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NCJRS Virtual Library

American policing in 2022: essays on the future of a profession, additional details.

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Police reform in the spotlight

Colleen Walsh

Harvard Staff Writer

Harvard panel examines the history of policing in the U.S., and ways to move forward

In the weeks since George Floyd was killed by a white police officer, police reform has become a rallying cry, with many activists demanding states, cities, and towns defund their police departments and divert money spent to social supports and community resources instead. Some have called for the police to be abolished. Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill have responded to the call to overhaul the criminal justice system, but a lack of bipartisan consensus and competing reform bills has stalled any meaningful legislation.

In that framework, several scholars addressed the question of police reform last week during an online talk sponsored by Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study , exploring the nation’s history of policing, what it will take to overhaul a system seen as rife with misconduct and racism, and how America is failing to live up to its democratic beliefs.

“I think the best statement of the movement for Black Lives Matter ideals right now are that the fundamental structure of society itself needs to be rethought, and that policing is just the prism to do this work,” said Harvard’s Brandon Terry , assistant professor of African and African American studies and social studies.

Terry said steep economic inequality and low social mobility have brought the U.S. to a “crisis of legitimacy,” and the systems supporting those must be overhauled to help those in the “worst-off neighborhoods,” who are “really experiencing a kind of spectacular and mutually reinforcing tangle of structural and community violence.”

“If you look at redlining, lead poisoning, incarceration, and unemployment, all of these things map rather neatly onto violent crime,” said Terry. “And amidst this crisis of legitimacy, we have set police off on a self-undermining task of using state-sanctioned violence, arrest, and confinement to enforce property law and criminal law against the most marginal and disadvantaged members of society.”

Brandon Terry, assistant professor of African and African American studies and social studies.

Kris Snibbe/Harvard file photo

Terry said the cost of fixing these deep structural problems, a policing system that operates against a backdrop of distrust, “an adversarial approach to conflict fueled by litigation, and the most firearms of any society in the world,” and the use of race as a “proxy by police and citizens to justify surveillance, harassment, and other symbolic forms of violence against Blacks” are the most immediate problems to address.

Princeton anthropologist Laurence Ralph took up the question of how law enforcement is funded. “Public funding is the lifeblood of the police system as we know it,” he said. “Yet it remains debatable as to whether or not that funding has made our society safer, especially for a person of color at the receiving end of the police officers’ command or the police officers’ violence.”

Ralph, whose work and research has largely focused on Chicago, said that city paid $662 million to settle police misconduct claims between 2004 and 2016, and such settlements are a line item in a budget that typically allocates $1.46 billion dollars a year to policing. While calls to defund the police have been heard in Chicago for more than two decades, he said the current urgency is an opportunity to think strategically about what comes next.

“It’s not merely a call for extracting resources. It’s also a call for reprioritizing resources, and thinking anew about what priorities and what society values … The question then becomes, how do we think in a holistic way that yes, provides community resources, but also strips away some of the power that enabled these forms of violence to happen in the first place?”

During the panel discussion, Yale law professor and sociologist Monica Bell, Ph.D. ’18, said the process of significant police reform requires a “deep interrogation” of why communities of color have long distrusted the police.

“The starting point, analytically and from a legal estrangement framework, is to say, ‘We’re not going to presume that there’s some something wrong and that something needs to be fixed within communities that distrust the police,’” said Bell, whose area of expertise includes criminal justice, welfare law, housing, and race and the law. “The starting point is to examine the institution and to examine specific processes of exclusion of racialized subordination, etc., that are flowing from that institution.”

“It remains debatable as to whether or not that [public] funding has made our society safer, especially for a person of color at the receiving end of … the police officers’ violence.” Laurence Ralph, Princeton

Changing the police also requires examining the country’s founding vision of democracy and asking difficult questions such as “What has been democratic about our country after all?” and “What can a new vision of democracy look like?” said Ralph, who co-directs Princeton’s Center on Transnational Policing. He called the number of guns and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. “unprecedented,” and major barriers to change. Envisioning police reform is difficult when so many officers worry they might have to “outgun this imaginary criminal that could sprout up at any moment,” he said, and reliable oversight of more than 18,000 police departments, each with its own distinct policies and procedures — a reflection of the nation’s history of states’ rights — is almost impossible. But Ralph suggested that one way forward is to begin the reform process at the “hyperlocal” level, with city councils, in the hopes that such efforts might spark a bigger wave of reform.

Citing his research of more than 100 police torture cases from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, Ralph said another major challenge to police reform is the tendency to dismiss claims of police abuse when the victim has a criminal record. But efforts like those used during the Civil Rights era to focus attention on a “pristine victim” — someone like Rosa Parks, for instance — to highlight abuses suffered by Black Americans creates another problem. Putting forth only unimpeachable victims can lead to the “subtle and implicit argument” that those who “aren’t pristine” deserve to be brutalized, Ralph said.

Addressing both history and the current moment, Terry, who recently taught the General Education course “Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Question of Conscientious Citizenship,” said the Black Lives Matter movement has pushed back against the “politics of respectability” by acknowledging that following societal expectations is neither “a reliable safeguard against mistreatment” nor “a reliable standard by how we should evaluate moral worth and the kind of civic standing that people should have.”

During a Q&A session, many online viewers wondered whether changing the makeup of police departments to include more officers of color could make a difference. Bell called that “better than doing nothing,” but added that it’s “certainly not a pathway toward justice,” in large part due to police culture in the U.S.

“Even if people kind of head into policing to do public service, to do justice … the culture around violence, around being dismissive of certain communities and certain types of people, often remains and even infects the people who do the work on a day-to-day basis,” she said.

Virtual viewers were also eager to know how allies can best partner with communities victimized by police violence. In addition to donating money and demanding national leaders support police reform and reparations bills, said Terry, allies can help by “reliably showing up, putting their bodies on the line in protest. Because even the visual spectacle of you being there is doing important work.”

Earlier in the day, Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin , who introduced the virtual talk, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties about First Amendment violations during recent protests against the killing of Floyd and other African Americans.

Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard file photo

During her testimony, Brown-Nagin, a historian of the Civil Rights Movement, recalled authorities’ brutal attacks on the peaceful protests organized by Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. and the message King delivered in his final address.

“If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there,” Brown-Nagin said, quoting King. “But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”

Building on King’s argument, Brown-Nagin said the Constitutional rights of every person must be protected. “It is crucial that the individuals entrusted with upholding and enforcing the law do more than observe this bedrock principle of our democracy,” she said. “They must protect it.”

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379 Police Essay Topics to Research & Write about

Looking for police essay topics to write about? The field of criminal justice and law enforcement is really exciting, controversial, and worth studying!

🔝 Top 10 Law Enforcement Topics

🏆 best police essay examples & ideas, 👍 exciting police essay topics, 💡 law enforcement topics for a research paper, 📌 great police research topics, 🎓 law enforcement essay topics, ✅ most interesting police topics to write about, ❓ research questions about police.

In your police essay, you might want to focus on the historical perspective, elaborate on police brutality, touch upon the psychology of a criminal, or discuss the importance of the police as an institution. In this article, we collected a list of excellent law enforcement topics for a research paper, essay, presentation, or other assignment. There are also A+ police essay examples to inspire you even more.

