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Officer fatigue
Officer fatigue can be a quite serious problem for police departments. Excess fatigue will generally reduce alertness, decrease performance and worsen mood. These symptoms can reduce officer's performance and safety with potentially life-threatening effects. Patrol officers are expected to remain alert and able to resolve complex, emotional, and potentially dangerous situations. They are expected to be able to multi-task, as well as stay alert during periods of inaction. These activities can be quite difficult for a fatigued officer to complete (Vila 1996). Community oriented policing efforts can be seriously compromised by officer fatigue with excess officer fatigue harming community-police relations (Vila & Taiji 1999). In several cases, the result of officer fatigue has been fatal both for the officer and for civilians involved in fatigue related incidents (Vila & Kenney 2002).
There is not standardised or regulated method of controlling the time officers spend working as there is for pilots and truck drivers. As such, limited only be department policies, many officers will work enormous amounts of extra hours in overtime or moonlighting. There have been reports of officers in both Florida and Massachusetts working up 3,000 additional hours per year (Vila & Kenney 2002). In a study of the Jacksonville, Florida police department, the majority of officers were found to be moonlighting. Most of these officers moonlighted for ten hour or less per week. A number though worked over sixty additional hours per week, leading to average work weeks exceeding 100 hours. At the time, the department did not any polices restricting moonlighting hours. The then recently elected sheriff, reported planning to change this polic...
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...ict of interest. While less likely to occur, a police officer moonlighting in certain medical fields or in some religious roles could conceivable create similar conflicts.
Moonlighting officers will generally only respond to activity within their employer’s property. Many police state that they would intervene in some crimes such as robberies even if occurred outside their employed area, but said that they would leave most crimes to on-duty officers (Stewart 1985). This creates a situation that is both theoretically problematic and potentially harmful to the agency’s image. To the public, there is no reason why an apparently working officer in uniform should not be responding to ongoing criminal activity. The public sees only an officer not responding to a crime, the fact that they are actually moonlighting at the time and are not on-duty is lost on most people.
There are virtually an unlimited amount of aspects about police work that places them in harm’s way every day. The debate still continues over whether policing is a craft or profession. As stated in Law Enforcement in the United States by James A. Conser, “A craft usually involves the development of skills that are generally learned through experience, not in a classroom (Conser, 2011, p.216). Conser also states, “the following are the typical characteristic identified criteria of profession: extensive preparation through education and training, a specific and specialized body of knowledge, a code of ethics (Conser, 2011, p.215).
Vila, B., Kenney, D., Morrison, G. B., and Reuland, M. (2000, August 28). Evaluating the Effects of Fatigue On Police Patrol Officers: Final Report. U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved on December 7, 2013 from
The law enforcement officers suffer quite more job-associated stress than the people living in the community. Many have had to realize that the nature of the profession itself may be exposing officers to the increased levels of stressors. In essence, job-associated stress is among the major health concerns of the law enforcement community, and this is because it can have some impact on the physical, mental and emotional well-being of the officers. The difference in the stressors between the law enforcement personnel and other individuals is the fact that, the enforcement officials get to interact with the human population that are quite angry, upset or even uncooperative, in which case it takes some toll on
An article on DiscoverPolicing.org describes the role of sworn officers as “dealing with community based problems rather than specific crimes or incidents is the core of police work.” This would mean that their most important job is maintaining the community as a whole and dealing with the safety and welfare of the people within it. It goes on to explain that while crime fighting is part of the job, it is not a very common one; therefore it is not the most important and vital role police officers posses. This type of policing is a community minded style. However, an article in the Houston Chronicle (work/chron.com) says that the top two most crucial tasks of a law enforcement officer are 1 to serve and protect, and 2 to investigate crimes. This is a slightly different outlook focusing more on crime and arrests in order to protect the community. The article states that what makes crime and arrests most important, is the need to keep drugs off of the streets and out of the hands of civilians. That in its self should be a number one priority for
First, stress in the lives of police officers often result in poor performance from sleep deprivation and panic. Sleep deprivation is one effect that stress can have on officers. The fatigue that stress causes can very literally kill the affected officer. Many times, officers hold anxiety inside them. When they are in bed, they are oftentimes let alone to think, which leads to many “racing thoughts” and “what if’s” (Koeling). Thinking about such things can keep officers awake for hours, leaving them fatigued and sleep-deprived when they report for work the next day. More causes of sleep deprivation are due to stressful, long shifts and odd hours (Casey). As a third-shift security guard for four years, Carl Koeling has had his share of sleep deprivation. In a recent interview, he said that when he stood a sleep-deprived watch, he remembers feeling “lightheaded and woozy” (Koeling). As a psychologist for thirty-eight years, Koeling also knows that fatigue caused by stress can also affect officers’ judgement, balance, and physical health (Koeling). It is vital that these three things be working properly for those in law enforcement, as the work they do often depends on good decision-making, decent balance, and high levels of physical fitness and well-being (Miller “Law Enforcement”). Panic is another effect that stress can have on police officers.
