Survey Research
Perceived Top Problems Facing Profession
3 Key Problems of Profession:
1. Accountability
2. Racism
3. Excessive Force
Reasons for Entering Law Enforcement
1. Nature of the Job: helping people and bettering communities, exciting career path, doing something different every day.
2. Family Connections: sort of a family business.
3. Money: material benefits, attraction depends on economy, job security.
Role of Police in Political Context
- In democracy: police are the interface between the government and citizens, right to coercion to protect people from danger; individual rights and civil liberty.
Impossible Mandate:
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” you answer to the public, to everyone; no one has all the same agenda or expectations, very different job.
ANCIENT POLICE SYSTEMS [nature and characteristics]
Greeks + Romans - Contributions of Augustus
- Greeks:
o Used Kin System – citizen’s arrest; policing starts with the citizen, citizens are the police, take the case to the magistrate and citizens enact the punishment.
o No Formal Police – because it’s the time of Aristotle and democracy; didn’t want police to be aligned with the government and a larger political system. Believed in people deciding; if the citizens are the law-makers, it makes sense that they enforce the law as well.
- Romans:
o Order Maintained through the People – still doing citizen’s arrest: magistrate ( determined if guilty ( enact punishment. Power lies with the people, until you give it away to the government, which hasn’t happened yet. Goal is to keep society safe.
o Community policing is the primary use of enforcement at this time.
- Emperor Augustus (Rome):
o Praetorian Guard – protective...
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