Police Administrator Challenges (Essay Sample)

Police Administrator Challenges
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Police Administrator Challenges
Police administrators across the United States are going through a crisis of confidence from the populace and citizens that they are under oath to protect and to serve. Scandals of police brutality and corruption have significantly tainted the public’s faith in the law enforcement administrators. This paper thoroughly describes the major issues and satisfactions of the role of a police administrator.
Major issues of the role of a police administrator
(i) Illegal drug in police corruption: Illegal drugs in the last 5 decades have become a usual element of life in American cities as well as in the rural communities of the United States. From the flower children smoking pot during the 1960s to the hardcore street drugs meth, cocaine and heroin, the United States has experienced an increasing demand for illegal drugs (Harrington, 2009). Years ago, the majority of law enforcement administrators would decline to accept bribes given that the police believed that it was really not worth losing his/her employment just because of being given a few hundred dollars to overlook. Presently, law enforcement administrators have been arrested for selling drugs, protecting drug dealers, and stealing the earnings from illicit drug sales. It is worth mentioning that the cash in dollars to be made might actually be in hundreds of thousands and this is by far more than a law enforcement administrator could hope to be paid in years of employment (Eiserer, 2011). Additionally, there has been a lot of political pressure in America to clean up the streets. This pressure is felt by the police on the street with demands for more captures of drugs dealers. To compound the issue, the RICO Act allows prosecutors and police administrators to confiscate real estate, vehicles, cash, and other property involved in the illegal criminal enterprise. Political pressure to clean up the streets could cause police administrators to violate people’s rights by planting evidence, confiscating property and money for their own use, and lying in court or in search warrants (Harrington, 2009).
(ii) Police brutality: The job of a police administrator is not easy. Police administrators are usually expected to make split-second decisions on issues that involve death and life. Eiserer (2011) stated that they are often subjected to too much stress and danger whilst on the job. Consequently, some police officers fly into a rage of brutality. Police administrators have been captured by video cameras in the act of brutally beating up people, for instance in the beating of Rodney King and the recent chokehold of Erick Garner in New York that resulted in his death and subsequent countrywide protests. Given that law enforcement officers are under a lot of stress and they are obliged to make instantaneous decisions, they at times make mistakes that cause people to be badly injured or even killed. At times law enforcement administrators get killed since they failed to react fast enough (Eiserer, 2011).
(iii) Racial profiling: Police administrators are sometimes unfairly criticized and rebuked on the reporting of racial profiling. Racial profiling is understood as police enforcement which targets ethnic or racial minorities, for instance traffic stops for Driving While Black (Weatherspoon, 2012). It is a deeply troubling and longstanding national problem in spite of claims that America has entered a post-racial era. It actually happens daily in towns and cities throughout the United States when police administrators target racial minorities for embarrassing and usually alarming arrests, grilling, as well as searches with no evidence of criminal activity and basing upon perceived ethnicity, race, religion or national origin (Weatherspoon, 2012). Racial profiling by police administrators is ineffective since it impedes community policing efforts, alienates communities from police officers, and causes police administrators to lose trust and credibility amongst the people they are actually sworn to serve and to protect.
Satisfactions of the role of a police administrator
The satisfactions of the police administrator’s role include the following: (i) opportunity to save people’s lives daily – as a police administrator, one will perhaps save the life of somebody each day that he/she comes to work. Sometimes, this might entail pulling a victim from a burning vehicle or giv...