Police, Terrorism, Ethics, and Corruption the Traditional

Police, Terrorism, Ethics, And Corruption

The traditional mission of police forces in the United States is fighting criminality and upholding the law in the defined geographical area or boundary they belong to. This translates to the local police forces of towns, municipalities and cities engaging in policing activities in these respective areas. Outside of these boundaries, the state police forces have responsibilities and on the national level, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has jurisdiction. Prior to the onset of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the American homeland, the mission and boundaries of the aforementioned police forces are clear and distinct. Immediately thereafter, there has been a tremendous paradigm shift in the mission of police forces in the United States because the growing threats of terrorism and terrorist activities have entered into the very heart of the nation. Even several years after the 9/11 attacks, terrorists have taken liberties in planning and launching their attacks in various cities across the United States. As a result, local police forces see themselves fighting a new breed of threats thereby necessitating a different kind of support to ensure that they can do their jobs properly.

Although police forces in the United States have had experiences fighting criminal elements engaged in transnational crimes as well as members of international criminal organizations, terrorism brought about a different challenge because of the nature of their activities. Unlike ordinary criminals who would surrender to police officers when caught, terrorists, especially the hard core ones would rather blow themselves up and take others with them including women and children. This kind of threat provides a different perspective to police forces because of the different nature of terrorism. Hence, there have been problems in the areas of civil liberties and human rights when police forces start treating suspects as if they are terrorists. This is the result of the enactment of the Patriot Act that differentiated between criminal acts and terrorist activities. In the former, the actions of these individuals and groups are against persons, properties and the law. The latter however are threats to national securities and since most terrorist actors are not U.S. citizens, they are deemed under the control of foreign powers or groups that are bent on undermining the United States government and its citizens.

Indeed, police forces in the United States find themselves facing a conflict between personal liberties and national security but this conflict is continually undergoing scrutiny in order to strike a balance. Preserving both liberty and security rather than sacrificing one or the other requires wise and, therefore, non-panicked policy (Terwilliger, Cooperstein, Blumenthal, & Parker, 2005). This ideal has been brought out and made long before the 9/11 attacks when a committee in the U.S. Congress stated (Terwilliger et al., 2005):

Our view is that in the event of a catastrophic event such as we are talking about, where you have tens of thousands of people dead, the pressures will be very great on the President and the leadership of this country to impinge on civil liberties unless they have done some contingency planning and thought it through ahead of time.

Bearing this in mind, police forces should constantly keep abreast of updates in statutes, policies and legislations in order to know how to better deal with terrorists in their jurisdictions. In doing so, they will not incessantly deal with balancing national security and personal liberties but instead are guided by existing laws that provide clear and distinct rules of engagements.

If terrorism poses new challenges to police forces in the United States, social stigma has been an age old reality for the police. Some of these social stigmas become stereotypes or discriminatory marks on police forces everywhere. For example, if a particular police precinct has had corrupt police officers for several decades, and these unscrupulous law enforcement officers had been rid off the force, the new breed of police officers will have a difficult time removing the blemish on the precinct. The reason being is that the community has been so used to seeing bad cops for several years and has given up on any changes happening. Thus, the current crop of police officers will have to work extra hard at changing the bad image into a good one. They will have to work extra hard at assuring the community they serve that the bad, old days are gone the new generation has the strongest conviction of upholding the law and living up to the highest ethical principles of the law enforcement profession. Even if they have made several headways on the matter, they may still be trusted "with caution" by the community because of the deep trauma left by the previous generation of bad cops. It will always be like "walking on egg shells" for the first several years and regaining the trust and confidence of the community will take time.

Certainly, social stigma plays a major part in police ethics or the manifestation of highest ethical principles. But this should not stop the police forces from fulfilling their duties and upholding the law. If police forces permit social stigmas to affect them, then they may end up not fulfilling their jobs and worst, engaging in corrupt activities. On this point, there will be a chain reaction whereby one bad act will lead to other bad or even worst ones. There are certainly unethical forces behind every police corruption and these unethical forces can even lead to police abuses or even brutalities. The root cause thereto, whether police corruption, abuses or brutalities, is that those law enforcement personnel involved in such acts and activities have forgotten why they joined the police force in the first place. They have forgotten that they "are essential to democracy by ensuring that no person is above the law, and they protect the citizens from victimization (Caldero & Crank, 2011, p. 17)." Engaging in corrupt, abusive and brutal practices is contrary to the reason for being of the police and those who do so are nothing more but criminals in police uniforms. Although unethical forces and practices figure in police corruption, abuse and brutality, the reality of this is that those who do so have made that choice. There is always an option of being a good cop or a bad one, and if the former is chosen, this will truly put a stain on the nobility of the law enforcement profession.

Aside from the ethical conflicts faced by police officers, there may be conflicts regarding individual conscience and police assignments. For example, "the rules for enforcing the law and the rules for protecting citizens can conflict with each other. Police are expected to stop, detain, sometimes seize and, if necessary, injure or kill citizens when they are engage in wrongful behavior. (Caldero & Crank, 2011, p. 17)" A more specific example may be a police officer who has a pro-life stance and got called in because an abortion clinic is being attacked by pro-life people. Although the police officer may not like protecting the life and property of the owners of the abortion clinic, he has no choice but to do so because the law clearly is in favor of the victim. Since there are laws against arson, vandalism and assault, it is the pro-life group that is breaking the law and the police officer will then have to arrest this group.