• The role of technology in crime prevention.
• Eyewitness testimony: is it reliable?
• Preventing police brutality: the key methods.
• Race discrimination in law enforcement.
• Gender discrimination in the criminal justice system: does it still exist?
• International drug trafficking: how to prevent it?
• The approach to death penalty in different countries.
• The prison systems around the world.
• Kidnapping: the top motives.
• Body cameras: do they help?
• Police Arrest and Incident Record: O.J. Simpson’s Case J Simpson’s car had blood stain on his driveway and the stain was similar to those that were found at the site of the violent crime.
• Police Deviance For the sake of this paper, the scope of this paper will only examine the code of conduct in reference to the relationship between the police force and the society.
• Police Professionalism: Examples and Issues In order to ensure that the much anticipated policing is achieved, the relationship between the police and the community needs to be streamlined.
• Discipline as an Integral Part of Effective Police Supervision Supervisors as disciplinarians The ability to maintain discipline among the subordinates is one way of measuring the suitability of a supervisor for the role.
• Police Misconduct Actually, prosecutors are always reluctant to try these victims in the court of law for the following reasons; police officers, in most cases, are protected by the prosecutors.
• Police Brutality: Internal and External Stakeholders To begin with, internal stakeholders such as police officers and judges have been observed to enforce the law discriminatively. Policymakers can be encouraged to propose and support powerful laws that have the potential to deal […]
• Internal Control Factors Used by Police Departments There has been influencing by the government on police operations and this has weakened the independence of the department in its attempts at internal controls.
• Police Brutality: Dissoi Logoi Argumentation Under the influence of societal views, the majority of the representatives of the general public tend to perceive police officers as a safeguarding force that gathers individuals who perform their duties to ensure that the […]
• School Bullying: Causes and Police Prevention It is for this reason that there has been need for the intervention of the community and the government to address the issue of bullying schools lest the school environment becomes the worst place to […]
• Implementing Budget Restrictions in a Police Department The trust between the public and the police is the essential element of the police forces’ success in protecting the citizens and communities.
• A Ride With a Police Officer By signing the waiver, I assumed all the risks that I could have been exposed to at the time of the ride and throughout the program.
• Dubai Police Force: Human Resource Department The mission for the Dubai police is to strengthen the security systems of the city to facilitate the protection of the citizens’ rights.
• Excessive Force by the Police On the other hand, the media reported on the severity of misconduct by police officers and cited the Blue code of silence as the key setback against the fight against police torture.
• Importance of Police Training Majority of people have always aspired to become police officers for the reason that the job holders are seen to be the public vigor.
• Gratuities for Police and Professional Ethics As a Chief of Police, I would not allow police officers to accept gratuities because tokens of gratitude can be used to compromise their integrity, judgment, and impartiality in the administration of justice and law […]
• Police Misconduct: What Can Be Done? Police officers are the individuals charged with the task of maintaining law and order and ensuring the security of the population.
• Police Brutality in the USA This paper aims to discuss the types of police brutality, the particularities of psychological harm inflicted by the police, and its consequences for the population affected by these forms of violence.
• Change Management Steps in Police Organizations In the constantly changing world, every organization needs to adjust to the current environment and alter according to the dictates of the time, and police departments are also subject to this phenomenon.
• Police Officers and Cultural Differences This is because the police force holds specific power in this section of society, a factor that necessitates a proper understanding of a multicultural and pluralistic society among the officers.
• Organization of Abu Dhabi Police This led to a change in the organization structure of the police force, an increase in the number of police officers, introduction of rigorous training and development exercises, and the acquisition of sophisticated technology to […]
• Asian Community and Police Plan to Curtail Future Attacks The police should encourage citizens of the Asian community to report incidences and crime, which allows the law enforcement to fully understand the scope of the problem in the community and put resources to fight […]
• Criminal Justice Ethics of Traffic Police Officers The police officer had the choice to take the children to a juvenile center home and arrange for a person to take care of the baby and then take the woman to jail as she […]
• Problems Facing Police Departments in Recruiting and Retention People think that as the time goes along, no or little increase in the salary does not satisfy the employees of police departments and compel them to leave the job.
• Police Actions in “44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out” I believe that this crime thriller was shot to restore the reputation of the Los Angeles Police Department. The filmmakers achieved this goal; that is why the film encourages the audience to feel proud of […]
• Is Tipping a Police Officer a Bribe? In the context of law enforcement, a gratuity is a gift to operating officers based on their occupation. However, there is a blurry line between tips, gratuity, and bribes, and it is the main argument […]
• Police Officers, Killed in the Line of Duty In particular, it is necessary to focus on their experience in the field, line of work, the structure and jurisdiction of their departments.
• San Diego Police Department The department also addresses the issues affecting the surrounding community. The applicant should be a citizen or inhabitant of the United States.
• Police Trauma: Paying the Ultimate Price to Protect and Serve Importance of the Study Study of traumatic experiences that predispose police officers to trauma and subsequently to depression, suicide, alcoholism, and loss of the family is critical in understanding the physical, emotional, and mental health […]
• Police-Youth Relations and Community Policing This is because of the long history of the strained relationship between the Canadian youth and the police which has created a very negative perception of the police to the youth.
• Ambivalence on Part of the Police in Response to Domestic Violence The police have been accused of ambivalence by their dismissive attitudes and through sexism and empathy towards perpetrators of violence against women.
• Police Decision Making Analysis It is claimed that the police have a high level of accountability for their actions because they are involved in the initial process of justice administration where their decision to arrest or not to arrest […]
• Corrupt Practices of the Police and Correctional Systems Terms like police misconduct and corruption are used to describe the situation when police officers abuse their authority, driven by greed, desire for personal gain, ignorance, prejudice, and malicious intent.
• Pros and Cons of Being a Police Officer: Police Oficers’ Interviews To investigate the Pros and Cons of this profession aims, and attitudes of police officers I conducted the interview with two police officers from different departments and of different ages.
• Human Rights Violations by Police: Accountable in Discharging Their Duties Corey in his study and reflection on two mass exonerations, that is, the Rampart and Tulia exonerations, identified police misconduct, and in particular perjury as the primary cause for wrongful convictions.
• Police Brutality: Graham vs. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 In this essay, a summary of the Graham and Connor case and the decision of the court will be introduced. In case this suggestion is correct, Connor appears as a police officer who failed to […]
• Concept of Police Detective Job In order to qualify for recruitment as a police detective, the candidate must have a minimum academic qualification of high school diploma or an equivalent of the same.
• Corruption and Accountability of Police Work In this regard, lack of strong and proper policies on misconduct and unethical behavior in the line of duty has helped to perpetrate the corruption of law enforcement officers in various sectors of their work.
• The Police Agency’ Conflict Management In the police agency, parties may use the collaboration strategy involving information sharing, openness, and elucidation of the various conflicting issues not only to reach a common ground that is satisfactory to the conflicting parties […]
• Bangladesh Police Institution This paper will concentrate on the police institution reform in order to make the police institution free of corruption, compromise, and injustices to the citizens.
• Abu Dhabi Police Self-Assessment It is imperative that the police is able meet public expectations and bring tranquility and comfort to the citizens, residents, and guests of the country.
• Mental Illness Emergencies and Police Response According to Dempsey et al, the roles of law enforcement agencies and the police when dealing with individuals with mental illness are to assess the situation, intervene, provide support, and connect individuals with mental illness […]
• The Atlanta Police Department’s Code of Ethics An interesting regulation issued by the Atlanta Agency is related to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and has been implemented at this stage.
• The Drawbacks of Police Wearing Body Cameras Thesis: Despite the claimed benefits of police wearing body cameras, such as increased transparency and accountability, the drawbacks of invasion of privacy, breach of trust, and cost implications make the use of body cameras a […]
• Police Culture: Criminal Justice Ethics The set of values and standards in police culture shapes the perceptions of law enforcement officers about policing and the delivery of services. Therefore, police culture is similar to other customs and habits that guides […]
• The Wakefield Police Department (WPD) in Memphis Solutions A designated task force is created from the pool of officers to routinely monitor repeat offenders and supervise young individuals who are more likely to engage in carjacking again.
• Relation Between Leadership and Police Ethics To prevent such situations in the future, it is essential to put effort into addressing the moral beliefs of the team and ensuring the organizational values are being shared among all officers.
• Mental Health Interventions for Police Officers The expected outcome of this study is a generalized classification of existing mental health interventions available for the police workforce and their assessment in terms of efficiency.
• Police Violence Against People of Color The article’s main argument for why racial stereotypes and their behavioural effects are to blame for police violence is that these effects extend beyond the direct victims to communities of colour.”The racialization of crime and […]
• Police Academy Training: Comparing Across Curricula All in all, the investigation proves that the COPS is a more efficient curriculum that leads to better performance in recruits due to it being well-designed and adjusted to the modern model of policing. Overall, […]
• A Train Hits Police Vehicle With a Suspect Inside On the one hand, there is the suspicion that the train was used recklessly and endangered the life of the suspect, while on the other hand, train officials argued that they did so to apprehend […]
• Killing Fields: Explaining Police Violence Against Persons of Color In particular, this topic concerns the biased attitude towards people of color among representatives of the protection of law and order.
• Police Agencies: Functions and Responsibilities After the rise of terrorism, the management of the Police agency or organization has evolved in several ways. This suggests that a line supervisor makes explicit requests to their representatives and prioritizes maintaining the “solidity […]
• Mental Health and Well-Being of Canadian Police Officers As found in the study by Tehrani, most police officers that worked during the pandemic have been emotionally affected by it, with the lowest indicators of mental health being strongly related to anxiety and depression […]
• Police Accountability and Community Relations Contrary to expectations, the working of overtime police officers and regular police officers seems to differ, as the former is more hostile to the community.
• Police Departments’ Diversity Hiring Practices The first article by Donohue is titled Shades of Blue: A review of the hiring, recruitment, and selection of female and minority police officers.
• Terrorism and Changes in Police Management Firstly, the police and organizations related to the population’s safety prioritized the prevention of terrorism to minimize the damage. Organizing in the police station involves the creation of organizational structure, points of authority, and responsibilities.
• The Usefulness of Using Offender Profiling to a Police Force Determining the value and effectiveness of this practice can be performed by analyzing the approach in the context of interaction with the police forces involved in the investigation of criminal offenses.
• The Media and the Police: Interactions Analysis The idea of a trust hierarchy is crucial in determining how the media and the police interact. The idea of a trust hierarchy is crucial in determining how the media and the police interact.
• Whether a College Degree Should Be Mandatory for Police Recruits In this regard, technical training and college education are crucial for the police force to effectively perform their work in the community.
• The Police Functions in the Modern World The primary functions of the modern police are crime control, order maintenance, and social work. Moreover, the second point is the changing nature of the crime that the police are fighting.
• Decision Making in Police Office Management 83, it is essential to say that far from the fact that criminals deserve to serve their sentences in prisons after the trial plays a role and the degree of punishment.
• The Police Culture and Corruption Goal misalignment between the community and police occurred as a result of militarized police starting to view themselves as armies battling on the front lines of war instead as public servants.
• Professional Police Force: Environmental Research and Public Health In this context, the objective of police advertising is to attract precisely those who are both seriously interested in the position and are well-qualified for it from the potential applicants’ total pool.
• Social Issue Analysis: The Trauma Lens of Police Violence It is the most visible manifestation of the struggle for justice, and the police are usually expected to support the victims of injustice.
• Police Administration Issue: Crime Victim Rights Moreover, the police administration has not acknowledged that the decision of the hospital does, in fact, protect the victims’ rights, a duty that is to be implemented by law enforcement.
• Effects of Body-Worn Cameras on the Relationships Between the Police and Citizens The reasons for carrying out this research are to learn the impact of BWCs on the relationships between the police and ordinary citizens and to clarify if some improvements can be offered at the moment.
• Effective Police Supervision: Encouraging Collaboration With the combination of the two methods in question, a rise in collaboration between the community and the police is to be expected.
• Being Killed by Police Use of Force in the US The topic of the chosen article is the risk of being killed by police in the United States. In connection to the topic, they find that Latino men are at a higher risk than white […]
• Police Brutality: Causes and Solutions If the criminal is armed and firing at the police, the use of force is acceptable. However, when the actions of the police are disproportionate to the committed crimes, the necessity of such measures is […]
• Police Corruption: A Crime With Severe Consequences Police corruption is a severe crime that can lead to adverse consequences for the officer-criminals and society. The documentary “Seven Five” shows the story of one of the most criminal police officers Michael Dowd.
• Black Lives Matter and Trump’s Use of Secret Police He has tried to hide the truth and the police brutality that took Floyd’s life, just as it endangered the lives of other black Americans.
• Police-Minority Relations: Criminal Justice Occasionally, charges of police misbehavior, such as the tragic killings of Black individuals at the hands of police in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ferguson, Missouri, spark public unrest.
• Impact of Police Brutality on the Society in the United States The issue of racism is one that has led to police brutality that has been witnessed in the American society for a long time.
• The Ethical Issue of Police Informants The inconsistency of Chambers’s figure lies in the fact that the agent pretended to be a person without a criminal past to get the job.
• Analysis of Mapping Police Violence After analyzing the content on the web page related to police violence, I realized that there are more murders committed by police than I expected.
• Police-Involved Shootings and Use of Force Analysis Adler and Adler expressed this scenario in the form of “The Gloried Self” a socially- and media-reflected blinding self-image of glory. Police officers should not be hesitant and incapable of maintaining order in the streets.
• March for Our Lives: Campaign to Defund Police in Schools The fundamental goal of the March for Our Lives movement is to inspire Americans to avoid unnecessary risks and prevent gun violence by any means.
• Howard Liebengood’s Life as a Police Officer For example, he took part in an event that celebrated the meaning of justice, where he demonstrated to children the various practices of the everyday life of an officer.
• Firing Police Officer for Violation of Code of Ethics Therefore, the officer’s actions could not be judged in any other way, and the fact of being off-duty does not justify the violation of the Code of Ethics of his department.
• Excessive Force and Deviance, Police Brutality The events highlighting racial injustice could positively influence our society, maintaining an appropriate level of awareness regarding the issues encountered by African-Americans and prompting a change in police behaviors.
• Defunding the Police: What Does It Mean? Those supporting the action of defunding want to see true reforms in the police force and cut down the ‘rotten trees’ that have been tarnishing the reputation of the institutions.
• Impacts of the Overlaps Between Communication and Criminal Justice for Police-Suspect Interactions The underlying concern raised by the interaction between Floyd and Chauvin as well as the other three police officers is that a breakdown of communication before and during the arrest led to the escalation.
• How to Become a Police Officer: Steps, Duties, Requirements, and Challenges Police officers are responsible for ensuring the safety of all the citizens and capturing the criminal in order to maintain a process. It is sufficient for those who are confident about the job and wants […]
• George Floyd’s Speech on Police Abuse I could do nothing but shout everything that was coming into my head, and the main thing that I was trying to deliver is that I was hurt, that I am not a bad man, […]
• COMPSTAT Police Management System Still, the original objective of this management system was to eliminate the numbers game in police departments. To summarize, COMPSTAT is a management system that can elevate the effectiveness of police departments.
• Police Departments in Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta The Knapp Commission was a major investigation of corruption within the New York Police Department in the 1970s. It was influential as it uncovered a massive and deliberate system of chain corruption that pulled in […]
• Police Use of Force: An Examination of the Minority Threat Perspective The authors are intended to explore whether gender and sex are influential in the context of criminal justice. It is essential to adjust to the modern changes of self-identification and respect people in their self-representation.
• The UN as a Global Police Force and Negotiation Facilitator The purpose of the paper is to address the failures and successes of the organization’s peace initiatives in an effort to evaluate its ability to ensure greater global security.
• The Problem of Racism in the Police Force Atiba argues that the problem of racism, especially in the police force, is solvable. In most of the cases, it is often interpreted as lack of love and compassion towards people of the other race.
• Police Encounters With Suspects and Evidence Officer Taylor also had reasonable suspicion to make the driver stop the care as it had similar characteristics to the vehicle involved in a road-side killing of a police officer.
• Police Relations With African American Citizens The problem of police brutality and unfair treatment of people is often raised in the media and provokes protests among citizens.
• The Sexual Harassment Suit: Pennsylvania State Police vs. Suders The purpose of this paper is to present the cause of the suit, analyze the results of the case, and propose possible actions and procedures to prevent the problem.
• Illegal Police Actions. Fourth Amendments. There are many loopholes used to evade the jurisdiction of the fourth amendment thus it can be argued that it does not provide sufficient protection to U.S.citizens. It is a big problem when police officers […]
• Stress Patterns in Police Work: A Longitudinal Study The research problem identified by the investigator relates to the prevalence of distress in the police occupation. The primary variable of the study was the mean stress measure, which was derived from the Langner-22 list […]
• Training Police Officers. Obtaining Data From Digital Devices In the context of present-day developments, figures saved and produced via modern gadgets and devices, may contribute to the clarification of the happening in the process of investigation.
• Instruction for a Police Officer in Curaçao Hence, the first crucial aspect of the instruction is to convey to Curacao citizens the idea that the police protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, especially human life, preventing and solving crimes, […]
• History of Police Brutality: The Murder of George Floyd Police officers strive to maintain order and ensure adherence to the laws of the state. The standards observed the right to democracy and addressed the need for representation.
• Researching of Police Shift Work The video by The Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy offers the study results regarding the influence of 8-, 10-, and 12-hour shifts on police officers.
• Police Technology Risks Regarding Personal Privacy Nevertheless, some of the technologies used by police and other agencies have raised concerns of the public over the threat to citizens’ rights and freedoms.
• Agency Interaction and Police Corruption One of the officers told me that I do not need to pay for my food at this restaurant because the owners give it free to the police officers.
• Public Concern on Police Service’s Poor Morale To show the City Council that this is a problem, the study set up should defeat the null hypothesis that the negative job satisfaction of police in the city council has no effect on job […]
• High-Speed Police Pursuits & Restrictions in the US The research methodology proposed in the paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the restrictive policies applied to police pursuits. How did the numbers of police pursuits change in correlation with the implemented policies?
• In-House Communications Training for Police Officers Following the onset of the demonstrations related to George Floyd’s incident, the Dallas Police Department released a report that its officers struggled to communicate with the public and act as a unified force.
• Data-Based Analysis Approach in Preventing Crime at Dallas Police Department The main objective of the proposed approach, in contrast, is to enhance the effectiveness of the analysis and research functions within the Intelligence Led Policing Division. It would allow to change the existing system of […]
• Replacing the Police Chief: Spanning’s Recruitment Plan Thirdly, due to the political and non-reforming nature of some of the council members, Spanning had another advantage of performing proper background vetting and presentation of the appointee to the council.
• The Police in the 2005 Urban Uprising in Toledo The 2005 Toledo Riot is an event that fulfilled the seven attributes of modern city rebellions while at the same time painting a true image of race relations, inequality, and crime in the United States. […]
• Friendship Police Department Organizational Change The one that is going to challenge the efforts, which will be aimed at rectifying the situation, is the lack of trust that the employees have for the new leader who they expect to become […]
• Body-Worn Cameras Against Police Brutality in New York There is often a legal foundation to such a privileged position; the laws control the oppressed class and mitigate threats to the power of the ruling class.
• Criticism of the Police Recruitment Method This paper will criticise the police recruitment process and the criteria used in the selection of police officers, particularly the use of background investigation to determine a participant’s integrity and personality testing using psychological tests, […]
• Police Activities and Lessons Learned From the Attacks Thus, the research aims to discuss and analyze the police reaction to the accident and the effectiveness of the realized operations as well as the importance of the lessons learnt for the further development of […]
• Police Pursuits Overview and Analysis Whenever a police tries to stop a motorist and the motorist decides to disobey the order of the police officer and evades, the police can initiate a pursuit.
• Professional Development of Police Officers: Grant Proposal and Presentation Therefore, the department needs to train its officers to help them analyze what causes of violence in the area. Therefore, the department will train some of its officers to help them rehabilitate juvenile offenders in […]
• Police Corruption, Misconduct and Brutality: When a Good-Cop-Bad-Cop Routine Goes Wrong The given cases show that, sadly enough, power abuse among the members of the police department is still an issue, and it is probably going to be as long as the means to coordinate the […]
• Conflicts of Police Officers With the Members of the Minority Groups This question is discussed by a lot of researchers according to a variety of social aspects such as the relations of majority and minority groups, the rate of crimes according to the racial characteristic, the […]
• Impacts of Terrorism on Police Mission in the U.S. The incidence of September 11 2001 has remarkably transformed the police force in the U.S. There is an increase in the level of monitoring of international travels and boundaries by the police force.
• Law Enforcement: Police Misconduct and Police Violence The article further points out the need to have better guidelines to govern the police on the use of Tasers. This has led to the loosening of the bond between the police and society.
• Burglary Under Greenfield Police Department Investigation The principal in particular can provide the record of the students who are usually absent from the school at the time the burglaries occur.
• Police Action in Times of Public Crisis At other times, the police will tend to go against the law and do things, which are not acceptable, not only by the law of the country but also to the social ethics of citizens.
• “Understanding Police Use of Force” by Klahm, C & Tillyer, R. To effectively bring out the correlates of police use of force and the varied reaction this is likely to amass from the general public, the writers of this article have borrowed from a number of […]
• The Police Mission, Operational Strategies, Styles of Policing Today Besides enforcing the order, the mission of policing is to investigate activities suspected as criminal and refer the outcome to the court of law.
• Police Performance and Measurement The diverse array of citizens requires police to be constantly trained on how to handle the individuals in the society. Lastly, the unclear mandate of the police has been an impediment to the work done […]
• Cops Count, Police Matter: Of Tactics and Strategy In ensuring the police play an active role in crime control, the authors take note of the flawed argument suggesting that acts of crime are caused by poverty, the economy, demographics, racism and social injustice, […]
• Intimate Partner Violence Against Police Officers The main goal is to make it known that the problem is extreme in the rural areas and urge the law enforcement agencies to utilize the existing law to solve the problem.
• Racial Profiling by Police: Effects and Possible Remedies When the police engage in racial profiling mistrust between the public and the police arises. The causes of such mistrust may be due to poor communication between law enforcement individuals and community members due to […]
• Discretion of Police in Traffic Stops The police should then have called the parents to inform them of the incident and charge the boy for disobeying the law.
• Ethical Decision-Making Among Police Officers It is the success of the institution in protecting the law that must be the highest motivation for a police officer to regulate his actions.
• Behavior of a Police Officer Within an Ethical Dilemma First and foremost, one should note that one of the most typical ethical concerns in the relevant field is the cases of discrimination on the ground of the national origin.
• Ethical Observations: Sexual Misconduct of Police The first issue to pay attention to is the sexual misconduct involving the police officer and the crime victim. Two internal investigations were initiated to determine whether the sexual misconduct was observed in relation to […]
• Police Recruiting and Hiring in Jurkanin’s Article He likens police work to sports because it requires officers to be highly dedicated to their duties. Police officers need to acquire advanced skills to help them deal with different crimes that happen in areas […]
• Key Issues That Influence Police Behavior The role of the police in the society is central when it comes to ensuring law and order. The policing task is the most prominent manifestation of the government and is easily recognizable by members […]
• Domestic Violence Among Police Officers The objective of this research is to establish the level of domestic violence among police officers and relative the behavior to stress, divorce, police subculture, and child mistreatment.
• Evaluating Productivity Metrics: Police Effectiveness Overall, the use of multiple criteria is partly based on the premise that police officers should be empowered by the administrators of law-enforcement agencies. This is one of the details that should be singled out.
• Police Effectiveness Analysis At that, effectiveness is the ability to achieve the goal set whereas efficiency is the ability to accomplish certain tasks in the shortest time and with the use of minimum effort, funds, and so on.
• Media Impact on the Police Public Image Even though the studies indicate mixed results about police use and the application of its powers, how the public perceives the police is primarily influenced by the media.
• Discipline of Police Force Affects Trust in Public All the police personnel have the right of legitimate use of force when carrying out their duty of enforcing the law.
• Academy Program for Police Recruits Learning academies provide the foundation and therefore they cannot be eliminated in training force for the sake of police officers to be.
• The 1919 Boston Police Strike In August 1919, the Boston police strike started when the police service attempted to seek unionization in the American Federation of Labor. Administratively, the structure of the police force also contributed to the grievances of […]
• Instances That May Result to Police Liability One common thing, however, is that in all the countries of the world, the body that concerns itself with the responsibility of enforcing the governing laws is the police.
• Police, Justice and Law: Knights in Shining Armor Therefore, the legitimacy of the comparison of police to warriors depends on the concept that the person making the comparison has of a warrior.
• Dallas Police Department: Training Techniques Changes The author of this paper identifies the problem to be a lack of proper training and the use of outdated modes of instruction.
• Police Suicide: Causes, Prevention, Impacts As much as the media and the general population assume police officers are less susceptible to stress and depression due to long exposure to the life stressors, research indicates otherwise.
• The Police Operation and Entrapment: A Case Stude After Bob took the bomb to Carl’s house and placed it on Carl’s automobile, the police had all the evidence they needed that Bob was attempting to murder Carl. Here, the police observed Bob strapping […]
• Excessive Force and Brutality in Police There are several policies and precedence cases that guide the concept of the use of force in the police force. To avoid such cases in the future, there should be new policies that guide the […]
• Los Angeles Police Department’s Organizational Climate Bureaucracies and red tapes, the nature of leadership and generally the organization culture are among the key elements that determine the organizational climate.
• Motivation in Police Department This is because most of the time those in supervisory levels in the various workplaces do not know how to effectively communicate with their employees, intending to encourage them to work to reach the goals […]
• Police Approach of Security Depends on Skin Color and the Accent of the Tongue The consequences of this trend by the police are highlighted by the paper just as much as statistics that indicate the presence of discrimination by the police.
• Job Description of a Police Officer Police officers are members of the police force and go by different names according to their ranking within the police force.
• Police Personality Position Overview On the other hand, work-related personality, also referred to as socialization and experience point of view, suggest that most of their individuality traits are acquired in the course of their police work.
• Portland Police Community Officer Core Obligations A police officer is expected to monitor violations of the law and regulations in the respective area of jurisdiction. In cases of casualties for example in an accident scene a police officer is expected to […]
• Police Accountability Analysis The policing strategies are supposed to agree with the expectations of the society in order to make both the police work effective as well as to enhance the relationship between the police and the community.
• Criminal Violations Committed By Police/Correction Any show of disrespect for police authority is a matter of great concern, and as such, the person responsible is likely to be punished by arrest or use of force.
• The Los Angeles Police Department Los Angeles Police Department is the police department for the city of Los Angeles. It is the mission of the Los Angeles Police Department to safeguard the lives and property of the people we serve, […]
• The Use of Discretion in Police Work This is a reasonable discretion and the police officer is free to make any decision. In such a situation, a police officer is free to make any of the two decisions.
• Police Role Description in the Media Secondly, the police’s role as crime fighters is depicted by the arrest of the teenagers as well as the collection of the evidence.
• Concepts of Police Ethics and Deviance Corruption is one of the most common police deviant behaviors, a fact that has tainted the image of the police in society.
• Police and Racial and Ethnic Minorities The view is that profiling is not only limited to what the police are engaged in towards the blacks but that the whole prosecutorial system is compromised.
• Police Search and Law Procedure Although they fled from the place, the police could reach them with the help of the evidence. According to the Fourth Amendment, the authority should have a warrant if they have to arrest a person […]
• Desdemona and Vince: Legal Issues in Police Conduct The legal issues that can be mentioned in the case of Desdemona and Vince include the aspects of the whole procedure of arrest as well as the process of questioning.
• Police and Policing – Change in Police Role The new implementation of the act was encountered by public fears as the members of the public were not comfortable with the militaries that were deployed in mater to do with domestic affairs, as they […]
• The Issues of Police Violence Analysis Social skills and the norms of society are learned in this process, allowing children to better develop in the future. Because of their inability to concentrate or catch up with others in terms of basic […]
• Trends in Police Recorded Crime in Northern Ireland
• The Legality of the Use of Force by the Police
• Ethical Police Problems
• The Role of Fusion Centers in Affecting the Work of Police
• San Diego Police Officers Asscociation
• Police Brutality: Social Issue
• Victims’ Assistance: Maryland Police Departments Websites Analysis
• Risk Management in Police Force Institutions
• Gender and Perception of Police Work
• LAPD and Cultural Awareness Courses to Police Officers
• Handling the Case of Police Officer Tom Delany
• Police Corruption in “The Detonator” by Wesley Snipes
• Police Officers Working With Diverse Population. Challenges and Solutions
• Cross-Cultural Contact by Police and Civilians
• Police Department Administration in Abilene
• Abu Dhabi Police Department’s Total Quality Management
• Abu Dhabi Police Department Innovations
• The Use of Force by the Police: A Perspective
• Police Officer Job Analysis
• Police Psychologist Interpretation
• Arming Police Assault Rifles
• Top Court Rules Against Police in Search Case
• Shortfalls in Recruiting and Retention: New York Police
• Police Officer Pushed a Cyclist: Media Coverage
• Organizational Structure in American Police Analysis
• Police Dogs Usage Analysis
• Stress of Police Officers and How They Cope With It
• Police Functions: Forensic Science and Fingerprinting
• Police Administration Structures in America
• Police Interrogation: Legal Issues and Limitations
• Police Investigative Questioning and Techniques
• The Job of Police Detective
• Training Theories for New Police Recruits Review
• Waterloo Regional Police’s Centralised Information System
• Setting Up of a Behavioral Science Unit in a Police Department
• Police Liability Issues and High Speed Pursuits
• The Police Tapes by Alan and Susan Raymonds Review
• Policing: CompStat and San Diego Police Department
• The New York Police Department’s Policing Style
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police vs. Software Piracy
• Strategies of Police Organization
• Police Reform in Russia: Evaluation of Police Corruption
• Police Corruption in Russia: Determinants and Future Policy Implications
• Walker’s New Framework for Police Accountability
• Professional Police Officers Nowadays
• Police Support for Community Problem-Solving and Broken Windows Policing
• The New York City Police Department and Society
• Police Departments and Accreditation
• Small Police Departments’ Organizational Analysis
• The Case of Terryl Smith, the Oakland Police Officer
• The Los Angeles Police Department Program Initiative
• Police Brutality as a Law Enforcement Challenge
• Social Psychology: Police Brutality
• Technology Influences on Police Brutality
• Anti-Terrorist New York City Police Department Shield
• The Job of Police Officers
• Police Misconduct and Addressing Recommendations
• False Confessions and Unethical Police Behavior
• Individual Liberties: Police Searches Without a Warrant
• Dubai Police and Cooperation With Media
• Police Stereotyping in a Multicultural Society
• Manners of Death in Police
• Los Angeles Police Department’s Use of Force Policy
• Designing a Recruitment Program for the WA Police
• Noble Cause Corruption in Police Officers
• Criminal Law: Racial Profiling by Police
• Hiring Police Officers in Five Steps
• Police Officers’ Bias Against Black Men
• Police Officers’ Excuses for Unethical Behavior
• Police Officer’s Career Research
• The New World of Police Accountability
• High-Speed Police Car Chases: A Deadly Pursuit
• How Can Police Develop Trust Among the People?
• Student Police Officer’s Decision-Making in Campus
• Decision-Making and Problem-Solving in the Police
• Police Attitudes Toward Drugs and Drug Enforcement
• Criminal Justice Administration and Police Functions
• Police Psychologist’s Role in Homicide Investigation
• Police Officer Situational Analysis
• Police Corruption and Citizen’s Ethical Dilemma
• Police Force in Interactions With Mentally Ill
• Police Accountability and Public Information Access
• Police Accountability and Vollmer’s Reform
• Police Managing the Ambiguities of Gifts
• Dubai Police Applying Total Quality Management
• Police Misconduct and Forces of Deviance
• Police Accountability and Community Policing
• Police Workplace Discipline and Misconduct
• The Abu Dhabi Police Corporate Sustainability
• Police Officer’s Must-Have Characteristics
• American Police Corruption and Its Classification
• Police Departments: Defective Areas and Solutions
• Interrogation Techniques Used by the Police
• Police Communication Skills Importance
• Police Beliefs and Attitudes Towards Interrogating Minors
• Decision-Making Information System for Police Department
• Police Officers’ Attitudes to Mentally Ill Women
• Predictors of Job Satisfaction Among Police Officers
• Baltimore Maryland Police Department
• Ending Police Misconduct: Cleveland Police Department
• The Organizational Reasons Police Departments Don’t Change
• Justice Department Ends Era of Pushing Police Reform
• Police Misconduct and Civil Forfeiture Law
• Quarantine, Its Legal Process and Police Power
• Police Officer’s Power Abuse and Plain View Doctrine
• Police Shooting Behaviour, Memory, and Emotions
• Local Police Role in Homeland Security
• Police Patrol Presence in Crime “Hot Spots”
• Police Culture in “The Critical Criminology Companion”
• The Management of Police and Development of Law
• Dubai Police, Politics, Retail, and Tourism
• White Police’s Discrimination Against Black People
• Homeland Security: Police and Profiling
• Police Stress Within Law Enforcement
• South African Police Service vs. Solidarity obo Barnard
• Organizational Culture in Police Department
• Black Panthers’ Violence Against Police Officers
• Police Officers’ White Lie in Criminal Investigation
• Power Abuse in Police Officer’s Actions
• American Police Officers’ Ethics and Professionalism
• Dubai Police and Expo 2020 Security Strategies
• Blue Wall of Silence in Police Subculture
• Police Issues and Practices Discussion
• Police Officers’ Morale and Resources Availability
• Police ‘Shooter Bias’ Against African-Americans
• Police Ethics and Misconduct
• Police’ Discretion: Definition, Examples and Rationality
• The English Influence on Modern Police
• Police Technology: Development and Progress
• Management and Philosophy for Police Departments
• Dubai Police Force Organizational Culture
• Police Violence as a Mutual Problem
• Abu Dhabi Police GHQ Management and Leadership
• Knowledge Sharing in the Dubai Police Force
• Is Dubai Police Force a World Class Organization?
• Police Officer Job Requirements and Hiring Process
• Employees Management in the Police Department
• Police Supervisors’ Influence on Law Enforcement Changes
• Police Development Foundations and Functions
• Police and Corrections Officers’ Stress – Psychology
• American Police Community Relations
• Communication and Ethical Issues in Police
• Police, Courts and Corrections Management
• Police Poor Adherence to Established Codes of Conduct
• Abu Dhabi Police Organizational Change
• Police Authority or Brutality?
• Social Issues: Police Protection of the Ku Klux Klan
• Police Work in Community
• Police Abuse and Laws Against It
• The Abu Dhabi Police
• Police Suicide and Preventive Programs
• Public Administration Issue: Police Brutality
• Final Program Evaluation: Increasing Police Numbers to Reduce Juvenile Crime in the UAE
• Increase Police Numbers to Reduce UAE’s Juvenile Crime Rate
• Police Service Transformation: A Critical Evaluation of Implementing Transformational Leadership in the Homicide Division
• The Royal Oman Police’ Traffic Safety
• Use of Social Media in The Police Force in Queensland
• Proposed Budget for an Additional Five Police Officers for the City Council
• New Technological Advances Within the Police Department
• The Decision-Making Process of the Police Service
• National Security Policies That Intersect/Conflict With Local Police Power
• Community Policing and Police Psychology
• The Role of Public Police in United States
• History of Police Psychology
• Organization Behavior: Steelhead Police Department
• Management of Police Department
• Police-Youth Relations/Community Policing and Young Offenders
• Virtual Police Department
• Contrast the Different Levels of Police Operations and Their Unique Operations
• Water Regional Police Services Project Implementation
• Police Response to the Ningbo Protest: Justified or Inappropriate?
• Police Minority Killings
• Corruption in Law Enforcement
• Police in Law Enforcement Misconduct
• Police Subculture: Culture’s Factors and Performance
• Greenfield Police Department’s Hiring Process
• DNA Definition and Its Use by the US Police
• How Police Conduct Towards Women of Color?
• Why Did the Police in 1888 Never Catch Jack the Ripper?
• How Police Access Data Obtain Criminal Information?
• How Female Police Officers Help Decease Police Violence?
• How Local Police Departments Handling Terrorism?
• How Can Police On-Body Cameras Be Useful?
• How Can the Police Secure Public Legitimacy?
• How Have the Police Departments Evolved Over the Last Thirty Years?
• Why Racism Among the Police Not Punished?
• How Can Technology Help Police and Government Officials Solve Crime?
• Why Police Prejudice Against Minorities?
• Why Do the Police Don’t Care About Computer Crime?
• How Could the Ethical Management of Health Data in the Medical Field Inform Police Use of DNA?
• How Police Effectively Cope With Stress Stemming From Work?
• Why Should All Police Officers Carry Tasers?
• How Are Computer Forensics Used in Police Investigations?
• Why Police Officers Engage in Corruption?
• Who Invented the Police Force?
• How Police Agencies Handle the Process of Interrogation?
• What Is Police Doing About Domestic Violence?
• How Does Media Affect the Public’s Perception of Police?
• How Might Police Officers Be Held Criminally Liable for Their Misconduct?
• What Are the Staff Positions in a Typical Police Department
• Are Offender Profiles Useful in Police Investigations?
• Why Do Police Officers Perceive Themselves as True Outsiders?
• What Are the Major Functions of the Police?
• How the Police Overstep Their Mandate When Searching People?
• How Police Have Used Crime Linkage?
• When Does Police Discretion Cross Boundaries?
• Why Are Police Called Bobbies?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 2). 379 Police Essay Topics to Research & Write about. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/police-essay-topics/

