Pelagio 1
Police Corruption
In today’s society, police are often perceived as the bad guys. This belief comes from the
past and current events of police corruption. According to David Bayley and Robert Perito when
talking about Afghanistan Police, “In many communities, ANP officers are viewed as predatory
and a greater threat to security than the Taliban” (2). As an example, imagine you see a person
videotaping a police officer who suspects another person of convicting a crime. The police
officer detains the person suspected of convicting a crime and proceeds to detain the video taper
as well. Things soon get out of hand as the video taper is handcuffed and forced onto the ground
for asking the police officer if he can just delete the video he filmed rather than having his
camera confiscated and being detained. It is more likely that the officer will not go unnoticed but
there are still situations where police officers handle things in a hideous manner and still get
away with it. I don’t believe the officer is at fault because he is doing what he is told to do which
is to enforce the law strictly and that is the issue. 100 years from now, I hope for a new policing
system in which more officers will be looked upon as helpers rather than deceivers by the public.
The ethical violation in this scenario is the Violation of Rights given to every person.
The ethical principal violated is justice. I believe that the system in which police officers are
taught upon needs to be changed because a lot of officers tend to over react a situation as they
are taught. Last year, I had a virtual experience where I got to see how a police officer would and
should handle a situation. The situation I faced was someone with a weapon telling me to get out
of his house. I ended up failing the situation because instead of shooting him for having a
weapon I decided to leave the house of the man carrying a weapon. I don’t understand why
police officers are taught to shoot if someone has a weapon that could be anything. It’s illogical
Pelagio 2
to arrest or shoot someone for doing something by accident or holding something at the wrong
time.
My reaction to the situation about the man detained over filming a police officer is the
same as the virtual experience I had with the man holding a weapon. It is illogical to protrude
force for a mostly unnecessary reason. It also makes no sense to detain a man for filming.
Detaining someone for filming would in fact violate their 1st amendment rights. Officers
however are given this belief that they are mandated to enforce the law yet not always follow it.
This leads to the situations above and others such as extortion and racial profiling.
People have come to accept these violations by discriminating against police officers.
There is name calling and ridiculing all over the media for something an officer might do in a
imperfect manner. Police officers are seen as bad law enforcers due to these violations that aren’t
done by all police. It is suggested that the following occur. The police officers that abide to the
law and give people their rights are the one’s justified to detain someone. The police officers that
detain someone without answering any of the victim’s questions or giving them their rights are
perceived negatively. The violations are justified by the violators because they fight for their
rights to speak freely, film freely unless instated and their ability to pull something out of their
pockets when a police officer is near.
To overcome police corruption, certain points need to be neutralized. According to Stuart
A. White, “The three areas that need attention are the officer training, personal characters and the
incentives program.” By targeting these areas, we can target the police corruption worldwide and
leave the discrimination against police. They won’t be stereotyped for being abusive and bad
once this new policing system is implemented. We can train officers to call for backup more
often rather than shooting a suspect. We can develop better character by having officers
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volunteer. We can create a program that targets situations in different justifiable ways. All of this
can change if we provide the incentives. If the world wants to look 100 years from now back at
how police officers acted, they should see what was used to change their system.
Pelagio 4
Works Cited
Bayley, David, and Robert Perito. "SPECIAL REPORTS." Journal of College Science Teaching
2.1 (1972): 59-60. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
White, Stuart A. “Controlling Police Corruption.” N.p., 04 June 1999. Web. 22
Oct. 2015.