Training of Law Enforcement: Standardized Training
Delivery of service is one of the most crucial areas where policing impacts society. Each year, there are millions of encounters between police and civilians. These encounters are important measures or avenues of observation into how policing works within the United States. In the past few years, police in the United States has been under fire for excessive force, extrajudicial killings, and various other above-the-law incidents. Various police departments have mostly been taken to court over the violation of human rights, especially black and other minority rights (Pollock, 2014). Two of the important observation areas are ethical training among police officers and capacity training to handle real-life situations, particularly the de-escalation of violence. These two areas summarily fall under the police’s understanding of the ethical use of discretion that is provided within the law.
Ethical training is one of the most important policing aspects that define their delivery of service to the citizenry. According to Pollock (2014), ethics is the capacity of an individual to perform his responsibilities, and at the same time, empathetically identify with other fellow humans. Simply put, it is the ability to become a human being when the situation arises discernibly. Police officers are continually criticized for treating human life with bare regard, specifically in handling real-life confrontations with black people. Philando Castile, George Floyd, and many more are but some of the few innocent black people who have been killed due to the officer’s inability to evaluate their immediate environments for threat critically but immediately retreat to the offensive. This shows a great failure inability to exercise restrain and calmly handle real-life encounters with civilians. Pumphrey (2016) identifies that a police officer should be trained to have the ability to become a crime fighter and a public servant, which means that none of the identified characteristics should play a larger role than the other.
The second and most important are concerning law enforcement training with the police officer’s ethical discretion. Police officers in the U.S. have the power to make decisions. The decisions may be different in various circumstances. However, in their immediacy, police can deprive a citizen’s life, liberty, and property (Pollock, 2014). Ideally, the police service continually works disproportionately in dispensing the law concerning this capacity. This is more pronounced among races, as police officers have been cited for using and justifying more force against all other races but white. Pumphrey (2016) identifies that ethical discretion compels that police to apply due process under the law and provide equal protection for all under the law. Social media has been a key instrument to show that this is not the case for all races. The countless murders and increased police brutality experienced by minority races show a big gap between what the law offers on paper and what is practiced on the ground.
Police conduct within the streets can be measured in one critical manner: force against civilians. Pollock (2014) highlights that police conduct is generally regarded by public opinion; by using Gallup Polls and various other record-keeping tools. These are polls and surveys that identify how well the police force as members of the public fair with the civilian population—other aspects such as police body camera work to back up civilian claims.
In conclusion, police officers are duly sworn in to protect and serve the civilian population. In this regard, they are required to offer the highest degree of ethical standards. A great disconnect between races that occurs in the general population has managed to break rank and become a common method of association among the police. The lack of a police officer’s ability to maintain the highest standards becomes a critical point of inference for better police service, especially among the minority communities.
References
Pollock, Joycelyn M. (2014) Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions In Criminal Justice. Belmont:
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Print.
Pumphrey, J. (2016). Turning ethical theory into practice in policing. Retrieved from https://inpublicsafety.com/2016/10/turning-ethical-theory-into-practice-in-policing/

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