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A better path forward for criminal justice: Police reform

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Rashawn ray and rashawn ray senior fellow - governance studies @sociologistray clark neily clark neily senior vice president - cato institute @conlawwarrior.

• 20 min read

Below is the first chapter from “A Better Path Forward for Criminal Justice,” a report by the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform. You can access other chapters from the report here .

Recent incidents centering on the deaths of unarmed Black Americans including George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, William Green, and countless others have continued to apply pressure for wide sweeping police reform. To some, these incidents are the result of a few “bad apples.” 1

To others, they are examples of a system imbued with institutional and cultural failures that expose civilians and police officers to harm. Our article aims to combine perspectives from across the political spectrum on sensible police reform. We focus on short-, medium-, and long-term solutions for reducing officer-involved shootings, racial disparities in use of force, mental health issues among officers, and problematic officers who rotten the tree of law enforcement.

Level Setting

Violent crime has significantly decreased since the early 1990s. However, the number of mass shootings have increased and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security report being worried about domestic terrorism, even within law enforcement. Nonetheless, despite recent increases that some scholars associate with COVID-19 spillovers related to high unemployment and underemployment, violent crime is still much lower than it was three decades ago.

Some scholars attribute crime reductions to increased police presence, while others highlight increases in overall levels of education and employment. In the policy space, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 are often noted. We believe there is some validity to all of these perspectives. For example, SWAT deployment has increased roughly 1,400 percent since 1980. Coinciding with the 1986 Drug Bill, SWAT is often deployed for drug raids and no-knock warrants. 2 The death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman killed in her home in Louisville, Kentucky, is most recently highlighted as an example that demonstrates some of the problems with these tactics. 3

The 1994 Crime Bill ushered the COPS program and an increase in prisons around the country. 4 This legislation also coincided with stop-and-frisk policies and a rise in stand-your-ground laws that disproportionately disadvantaged Black Americans and led to overpolicing. It is an indisputable fact that Black people are more likely to have force used on them. In fact, Black people relative to white people are significantly less likely to be armed or be attacking at the time they are killed by police. This is a historical pattern, including during the 1960s when civil rights leaders were being beaten and killed. However, officer-involved killings, overall, have increased significantly over the past two decades. 5 And, we also know that if drugs were the only culprit, there would be drastically different outcomes for whites. Research shows that while Blacks and whites have similar rates of using drugs, and often times distributing drugs, there are huge disparities in who is arrested, incarcerated, and convicted for drug crimes. However, it is also an indisputable fact that predominately Black communities have higher levels of violent crime. Though some try to attribute higher crime in predominately Black neighborhoods to biology or culture, most scholars agree that inequitable resources related to housing, education, and employment contribute to these statistics. 6   7 8 Research documents that after controlling for segregation and disadvantage, predominately Black and white neighborhoods differ little in violent crime rates. 9

These are complex patterns, and Democrats and Republicans often differ on how America reached these outcomes and what we do about them. As a result, bipartisan police reform has largely stalled. Now, we know that in March 2021 the House of Representatives once again passed The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. States and localities are also presenting and passing a slew of police reforms, such as in Maryland where the state legislature passed the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021. We are not here to debate the merits of these legislations, though we support much of the components, nor are we here to simply highlight low-hanging fruit such as banning no-knock warrants, creating national databases, or requiring body-worn cameras. People across the political aisle largely agree on these reforms. Instead, we aim to provide policy recommendations on larger-scale reforms, which scholars and practitioners across the political aisle agree needs to occur, in order to transform law enforcement in America and take us well into the twenty-first century. Our main themes include accountability, training, and culture.

Accordingly, our recommendations include:

Short-Term Reforms

Reform Qualified Immunity

• Create National Standards for Training and De-escalation

Medium-Term Reforms

Restructure Civilian Payouts for Police Misconduct

Address officer wellness.

Long-Term Reforms

Restructure Regulations for Fraternal Order of Police Contracts

Change police culture to protect civilians and police, short-term reforms.

Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that courts invented to make it more difficult to sue police and other government officials who have been plausibly alleged to have violated somebody’s rights. 10 11 We believe this doctrine needs to be removed. 12 13 States also have a role to play here. The Law Enforcement Bill of Rights further doubles down on a lack of accountable for bad apples.

We are not out on a limb here. A recent YouGov and Cato poll found that over 60 percent of Americans support eliminating qualified immunity. 14 Over 80 percent of Americans oppose erasing historical records of officer misconduct. In this regard, most citizens have no interest making it more difficult to sue police officers, but police seem to have a very strong interest in maintaining the policy. However, not only do everyday citizens want it gone, but think tanks including The Brookings Institution and The Cato Institute have asserted the same. It is a highly problematic policy.

Though police chiefs might not say it publicly or directly, we have evidence that a significant number of them are quite frustrated by their inability to get rid of the bad apples, run their departments in ways that align with best practices they learn at Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers and National Association of Chiefs of Police, and discipline and terminate officers who deserve to be held accountable and jeopardize not only the public perception of their own department but drag down the social standing of the entire law enforcement profession. As noted above, The Law Enforcement Bill of Rights at the state level needs to be addressed. It further doubles down on qualified immunity and removes accountability for law enforcement.

National Standards for Training and De-escalation

In 2016, Daniel Shaver was fatally shot and killed by officer Philip Brailsford. Brailsford was charged but found not guilty. At the time of the killing, Shaver was unarmed as he lay dead in a hotel hallway. Police experts critiqued Brailsford’s tactics to de-escalate the situation. As he entered the scene, he had both hands on his M4 rifle and eliminated all other tools or de-escalation tactics. Brailsford was fired, tried for murder, and then rehired. He ultimately retired due to PTSD. Highlighting the roles of militarization, mental health, qualified immunity, and other policy-related topics, this incident shows why there is a need for national standards for training and de-escalation. Many officers would have approached this situation differently, suggesting there are a myriad of tactics and strategies being taught.

Nationally, officers receive about 50 hours of firearm training during the police academy. They receive less than 10 hours of de-escalation training. So, when they show up at a scene and pull their weapon, whether it be on teenagers walking down the street after playing a basketball game or someone in a hotel or even a car (like in the killing of Daunte Wright in a Minneapolis suburb), poor decisions and bad outcomes should not be surprising.

Police officers regardless of whether they live in Kentucky or Arizona need to have similar training. Among the roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, there is wide variation in the amount of training that officers have to complete as well as what type of training they complete. With the amount of travel that Americans engage in domestically, law enforcement has not kept up to speed with ensuring that officers receive the same training. Consequently, police officers may be put in positions to make bad decisions because of a lack of the implementation of federal standards. Funding can be provided to have federally certified trainers who work with localities within states, counties, and cities.

MEDIUM-TERM REFORMS

From 2015–2019, the 20 largest U.S. municipalities spent over $2 billion in civilian payouts for police misconduct. Rather than the police department budget, these funds mostly come from general funds. 15 So, not only is the officer absolved from civil or financial culpability, but the police department often faces little financial liability. Instead, the financial burden falls onto the municipality; thus, taxpayers. This money could be going toward education, work, and infrastructure.

Not only are the financial settlement often expensive, like the $20 million awarded to William Green’s family in Prince George’s County, Maryland, but the associated legal fees and deteriorated community trust are costly. In a place like Chicago, over the past 20 years, it has spent about $700 million on civilian payouts for police misconduct. New York City spent about $300 million in the span of a few years.

We assert that civilian payouts for police misconduct must be restructured. Indemnification will be eliminated, making the officer responsible, and requiring them to purchase professional liability insurance the exact same way that other occupations such as doctors and lawyers do. This would give insurance companies a strong incentive to identify the problem officers early, to raise their rates just the way that insurance companies raise the rates on a bad driver or a doctor who engages in malpractice. In this regard, the cost of the insurance policy would increase the more misconduct an officer engaged in. Eventually, the worst officers would become uninsurable, and therefore unemployable. This would help to increase accountability. Instead of police chiefs having difficulties removing bad officers through pushback from the Fraternal Order of Police Union, bad officers would simply be unemployable by virtue of the fact that they cannot secure professional liability insurance.

Bottom line, police almost never suffer any financial consequences for their own misconduct.

Shifting civilian payouts away from tax money and to police department insurance policies would instantly change the accountability structure.

Shifting civilian payouts away from tax money and to police department insurance policies would instantly change the accountability structure. Police are almost always indemnified for that misconduct when there is a payout. And, what that means is simply that their department or the city, which is to say us, the taxpayers, end up paying those damages claims. That is absolutely the wrong way to do it.

Most proposals for restructuring civilian payouts for police misconduct have included some form of liability insurance for police departments and/or individual officers. This means shifting the burden from taxpayer dollars to police department insurance policies. If a departmental policy, the municipality should pay for that policy, but the money should come from the police department budget. Police department budget increases should take settlement costs into account and now simply allow for increased budgets to cover premium increases. This is a similar approach to healthcare providers working in a hospital. If individual officers have liability insurance, they fall right in line with other occupations that have professional liability insurance.

Congress could approve a pilot program for municipalities to explore the potential impacts of police department insurance policies versus individual officer liability insurance, and even some areas that use both policies simultaneously. Regardless, it is clear that the structure of civilian payouts for police misconduct needs to change. We believe not only will the change provide more funding for education, work, and infrastructure, but it will increase accountability and give police chiefs and municipalities the ability to rid departments of bad apples that dampen an equitable and transparent cultural environment.

Mental Health Counseling

In this broader discussion of policing, missing is not only the voices of law enforcement themselves, but also what is happening in their own minds and in their own bodies. Recent research has highlighted that about 80 percent of officers suffer from chronic stress. They suffer from depression, anxiety. They have relationship problems, and they get angered easily. One out of six report being suicidal. Another one out of six report substance abuse problems. Most sobering, 90 percent of them never seek help. 16  We propose that officers should have mandatory mental health counseling on a quarterly basis. Normalizing mental health counseling will reduce the stigma associated with it.

It is also important for law enforcement to take a serious look into the role of far-right extremism on officer attitudes and behaviors. There is ample evidence from The Department of Homeland Security showing the pervasive ways that far-right extremists target law enforcement. 17 Academic research examining social dominance ideation among police officers may be a key way to root out extremism during background checks and psychological evaluations. Social dominance can be assessed through survey items and decision-making simulations, such as the virtual reality simulations conducted at the Lab for Applied Social Science Research at the University of Maryland.

Community Policing

Community police is defined in a multitude of ways. One simple way we think about community policing is whether officers experience the community in everyday life, often when they are not on duty. Do they live in the community, send their children to local schools, exercise at the neighborhood gym, and shop at the main grocery store? Often times, police officers engage in this type of community policing in predominately white and affluent neighborhoods but less in predominately Black or Latino neighborhoods, even when they have higher household income levels. Police officers also live farther away from the areas where they work. While this may be a choice for some, others simply cannot afford to live there, particularly in major cities and more expensive areas of the country. Many police officers are also working massive amounts of over time to make ends meet, provide for their families, and send children to college.

