police that enhance the sustainable relationship with the public members.
Police departments derive respect for authority through their professionalism and success in meeting their responsibility. Professionalism in the police department and force attracts respect and honor to the police and their department (Williams, Brower and Klay, 2016). Maintaining a professional demeanor eliminates or limits conflicts and inappropriate interactions, thus streamlining organizational operations and functions. When individual police officers maintain high professional standards, they attract admiration and respect from the public, thus creating a strong bond between them.
Measuring police professionalism
There is a need to measure and determine police professionalism to meet the minimum professional standards in the interest of meeting public demands and expectations. Different theoretical dimensions have been developed to measure professionalism in the different police departments and among the individual police. In this regard, there are dimensions consistent with police professionalism (Chen, 2016). In this regard, the level of police professionalism can be evaluated from three levels and standards. The first standard entails the visible commitment of the law enforcer to law enforcement’s mission and regard to the mission to be essential to the community. The second dimension entails the perception among a high number of officers thinking that their occupational operations are technical, and thus they can only be evaluated and assessed by their colleagues. The third dimension is the thought that police professions are a calling that conveys the total devotion to the profession, meaning the police officers go about their duties for the job’s satisfaction as opposed to monetary incentives or other incentives that come with the profession.
Conclusion
Police professionalism and responsibilities come out as a vital aspect in meeting police duties and obligations to the public; thus, there is a need to consistently improve professionalism by incorporating factors facilitating the application and success of police professionalism. The foundations of police professionalism mark the anchor in which police department policies, rules, and regulations are formed. The police professionalism foundations are founded on basic principles, values, and standards of operations to guide the police’s activities and functions. The professionalism foundations are used as the guidelines in decision making and taking actions concerning police work, thus ensuring that police maintain professionalism at all times. Consequently, different factors affect police professionalism’s attainment by acting as facilitators or barriers to meeting professional police standards. The different factors include the promotion and reward system among the police, motivation, departmental rules and regulations, police tools and equipment, and police manpower levels concerning levels of work. The different facilitating factors to police professionalism are dependent on its application to determine if they act as barriers or enabling factors. Furthermore, police professionalism is a significant aspect of police operations due to the advantages that accrue to them. The advantages associated with police professionalism benefit the different stakeholders such as the police themselves, police departments, members of the public, and the government. The general advantages of police professionalism are enhancing effectiveness and efficiency in a police operation on meeting their different goals and objectives. Finally, there is a need to assess and evaluate police professionalism to measure the level and extent of professionalism through different dimensions.
References
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Sklansky, D. A. (2011). The persistent pull of police professionalism. Harvard Kennedy School Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
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Williams, B. N., Brower, R. S., & Klay, W. E. (2016). Community-centred police professionalism: A template for reflective professionals and learning organisations with implications for the co-production of public safety and public order. The Police Journal, 89(2), 151-173.
