Some departments in recent history have had a very tough time with corruption. There is West Valley Police Department, Baltimore Police Department, and Atlanta Police Department just to name a few. Yet none can beat the corruption of the Rampart division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Recently, there have been over 140 lawsuits for over $125 million dollars paid out for wrongful arrests, false testimonies, thefts, bad reports and murders. The LAPD should have seen this one coming. The culture of the LAPD has always been a very aggressive department because of the history of the town. With a history of riots and gang violence it is expected that they, the LAPD, would take a strong stand in keeping the city safe. One of these riots happened in 1992 after the Rodney King incident in which several officers pursued King followed by a savage near death beating. This shows the aggression of the police department. Later after two trials, two officers were fired. Rampart Some of this aggression and violence can be traced back to Rampart. Rampart was started in the 70’s to confront some of the gang violence that was ravaging the North West side of LA. Chief Gates instituted the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums or CRASH anti-gang program. These officers were under little supervision, were the roughest and most aggressive officers that LAPD had, and seemed to think that they were above the law. It is well known that a major cause of corruption in these specialty units is lack of supervision. Coupled with the lack of supervision and the temptation of dealing with drugs and money the CRASH unit get into a lot of trouble when the thin blue line was broken by Officer Rafael Perez. Perez was brought in after being caug... ... middle of paper ... ...an also affect the integrity of a department. The book states that “if the police culture influences the level of police misconduct, it is important to change it” (Pollock 208) This culture can lead officers to believe that what others are doing is ok, and, that in turn, makes it okay for them to do it also. These views and actions can be changed by a change in supervision or by taking ethics classes. In conclusion, the Rampart scandal was terrible for LAPD’s image and reputation, it was terrible for the people who were harassed by the police, and it was bad for the officers who were sucked into being corrupt and unethical. Throughout this paper there is a resounding aspect of supervision. With better supervision there may be some dislike, but it will keep the department in order and it will create the cohesiveness that a department needs to be successful.
The beating of Rodney King from the Los Angeles Police Department on March 3, 1991 and the Los Angeles riots resulting from the verdict of the police officers on April 29 through May 5, 1992 are events that will never be forgotten. They both evolve around one incident, but there are two sides of ethical deviance: the LAPD and the citizens involved in the L.A. riots. The incident on March 3, 1991 is an event, which the public across the nation has never witnessed. If it weren’t for the random videotaping of the beating that night, society would never know what truly happened to Rodney King. What was even more disturbing is the mentality the LAPD displayed to the public and the details of how this mentality of policing led up to this particular incident. This type of ethical deviance is something the public has not seen since the civil rights era. Little did Chief Gates, the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the LAPD know what the consequences of their actions would lead to. Moving forward in time to the verdict of those police officers being acquitted of the charges, the public sentiment spiraled into an outrage. The disbelief and shock of the citizens of Los Angeles sparked a mammoth rioting that lasted for six days. The riots led to 53 deaths and the destruction of many building. This is a true but disturbing story uncovering the ethical deviance from the LAPD and the L.A. riots. The two perspectives are from the Rodney King incident are the LAPD and the L.A. riots.
Dempsey, J. S., & Frost, L. S. (2012). Police Ethics and Police Deviance. An Introduction to Policing (6th ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.
The activity caused by police corruption is the reason police brutality takes place. If a person does not do what the police officer at the time wants them to do, the officer may take it to heart and use violent force, which we know as police brutality. At times I do believe that race places a big role when it comes now to police corruption, because racism in police treatment of minorities has created great disparities in incarceration amongst the
On the night of August 11, 1965 the Watts community of Los Angeles County went up in flames. A riot broke out and lasted until the seventeenth of August. After residents witnessed a Los Angeles police officer using excessive force while arresting an African American male. Along with this male, the police officers also arrested his brother and mother. Twenty-seven years later in 1992 a riot known as both the Rodney King riots and the LA riots broke out. Both share the similar circumstances as to why the riots started. Before each riot there was some kind of tension between police officers and the African American people of Los Angeles. In both cases African Americans were still dealing with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. Add these three problems with policemen having a heavy hand and a riot will happen. Many of the primary sources I will you in this analysis for the Watts and the LA riots can be found in newspaper articles written at the time of these events. First-hand accounts from people living during the riots are also used.
Believe it or not, Los Angeles was just waiting for an event like the Rodney King legal decision to explode. All that was needed was that one spark to trigger the anger in the people citizen of South Central and cause the area to explode. One of the recent and most significant riots happened on the streets of Los Angeles on April 29, 1992. The case was disputable because Rodney King was a black male beaten with an abundance of force by four white Los Angeles police officers. The not guilty legal decision of the four officers may have been the first cause, but the riots were not about Rodney King and the issue of racial discrimination; rather they were more about the class tension between poor and rich. The riots were due to all the prime rotting and stinking extreme anger that had been building up in the residents of Los Angeles and the shock/not
At the same time, Los Angeles police units were experiencing difficulties in handling situations in which riots and snipers were terrorizing basic police units. In response to these difficulties, LAPD officer John Nelson presented the concept of a squad which was specially trained to handle such situations to Inspector Darryl F. Gates. Gates approved the concept of a "highly disciplined" ...