Altogether, community policing requires a set of incentives. We propose increasing the required level of education, which can justify wage increases. This can help to reduce the likelihood of police officers working a lot of hours and making poor decisions because of lack of sleep or stress. We also propose requiring that officers live within or near the municipalities where they work. Living locally can increase police-community relations and improve trust. Officers should receive rent subsidies or down payment assistance to enhance this process.

LONG-TERM REFORMS

Unions are important. However, the Fraternity Order of Police Union has become so deeply embedded in law enforcement that it obstructs the ability for equitable and transparent policing, even when interacting with police chiefs. Police union contracts need to be evaluated to ensure they do not obstruct the ability for officers who engage in misconduct to be held accountable. Making changes to the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights at the state helps with this, but the Congress should provide more regulations to help local municipalities with this process.

Police have to be of the people and for the people. Often times, police officers talk about themselves as if they are detached from the community. Officers often view themselves as warriors at war with the people in the communities they serve. Police officers embody an “us versus them” perspective, rather than viewing themselves to be part of the community. 18

It must be a change to police culture regarding how police officers view themselves and view others. Part of changing culture deals with transforming how productivity and awards are allocated. Police officers overwhelmingly need to make forfeitures in the form of arrests, citations, and tickets to demonstrate leadership and productivity. Police officers rarely get credit for the everyday, mundane things they do to make their communities safe and protect and serve. We believe there must be a fundamental reconceptualization of both the mission of police and the culture in which that mission is carried out. Policing can be about respecting individuals and not using force. It is an ethical approach to policing that requires incentives positive outcomes rather than deficits that rewards citations and force.

T here must be a fundamental reconceptualization of both the mission of police and the culture in which that mission is carried out.

Recommendations for Future Research

First, research needs to examine how community policing and officer wellness programs can simultaneously improve outcomes for the community and law enforcement. The either/or model simply does not work any longer. Instead, research should determine what is best for local communities and improves the health and well-being of law enforcement. Second, future research on policing needs to examine the role that protests against police brutality, particularly related to Black Lives Matter protests, are having on reform at the local, state, and federal levels. It is important for policymakers to readily understand the demands of their constituents and ways to create peace and civility.

Finally, research needs to fully examine legislation to reallocate and shift funding away from and within police department budgets. 19  By taking a market-driven, evidence-based approach to police funding, the same methodology can be used that will lead to different results depending on the municipality. Police department budgets should be fiscally responsible and shift funding to focusing on solving violent crime, while simultaneously reducing use of force on low-income and racial/ethnic minority communities. It is a tall order, but federal funding could be allocated to examine all of these important research endeavors. It is a must if the United States is to stay as a world leader in this space. It is clear our country is falling short at this time.

We have aimed to take a deep dive into large policy changes needed for police reform that centers around accountability, finances, culture, and communities. Though there is much discussion about reallocating police funding, we believe there should be an evidence-based, market-driven approach. While some areas may need to reallocate funding, others may need to shift funding within the department, or even take both approaches. Again, with roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies, there is wide variation in funds provided for policing and how those funds are spent. This is why it is imperative that standards be set at the federal level to help municipalities grapple with this important issue and the others we highlight in this report.

RECOMMENDED READING

Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness . The New Press.

Brooks, Rosa. 2021. Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City : Penguin.

Horace, Matthew. 2019. The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America’s Law Enforcement . Hatchette Books.

Ray, Rashawn. “ How Should We Enhance Police Accountability in the United States? ” The Brookings Institution, August 25, 2020.

• Ray, Rashawn. “Bad Apples come from Rotten Trees in Policing.” The Brookings Institution. May 30, 2020. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/05/30/bad-apples-come-from-rotten-trees-in-policing/
• Neily, Clark. “Get a Warrant.” Cato Institute. October 27, 2020. Available at: https://www.cato.org/blog/get-warrant
• Brown, Melissa and Rashawn Ray. “Breonna Taylor, Police Brutality, and the Importance of #SayHerName.” The Brookings Institution. September 25, 2020. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/09/25/breonna-taylor-police-brutality-and-the-importance-of-sayhername/
• Galston, William and Rashawn Ray. “Did the 1994 Crime Bill Cause Mass Incarceration?” The Brookings Institution. August 28, 2020. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/08/28/did-the-1994-crime-bill-cause-mass-incarceration/
• Edwards, Frank, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito. “Risk of Being Killed by Police Use of Force in the United States by Age, Race-Ethnicity, and Sex.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 2019. 116(34):16793 LP – 16798.
• Peterson, Ruth D. and Lauren J. Krivo.  Divergent Social Worlds: Neighborhood Crime and the Racial-Spatial Divide , 2010. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Friedson, Michael and Patrick Sharkey. “Violence and Neighborhood Disadvantage after the Crime Decline,”  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2015. 660:1, 341–58.
• Jeffrey D. Morenoff and Robert J. Sampson. 1997. “Violent Crime and The Spatial Dynamics of Neighborhood Transition: Chicago, 1970–1990,”  Social Forces  76:1, 31–64.
• Peterson, Ruth D. and Lauren J. Krivo. 2010.  Divergent Social Worlds: Neighborhood Crime and the Racial-Spatial Divide , New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Sobel, Nathaniel. “What Is Qualified Immunity, and What Does It Have to Do With Police Reform?” Lawfare. June 6, 2020. Available at: https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-qualified-immunity-and-what-does-it-have-do-police-reform
• Schweikert, Jay. “Qualified Immunity: A Legal, Practical, and Moral Failure.” Cato Institute. September 14, 2020. Available at: https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/qualified-immunity-legal-practical-moral-failure
• Neily, Clark. “To Make Police Accountable, End Qualified Immunity. Cato Institute. May 31, 2020. Available at: https://www.cato.org/commentary/make-police-accountable-end-qualified-immunity
• Ray, Rashawn. “How to Fix the Financial Gymnastics of Police Misconduct Settlements.” Lawfare. April 1, 2021. Available at: https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-fix-financial-gymnastics-police-misconduct-settlements
• Ekins, Emily. “Poll: 63% of Americans Favor Eliminating Qualified Immunity for Police.” Cato Institute. July 16, 2020. Available at: https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-63-americans-favor-eliminating-qualified-immunity-police#introduction
• Ray, Rashawn. “Restructuring Civilian Payouts for Police Misconduct.” Sociological Forum, 2020. 35(3): 806–812.
• Ray, Rashawn. “What does the shooting of Leonard Shand tell us about the mental health of civilians and police?” The Brookings Institution. October 16, 2019. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2019/10/16/what-does-the-shooting-of-leonard-shand-tell-us-about-the-mental-health-of-civilians-and-police/
• Allen, John et al. “Preventing Targeted Violence Against Faith-Based Communities.” Homeland Security Advisory Council, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. December 17, 2019. Available at: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/preventing_targeted_violence_against_faith-based_communities_subcommittee_0.pdf >.
• Ray, Rashawn, Clark Neily, and Arthur Rizer. “What Would Meaningful Police Reform Look Like?” Video, Project Sphere, Cato Institute, 2020. Available at: https://www.projectsphere.org/episode/what-would-meaningful-police-reform-look-like/
• Ray, Rashawn. “What does ‘Defund the Police’ Mean and does it have Merit?” The Brookings Institution, June 19, 2020. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/19/what-does-defund-the-police-mean-and-does-it-have-merit/

Governance Studies

Hanna Love, Manann Donoghoe

September 21, 2023

Brookings Institution, Washington DC

12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT

Rashawn Ray

March 16, 2023

Police Reform Is Necessary. But How Do We Do It?

By Emily Bazelon June 13, 2020

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A discussion about changes in policing, moderated by Emily Bazelon.

Emily Bazelon --> A discussion about how to reform policing. Moderated by Emily Bazelon Photographs by Malike Sidibe

On Memorial Day, the police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man. Three officers stood by or assisted as a fourth, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Floyd said he could not breathe and then became unresponsive. His death has touched off the largest and most sustained round of protests the country has seen since the 1960s, as well as demonstrations around the world. The killing has also prompted renewed calls to address brutality, racial disparities and impunity in American policing — and beyond that, to change the conditions that burden black and Latino communities.

The search for transformation has a long and halting history. In 1967, the Kerner Commission, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of uprisings and rioting that year, recommended ways to improve the relationship between the police and black communities, but in the end it entrenched law enforcement as a means of social control. “Neighborhood police stations were installed inside public-housing projects in the very spaces vacated by community-action programs,” writes the Yale historian Elizabeth Hinton , author of “From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime.” In 1992, after the acquittals of three Los Angeles police officers who savagely beat Rodney King on camera, unrest erupted in the city. The police were ill prepared , and more than 50 people died. In 1994, Congress gave the Justice Department the authority to investigate a pattern or practice of policing that violated civil rights protections.

Since 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement has made police violence a pressing national and local issue and helped lead to the election of officials — including the district attorneys in several major metropolitan areas — who have tried to make the police more accountable for misconduct and sought to decrease incarceration. The killing of George Floyd in police custody shows how far the country has to go; the resulting protests have pushed the Minneapolis City Council to take the previously unthinkable step of pledging to dismantle its Police Department. But what does that mean, and what should other cities do? We brought together five experts and organizers to talk about how to change policing in America in the context of broader concerns about systemic racism and inequality.

The Participants

Alicia Garza is the principal of Black Futures Lab, the director of strategy and partnerships for the National Domestic Workers Alliance and a founder of Supermajority, a new women’s activist group. Between 2013 and 2015, she helped coin the phrase #BlackLivesMatter and helped found the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Her forthcoming book, “The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart,” will be published in October.

Phillip Atiba Goff is a founder and the chief executive of the Center for Policing Equity, a research-and-action think tank at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where he is also the Franklin A. Thomas Professor in Policing Equity.

Vanita Gupta is the president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. She led the Justice Department’s civil rights division from 2014 to 2017.

Sam Sinyangwe is a founder of We the Protestors, which created a database that maps police killings, and Campaign Zero, a policy platform to end police violence. He is also a host of the “Pod Save the People” podcast for Crooked Media.

J. Scott Thomson served as the police chief in Camden, N.J., from 2008 to 2019 and was the president of the Police Executive Research Forum from 2015 to 2019. He is now executive director of global security for Holtec International.

This discussion has been edited and condensed for clarity, with material added from follow-up interviews to address developing news.

The Use of Deadly Force

Emily Bazelon: The conversation about how to invest our tax dollars to keep the public safe has broadened a great deal in the last few weeks, but let’s start with a relatively narrow question — what kind of change can take place within Police Departments? Phil, your Center for Policing Equity worked with the Minneapolis Police Department from 2016 to 2018. Over the past five years there, the police have used force against black people at seven times the rate it has been used against white people. Chief Medaria Arradondo, the city’s first black police chief, who took over in 2017, quickly fired Derek Chauvin and the three officers who were with him. But for years, complaints of misconduct and excessive use of force rarely resulted in discipline. Chauvin had a record of at least 17 misconduct complaints over his 19 years in the department, yet he was a training officer for new recruits, including two of the officers present at Floyd’s death. What do you take from your work in Minneapolis?

Phillip Atiba Goff: After Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, we, along with partners, got a grant from the Justice Department to address racial bias in policing. We invited Minneapolis to be one of the six cities we would work with. Our trainings were designed to help the police recognize interactions that are likely to result in discriminatory behavior, or undermine trust, and practice not to do that. And later we also used analytics to put resources back into the community. For example, in North Minneapolis, the police were giving out a lot of tickets for broken taillights, so we recommended they give out vouchers to get those lights fixed instead.

But the Minneapolis police have struggled for a long time with pockets of resistance to those kinds of changes. One terrible lesson of George Floyd’s death is that we don’t have mechanisms to stop terrible officers from doing terrible things on a given shift.

Bazelon: The Supreme Court has given the police a lot of leeway to use force. In 1989, in the case Graham v. Connor , the court held that officers could use force if doing so was “objectively reasonable” from their point of view in the moment.

Sam Sinyangwe: The police in Minneapolis put George Floyd in a neck restraint. Their department’s policy allowed them to do this if someone was exhibiting what’s called active resistance, which really means they’re trying to get up, or the police officer says they are, as he’s pressing them down. We’ve known for a long time that these neck restraints are dangerous. There was no reason for the Minneapolis police to authorize that tactic. In early June, the city banned it, as some others have.

J. Scott Thomson: The Supreme Court standard allows for a lot of situations that should never develop. Think about the mentally ill individual who refuses to drop a knife when a police officer tells him to. The law as the Supreme Court defines it allows the officer to advance on him and then shoot him — not because someone is necessarily in danger but because the person didn’t comply with the officer’s verbal commands. But why advance in the first place if it’s not necessary? How can any industry be considered legitimate, professional or trusted if it holds itself to only the absolute lowest permissible standard?

Bazelon: Alicia, you’re a longtime activist, and you live in Oakland, Calif. In 2009, a police officer there shot and killed a 22-year-old black man, Oscar Grant, who was lying face down on a BART station platform. This was one of the first police shootings to be filmed by a bystander on a cellphone. After that, activists worked hard for civilian review of the police, with real enforcement mechanisms. How has that worked?

Alicia Garza: There’s a deep sense in the black community that when the police commit harms, they’re not held accountable, and of course that erodes trust. People in these communities often ask why the police fight so hard to keep investigations and complaints in the shadows. The continual push to shield the police from responsibility helps explain why a lot of people feel now that the police can’t be reformed. Civilian review boards are one way to address that, but they often lack teeth. If you can’t hire and fire officers, or even make a recommendation for discipline that sticks, then you don’t have real power. That is a big frustration.

Bazelon: Sam, you’ve tracked police killings and nonfatal shootings around the country. What have researchers found?

Sinyangwe: In 2013, when the Black Lives Matter protests began, we didn’t have the data to understand what policy interventions could address the problem of police violence. Now we do, and the data nationwide show that about 1,000 people were killed by the police in 2019, which is about the same number killed each year going back to 2013. The overall numbers haven’t gone down. That’s because in suburban and rural areas, police killings are rising.

But if you look at the 30 largest cities , police shootings have dropped about 30 percent, and some cities have seen larger drops. In some of these cities, like Chicago and Los Angeles, activists with Black Lives Matter and other groups have done a lot of work to push for de-escalation, stricter use-of-force policies and greater accountability.

Thomson: In 2019, when I was chief of the Camden police force, we adopted a use-of-force policy with the help of Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University, and the Policing Project he started there . The policy mandates that the police de-escalate a conflict, use force only as a last resort, intervene to stop excessive force and report violations of law and policy by other officers.

Bazelon: I can see why that’s a starting point, but Eric Garner was killed on Staten Island in 2014 by a police officer who used a chokehold that was banned by the New York Police Department more than two decades earlier . And Minneapolis had a policy in place that required officers to intervene if they saw an officer use excessive force, but the three who were with Chauvin — who were much more junior than he was — didn’t step in to save George Floyd. What else does it take to prevent more of these deaths?

Thomson: Within a Police Department, culture eats policy for breakfast. You can have a perfectly worded policy, but it’s meaningless if it just exists on paper. You get trained in it when you’re a recruit in your three to six months at the police academy. But in too many departments, officers never receive more training on the policy or even see it again unless they get in trouble. They are then befuddled by being held to account for behaviors that regularly exist among their peers, and they feel scapegoated.

At the Police Executive Research Forum, we released a survey in 2016 that found that agencies spend a median of 58 hours on training for recruits on how to use a gun and 49 hours on defensive tactics, but they spend about only eight hours on de-escalation and crisis intervention.

To change the culture around the use of force, you have to have continuous training, systems of accountability and consequences. In Camden, when an officer uses force in the field, supervisors review the body-cam footage. The following day, internal affairs and a training officer also review it and either challenge or concur with the supervisors’ findings. If they see something wrong, they bring the officer in and go over the tape. If the supervisors had approved something unacceptable, they, too, are held to account.

Vanita Gupta: Let’s talk about Congress. There are 18,000 law-enforcement agencies in this country, and I don’t think we’ve seen major federal legislation for police reform pass since the 1990s, when Congress gave the Justice Department the power to investigate departments for civil rights complaints. This is why civil rights groups are pushing for several measures. These include a national registry of police misconduct — for infractions like excessive use of force or falsifying a police report, as well as terminations and complaints — to stop the cycling in and out of officers who have poor disciplinary records. There also needs to be a national standard for force to be used only as a last resort, a ban on chokeholds and an end to qualified immunity, a doctrine from the Supreme Court that shields the police from being sued when they break the law.

A few weeks ago, none of this was at the forefront. For several years now, there has been a growing bipartisan consensus for addressing mass incarceration. But policing has been this untouchable area outside it, even though police stops and arrests are the front door to the rest of the system. Now, with these massive, multiracial protests across the country, House Democrats have introduced a sweeping bill , the Justice in Policing Act, to address police misconduct and racial discrimination, reflecting the accountability framework of the Leadership Conference, the civil rights coalition that I help lead, signed by 430 groups.

Bazelon: Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, has asked Tim Scott, the party’s only black senator, to come up with a legislative response to the protesters’ alarm about the police that their party can back. That’s striking in itself, given how aligned Republicans have been with a conservative message about law and order.

Gupta: My fear is that Republicans will just go for mealy-mouthed, piecemeal measures. This is a real moral moment, reminiscent of the moment on the eve of the passage of major civil rights legislation in the 1960s, which Republicans ultimately joined in supporting. If they are serious this time, they should be adopting the Justice in Policing Act.

Bazelon: Some states are starting to act. California legislators have introduced a bill to ban chokeholds, for instance. After years of resistance, on June 12, New York repealed the law that kept secret the disciplinary records of police officers.

Gupta: Granted, this is about reforming the police, not reinvesting the money that is spent on them. But so long as we are going to have policing, this is a big deal.

The Power of Police Unions

Bazelon: After George Floyd’s death, a member of the Minneapolis City Council, Steve Fletcher, tweeted about the city’s police union as an obstacle to change. “They distort hard-earned labor laws to defend indefensible behaviors,” he wrote.

It’s a common complaint. The police began organizing in earnest to improve their working conditions in the 1910s. Today, the largest union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has more than 2,000 local chapters and nearly 350,000 members.

