Criminal Law Case Study Sample

Community policing as a strategy of policing focuses on the police building ties with community members and work closely with them at the same time. Office of the Community Oriented Policing Services was established in America by the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. This philosophy (community policing) promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic partnerships application (Hess et al, 2014). Further, community policing enhances techniques of solving problems in order to address immediate conditions that do give rise to issues of public safety like social disorder and crime. Most people describe community policing as involving a police officer in patrolling and working in an area on a permanent basis. The police is said to work from a place of decentralization and works in a proactive partnership together with citizens in order to identify and solve problems. This case study paper aims at exploring the issues criminal law with a basis in the understanding of America and the rest of the world.
Community policing and traditional policing are assumed to be different in their definitions and operations. Community policing is built with the mind that forming partnerships between the police and community members reduces fear among citizens. Traditional policing on the other hand emphasizes on separating the police from politics and holding them more accountable to law and body politic. Traditional policing entirely reflects on the police goals of early reformers but community policing entirely bases its operations on good intentions to the community members (Montgometry and Majeski, 2005). Geneses of community policing intentions were to reform the police and making them more effective in dealing with crime. Themes of community policing suggest that enforcement of law can be more focused, community sensitive and proactive and break down barriers between the police and the community. Traditional policing is centered on serious crime instead of maintenance of community’s social order. Under this model of traditional policing, the police are crime fighters and not engagers with the community as community policing does.
Reform and political eras are both periods of criminal law and justice with several differences in the periods of establishment and how they operate. The reform era of policing emphasizes government reform and bases on regulation of the society. Reform era also aims at improving the living conditions of citizens around. The police are removed from the political control and are put to a more centralized, standardized, bureaucratic and non-partisan agency. The political era of policing puts emphasis on close contacts and relationships between the communities served and the police (Montgometry and Majeski, 2005). This relationship is often put on foot patrol and the police have very little oversight from the structure of command. Reform era on the other hand usually puts police officers in cars for patrol and much closer supervision is given by the chain of command. The political era ensures professional identity with promotions but reformed era only identifies professional levels with hiring, firing and performance.
Political and reform eras of policing have similarities in their evolution and operations. The major similarities between political and reform eras of policing are that their historical facts are not disputed at any point, they have a decentralized and fragmented system of law enforcement, poor coordination among enforcers of law and access to limited power by officers. More similarities include use of symbols at national levels and embracing of professionalism in law enforcement (Scheingold, 2001).
Skills and knowledge that are imparted to police trainees during their academy training include both comprehensive indoor and outdoor games. Indoor training is usually subdivided into specialized and basic courses. Police outdoor training programs include components of horse riding, unarmed combat, swimming obstacle, jungle training and assault course (Scheingold, 2001). The outdoor training programs aim at developing optimal physical capabilities in all aspects. The indoor ones test the professionalism, sanity and abilities of the police to be. Importance of these skills especially training, technical assistance and education are all positive and help the police to be good in their work and outside the world of police.
Training is important in making the police to work together and to prepare the officers for a wide scope of their upcoming responsibilities. Duties of the police in the field are held important and put to training so that they can be at a position their duties. Foundations and skills are taught in the basic training for the police. The trainings are of importance in improving safety of the police; their performance and how the police make decision in consistency with the policy department and procedures of operation that are seen to be standard (Lyons, 2002).
Technical assistance enables the police to increase their efficiency when it comes to allocations touching human resource. The knowledge of technical assistance also helps the police to explore and reevaluate distribution of resources (Scheingold, 2001). The resource distribution is based on changes especially economic ones that take place in the community. Education teaches the police to be responsible, become productive and contribute positively to the society.
Implementation and evaluation phases of community policing and problem solving has elements that are perceived to be important for activities of community policing. The phases of implementation and evaluation involve interaction with the communities served just as the entire community policing (Hess et al, 2014). Community participation as an element of evaluation and implementation in the process of community policing ensures the public have a role in policing. Public opinion and how the public involve in the procedures of implementation and evaluation matter a lot. The element of training and supervision ensures the involved people in the processes of implementation and evaluation is important. Training the supervisory staff boosts their performance and attitudes towards the job of policing. Formations of committees help to receive processes of implementation and evaluation. Policing selects committees that constitute of representative groups of people. These people are often from a district or any area and are ready to work on the problems that affect the community and are of priority. Each committee is normally given a full description and a recommendation that touches on key elements of more or less successful committees.
Community organization is an identified element that involves surveying methodological on the study of the communities. In implementation and evaluation of policing, community organization gathers data on the available community organizations that exist in the selected areas. These selected areas are usually the ones to receive community policing (Scheingold, 2001).
Training for implementation and evaluation of the processes of community policing involves the police officers in most cases (Lyons, 2002). The training purposes are usually to teach the involved participants about changing roles and responsibilities that should be involved in the policing. Emphasis is put on learning skills that are needed for people to be effective in their teams of work. Teams employed in training use three different methods for examination of the nature of training. Besides, emphasis will be based on the performance of trainers who impart knowledge to the trainees of the procedures of policing. Implementation and evaluation are applied with employment of three different methods. The methods examine nature of training and trainers’ performance. Such methods include observation of training, personal interviews and questionnaires. Samples of trainers, trainees and supervisors are mostly involved in the training procedure.
Detectives and undercover that officers need to possess are responsible for investigation of crime. The first duty of police is to protect the people together with the lives of the people and their property. Qualities of the detectives and undercover should be seen as important. Some of the known qualities include communication skills, empathy, good judgment, leadership skills, perceptiveness, physical stamina and physical strength. The most important quality of the undercover and detectives is communication skills. The communication skills should be good for that matter and efficient for proper functioning. Detectives for the police must have the quality of ability to speak. It is important that the detectives speak with people when the police are gathering facts about crime (Lyons, 2002). The good communication skill allows the police to express complete details about the given incident in form of writing. Empathy ensures understanding of perspectives in order to be able to help the public. Good judgment ensures the detectives determine the best way to solve problems quickly. Leadership skills make the police and their detectives to be important when emergencies occur. Perceptiveness helps the police to understand other people’s reactions and why they act in that manner.
In conclusion, the entire criminal law relates to crime and regulates the social conduct of people. There have been several contradictions about the distinguishing of criminal law and civil law. Community policing, traditional policing and other issues that touch on the systems of law in relation to the community all belong to the concept of criminal law (Hess et al, 2014). Undesirable acts are prohibited in the criminal law. Strict liability in criminal law is at times described as civil liability and the lack of defendant is never withheld. The entire civil law thus includes rehabilitation and punishment of people who violate laws.

References

Hess, K. M., Orthmann, C. M. H., & Cho, H. L. (2014). Police operations: Theory and practice. Clifton Park, N.Y: Delmar.
Lyons, W. (2002). The politics of community policing: Rearranging the power to punish. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Scheingold, S. A. (1991). The politics of street crime: Criminal process and cultural obsession. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Montgomery, R. J., & Majeski, W. J. (2005). Corporate investigations. Tucson, Ariz: Lawyers & Judges Pub. Co.