Policing Challenges to Policing in the 21st

Policing Challenges

Challenges to policing in the 21st century

Policing has taken a different dimension from the traditional policing habits of maintaining law and order and combating the usual crimes to handling new forms of crime, which can be termed as white collar crimes. The society is faced with criminal activities which are as a result of the advanced level of technology use across the globe. The 21st century criminals are not the hardcore type law breakers but very intelligent individuals who are well informed and highly educated, they use very sophisticated systems to execute several crimes in different parts of the world as more people are embracing the use of technology in their day-to-day life (Interpol, 2012). This is an era where the criminals are technologically savvy and use this as a tool to commit crimes without the use of force or inflicting any bodily harm to the victims but their actions deeply felt (Patricia Linn, 1999).

Policing in the 21st century is therefore faced with several complex issues to tackle and the role of the police needs to change with the shifting trends in criminal activities across the world.

For purposes of this paper three major challenges have been discussed which in my opinion are the greatest challenges of policing today.

The first challenge is the difference in the laws governing different countries. Each country has its own laws that govern the land different from the other and it becomes difficult when combating crimes committed outside the boarders and bring violators to justice. In situations where the countries do not have common treaties that bind them or a working relationship with its neighbors, it becomes a challenge to prevent and suppress crime since territorial integrities have to be observed. Every country has its own territory and the relevant arms of government are charged with the mandate to protect its citizens from criminals by putting relevant laws in place to safeguard the interests of its people and provide security to its people. When there are no binding agreements between the nations, it becomes difficult to combat cross-border crimes. Countries may have good laws in place but when there is lack of implementation or enforcement of the same laws to prevent crimes in another country or unstable governments then the police are left in a dilemma. Lack of common laws and regional agreements among the nations is a major challenge to the police.

Another challenge is the involvement of national officials in criminal activities. National officials are the people who are entrusted with the duty of delivering essential services to the public and hold influential positions in public offices or key organizations which offer very important services to the public. The public have confidence in these office holders to discharge their duties with high standards and integrity. In certain situations, this privilege has been violated by these office bearers turned criminals who end up engaging in actions either directly or indirectly colluding with the criminals. The existence of these rogue officers within the system have been a major impediment in delivery of justice and combating crimes of these nature. In most cases systems have been hacked into and very sensitive information end up in the hands of criminals and the police have been challenged to handle more of these crimes due to the swiftness in these criminals as they leave no trace. When the providers of justice have a criminal mind, the security of a nation is threatened. The work of the police today has been made much complex and in most cases the law enforcers who are perceived to be standing in the way of criminals have been inhumanly eliminated by their fellow officers to pave way for criminals.