Because Police Departments are often strongly hierarchical, rank-and-file officers tend to rely on unions to give them a voice and shield them from what they see as arbitrary or punitive enforcement of the rules, in a job that relies heavily on officer discretion. But protection for the police, through collective-bargaining agreements or state laws lobbied for by unions, often “exceeds that provided to workers in other industries,” the law professors Catherine Fisk and L. Song Richardson wrote in a 2017 article in The George Washington Law Review. In Minneapolis, the union president, Bob Kroll, followed a common path when he defended the officers involved in Floyd’s death and lashed out at protesters as a “terrorist movement.”

On June 10, the police chief in Minneapolis, Medaria Arradondo, withdrew the department from contract negotiations with the union. He said he wanted to restructure the contract for “flexibility for true reform,” regarding not salaries but rather the use of force and the discipline process. Phil, when you were working with the police in Minneapolis, how did you see the department’s relationship with the union?

Goff: Arradondo wanted to work with us on reforms. He was one of five black officers who sued the department for racial discrimination in 2007. One person they named in that suit is the current head of the police union, Bob Kroll. When Arradondo’s suit was settled in 2009, the two sides didn’t get together and hold hands. So that’s not a unified culture. And if you have a strong union with a union head who says, “We’re not doing any of this because it’s bunk,” the chief of police can’t change the culture.

Gupta: Here’s an example: Arradondo’s department doesn’t do warrior-style trainings, which teach officers to see themselves as fighting an enemy who could kill them at any second. Last year, after it became clear that the officer who shot and killed Philando Castile in a suburb of St. Paul during a routine traffic stop had gone to a warrior-type seminar, the chief said officers who went to these trainings outside work would be disciplined. And then the union president, Bob Kroll, offered this training free for his members.

Sinyangwe: One thing that’s important, and often overlooked, is that police unions enjoy broad bipartisan support. Republicans are generally pro-police, and the left is hesitant to criticize unions. So you see things like Scott Walker, the former Republican governor of Wisconsin, exempting most police unions from the union-busting legislation he pushed through in 2011. And last year, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. pushed Congress to pass a bill that would allow the police to unionize in states where they can’t currently expand, which many Democrats supported.

The whole idea that the police should be able to unionize in the first place needs to be interrogated. One study shows that when sheriffs’ unions were allowed to bargain collectively in Florida in the early 2000s, based on a State Supreme Court ruling, complaints about violent misconduct rose 40 percent.

The language of the contract with the union in Chicago requires misconduct records to be destroyed after five years; in Cleveland, it’s two years. Louisiana has a law, which the police unions lobbied for, that says investigators have to wait 14 days to question an officer who used a weapon or seriously injured or killed someone and 30 days to question an officer accused of other misconduct.

Investigations and the discipline of officers — basic on-the-job accountability — should not be within the purview of collective-bargaining agreements between police unions and cities. One big problem is that cities cannot negotiate a new union contract unless the union votes to approve it, so they’re stuck with old contracts, which include concessions they’ve made to the unions on accountability and oversight over decades. We can’t hold the police accountable for use of force or misconduct if the unions continue to have veto power over change.

Bazelon: Scott, you’re known for making changes in Camden in the decade you were chief. What role did the police union play?

Thomson: I started as a police officer in Camden in 1994. Camden is a city in New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, that is almost entirely black and Latino, and it had extremely high rates of poverty and crime. The department I came up in was largely apathetic and struggled with corruption. Early on, the police union was almost all older white guys. They wielded power through the collective-bargaining agreement and by collecting dues, which gave them the ability to build a war chest. They thought they could outlast any politician or police leader.

When I became chief in 2008, we’d had five chiefs in five years. Camden had one of the highest murder rates in the country. The rate for solving murders was only 17 percent, and there were open-air drug markets all over the city. There was borderline hatred between the community and the police. It was very hard to make any progress.

In 2011, when Camden was in a fiscal crisis, the state threatened huge layoffs to the police force unless the union made major concessions to the contract. The union refused, and nearly half of the department was laid off. Over the next two years, the Republican governor, Chris Christie, worked with Democrats in the county and city governments to disband the city Police Department and start a new county force.

In 2013, everyone in the city Police Department had to reapply for a new job. But about 50 hard-line union folks decided not to reapply. They encouraged people to follow them so that a county force couldn’t be formed. Fortunately, most officers did not follow the union advice. Even more fortunately, these 50 folks who were the impediment to change selected themselves out of the hiring process. I was able to accomplish in three days what I couldn’t in three years. That allowed me to reset the culture.

Camden is not a utopia. There are still huge social inequities there, and before I left last year, we fired and prosecuted a cop for excessive force. But it’s far less violent. Homicides have fallen by more than 50 percent, and the rate for solving them is more than 60 percent, because people are more willing to trust and talk to the police.

Goff: It’s important to know how rare Scott is in having stayed in his job as chief for so long. The average tenure for a police chief in a major city department is two and a half years. So if I’m an officer who thinks that a neighborhood needs somebody to crack a couple of skulls to keep everybody in line and keep crime down, and someone like Scott Thomson comes in as chief, usually all I have to do is wait him out. My job is secure. He can’t fire me for disagreeing. He can’t fire me for doing almost anything, unless I get caught on camera doing the most egregious thing, and even then often not. So in many places, we haven’t given reformers the tools to actually make reform happen.

Bazelon: What else helped change the culture in Camden?

Thomson: Some cops valued the secondary jobs they got, working in security for private businesses or road construction on the side, more than their primary job of police work. They could make an extra $2,000 a week. Guys who worked many hours would use their police job to get rest. New Jersey addressed that problem and in 2013 tightened state oversight. It has been an issue in Minneapolis.

Bazelon: A city audit there last year showed that officers working outside jobs were regularly exceeding the maximum hours they were allowed for the week. In 1994, when the mayor tried to tighten the rules to increase oversight, the union sued.

Gupta: The Justice Department can help create the necessary pressure on the union to participate in reform. When I was there during the Obama administration, we went into cities like Ferguson, Chicago and Baltimore, where there was substantial evidence about a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing, like racially discriminatory practices or excessive use of force. Over the course of several months, we talked to hundreds of residents, activists and community leaders and hundreds of police officers, digging into every document you can think of in the Police Department, to really come up with a picture of what was happening. Then the Justice Department can negotiate an agreement with that city that contains a lot of reforms around use of force, discriminatory policing, accountability, supervision and training. The agreement is filed in court with a federal judge, sometimes as a consent decree, which has more teeth for enforcement and has often run for five years.

The consent decree forces the hand of the union and the rank and file. It can create the political will, over years, to actually see reforms through. That sustained focus really matters.

Bazelon: In a TV interview in June, Attorney General William Barr said, “I don’t think that the law-enforcement system is systemically racist.” The Justice Department will investigate George Floyd’s death, but Barr said he doesn’t think a larger pattern-or-practice investigation is currently warranted in Minneapolis.

Gupta: From 1994 to 2017, there were 69 investigations into patterns or practice in Police Departments, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, which resulted in 40 consent decrees or settlement agreements. But the Justice Department during the Trump administration has abandoned this work.

Where Should Funding Go?

Bazelon: In one poll this month , 74 percent of Americans supported the protests, and in another , the same number said they thought George Floyd’s death was connected to a broader problem with how the police treat black people. That was a major rise from when a similar question was asked six years ago about two killings. It has taken a long time, but the numbers suggest that a majority in the country have begun to absorb the lessons of Black Lives Matter. Alicia, what do you want to see happen next?

Garza: Most immediate, we need accountability for the death of George Floyd. Increasing the charges to second-degree murder for Derek Chauvin, and also charging the other three officers involved, was really important. Most of the time, there is unrest, and then there is a quick move to convene a grand jury, and people think there is no way that they couldn’t hold these officers accountable. And time and time again, as in the cases of Mike Brown and Eric Garner, grand juries have decided not to indict. So the elemental first step is to show that law and order applies equally to the police.

A demand to defund policing is also sweeping the country. People in Oakland are re-evaluating its budget, and several other cities are, too. We can do that by narrowing the focus of what policing is intended to do.

Bazelon: The United States spends more on public safety than almost all its peer countries and much less, relatively speaking, on social services. In Los Angeles this month, Black Lives Matter activists and members of the City Council succeeded in getting the mayor to propose moving $150 million of the Police Department’s nearly $2 billion operating budget to health and job programs. ( The police union said the mayor had “lost his damn mind” and warned that spending cuts would result in more crime.) In New York, more than 230 current and former members of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s staff signed an open letter pointing out that the police budget has grown since he took office by almost $1 billion (to a total of $6 billion) and demanded that $1 billion be reallocated to “‘essential social services,” like housing support and health care, as a coalition of advocacy groups are urging.

Gupta: That’s why this moment feels different to me than the moment after Ferguson, when Black Lives Matter changed the conversation in this country. Now we’re having a conversation that’s not just about how black communities are policed, and what reforms are required, but also about why we’ve invested exclusively in a criminalization model for public safety, instead of investing in housing, jobs, health care, education for black communities and fighting structural inequality. Budgets are moral documents, reflecting priorities and values.

When I went to Baltimore to investigate policing for the Justice Department, after Freddie Gray died from injuries he got in police custody, in every community meeting that I went to, folks were not just talking to me about concerns about police abuse. They wanted the Justice Department to fix the schools, to fix public transportation so they could get to their jobs more easily. Policing problems — police violence, overpolicing — were often the tip of the spear.

Garza: In 2018 and 2019, my organization, Black Futures Lab, did what we believe is the largest survey of black communities in America. It’s called the Black Census Project. We asked more than 30,000 black people across America what we experience, what we want to see happen instead and what we long for, for our futures. About 90 percent of our survey respondents said that the No.1 issue facing them, and keeping them up at night, is that their wages are too low to support a family. People want to see an investment in an increase of the minimum wage to $15 an hour. About 80 percent of respondents said that college costs were too high. In cities like San Francisco, we have made city college free for residents. These are things people can do right now to invest in black communities, by diverting resources from some of the ways we use law enforcement.

Goff: I’ve been saying for years that the No.1 thing you can do to help law enforcement is to call them less often. But I’m concerned about the slogan “Defund the Police.” It’s so much easier, time after time, for white people to take money out of communities than it is to put it back into communities, particularly when those communities are black.

Bazelon: In a 2016 survey by the Pew Research Center , black people were much less likely than white people to say that the police do an excellent or good job. Yet in a 2019 survey for Vox , they were almost as likely to support hiring more officers. Maybe that’s partly because they don’t see the government providing other resources for making their neighborhoods safe. But it seems really important to think carefully about how change should happen.

Goff: Imagine that you have a tool chest for solving social problems. It gives you options. Then you lose the tool of mental-health resources. You lose the tool of public education. They take out the tool of job placement. And then all you’ve got left is this one rusty hammer. That’s policing. Right now, the only money flowing into some black communities is law-enforcement money. There are many black activists doing this the right way. But there are also a bunch of white people saying, “Let’s defund the police,” because they like the police as an enemy, but then when it comes to investing in black communities, they are silent.

Simply defunding the police cannot be a legacy of this moment. I want to hear about investing in black communities more than I want to hear about defunding.

Garza: There has been such a massive disinvestment in the social safety net that should exist to give black communities an opportunity to thrive, whether it’s access to health care or housing or education or jobs. It’s really powerful to see the impact of the organizing that groups have been doing in Minneapolis in the City Council’s promise to disband the Police Department and then rebuild a different kind of public-safety system. My understanding is that they will rehire some officers. The details matter, and we don’t know what they are yet, but I think there’s reason to be hopeful.

I think people in this movement are more aligned in their goals than I’ve seen for the last seven years. I feel a deep level of responsibility not to let the moment pass and then all we get is better police training and chokehold bans. That’s what keeps me up at night.

Reimagining 911

Bazelon: The current protests are justifiably focused on the problems of overpolicing, including black and Latino people being stopped a lot for no good reason. But I’m going to also make an obvious point: Every society needs some way to prevent lawlessness and deter and investigate violent crime. Because civilians have an estimated 400 million guns in the United States — more than one for each of us — we probably need armed responders more than other countries that we might otherwise compare ourselves to, like Canada or Britain.

As people like Randall Kennedy, a professor at Harvard Law School, and Jill Leovy, the author of “Ghettoside,” have argued, black communities have often been underpoliced for serious crimes, because law enforcement doesn’t treat solving murders and shootings in their neighborhoods as a high-enough priority. In Baltimore, when the police got a lot of negative attention after Freddie Gray’s death in April 2015, there was a “pullback” in policing, as the writer Alec MacGillis described in these pages, which some officers thought the union encouraged. Homicides surged in the rest of 2015, and 93 percent of the victims were black.

Is this a danger in Minneapolis, and elsewhere, if cities fundamentally challenge their Police Departments and unions?

Gupta: I’m wary of making assumptions about depolicing. In 2015, I fielded calls from some police chiefs asserting that Department of Justice investigations and consent decrees were causing depolicing. But they had no evidence. A study by Richard Rosenfeld and Joel Wallman from 2019 found no evidence linking police killings of black people in 2014 to an ensuing homicide spike from depolicing. In New York, the big reduction in stop-and-frisk has been good, and crime has continued to decline.

Thomson: There is a prevailing sentiment in policing that “you can’t get in trouble for doing nothing.” But police officers take an oath and don’t get to decide whether they’ll follow it or not. This doesn’t necessarily mean writing tickets or making arrests, but if you are actively visible and engaging the public in your patrol area, flagrant criminal activity is far less likely to occur.

A tiny percentage of people are the ones destabilizing communities. They cause others to be armed, out of fear, who shouldn’t have to worry about defending themselves. So when I became chief of police, we worked with the F.B.I. and state investigators to arrest violent gang members. Then we put cops out walking the beat and on bicycles to prevent a cycle of violence over new turf. As a result, people started coming out of their homes, which is what you really need to start making a neighborhood safe.

Bazelon: I’m going to shift to other kinds of police work. In many cities, the police spend a lot of time “on traffic and motor-vehicle issues, on false burglar alarms, on noise complaints and on problems with animals,” the law professor Barry Friedman writes in a forthcoming article in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review. When a police report leads to criminal charges — only a subset of the whole — about 80 percent of them are for misdemeanors. Friedman argues that we should hand off some of what the police do to people who are better trained for it.

What if Americans retrained ourselves to expect armed officers to come only if they truly think there’s a real risk of someone getting hurt? The dispatcher would route calls that aren’t about crimes or a risk of harm to social workers, mediators and others.

Goff: In a sense, it’s not that hard to imagine. People already know that to some extent, 911 isn’t just for the police. In cities, it includes fire and emergency medical services.

Sinyangwe: There are a host of things that the police are currently responding to that they have no business responding to. If you have a car accident, why is somebody with a gun coming to the scene? Or answering a complaint about someone like George Floyd, who the store clerk said bought a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill?

Thomson: Perhaps, in a different city, the police wouldn’t have been sent in Floyd’s case. In Camden, I had a supermarket that called the police a lot about shoplifting. People would go in — and I’m not saying it’s right, but they’re taking food because they’re hungry or they need to feed their family. Then the security guards at the store engaged them; they would get in a fight, and now it turns into a robbery. It got to the point where I asked them to design their store to make it more difficult for people to steal and to stop calling us constantly. Because we’re not going to continue to charge our entire population with robbery on these minimal offenses.

Similarly, if you have a homeless man panhandling at a red light and you say to a cop, “Go fix it,” he’ll arrest the man. And now he has a $250 ticket. And how does he pay that? And what does any of this accomplish?

Bazelon: Let’s talk about domestic disputes. They’re the subject of 15 to more than 50 percent of calls to the police, according to Friedman’s article. He points out that such conflicts can turn serious quickly and unexpectedly. “We may well want force on the scene,” he writes. “But might we get further in the long run if someone with other skills — in social work or mediation — actually handled the incident?”

Monica Bell, who is a Yale law professor and sociologist, interviewed 50 low-income mothers in Washington about the police for a 2016 article in Law & Society Review. The women were deeply wary of the police in general, but 33 of them had called them at least once, often for help with a teenager. “Calling the police on family members deepens the reach of penal control,” Bell wrote. But the mothers in her study have scant options.

Garza: I lived in an apartment complex in Oakland for almost two decades. And we had incidences of harm, but we had a kind of ethos of not calling the police, not because people were organizers or activists but because of their experiences. They knew that if they called the police that real harm could come, and they didn’t want that.

Gupta: When I did investigations for the Justice Department, I would hear police officers say: “I didn’t sign up to the police force to be a social worker. I don’t have that training.” They know they’re stuck handling things because there is a complete lack of investment in other approaches and responses.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police put out a statement in June in which it said “defunding the police” was misguided. But it also said that funding cuts in social and medical welfare often put officers in an “untenable position,” because they are “often the only ones left to call to situations where a social worker or mental-health professional would have been more appropriate and safer for all involved.” On that, police leaders and protesters would agree.

Bazelon: In Eugene, Ore., some 911 calls are routed to a crisis-intervention service called Cahoots, which responds to things like homelessness, substance abuse and mental illness. Houston routes some mental-health calls to a counselor if they’re not emergencies. New Orleans is hiring people who are not police officers to go to traffic collisions and write reports, as long as there are no injuries or concerns about drunken driving. I’m borrowing these examples from Barry Friedman’s article. The point is that some cities are beginning to reduce the traditional scope of police work.

There are alternatives for crime-fighting too. New York has had some success by funding groups that do what’s called “violence interruption” in East New York and the South Bronx. They train people who live in the community, and who have often been involved with gangs in the past, to talk to younger people when there’s a conflict brewing that could turn violent.

One of the most interesting studies about policing is a randomized comparison of different strategies for dealing with areas of Lowell, Mass., that were hot spots for crime. One was aggressive patrols, which included stop-and-frisk encounters and arrests on misdemeanor charges, like drug possession. A second was social-service interventions, like mental-health help or taking homeless people to shelters. A third involved physical upkeep: knocking down vacant buildings, cleaning vacant lots, putting in streetlights and video cameras. The most effective in reducing crime was the third strategy.

Thomson: I would trade 10 cops for something like a Boys and Girls Club in my city. Those types of investments are crucial to safer, more stable communities. You clean up a vacant lot and turn it into a playground, and if people feel it’s a nice place, they bring their kids there. And then they are outside, looking out for one another. They are the eyes on the neighborhood. You have to have that, because the police can never be everywhere all the time.

Garza: We also shouldn’t accept a zero-sum game. An overwhelming majority of people we surveyed said they strongly support increasing taxes on people who are making $250,000 or more as a way to fund the services that are disintegrating in our communities.

I think there is a danger now that when protests start to die down, which they always do, when the blue-ribbon panel is dismantled, which it always is, black communities won’t necessarily be in a more powerful place than where we started. The country has to deeply invest in the ability of black communities to shape the laws that govern us.