Police administrator keeps abreast of past and current concepts and theories of criminal justice administrators to provide services to meet contemporary demands. It is very imperative that the LAPD practices theories, concepts and laws as it mentioned in Public Administration or Criminal Justice books. I believe in order any agencies practice theories, they should have well understanding of theories and concepts. Second proper training is very important. By providing different training and using past experiences it will help the LAPD or other law enforcement agencies follow theories. It is not easy to make a determination that the agency practices concepts and theories as it written in any books. What is written hard to follow and based on
Police misconduct is as rampant as ever in America, and it has become a fixture of the news cycle. Police brutality is the use of any force exceeding that reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose. The media is inevitably drawn toward tales of conflict, hence why there are so many crime and police stories on the news. Despite the increasing frequency of misbehaving cops, many Americans still maintain a high respect for the man in uniform. Still, police misconduct is a systemic problem, not just an anecdotal one. Here are some reasons why it is a problem. First, many departments do not provide adequate training in nonviolent solutions. With this, police are unfamiliar with what to
Weitzer, Ronald, and Steven A. Tuch. "Race and Perceptions of Police Misconduct." JSTOR. Aug. 2004. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.
The illegality that necessarily denote corruption it is the purpose of the illegality that adds the substance to get out of corruption. The duties of an officer are to serve mankind; to safeguard lives and property, to protect the innocent against deception, and etc. Viewing all three articles on corruption was very overwhelming because it’s hard for citizens to put their trust into officers who supposed to protect them but instead frame the innocent for their wrongful actions. The danger of corruption for police is that it may invent the former goals of the organization and may lead to the use of organizational power to encourage and create crime rather than to defer it. General police defiance can include brutality, discrimination, sexual harassment, intimidation, and illicit use of
Some police throughout the years have been very violent towards black citizens, even other discriminations such as hippies. In the movie “Straight Outta Compton” police were known for picking on black people because they were dressed as “thugs”. Police brutality back in the 1980’s lead to NWA making a song called “Fuck The Police”. When the police heard the song as it was being played on the radio, they pleasantly
The police department does not reflect the demographics of the town’s residents which has three black officers out of a 53 officer department. The people in the community lost trust and respect for an organization that was put in place to protect and serve their people. Instead they have lost complete control of their society. The Rodney King case is another case that was a problem relating to police brutality. Rodney King was severely beaten in 1991 by members of the Los Angeles Police Department. He was severely beaten with batons and kicked and punched by a group of officers. He was also hit with a stun gun, received over fifty baton blows, and kicked several times (Walter, 2014). The officers were acquitted in state court on excessive force charges which led to riots in the city causing multiple deaths and injuries. Researchers have discredited the idea that police brutality is simply an individual problem, which is certain officers are just bad cops, while others are good cops. The videotaped beaten of Rodney King was not a tragic enough lesson for the police departments across the country, police beatings and killings of African
The police culture is very aggressive and they use a lot of force even when it’s uncalled for. Police officers are expected to do things on their own and not call for backup due to the competitivity which could be a reason why officers end up killing people on the spot and in this case innocent black males. An article states the following cities Seattle, Washington, California, Oakland, and much more are “Overhauling tactical training to focus more on de-escalation and emotional intelligence.”(Zak Cheney Rice) The police recognize their mistakes and now are slowly making changes in their departments. An example of how they are changing it is in an interview with the Las Vegas police chief Kirk Primas in which he says, "Our sheriff recognized that we had to change, and that included a change in the department’s culture. So we revamped our policies, and we put 'respect for the sanctity of human life' in the first paragraph of our use-of-force policy."(Zak Cheney Rice) With these changes hopefully police brutality will come to an end.
If this issue is relevant within the current situation, then it is because of one sided media reporting a belief that violence against law enforcement has re-emerged in light of recent events of police involved shootings. It is known that violence against law enforcement is understood as motivated by a plain and irrational hatred of police officers and driven by a desire for revenge ending in innocent lives taken too early leaving wives/husbands without their spouse and children without their
It is often said that power brings corruption, but in reality it is an individual’s lack of character, self-discipline, and integrity that leads to corruption. Law enforcement can bring many temptations on the job, and maintaining an up most level of personal integrity can often times be very difficult. The very nature of the job surrounds officers with all of the bad things that society, produces. There can be an endless amount of training and rules put into place to try and deter officers from committing unethical acts, but in the end it really just comes down to the specific individual and their willingness to do the right thing.