POLICE SUBCULTURE essays

POLICE SUBCULTURE essays Police officers are people the society should normally look up to as epitomes of discipline and protectors of law and order, however police behavior in recent years has been anything but exemplary thus rising rise to extreme resentment and distrust in the public. The public no longer trusts or respects police officers levying all sorts of charges against them. Police behavior is indeed despicable in some cases especially where When we delve deeper into the anthropological and psychological causes of this kind of behavior, we notice that police is influenced by a flawed subculture that profound affects the attitude and behavior of most police officers. On the one hand, this subculture teaches them certain values and beliefs and on the other, it turns the entire police community into a cohesive group that is essentially alienated from the general public. According to Adler, Mueller, and Laufer (1994) police subculture is a "set of norms and values that govern police behavior, brought about by stressful working conditions plus daily interaction with an often hostile public." Police subculture is responsible for giving officers a unique working attitude and mindset. Their character and personality is profoundly altered by the views and values that they learn from existing in this subculture. The one most important thing we notice about this subculture is the idea of insiders and outsiders that lies at the core of all its values. Police officers are constantly reminded of their role as protectors of peace and order which turns them against the general public as they view everyone outside the police department as a potential criminal or suspect. Police culture is also essentially characterized by violence as research indicates that, "Many officers are exposed to a subculture of violence in which they encounter death almost daily. The average citizen generally does not witness in a lifetime ...