As a country, we have to redistribute our resources. It’s not out of our reach. But it requires political will over the long term. Some of us have been running this race for a while now. We need you, if you’re newer to this fight, for the rest of the marathon.

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Planning for the Future: A Primer for Police Leaders on Futures Thinking

Publication Date

October 2019

Joseph Schafer, Thomas Cowper, Carl Jensen, John Jackson, Bernard Levin, and Richard W. Myers

This essay introduces futures thinking and discusses how it can be a valuable tool for contemporary police leaders. It starts with an overview of the emergence of futures thinking and a description of how one long-term police chief was able to effectively use this tool during his career. The essay next explains what futures thinking entails and how it can be integrated into strategic planning and decision making. A key tenet of futures perspectives for policing is to identify possible futures, examine the most probable futures, and then provide leadership that moves toward the most preferred future that will provide and maintain optimal police services in a community. Finally, several prominent trends of relevance to policing are considered. The document intends to orient the reader to what futures thinking entails and how it can be integrated into the work habits and routines of a police leader to increase her or his efficacy. While futures thinking might initially seem an abstract and complex process, in reality, it is an accessible and understandable way a police leader can improve their effect and influence.

Recommended Citation

Schafer, J., Cowper, T., Jensen, C., Jackson, J., Levin, B., & Myers, R. W. (2019). Planning for the future: A primer for police leaders on futures thinking . National Policing Institute. https://www.policinginstitute.org/publication/planning-for-the-future-a-primer-for-police-leaders-on-futures-thinking/

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Essay Sample on Why I Want to Be a Police Officer

When I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a police officer. As I grew older, my dream of becoming an officer never faded away; in fact, it only grew stronger. Being a police officer is more than just enforcing the law and maintaining order in society; it’s about being part of something bigger and making a difference in people’s lives. In this essay, which is an example of custom writing , I will explain why I want to be a police officer and how my passion for this job will help me become successful at it. 

Becoming a Police Officer: Exploring My Aspirations to Be a Police Officer 

The main reason why I want to become a police officer is that I have always wanted to make a difference in the world. The idea of being able to help people in need and bring justice to those who deserve it has always been appealing to me. Furthermore, as an officer, you are given the opportunity to work with different communities and build relationships with them while still doing your job effectively. 

In addition to wanting to make a difference and build relationships with the community, I am driven by the challenge that comes with policing. Police work is complex and ever-changing, so officers must stay on their toes and be prepared for anything they may encounter out on the streets. This means having quick thinking skills, being able to adapt quickly, staying calm under pressure, and having excellent problem-solving abilities. All these traits are necessary for success as an officer, which makes the job both challenging and exciting for me at the same time. 

Why Pursue Law Enforcement? 

Law enforcement requires immense dedication and commitment, but it can also be incredibly rewarding. As a police officer, I would have the opportunity to make a significant impact on people’s lives. Every day would bring new opportunities to help people in need, bring criminals to justice, and serve my community. It is an incredibly honorable profession that requires an individual with strong moral principles and courage. 

What Does It Take? 

The road to becoming a police officer is not easy – it requires dedication, discipline, hard work, and sacrifice. It involves mastering both physical tasks such as firearms training, as well as mental tasks such as understanding different laws and regulations about policing. Training does not end when you are hired; it is continuous throughout your career so that you can stay up-to-date with the latest tactics and technologies used in law enforcement today. This means putting in long hours studying law books or practicing shooting with firearms on the range regularly. 

Making Sacrifices for Others 

To my mind, being a police officer also involves making sacrifices – both physically and mentally – for the greater good of protecting others. This means sacrificing time spent with family or friends because you are working extra shifts, or going above and beyond your job duties because someone needs help urgently. It also involves sacrificing safety while responding to dangerous situations, or even putting your life on the line while apprehending criminals or rescuing victims from harm’s way. All of these require tremendous courage, which is why I am eager to pursue this path despite any potential risks associated with it.  

My Qualifications for Becoming a Police Officer 

I believe I have the qualities necessary for becoming an excellent police officer. First of all, I am physically fit – something that is essential for any law enforcement job. Moreover, my academic record speaks for itself; in college, I earned top marks in various criminal justice classes – another key requirement of becoming a police officer. Finally, my volunteer experience has helped me develop strong interpersonal skills, which will come in handy when interacting with citizens on the streets or during investigations. 

My Plan For Achieving My Goal 

Now that I have outlined my qualifications for becoming a police officer, it’s time to talk about how I plan on achieving this goal. 

First of all, I am currently enrolled in an academy program that teaches students the basics of law enforcement such as self-defense tactics and firearms safety protocols. After graduating from the academy program with honors, I hope to join a local law enforcement agency where I can gain hands-on experience as well as obtain certifications related to crime scene investigation techniques and other areas of policing work.  

Ultimately, my mission is clear: become the best possible police officer I can be so that I can serve the public with integrity and honor while protecting those who need help most!  

Becoming a police officer requires more than just desire; it demands dedication, discipline, sacrifice, courage, and skill sets related to both physical abilities like firearms training as well as mental abilities like understanding complex laws and regulations about policing. 

Despite any potential risks involved in this profession, I am confident I could make an incredible impact on my community by helping those in need while bringing criminals to justice – all while doing something that brings me great satisfaction each day! That is why I want to be a police officer!

Writing a Good Police Officer Essay 

Writing an essay about a police officer’s work can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. With the right approach and some helpful tips, you can craft a college personal statement essay   that will really stand out. Let’s take a look at what it takes to write a great police officer essay.

Planning Your Essay 

Before you start writing your essay, take some time to plan out exactly what you want to say. This will help ensure that your ideas are organized and coherent. Start by making a list of key points that you want to cover in your essay. This might include topics such as why you’re interested in becoming a police officer, what qualities make you suitable for the role, and how your experience has prepared you for this position. 

Write from Your Heart 

Your essay should reflect your passion for becoming a police officer and should showcase your commitment to serving others. Talk about why you want to join the force—is it because you want to protect citizens or because you believe in justice? What have been some of your most meaningful experiences (i.e., volunteering, internships) that have made you even more determined?

Use Simple Language

When writing your police officer essay, remember that clarity is key. Avoid using overly complex language or long-winded sentences; instead, focus on succinctly conveying your ideas with clear language and precise wording.

Choosing a career in law enforcement is a challenging and rewarding decision. It is not just a job, but a calling to serve and protect your community. In this table, we will outline some of the top reasons why individuals may choose to become police officers.

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Essay On Police

500 words essay on police.

In this world, we must have laws to maintain peace. Thus, every citizen must follow these laws. However, there are some people in our society who do not follow them and break the laws . In order to keep a check on such kinds of people, we need the police. Through essay on police, we will learn about the role and importance of police.

Importance of Police

The police are entrusted with the duty of maintaining the peace and harmony of a society. Moreover, they also have the right to arrest and control people who do not follow the law. As a result, they are important as they protect our society.

Enforcing the laws of the land, the police also has the right to punish people who do not obey the law. Consequently, we, as citizens, feel safe and do not worry much about our lives and property.

In other words, the police is a saviour of the society which makes the running of society quite smooth. Generally, the police force has sound health. They wear a uniform and carry a weapon, whether a rifle or pistol . They also wear a belt which holds their weapons.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas  

Role of Police

The police play many roles at police stations or check posts. They get a posting in the town or city depending on the crime rate in the area. When public demonstrations and strikes arise, the police plays a decisive role.

Similarly, when they witness the crowd turning violent during protests or public gatherings, it is their responsibility to prevent it from becoming something bigger. Sometimes, they also have to make use of the Lathi (stick) for the same reason.

If things get worse, they also resort to firing only after getting permission from their superiors. In addition, the police also offer special protection to political leaders and VIPs. The common man can also avail this protection in special circumstances.

Thus, you see how the police are always on duty round the clock. No matter what day or festival or holiday, they are always on duty. It is a tough role to play but they play it well. To protect the law is not an easy thing to do.

Similarly, it is difficult to maintain peace but the police manage to do it. Even on cold winter nights or hot summer afternoons, the police is always on duty. Even during the pandemic, the police was on duty.

Thus, they keep an eye on anti-social activities and prevent them at large. Acting as the protector of the weak and poor, the police play an essential role in the smooth functioning of society.

Conclusion of Essay On Police

Thus, the job of the police is very long and tough. Moreover, it also comes with a lot of responsibility as we look up to them for protection. Being the real guardian of the civil society of a nation, it is essential that they perform their duty well.

FAQ on Essay On Police

Question 1: What is the role of police in our life?

Answer 1: The police performs the duties which the law has assigned to them. They are entrusted to protect the public against violence, crime and other harmful acts. As a result, the police must act by following the law to ensure that they respect it and apply it in a manner which matches their level of responsibility.

Question 2: Why do we need police?

Answer 2: Police are important for us and we need it. They protect life and property, enforce criminal law, criminal investigations, regulate traffic, crowd control, public safety duties, search for missing persons, lost property and other duties which concern the public order.-*//**9666666666666666666666+9*63*

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• My dream job, being a police officer

My dream job, being a police officer Author:   Selab P. Level:   6 Instructor:    Karen L. Photo Credit:   arindambanerjee / 123RF Stock Photo Article ID:   892  [Employment- Summer 2018]

Police officers are true protectors of a community. They spend their lives serving and protecting humanity. That is why I want to be a police officer to spend all my life protecting people and serving humanity, to protect good from evil, to protect people who are in need, and make sure everyone is safe and following the rules and laws of our country, Canada.

Since I was a kid, whenever I saw a police officer in uniform I watched him until he disappeared from my eyes. And I wanted to be a good, brave, and honest police officer. Sometimes I imagine that I am wearing the uniform and I am a police officer and I am on duty. That’s the most amazing feeling I cannot describe that. Hopefully I will achieve my goals and become a good police officer. And I am sure if I work hard towards it, I will.

I have looked at different kinds of websites for different types of police careers. I love them all. Their duties are different, but their main goals are the same: to serve our country in many ways and protect our people-they are all our heroes. And I love them all. I want to be an auxiliary police officer. I will have to work very hard to protect our local communities, cities, our people, and to serve our country with pride.

In the coming 25 years, I want to become a really successful police officer. I want to have accumulated a body of good service; Honestly, I would love to achieve awards, and medals in recognition of bravery from my department, and country. I want to serve my country with pride in a perfect way.

If I had been in Canada while I was a teenager I would have become a police officer by now. There are a lot of good opportunities for education, and making a good career for yourself in Canada. But I am glad that I am here now and I am sure that if I try hard I will achieve my goal in a few years.

Being a police officer is a really tough job and has lots of responsibilities in Canada, and I am sure in every country. But its way harder in Afghanistan because they don't get proper training, and they don't have the proper equipment. It's a dangerous job and nobody cares about a police officer's family.

I am really sad for saying this, but this is the reality. Afghanistan is a really poor country because of the past 45 years of war. Most of the people are not educated there which makes living harder. Nobody respects the police officers, and nobody cooperates with them or helps them. They don’t get paid regularly, sometimes not for months. Sometimes they don't have food for a long time while they are working. But they still do a wonderful job. With all the difficulties and challenges they still sacrifice their lives to protect the people. I love them for their bravery, dedication, and strength.

Hopefully, one day there will be complete peace in Afghanistan and for all countries that need it.

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Essay On Policeman – 10 Lines, Short & Long Essay For Kids

Key Points To Remember When Writing An Essay On A Policeman For Lower Primary Classes

10-line essay on a policeman for kids, a paragraph about a policeman for children, short essay on a policeman in english, long essay on a policeman for kids, what will your 1st, 2nd or 3rd grader learn from this essay.

Police are an integral part of our social system. When your child writes a police essay in English, their creative writing skills improve, and they learn about the importance of the police in a community. Writing an essay on a policeman for classes 1, 2 and 3 will make kids understand the relevance of the role and functions of police in society. Moreover, essay writing activity lays the foundation of English grammar for kids. It improves their vocabulary and helps them structure their thoughts and put them on paper in short and simple sentences. The earlier you introduce the act of writing to your child, the better it is.

Your child needs to know a few important points while writing about the police and people serving in this department. Let us help your child get a hint of the work policemen dp through these pointers:

• Let your kids structure the ideas they want to write while referring to the role of the police in the first step.
• The second step is to note the ideas to form an outline to cover all the points while writing the essay.
• In the third step, they will make short and simple sentences from the pointers.
• Motivate your kid not to get too deep writing about any single idea. It will help them to maintain the word count.
• Help your kid write with the flow, making them cherish every bit of writing the essay.
• Your little one can write about the functions of the police, the skills required to join the police force, what kind of work they do, etc.

Police officers have a major role to play, as they are crucial to maintaining law and order in society. Let us help your kid to write a short essay for class 1 and class 2 by writing a simple few lines about a policeman:

• The police play a very important role in society.
• Police officers protect everyone.
• They bring peace and order to the community or town.
• They sort out problems like burglary, snatching, theft, misconduct, etc.
• The police officers wear the uniform that gives them a unique identification.
• They carry pistols for the protection of the people.
• They also carry batons sometimes.
• They travel and conduct routine rounds in their police car.
• The police officers are strong and courageous people.
• They have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders.

The role of the police in society is massive and cannot be undervalued. Let us help your child write the policeman essay in 100 words:

The police play a very important role in maintaining a peaceful atmosphere in society, town, or community. Police officers are responsible for protecting everyone. Whenever anyone tries to harm law and order in the country, the police mediate. Police officers are trained to solve problems and issues of the people living in a community. Policemen wear uniforms, which provide them with a unique identification. They carry pistols for the protection of the public, and they also carry batons sometimes. They patrol in their police car. Being in the police force requires strength and immense courage. They have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders to safeguard society and its people.

The importance of police can’t be undermined. Therefore, kids get regular assignments or essays on policemen to make them aware of their role in society. Let us help your kid to write an essay for classes 1, 2 and 3:

The police play a very important role in maintaining an atmosphere free from disturbances and unwanted violence in society. Policemen have the duty of protecting the citizens of the country. Therefore, they get posted all across the country. Whenever anyone breaks law and order in the country, the police intervene, catch culprits, and put them behind bars. The police have their uniform, and the most common colour of the police uniform is khaki. Policemen are allowed to carry pistols to protect the common people in extreme situations. The government provides police personnel with police cars, which they use for patroling and reaching out to various places. Being in the police force is a responsible task. It requires strength and immense courage as they have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders to safeguard society and its people. The police hold a major role in upholding the peace of a nation.

The role of the police is significant in our society. Let us help your little one write an essay for class 3 on the police force:

There are two kinds of people in this world. While most people abide by the state’s law and order, some people try to break it. When someone violates a law, the police get into the picture. The common citizens cannot take the law of the state into their own hands. They can only seek help from the police if needed. The police handle issues like burglary, snatching, theft, misconduct, etc. Whenever a crime occurs in society, the cops reach the spot and take charge.

What Is The Role And Importance Of The Policeman?

The police force has many responsibilities as they protect common people from danger, prevent crimes and tackle cases of robbery and misconduct. There is a lot of importance to police in our life. Police have to do various types of tasks on a daily basis. A policeman is responsible for ensuring the community stays safe and criminals remain put. There is a big role of police in society. Police officers enforce the law, prevent crime, fight criminal activities, and maintain order. They also control situations when there are natural disasters or large-scale protests. Sometimes they risk their lives while carrying out their duty. Police are the first branch to come into action in case of an emergency. Policemen are expected to be honest and sincere at their work. They get postings across the country. Policemen are given some tools to carry out their tasks efficiently, such as rifles, pistols, batons, and handcuffs, to name a few. The police cars with many special features also form an important part of their duty. It is these cars that they use for patrolling. There is also the INTERPOL Police force that works across countries at the international level.

When your little one writes an essay on the police, they learn about the significance of police in society. They understand that the police force is mandatory to maintain peace and order around us. The essay writing process also plays a major role in developing children’s creative writing skills.

Let us discuss some frequently asked questions below regarding policemen.

1. How Do Policemen Help Us?

The police officers are a group of specially trained people who maintain peace and order, enforce laws, protect public and private properties, help with emergencies, solve criminal cases, etc. Policemen are trained in rescue and first aid. The reason behind this training is that police officers are often one of the first people to reach a place where people are injured or in danger, such as an accident, a fire, etc. Sometimes we also see police personnel providing special security to VIPs.

2. What Skills Do You Need To Become A Police Officer?

Being in the police is not an easy task. A police officer needs to have a few skills. Let us discuss them below.

• Ability to handle the responsibility
• Ability to remain calm in dangerous or challenging situations.
• Assertiveness
• Open-mindedness
• Good interpersonal Skills

3. What Is the Full Form Of Police?

Police stand for Public Officer for Legal Investigations and Criminal Emergencies. The term Police can also be segregated as Polite, Obedient, Loyal, Intelligent, Courageous, and Efficient.

4. Which Is The Highest Post In The Police Department?

The highest post in the Police Department is the Director-General of Police (DGP).

We hope the above essay on policemen will help your child write an interesting essay on the topic and help them realise the value of police in society.

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The Landmark Case of Miranda V. Arizona: Redefining the Rights of the Accused

This essay about the landmark Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona outlines how it fundamentally altered police interrogation practices in the United States. It traces the origins of the case back to Ernesto Miranda, who was arrested in 1963 and convicted based on a confession obtained without being informed of his legal rights. The Supreme Court’s 1966 decision established the “Miranda rights,” requiring police to inform suspects of their rights to silence and legal counsel before questioning. The essay discusses the significant impact of this ruling on law enforcement and individual rights, emphasizing its role in balancing effective law enforcement with the protection of constitutional freedoms. The Miranda ruling is portrayed not only as a procedural necessity but as a crucial safeguard within the criminal justice system, continually relevant in legal discussions and cultural portrayals.

How it works

Back in 1966, a Supreme Court decision changed the way police handle suspects forever, establishing what we now know as the “Miranda rights.” This case, Miranda v. Arizona, has since become a cornerstone of law enforcement protocols, ensuring that anyone detained is aware of their rights before any questioning begins.

The drama unfolded with Ernesto Miranda, a man from Phoenix, arrested in 1963 under suspicion of kidnapping, rape, and robbery. After a police interrogation where he wasn’t informed about his right to stay silent or have an attorney, Miranda confessed.

This confession landed him a conviction, which seemed like the end of the road until questions about the legitimacy of his confession came into play. Did he truly understand what he was forfeiting when he spoke up?

