Throughout the history of policing the duty of the police has varied greatly. From the early 1600 to the modern era, police agencies have shifted responsibilities from volunteering on the night watch and collecting taxes to maintaining order and enforcing the law as prescribed by the constitution. While social reform and societal needs continue to mold the future of policing, certain aspects, no matter how controversial, will continue to dominate the policing landscape. Officer discretion has been and will continue to be an important aspect of law enforcement. In the late 1950s, the American Bar Foundation officially recognized the practice of discretion in law enforcement as in integral part of the system. The recognition, not intentional,
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A multitude of marked instances reinforces that point. From the Watts Riots in Los Angeles in 1965 to the Oscar Grant killing in 2009, race related events have enthralled the nation and sparked civil rights protests. The igniter of both aforementioned events was a police/citizen encounter that involved discretionary measure. In the Watts case, a California Highway Patrolman decided to pull a vehicle over for reckless driving and in the Grant case, BART officers were called to the scene of a disturbance in a transit center. However, disregarding whether the actions undertaken by police were allowable, these encounters led to unrest in their respective communities and across the nation. As a result, policies were changed; the BART police instituted training changes while the Watts Riots led to the adoption of community policing in the …show more content…
But, other areas such as the southern United States are still struggling to rid themselves of racist undertones. Kenneth Bolton Jr. (2003) interviewed 50 males and female police officers in southern states in order to determine the current state of racism. Bolton uncovered that racism was still prevalent across the south and affected aspects of a police department that included: training, discipline, promotion, and assignment. The interviewed officers determined that the culture of racism was institutional in nature. Put in context, knowledge that racism still persists inside police departments shows the high likely hood for some officers to allow the institutionalized normal racism to influence their decisions while on
A multitude of marked instances reinforces that point. From the Watts Riots in Los Angeles in 1965 to the Oscar Grant killing in 2009, race related events have enthralled the nation and sparked civil rights protests. The igniter of both aforementioned events was a police/citizen encounter that involved discretionary measure. In the Watts case, a California Highway Patrolman decided to pull a vehicle over for reckless driving and in the Grant case, BART officers were called to the scene of a disturbance in a transit center. However, disregarding whether the actions undertaken by police were allowable, these encounters led to unrest in their respective communities and across the nation. As a result, policies were changed; the BART police instituted training changes while the Watts Riots led to the adoption of community policing in the …show more content…
But, other areas such as the southern United States are still struggling to rid themselves of racist undertones. Kenneth Bolton Jr. (2003) interviewed 50 males and female police officers in southern states in order to determine the current state of racism. Bolton uncovered that racism was still prevalent across the south and affected aspects of a police department that included: training, discipline, promotion, and assignment. The interviewed officers determined that the culture of racism was institutional in nature. Put in context, knowledge that racism still persists inside police departments shows the high likely hood for some officers to allow the institutionalized normal racism to influence their decisions while on