Stinson, P., Liederbach, J., & Freiburger, T. L. (2012). Off-Duty and Under Arrest: A Study of Crimes Perpetuated by Off-Duty Police. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 23(2), 139-163. Doi: 10.1177/0887403410390510
It is both a result and a cause of police isolation from the larger society and of police solidarity. Its influence begins early in the new officer’s career when he is told by more experienced officers that the “training given in police academies is irrelevant to ‘real’ police work”. What is relevant, recruits are told, is the experience of senior officers who know the ropes or know how to get around things. Recruits are often told by officers with considerable experience to forget what they learned in the academy and in college and to start learning real police work as soon as they get to their Field Training Officers. Among the first lessons learned are that police officers share secrets among themselves and that those secrets especially when they deal with activities that are questionable in terms of ethics, legality, and departmental policy, are not to be told to others. They also are told that administrators and Internal Affairs officers cannot often be trusted. This emphasis on the police occupational subculture results in many officers regarding themselves as members of a “blue
American policing originated from early English law and is profoundly influenced by its history. Early law enforcement in England took on two forms of policing, one of which heavily influenced modern policing and it is known as the watch (Potter, 2013). The watch consisted, at first, of volunteers which had to patrol the streets for any kind of disorder including crime and fire. After men attempted to get out of volunteering by paying others, it became a paid professional position (Walker & Katz, 2012). The three eras of policing in America are shaped by these early ideas and practices of law enforcement. Throughout time, sufficient improvements and advancements have been made from the political era to the professional era and finally the community era which attempts to eliminate corruption, hire qualified officers and create an overall effective law enforcement system.
Understaffed and overpaid, is what some are claiming in article Rising Police Overtime Bill in Several Cities Comes Under Scrutiny that evaluates claims that overtime spending is high in law enforcement. Due to low retention and higher crime rates, many departments are finding themselves relying on officers do extended shifts. However, I feel this shouldn’t be a long-term solution because it’s harmful to officers, public and causes overspending.
It is a myth to believe that an officers job is spend fighting dangerous crimes, in reality officers spend more time handing smaller cases. For example, police officers spend a lot of time doing daily tasks such as giving speeding tickets and being mediators in disputes (Kappeler & Potter, 2005). Handing out speeding tickers and handling minor disputes are far from fighting crime. Police officers spend more time doing preventive measures (Kappeler & Potter, 2005). Preventive measures involve officers intervening to prevent further altercations. Victor Kappeler and Gary Potter discussed the myth of crime fighting as invalid and misleading notions of an officer’s employment.
Bibliography Why Good Cops Go Bad. Newsweek, p.18. Carter, David L. (1986). Deviance & Police. Ohio: Anderson Publishing Co. Castaneda, Ruben (1993, Jan. 18). Bearing the Badge of Mistrust. The Washington Post, p.11. Dantzer, Mark L. (1995). Understanding Today's Police. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. James, George (1993, Mar. 29). Confessions of Corruption. The New York Times, P.8, James, George (1993, Nov. 17). Officials Say Police Corruption is Hard To Stop. The New York times, p.3. Sherman, Lawrence W(1978). Commission Findings. New York Post, P. 28 Walker, J.T. (1992). The police in America, p.243-263, chp. 10, Walker, Samuel (1999).
A police officer’s duty is to maintain public order, preventing, and detecting crime. The concept of police officers, also known as cops, and law enforcement has been around ever since the ancient Romans had a theory that an organization of “peacekeepers” would reduce the crime and violence being committed. This theory stuck with society and is still around today. People of law enforcement have a mission when they step into their police car, that mission is to enforce the rules of conduct or law. Of course, accomplishing this mission can be dangerous. Often when a cop leaves his or her house to go to work worries start to set it, such as “will I be coming back home when my day is over” or “will a simple traffic stop go sour and someone ends up dead?” These thoughts are apart of the stress that comes with the job and most people are trained to deal with this stress.
Law enforcement is an important element of the United States’ system of criminal justice apart from the corrections and the courts. It is one of the major functions of the various governmental agencies of police. It is therefore concerned with police service or functions of police departments. In this paper, the author analyzes at law enforcement and related issues. Specifically, the author discusses law enforcement, theoretical understanding of the different models of policing as well as policing styles. The author also looks at the question of stress associated with the life of a police officer and how such stress affects them. This is a purely theoretical discussion based on secondary sources of information. Time and resources constraints could not allow for a more empirical, experimental fieldwork research. The materials relied upon are mainly journal articles from respectable academic journals and databases.
Officer Carl works a twelve-hour shift which starts from 8:00 clock in the morning to 8:00 clock in the evening, but at times he rotates shifts during the weekend. Officer Carl made me aware that being a police officer was his passion and he does not see himself doing any job than being a police officer. He further explained that helping people, apprehending individuals for a crime and lesson violations on the community and on the road was what makes him happier. Also, he said that the only thing he hates about his job was the lack of sleep, and the long hours shift makes him feels he doesn’t have enough strength and
If you decide to become a Police officer you must be available for shift work at any time of day and any day of the week, including holidays. Some Shifts can be longer than the standard eight-hour office day. The routine of the job can also be dangerous, as well as physically and e...