His case escalated all the way to the Supreme Court, where the justices faced a pivotal question: Should the protections against self-incrimination in the Fifth Amendment apply during police interrogations? By a close margin, the Court said yes—police must inform suspects of their rights. This led to the creation of the Miranda warning, which includes the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, and the promise that anything the suspect says can be used against them in court.

This ruling was a big deal because it aimed to cut down on the coercion that can happen in the heat of police questioning. It was a clear message: the path to justice shouldn’t bulldoze fundamental constitutional rights.

Despite initial resistance from some corners arguing that this would handcuff law enforcement, the Miranda rule has stood the test of time, embedding itself deeply into police procedure. It’s a safeguard that balances law enforcement’s needs with the preservation of individual liberties.

Miranda v. Arizona continues to resonate in today’s discussions about police powers and the rights of individuals under questioning. It’s not just a relic of the past; it’s a living, breathing part of legal debates and education, discussed in classrooms and depicted in media, reflecting its ingrained status in American consciousness.

In essence, Miranda v. Arizona isn’t merely a procedural step for police—it’s a fundamental protection that emphasizes the importance of informed consent in the justice process. It stands as a potent reminder of how legal frameworks are built to protect, not just prosecute. This case doesn’t just belong to law textbooks; it’s a chapter in the larger story of how America navigates the delicate balance between maintaining order and upholding freedom.

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Essay On My Career As A Police Officer

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Crime , Army , Experience , Police , Skills , Career , United States , Law

Words: 1300

Published: 11/06/2019

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Objective: My objective is to prove myself an asset to the department and provide value addition to further its growth. It would not only act as a platform to augment my career growth but also provide me an opportunity to hone my skills, and to excel as an honest and trustworthy police officer, serving a great and diverse department with complete dedication and hardwork. Myself Duke Komsuwan, and mentioned below is my brief profile which includes my experience, achievements and vision.

I've always wanted to serve my country or my community in some type of a capacity. I think it is a privilege and an honor trying to help other, with this statement as my goal I joined the US Army right after High School, I have served the US Army from 1987-1991 and earned an honorable discharged in July 1991. During this period I’ve started from scratch and learned the basics of administration and discipline, this also helped me identify that my ultimate goal is to join the police forces and to serve the community directly. Despite being a strong person from inside, I am equally sensible towards people and I considered that as an advantage to seek a role in the Police Department. In order to fulfill my dream to serve the people, I went to the Indian River Community College Police Academy where I was a platoon leader for my academy class. This was the time when I got an extensive training on Law Enforcement and other important aspects of Police training. I have worked very hard during that period to ensure that I do not loose out on mastering any single lesson that was taught and I was very proud to have graduated from the police academy in 1993.

Considering my academic profile and army experience I was selected to serve the Seminole Department of Law Enforcement for one year. This was the period when I started having practical experience of the police services and have used the best of this to develop my expertise, in that year I worked at the Hollywood reservation as a patrol officer and then an undercover narcotic officer conducting investigations on different reservations through out the State Of Florida. After having served the of Law Enforcement for about an year, I realized that my passion was to pick up more responsibility and take bigger assignments hence I joined the Lauderhill Police Department back in December 1994, which at that point of time was a new initiative for me.

I've had the opportunity to work for all and current administration when the department opened its door in 1994. I used my then experience to the best of my knowledge and ensured that any given task or role is handled to its best and the results were very positive. I ensured that I always look forward to my seniors and learn from them regularly, for example, the opportunity to work with the first police chief (Mike Scott) and learning about his theory of community policing was an asset to me and I use it through out my 16 years tenure at the department. In order to obtain a specialization and to ensure that I excel I have worked on both Alpha and Bravo Squads as a patrol officer and have honed my skills as a traffic homicide investigator for the past 10 years while I was assigned to the traffic unit. During this period I have ensured that I not only ensure the work as usual but have also taken several initiatives to ensure that the changes take place with time and the improvement is ongoing.

While being in to the role of traffic homicide investigator I have maxed out on all traffic related investigations courses & training, this has helped me to become a subject matter expert. In order to ensure that I am up to the mark with the different set of skills I have also completed a totaled of 240 hours of basic and advanced police motorcycle courses and advance training as a police motorcycle instructor which will help me to multi-skill and if required I can develop training plans and work as an instructor. In order to be a leader and grow the department by helping my juniors, I became the only certified police motorcycle instructor for the Lauderhill Police Department, which added to my previously acquired qualification of being a certified field training officer since 1996 within the department and a state certified instructor in police driving. All the above have been fairly practiced by me and have also got relevant experience against the qualifications that I have and hence I honestly believe that I will be able to do justice with the role of a sergeant

I would now like to share some of the awards that I have received as a token of appreciation towards the work that I had done in both the Army and Police Department.

• Army Service Medal
• Army Achievement medal 2x with an oaklief cluster
• Army Commendation Medal
• Good conduct medal
• Oversea service medal

Apart from the abovementioned honors I would like to draw your attention towards, the 16 years of history and paper trails that I have generated here at this department, and it has all positive things in my personal file.

The above mentioned is an account of my total work and academic experience, however there are certain other traits that will help me to handle the responsibility of a sergeant. I maintain a perfect work-life balance by ensuring that I prioritize my work pretty well. I have a creative bent of mind which helps me to think out of the box. Also I have always been an extremely hard worker, always going the extra mile and do a little extra of what is asked of me. In the last few years of my service I have prepared my self for the role of a Sergeant and in order to do that I have done a revision of all that I had learnt in the past and at the same time developed the required expertise, one of the most important requirements from an individual in this role is to have patience and to take correct decisions quickly I might not be the best judge of myself but I believe that these traits will be displayed by me always and that I will ensure that my junior officers always feel free to consult me and ask me if they need help. Similarly I agree that as a Sergeant there are lot of instances where an individual has to take tough decisions within short span of time and I would like to give this assurance that based on the experience that I’ve had in the past, I will be able to co-relate the same with my past experience of that situation and hence will empower me to take the right decision within time.

Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude towards all my senior officers who have helped me to enhance my skills, I have worked for them all and have taken something from each of them to make me a better police officer and to learn to serve my community, without the guidance of my senior folks and the support of my peers, I would not have been able to present myself as an eligible contender for the post of a sergeant. Lastly I would say that I Love my career as a police officer working for such a diverse department and serving such a diverse community, if given a chance I would give the best I can.

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Police Essay Writing Strategy

Understanding effective writing strategies is critically relevant to success at your police test as well as your ability to communicate verbally to others. This section takes a look at the ideal strategies for you to adopt in this regard.

Understanding how to effectively write an essay is more relevant than it may first appear. First and foremost, any aspiring police officer will, at some point, be required to furnish a report of a particular incident. You’ll need to have sufficient communication skills in order to complete this task while being competent at conveying this data to relevant parties. This is why effective communication skills are a core part of the policing curriculum. Having an effective essay writing strategy greatly assists you in this endeavor as you’ll have a structured format to follow for whatever topic is presented to you. This is particularly true as you’re required to pass a police written test where essay writing is central to whether you’ll succeed or not.

Organising Your Ideas

This guide for the police written test begins by analyzing the need for effective organization of your ideas. In the first instance, try not to feel intimidated by the idea of putting pen to paper. After all, your writing work is simply a reflection of what ideas and concepts are in your mind. When you’re writing, always keep this in mind — if it doesn’t sound natural in real life then it won’t sound natural on paper! In other words, try to write the way you’d ordinarily speak and this way you’re guaranteed to benefit from better flows of words and ideas. The essay topic itself could be anything, so while you cannot prepare for every conceivable question you can certainly prepare for every conceivable answer. The first step in this regard is to organize all the ideas that concern a particular question and jot them down on paper.

First, take a look at how the question is oriented: does it say ‘Describe’, ‘Analyse’, ‘List’ etc.? How the question is asked will ultimately determine how you’re going to formulate an answer. Evidently, a list will require a different type of answer than an analysis. Furthermore, if you’re asked to analyse a subject, the last thing you’d want to do is provide a list! Thus, read the question multiple times to ensure you know how to frame your answer. With this in mind, you’ll now have to think about all the relevant ideas that answer that particular question — focus on specific ideas that you can support with evidence. Ideas that cannot be backed up by argument or evidence will not mark well on exam day. Examiners marking the police written exam are looking to see whether you can make these important distinctions.

Each paragraph you write will be populated by just one idea. There is no room for waffle — all your paragraphs will thus contain a central idea that links back to the question asked. This is the purpose of organizing your ideas. Let’s take the contrary essay writing strategy that doesn’t organize ideas at all. This means, as you’ve probably guessed, that the essay will be random and disorganized, liable to stray off into irrelevance while avoiding the question in the hope its content is somehow correct. You cannot take this risk — instead, put pen to paper when you think of these ideas. Never look at this activity as a waste of time as once you have these ideas, all that’s required is the formulation of these ideas into words and paragraphs – a process that will increase your chances of passing your police test.

Structuring Your Essay

Now that you’ve organised all necessary ideas to answer the question, you need to think about how to structure these ideas. Your police test has been designed to see if students have the ability to correctly structure their argument. This is actually much simpler than it sounds and this preparation can begin in the weeks and months leading up to the police written exam. The most efficient way to structure your essay is to break it down into three distinct components:

We’re going to take a look at each of these components in detail and what factors you should consider when utilizing the ideas hitherto organised. Your police written exam will ask for an essay type answer, hence it’s essential that you take adopt all of the strategies outlined both above and below.

Introduction

The introduction of your essay will set down the tone and plan for the rest of the piece. You do not need to include specific points regarding your ideas but you will need to reference what your aims are and what you’re going to do. In other words, you’re required to write an overview of the main topic, what ideas you’re going to discuss, and how this will answer the question at hand. Think of an essay introduction in the same way as meeting somebody for the first time. When you meet them, you don’t start immediately talking about a detailed topic; instead, you begin by greeting them and introducing yourself. In the same way, your essay needs to introduce the topic to the reader so they know exactly where you’re coming from and what they can expect. As a budding law enforcement officer, you’ll need to effectively communicate your ideas and this, too, requires a clear introduction. Passing your police written exam means understanding the structure of your answers just as much as the content of those answers.

That said; there are many effective ways of boosting the quality of an introduction. The best introduction will grab the reader’s attention ensuring they’re enthusiastic to read on till the end. This can be achieved through the use of interesting facts, statistics, anecdotes or reports. Enhancing your introduction in this way is likely to impress examiners as it shows you’ve put effort into grabbing their attention – by adding this nuanced flair to your police test answer, it’s more likely to engage the examiner. Besides, whatever method you decide upon, always ensure relevance to the question and back this up with evidence where required. Take a look at the introduction below to give you some idea of what’s expected of you. The question asks to discuss the impact of uncontrolled immigration on society:

You should note the following about this police test essay introduction:

You can, of course, tweak this approach to suit your needs, but the overall message should be clear. This police test introduction should flow smoothly into the body of the essay — that part of the essay that incorporates your central ideas and arguments to provide evidence for your claims made in the introduction. Your police written exam depends on the ability to write a strong and informed introduction; one that states the message without derailing into irrelevance.

As stated before, the main body needs to be the evident part of your essay. Every major idea that you developed at the organisation phase needs to be fleshed out with its own paragraph during this stage. It’s important, at this stage, to understand exactly what we mean by a paragraph. Try to keep your paragraphs approximately the same length — about 6-8 sentences or 8-10 sentences depending on the length of your exam; the longer the exam then the longer your paragraphs can be. However, don’t make them too long, 10 lines being a convenient limit in this regard. Think of each of these paragraphs as a standalone piece that link together with the introduction to form a smooth flow of ideas. Your police test will require you to have a substantially argued body of the essay, that part of the essay that accrues the most marks. Therefore, you need to spend most of your time on this body, with the ultimate aim of logically arguing your point, each point being backed up by evidence and not idle opinion.

A paragraph in the main body is different to that of the introduction. Your paragraph needs to first state the idea that you’re going to defend. The rest of the paragraph should be spent discussing, providing evidence, or clarifying this idea. Every word you write in that single paragraph must justify its place on the page as well as being wholly relevant to the question at hand. Always ask yourself whether the sentence you’re about to write positively contributes to answering the question, or are you straying from the question, or waffling? The last sentence or two in a given paragraph should be spent clarifying your evidence and introducing how you’re going to approach the next idea in your following paragraph. Evidence, of course, remains a strong theme in policing and therefore it should come as self-evident that it should play a crucial role in answering questions during your police written exam.

The following is an example of a main body paragraph that follows on from the introduction outlined earlier:

You should note the following about this example of a main body paragraph:

You could have 4-6 paragraphs of this length, again depending on the length and type of exam, all formulated in exactly the same pattern. The only difference is the argument and evidence you adduce to support every idea you put on paper. When you’ve finished every main body paragraph, you can now approach developing your conclusion to the essay topic. The bulk of your police test question has now been answered, with the conclusion acting to draw all the major evident strings together to determine the final answer to the essay question.

This police study guide has, thus far, emphasized the need for a solid introduction and an evident body. However, the conclusion plays an equally pertinent role in the overall structure of your police test essay. The conclusion, just like every other paragraph, should be approximately the same in length and tone. However, the focus here should be on drawing together all the strings of evidence you’ve produced to reach your conclusions thus far. The conclusion, therefore, should refer back to the introduction, referencing the original aims of the essay and how you delivered on these aims. Just like the introduction, there should be no original ideas, but rather it should act as a summary of the ideas you produced in the main body paragraphs. Indeed, your entire essay should be focused on approaching your conclusion, in other words, delivering all the aims to arrive at a successful conclusion of the police test question at hand.

The following is an example of a conclusion based on the earlier question about immigration:

You should take note of the following with respect to writing a conclusion:

This police test strategy is sure to reap dividends on examination day as you’re now equipped to follow a structured and logical approach in delivering your answer. Recall that every word must justify its place on the page in answering two important questions:

You must avoid falling for the trap of talking about things you’re proficient at just because you’re proficient at it — the question will not change and so while you might be making great points, you’ll end up answering the wrong question and getting penalized accordingly. You must stay disciplined in your approach and structure; sticking to it through the entirety of your police test question. Your police written test result is sure to improve should you follow these steps without aberration – enhancing your prospects of becoming a law enforcement officer.

Battle over future of Surrey policing heads to court

B.c. supreme court judge to decide if province can order transition from rcmp to municipal force.

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After years of public wrangling, the seemingly interminable debate over policing in the City of Surrey will move to B.C. Supreme Court this week for a battle pitting two fundamental rights against each other: the will of the people and the need for public safety.

Lawyers for the city want a judge to undo an order from B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth mandating a transition away from the RCMP and to overturn newly enacted legislation that basically makes it the law for Surrey to have a municipal squad.

• Date set for transition from RCMP to Surrey Police Service

They claim the province is thwarting the will of taxpayers who voted in October 2022 to elect a city council that promised to keep the RCMP in Surrey —  violating the section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees freedom of expression through the ballot box.

Meanwhile, the province says the work already done to set up the new Surrey Police Service has depleted the old RCMP detachment to the point that trying to turn back the clock would create a public safety crisis in Surrey and the rest of the province.

And besides — voters are free to express themselves at the polls, the province says, but there's no guarantee that what they vote for will actually happen.

'When is it going to end?'

Nearly eight years have passed since former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum rode into office on a promise to replace the RCMP as the police of jurisdiction in the city.

In the time since, a pandemic has happened, a pro-RCMP council was elected and McCallum was acquitted of public mischief after accusing a political opponent of running over his foot at a demonstration in support of the federal force.

"Soap opera" doesn't quite begin to cover it. And people outside Surrey — as well as people inside, for that matter — might be forgiven for asking "When is it going to end?"

Both sides are hoping a B.C. Supreme Court judge will answer that question this week.

In a petition filed in advance of the proceedings, the City of Surrey is asking for a judicial review of Farnworth's decision last summer ordering the transition to go ahead. The city also wants the judge to void changes to the Police Act designed to facilitate the move away from the RCMP.

Surrey claims Farnworth is encroaching on the city's jurisdiction.

"Fundamentally, the choice of police of jurisdiction is the city's to make," the city said in an amended petition filed last November.

"The minister acted without jurisdiction by purporting to compel the city to remove the RCMP and to adopt a municipal police force as its police of jurisdiction, contrary to the determination by the duly-elected city council."

'Public safety risks in other communities'

In their arguments, both sides give detailed descriptions of events leading up to Farnworth's announcement this week that the Surrey Police Service will officially take over as the police of jurisdiction on Nov. 29.

To get to that point, the province says Surrey police officers have been gradually deploying into the RCMP detachment since November 2021, reducing the ranks of the RCMP by at least 160 officers.

When the City of Surrey said it wanted to reverse course in 2022, the province says Farnworth asked the city to come up with a detailed plan to go back to the way things were.

Part of the problem envisioned by the province was that some new Surrey Police Services officers would quit and those who stick around might not be integrated into the RCMP — creating a policing void either way.

"The city and RCMP proposed to restaff the Surrey RCMP detachment in part by prioritizing Surrey's needs over other RCMP staffing needs in British Columbia," the province says in its response.

"This approach would create public safety risks in other communities. The RCMP has 1,500 existing vacancies across the province and was already having difficulty filling these vacancies."

According to the court documents, Farnworth offered the city a path back to the RCMP contingent on certain conditions, but the city claims the conditions were "either impossible or onerous to fulfil and further complicated the city's ability to provide policing."

Changes 'squelched' democratic expression

Crucially, the city also takes aim in its petition at a "Surrey-specific" amendment to the Police Act last October "which requires the city to provide policing through a municipal police department."

The court documents cite previous statements in which Farnworth "specifically represented to Surrey voters that the choice of policing model was the city's to make."

The changes to the Police Act "have squelched the Surrey voters expression of their democratic will," the petition states.

For its part, the province says the changes to the Police Act themselves should be enough to short circuit the judicial review: Independent of any orders from Farnworth, the law now says Surrey has to provide policing through a municipal department. Game over.

But in case that doesn't sway a judge, the province says Farnworth's decision was reasonable given the threat to policing elsewhere because "it would be a dereliction of duty for the minister to approve a proposal that would reduce costs but endanger public safety."

In its response, the province also says that a law mandating a municipal police force doesn't infringe on the Charter rights of voters who want the RCMP.

• Surrey rejects $250M from province to aid police transition
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"The Charter does not provide a constitutional guarantee that the majority's point of view on a given issue will be implemented," the province says.

The province says the voters who the city wants to protect "includes persons who voted for pro-Surrey Police Service candidates and persons who did not vote at all. These persons certainly cannot be taken to have expressed a preference for the RCMP."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

@proctor_jason

Jason Proctor is a reporter in British Columbia for CBC News and has covered the B.C. courts and the justice system extensively.

