Police Officers And Law Enforcement - 1864 Words

Despite some police officers might use authority to frighten and approach others in any way they like, there is still a great amount of officers that do live up to the standard to serve and protect others. Police officers are often needed to reinstate order and regain the compliance from very hostile situations. Police officers are sometimes required to use force that is not considered excessive or the possibility of being accused or seen as brutality. We can see that the media focuses greatly on these issues of appropriate extents of force and deadly force that is used by law enforcement. Society has always been observing law enforcement through the lens of a microscope and focusing on the negative light that has been shedding over†¦show more content†¦The relationship with the community, groups with special interests, and also politics may play a great portion in the configuration of these changes. Several centuries ago, common law was divided into three special classifications: felony, treason, and misdemeanor. In those times felonies were punishable by death. During the seventeenth century, when a police officer was conducting an arrest, they were regulated to exercising deadly force as a last resort (Littlejohn, 1984). During the nineteenth century, the same rule was still being enforced. The last resort rule began to diminish towards the end of the nineteenth century. Currently police officers have other tools availa ble that allows them to resort to under different circumstances. Even though there are many different police departments and different agencies, they are all pretty much guided under the same rules regarding deadly force and it’s use. Annually, data concerning law enforcement is collected in a Uniform Crime Report, but it does not gather information on recent acts a police officer can do (Burghart, 2014). Limited intelligence is exposed about police violence. There are many real life situations that we have observed on the news and in the media. The law demands that the federal government must accumulate data on police shootings, but there is no obligation that a police department has to do so (Fisher, 2014). The