Identify the best practices being employed by law enforcement agencies in the United States to attract and hire those candidates who will be successful in meeting the demands of police officers in the changing future.
The United States Department of Justice publishes a number of studies on law enforcement agencies around the country. One of the most well-known is the Uniform Crime Reports, which is published by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). It’s important to note that while this report is certainly a resource, its data isn’t entirely accurate. That’s because police departments are not required to submit detailed census data or crime statistics, and many often underreport information to protect their communities.
The most reliable source in terms of identifying high-performing police departments that are based on actual data is the FBI’s Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMS). As an integral part of the larger Uniform Crime Reports, LEMM is published every year. It reports information about specific tasks that are performed in between and after arrests (Ramchandet al., 2019). These special reports include information on vehicle thefts, traffic accidents, criminal intelligence investigations and community policing efforts. The data is collected in the form of questionnaires which are completed by individual law enforcement agencies.
Another good source of information is the US Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s Audit Reports. This report provides a detailed look at how federal agencies spend their budgets and funding. In many cases, the results are alarming, due to a lack of necessary equipment or staff training.”
Identify the skills that need to be imparted upon recruits during their training in order for them to be successful in all roles of law enforcement. What additional training and/or changes would you recommend?
When one thinks about law enforcement, the first thing that probably comes to mind are the tangible and often need-to-know skills of police officers. If you stop and think about it, though, many different roles of law enforcement may require a variety of skills. For example, while on patrol they can’t be constantly interacting with the public and using force against individuals with mental health issues. This is when they may need to use a more advanced piece of technology like a Taser (Blumberget al., 2019). They may need to take note of officers’ reports, and not just the legalistic details but also make sure that they are complete and on properly formatted paper. Recruits may also be required to learn to deal with individuals with mental health issues during their training, as many officers are often called upon to use force against mentally ill individuals with mental health issues.
More and more often, police officers are called upon to use force against individuals with mental health problems. These situations may require additional training to help law enforcement officers understand the mental state of individuals they interact with; this training will hopefully allow them to better defuse the situation without having to use force. Going along with their training to understand individuals’ mental state, recruits should also be trained in how to recognize when an officer has themselves become a danger to themselves or others.
Identify how police academies are preparing police recruits for the various duties and assignments that they will be responsible for in turbulent and changing conditions.
Police departments aren’t just learning how to handle weapons and patrol the streets, they’re learning how to deal with the immense changes that are affecting all areas of police work in this era of increasing digital media, nightmarish crime statistics, and limited financial resources. Though cops may not be able to change the course of these events or reverse the tide of discord sweeping through American culture, they can hone their skills by attending specialized police academies whose goal is to prepare officers for any situation that a police officer may have to face.
One of the ways in which police academies are preparing police recruits for the various duties and assignments that they will be responsible for in turbulent and changing conditions is through the use of security, surveillance, and weapons training. Though these courses of study sound like they might be geared towards an elite, special forces unit of law enforcement officers, it’s becoming more common for police departments to offer these types of programs to lower ranking officers.
In these classes, police academy instructors teach officers how to use weapons and how to effectively use various kinds of security surveillance equipment. In light of the recent surge in the number of police shootings, many instructors are also seeking to prepare recruits for situations in which they’ll be required to use firearms. Federal support for increased training programs like these is a large part of the reason that there was a 14% increase in police officer deaths from attacks in 2016.
Identify five constraints placed on police officers and examine how these constraints affect how officers conduct their operations and perform their duties.
Police officers are trained to be aware of their surroundings and their ability to react, but there are five dynamics that can restrict the way they work. These constraints include the geography, population density, immigration status and demographics of a community as well as its political ideology. It is important for officers to understand these constraints in order to assess a situation properly while still adhering to laws and regulations. Officers should also be cognizant of how these dynamics influence how different types of crime occur (Alcadipani et al., 2020). For example, do ethnic differences influence robbery or domestic violence? If so, how can police officers best approach a call in ethnically diverse communities?
Let’s examine how these five social parameters impact the way officers conduct their operations and perform their duties.
- Geography: The geography of any given community has an effect on crime rate. What does that mean? It means that the location of high crime areas affects the crime rate for those high crime areas. Officers must be able to adjust their tactics and strategies in order to be successful.
- Density: Density is critical because it affects crime rate. Why? It is because more people lead to more crimes, meaning more police calls. The same applies to the type of crime that occurs in these high crime areas; are they violent crime or property crime? Officers should establish patterns with each call they make, so they can anticipate similar ones and thus be prepared for each encounter with a potentially criminal suspect.