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An Essay on My Aim in Life to Become a Police Officer [PDF]

Hello there! I hope you are doing great. Today we came with another essay presentation on My Aim in Life to Become a Police Officer. So let’s dive into it!

There are a lot of good professions one can choose for a career. Some require a lot of education, others need people with talent, still more need people who can use their hands well.

The line ups for signing up at those careers are quite long. They are in high demand and very popular. But I am not the type of person who likes to follow the crowd. I enjoy finding a job or situation that fits my lifestyle, my thinking, and my beliefs.

One career that has caught my eye is law enforcement. Not just any level of this industry but what some may describe as a lowly police officer. I do not care about their opinion because I find being a police officer to be an honorable career.

Yes, corruption is high in this field. The reason for that is that the police officer position doe snot pays a lot of money. Good men and women are tempted by the large sums they can make if they turn a blind eye at the right moment.

That is a hard temptation to reject. Not everyone can do it and some of the finest people have succumbed to taking payments when they should be upholding the law. I have a plan that should help me withstand that temptation as being honorable and honest mean more to me than being rich.

My aim is to draw upon the example set by some of the finest crime fighters we have in this country. If they could do it so can I. Those examples are my inspiration and motivation.

Also, when good cops do nothing, then we do not have a very safe country or even city to live in. The bad guys get to do what they want leaving honest citizens to pay the price. That is just not right in my mind.

Why should those who break the law get to have everything society has to offer? It should not be that way. We need good police officers to level the playing field once again and let criminals know that they cannot get away with their lawbreaking schemes.

I grew up with honest parents who taught me the values of life. They also taught me right and wrong and that doing the wrong things is not the way to live. In my aim to be a police officer I want to make my parents proud and see that all their teaching and effort did not go to waste.

Also, I feel that I can make my best contribution to society by doing my part to help it remain strong, honest and out of the hands of those who are greedy and seek monetary gain through illegal activities.

I may not get far in life but at least I will be able to stand in front of a mirror and be able to look at myself. That means more to me than getting a few extra dollars under the table.

Also, I want to be an example for my children when I have them. Having a wife and children proud of you is worth more than money. Then being an inspiration for future police officers is also an enticing thought. Their seeing honest police officers still exist should inspire them to be honest in whatever profession they sign up for.

Being a police officer may be a lowly position in the eyes of many people but in reality, it has a wider impact on people than doctors or lawyers can have. There is something special about being a policeman and I want to be a part of that something special.

That is what is driving me to become a police officer. Even though I am not someone who is very important, I can still make an impact on my society and hopefully my country that will outlive all the criminals I have to deal with.

I hope you like the essay on My Aim in Life to Become a Police Officer. Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

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Essay Sample on My Future Career: Police Officer

Introduction.

Our society's most important branch is the police force. It plays a crucial role in maintaining order and peace. Police officers also play a key role in protecting citizens from possible ills, including traffic accidents and crime.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Pursuing a Career in Law Enforcement: Why I Want to Become a Police Officer

I am currently a sophomore at college and I would like to become a police officer. In the essay below, I will tell you why I want to become a police officer.

As a youngster, I was impressed by the professionalism of police officers. I always wanted to be one. There is no other job that I would prefer to do now that I'm old enough for the police force.

As a law-abiding citizen of this nation, I would love to get involved in the enforcement and interpretation of the laws of the land. This would bring me immense personal satisfaction.

Dynamic Nature and Variety of Situations

Another reason I want to become a police officer would be that I enjoy working in a variety of situations and jobs. The work of the police officer would be an interesting job that would keep you on your toes and in touch daily with people. This would be a good fit for me because I am able to communicate with people.

Because of the dynamic nature of police work, I find it appealing. Police officers often have to be flexible and willingly deal with many different situations.

I am decisive and straight-forward. This would make me a better police officer because they are expected to make quick decisions about life and death on a daily basis.

A true Patriot is one of the reasons I want to become a police officer. I love my country and would be honored to serve in the police department, which plays an important role in protecting it. As a police officer, I would give my time and energy.

Training and Academic Background

As a Criminal Justice major, my training in the criminal justice system has given me some knowledge that will allow me to work well as a police officer.

It would be a great pleasure for me to witness justice being done, and to play a part in the enforcement and administration of justice through police work.

A police officer would be something I would love to do. It would allow me to help and assist people which is something that is very dear to my heart. I could help people with their problems, handle domestic disturbances, and even assist those who have been robbed or assaulted.

I could become a detective with effort and time. It would be my dream job, as I would also be involved in solving crime and detection.

For a long time, I have admired police officers. I admire the way they behave and how well they are trained. Their ability to use their weapons and ammunition when they are called upon is impressive. Police cars are also a passion of mine.

My view is that police work is dynamic. Police officers are trained to adapt to different situations because no two situations are the same. I can adapt to different situations and still retain my clarity of thought.

It seems like police work is a very high-pressure job. I'm a good performer under pressure and can respond appropriately and well to pressure situations.

Being an animal lover, I believe I can help in situations such as searches for missing persons, detection of crime and arrests.

For a long time, there has been a cry to justice in this country. Friends and family members have never seen justice in cases in which they were victims. It would be an honor to be part of this distinguished police force in the United States and help bring justice to the cases I would be assigned.

Many people around the globe dream of making a difference. Many people would like to feel they made a difference and have made an impact on their community and the world. I would also like to make an impact on our society and the world. In my opinion, there is no better way than to be a policeman for a living.

I believe that I could make a positive difference in the world and society by helping people, solving crimes and responding to citizens' threats, as I have mentioned above.

Certain jobs were for a long time deemed the exclusive domain of men. Despite the fact that women are equally capable of performing these jobs well, this was despite the fact that they were equally competent. To change people's attitudes, I want to become a police officer.

This attitude change has inspired me to be a mentor to young girls and women who want to be police officers.

Personal Attributes

I'm a calm, level-headed person. Self control is also one of my strengths. I can deal with high pressure situations and other heated situations with calmness and rational thinking. These attributes would be a great asset to the police force, and I hope to help make my dream of a peaceful and safe world a reality.

I want to be a policeman to enforce the law, help those in trouble, and encourage other women to join the force. My goal is to make a positive difference in the world by my work.

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Filmmaker Yance Ford presents the police as the ‘armies that they have become’ in ‘Power’

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Charting the history of policing in America, the new documentary “Power” is rooted in questions: Who exactly are the police meant to serve? And whose interests are they protecting? Utilizing an essay form, the film turns to an impressive roster of legal experts, scholars, journalists and law-enforcement officials to bring the viewer along for an inquisitive probing of an issue that cuts to the core of social divides.

When director Yance Ford’s 2017 film “Strong Island,” was nominated for an Oscar for documentary feature, it made him the first openly transgender director to have a film nominated for an Academy Award .

“Strong Island” examines the story of how Ford’s brother William, then a 24-year-old teacher, was shot to death by a white 19-year-old mechanic in 1992 in an incident a grand jury found justifiable. The film explores in intimate detail the impact the criminal justice system has on one family’s grief.

With “Power,” Ford takes on a much broader scope, while still grounding the documentary very much in personal inquiry and curiosity. The core missions of police to protect property and control populations are often at odds with public safety and community concerns. Though the film does not provide easy answers, it does point in the direction of what could be done to make relations between police and citizens less oppositional.

“This film is a tool for people who do this work,” said Ford, 52, during a recent interview. “I hoped that it would be something that people who work to reimagine our definition of public safety can use.”

“Power,” which premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival , is in theaters Friday and begins streaming on Netflix on May 17. While traveling to promote the film, Ford recently spoke with The Times on Zoom from Toronto.

Before we get into the movie, as you’ve been watching the images of police officers on college campuses across the country being called in to clear encampments of student protesters — what do you make of that?

It’s so hard to put into words what I make of it, because when I see these images, I’m reminded of how little we learn from history. I’m reminded of how easy it is for people to regurgitate talking points that were used to delegitimize student movements in the ’60s, talk of outside agitators, talk of professional agitators. It’s all so familiar in a way that honestly makes me wonder if the United States is simply doomed to repeat the past over and over again. The universities are calling in police to do what police do, which is to contain and control and remove people who are seen as disturbances to the status quo.

“Strong Island” was such a personal film, exploring your family’s experience with the criminal justice system. Did “Power ” come out of an attempt to get a 10,000-foot view on what you had gone through?

In many ways, I’ve been thinking about policing since there were detectives in my parents’ house explaining to them why the person who killed my brother wasn’t going to be charged with a crime. But when George Floyd was murdered and the protests were happening in the aftermath, I saw and felt something different in the reaction of police to the protests around the country. And in the city where I live, New York, that felt different. It felt dangerous. It felt unrestrained. And it felt like there had been a shift. This feeling got me asking the question “Is this what police are for” in a way that felt different than the times I had asked that question in the past. These were police acting as an occupying force and acting, quite frankly, as the armies that they have become.

And that’s what started the line of questioning that turned into the film. It was less about the 10,000-foot view of what my family had gone through and more about what I was seeing play out on the streets in the United States and around the world. Being in New York watching protesters being kettled [a crowd-control confinement tactic], pepper-sprayed — aggression is not even the word. It was the kind of violent response that reacted as if protesters were the problem, as opposed to Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd being the problem. And so when I saw this violent response to protests, I started asking the question about the purpose and the meaning and the function of police in a different way.

The film begins with a statement from you in which you say, “This film requires curiosity, or at least suspicion.” Can you expand on that?

I put that at the top of the film because I know that this subject of policing is one where the current debate has been Black Lives Matter [or] Blue Lives Matter. Whenever policing is brought up as an “issue,” there are folks who will think that a documentary will be a polemic against the police or that a documentary will be something that reinforces their own analysis of policing. And what I wanted to do was invite the audience, regardless of where they sit in relation to this issue, to come to the film as they are. So I know that if you are of a particular viewpoint that you will be suspicious of me and my intentions. And so I wanted to say: You know what? I get it. I don’t assume that you’re going to trust me if you’re suspicious. I want you to watch the film anyway. I understand that you might be curious to learn the information in this film because you’re predisposed to being interested, and that predisposition is also fine. I recognize all of that and I’d like you to engage with the film anyway.

O ne of the things included that made me feel I had a lot to learn is the simple fact that the first municipal police force didn’t even start until the 1880s. T hat sounds so recent. I know for myself and I think probably many viewers, there is an assumption that police existed long before that.

I think that’s the great thing about this film. It is fact-checked up one side and down the other. Because I assume and expect that when we release the film, that there will be people who say, “That’s not right.” And thankfully my partners at Multitude Films and the entire team, as well as our fantastic fact-checker, will all be able to say, “Actually, no, we have our receipts here. We’ve done the research.” And policing is not as old as you think it is. It is a mid-19th century invention, and it was not invented to ensure or to maintain public safety or to fight crime.

It was invented to protect property and to control property and to control movement and to break up unions and to help the country expand westward by removing Indigenous people from their land. There are many ways in which people can debate policing and where it might go from here. But one of the really important things for us was to establish facts and to research these facts in such a way that you can’t actually argue with them. By doing that, we help people get outside the moment and start to think about the ways in which history impacts the present.

One of the most surprising characters in the film is Charlie Adams, the Minneapolis police officer working to reform policing from within the institution itself . To see someone so close to where George Floyd lived and died, and to get this sense that policing doesn’t have to exist the way that we know it — how did you come to find Charlie Adams?

We researched a lot of different police officers, police commanders, police chiefs around the country who were doing work in their departments. And Charlie Adams rose to a place on the list that was interesting to us because he is in Minneapolis and he’s been doing work for a long time trying to help his officers at the 4th Precinct understand the perspective of the community and the people who live in the community in which they serve. Charlie Adams is a great character because he is someone who you see has good intentions, but he’s also someone who is restricted by the contours of the institution in which he works. There are aspects of the criminal legal system that limit the effectiveness of what he can do. I think that Charlie Adams tries to do what he can, but then when you see this thing where he butts up against the reality of policing, that helps you understand that it has to be about more than individual chiefs or individual officers.

World & Nation

Yance Ford’s ‘Strong Island’ asks white people to ‘interrogate their fear’ of black bodies

Sept. 15, 2017

When we think about what keeps communities safe, we can’t fall into this trap of talking about the behavior of individuals or to try another round of reforms that come from policing out into the community. We really have to approach it in a different way and about solutions that come from communities to police, and think about institutional reform or reimagine a different institution. I think that’s one of the things that being with Inspector Adams really shows is that there’s a really powerful institution behind every individual officer. And it’s the institution that needs to be addressed.

There’s a moment in the film when you say to an interview subject that you want to address this idea of the ” we-ness of it all.” Is that one of the challenges in talking about policing? Is it difficult to address the issues and concerns of all these separate communities, different people, different sets of “we”?

“Who is the ‘we,’” in my view, relates directly to the question at the end of the film about power conceding nothing without a demand. Because knowing who the “we” is is a part of defining what the demand will be. What demand are you going to make of police? What demand am I going to make of police? As soon as we get specific about who the we is, then we can drill down and understand what we will demand of policing. Because for too long the people whose job it is to regulate police, to tell police what their job is and how to do their job, they’ve walked away from it or they’ve left it up to police to be this self-regulating industry.

If it were a business, we would say, “Internet companies, you can regulate yourselves.” And we know from history how well self-regulation has gone in the business world. But we haven’t had people in elected office who’ve been willing to take up their responsibility to regulate the police. And so people are deciding that it’s their job as citizens to do so.

Why did you choose to call the film “Power” as opposed to simply calling it “Police”?

Because they’re synonyms — they are one and the same. Police are the power of the state made real. You and I and other people, some more so than you and I, will interact with police way more often than they will interact with their elected representative or senator. So in terms of how the government and the state is made manifest in people’s lives, the answer to that is police. When you think about who is the most powerful person, like [journalist] Wes Lowery says, in this country, on a day-to-day basis, it’s police for most people. And so I wanted to just be really clear about the lens through which the film is going to look at police and policing.

And it’s also just a great title, if I do say so myself. It tells you what you’re going to see. When you buy a ticket to a film called “Power,” you’ve got a sense of what you’re in for.

More to Read

Review: Coolly argued but driven by fury, ‘Power’ examines the history of American policing

May 10, 2024

Commentary: As LGBTQ+ rights are challenged, Matthew Shepard’s story is more vital than ever 25 years on

Oct. 11, 2023

What if women were more powerful than men? Toni Collette finds out.

June 15, 2023

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Officers worried about police chief's future in Dallas after Houston chief retires

By J.D. Miles , Caroline Vandergriff

Updated on: May 9, 2024 / 10:14 PM CDT / CBS Texas

DALLAS —  Turn around and go back home.  

That's the message Wednesday night from the interim Dallas city manager to the city of Houston which CBS News Texas has learned has been courting police chief Eddie Garcia to possibly be its next top cop. 

Only a week after assuming the city manager role in Dallas, Kim Tolbert has come out with a not-so-veiled warning to cities that might be trying to steal away Police Chief Eddie Garcia, telling them to back off.  

Sources say that Houston reached out to ask if Garcia is interested in the new opening there. 

Garcia's spokesperson had no comment for CBS News Texas.

"Chief Garcia is the best police chief in America, in my opinion," said Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson. "He also enjoys the closest working relationship between a police chief and a mayor of any major city in America as well as the strongest community support for his department of any such city — support which cuts across racial and geographic lines. A smart police chief doesn't walk away from these things lightly and Chief Garcia is most definitely a smart police chief."  

Wednesday night, the Dallas Police Association, which represents about 2,500 of the department's 3,000+ officers, issued a statement urging the city to do whatever it takes to keep Garcia from leaving:

"Every professional Dallas police officer can attest that Eddie Garcia is the best police chief in the country due to his high level of competence and integrity and his commitment to protecting every family in every part of our community. With his stellar record of success in turning around a police department that desperately needed strong, forward-thinking leadership, Chief Garcia will most certainly be a target of countless cities across Texas looking to improve public safety with a new Chief, especially Houston. We expect every City Councilmember who promised to protect their constituents from violent crime will take all steps necessary, without the excuse of bureaucratic slowdowns, to ensure we keep Eddie Garcia as our police chief and maintain the positive momentum we currently have in reducing crime in Dallas. The committed men and women of the Dallas Police Association wholeheartedly support maintaining Chief Eddie Garcia as the leader of the Dallas Police Department."  

Sources within the department say Garcia may be asked to run the Houston Police Department which can offer him a contract with higher pay and better job security. 

That's because of the recent departure of Dallas City Manager TC Broadnax who hired him 3.5 years ago. 

Garcia has been credited for a 13 percent reduction in violent crime last year in Dallas, during a time when many other big cities are seeing increases. 

"He's done a fantastic job, getting us back to where we need to," said Omar Narvaez, a Dallas city council member. "We still have a ways to go, but he's the right leader and has shown us the way to get here."  

It has raised the chief's profile and made him in demand among cities that can offer him a long-term contract which the City of Dallas charter currently prohibits for his position. 

"When I talked to him about it, I said jokingly, you know there's no Dallas Cowboys down in Austin, because everyone knows that's his favorite football team," Narvaez said.  

The speculation has been enough for Interim Dallas City Manager Kim Tolbert to release a statement this evening that says:

"I believe Chief Gracia wants to remain here. To the cities shopping in Dallas for a new chief, I have one message for you: 'Turn around and go back home.' In the meantime, I will keep the City Council and the public informed about the progress on these issues."

Dallas City Councilman Adam Bazaldua also believes a deal can be reached to keep Garcia in Dallas.

"I am confident in City Manager Tolbert's leadership to address all personnel matters and feel equally confident that Chief Garcia is as committed to our city as he was on day one of his employment here," said Bazaldua.

Garcia has yet to publicly address his future and sources say Houston has yet to make a formal offer. 

But it may be able to faster than Dallas can respond. 

"Dallas is a diverse city and there's a lot of different perspectives when it comes to policing," said Jesuorobo Enobakhare, the former chair of the police oversight board in Dallas. "No police chief is perfect. I think he's done an admirable job. As far as police chiefs go, he's probably the best we've had in the City of Dallas."

Enobakhare hopes Chief Garcia decides to stay in Dallas.

Sources said any deal to keep Garcia in Dallas may include a promise of advancement to an assistant city manager role at some point and that Garcia has had several meetings with city leaders in recent days who obviously don't want to see him go. 

• Dallas Police Officer
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• Houston Police

J.D. Miles is an award-winning reporter who has been covering North Texas for CBS 11 since 1996.

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