- Immigration Status: Officers should be cognizant of the immigration status of a suspect when approaching them. If they feel that the suspect is an illegal immigrant, they should try to identify themselves as a federal officer and set up a meeting with them where they can explain their presence and ask questions. “If an officer sees someone who walks around suspiciously, it is his duty to stop that person,” said Sgt. Steve Pittman, spokesman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
- Demographics: The demographics of a community include the age and race of citizens, as well as their cultural, political and social backgrounds. These dynamics will influence crime rates and the way officers perform their duties. For example, in urban areas, young adults are much more likely to commit crime than seniors.
- Political Ideology: The political ideology of a community can have an impact on how officers choose to perform their duties. This includes the level of force they choose to use, how they interpret the Constitution and how they interpret laws like the Patriot Act.
As you can see, figuring out crime rates in a community as well as how to reduce crime rates are not as easy as it seems. It is imperative that law enforcement officers take these factors into consideration when choosing strategies for their community in order to prevent crime and make their community more secure.
Identify best practices used by police supervisors to ensure that officers are performing professionally and within department guidelines. Also identify best practices utilized by supervisors when officers are found to be in violation of their oath, training, and organizational rules.
Every day, a police supervisor must oversee and manage dozens of officers who enforce the law and keep their community safe. In order to achieve these crucial tasks, supervisors have adopted certain practices that help them with this daunting responsibility. The first practice is standardizing the performance management process in order to establish department-wide accountability. This ensures that all officers are acting professionally and within department guidelines by encouraging employees to continually improve their performance in order to meet everyone’s personal need for safety, as well as promoting a strong work culture (de, 2022). Some supervisors also utilize probationary periods when officer ships are assigned. This practice helps to set the stage for a productive work relationship between supervisor and employee, while also providing officers with a better understanding of what is expected of them both professionally and personally.
The second practice is giving officers the tools they need to be effective in law enforcement. This includes training, which is often provided by an agency’s academies and First Responder Training School. Though these training programs are designed to teach officers how to handle themselves on the job, they also serve as a means for supervisors to properly evaluate officers’ performance. Training and evaluations are closely linked, because it is important for supervisors to know what an officer has been taught in training. This helps establish a clear understanding between the two parties of what is expected of each other.
A third practice is giving supervisors the authority they need to make decisions and ensure accountability with an officer’s behavior. By granting a supervisor this type of power, not only does it help them oversee their officers’ actions, but it also allows them to take on a leadership role within their department. This can serve as a strong motivator for those who are new or in need of improvement, which helps promote self-improvement and discipline. Another best practice is ensuring officers have a vital role in the development of policies and procedures used by the department. This not only requires officers to participate in their own behavior, but also gives them a better understanding of what is expected of them when performing their job duties.
The final practice used by supervisors involves holding officers accountable for their actions. Whether it’s due to negligence or misconduct, failure to meet certain performance expectations can lead to disciplinary action from an officer’s supervisor. This helps ensure that officers are acting in a professional and appropriate manner, as well as encourages an officer to improve upon those deficiencies so he or she can continue to perform their duties.
While there’s no way to ensure the perfect employee, these best practices help police supervisors guarantee that officers are performing their jobs in a thorough and effective manner. They also help encourage supervisors to provide guidance toward bettering their performance, which can help motivate employees to improve and maintain the highest degree of professionalism during every shift.
When an officer has violated his oath, training, and/or organizational rules, it can make it difficult for a supervisor to ensure that their officers are upholding the most up-to-date practices. But it’s important for supervisors to have a thorough understanding of how their employees are behaving in the field, and to take steps to correct this behavior if necessary. To begin with, supervisors need adequate documentation of their employees’ behavior so they can properly evaluate them during an evaluation meeting.
References
Ramchand, R., Saunders, J., Osilla, K. C., Ebener, P., Kotzias, V., Thornton, E., … & Cahill, M. (2019).
Suicide prevention in US law enforcement agencies: A national survey of current practices. Journal of police and criminal psychology, 34(1), 55-66.
Blumberg, D. M., Schlosser, M. D., Papazoglou, K., Creighton, S., & Kaye, C. C. (2019). New directions in police academy training:
A call to action. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(24), 4941.
Alcadipani, R., Cabral, S., Fernandes, A., & Lotta, G. (2020). Street-level bureaucrats under COVID-19: Police officers’ responses in constrained settings. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 42(3), 394-403.
de Maillard, J., & Savage, S. P. (2022). Performance mechanisms meet professional autonomy: performance management and professional discretion within police investigation departments. Policing and Society, 32(2), 145-158.