Police officers Essay

Have you ever been in a situation where you find yourself stuck between facing consequences for things you haven’t done and giving in to someone who seems to be on a power trip and is taking advantage of their superiority over you? Whether it be a manager taking advantage of his power in the work place or a police man or woman doing unnecessary and over the top things to you. Abuse of power seems to be a common thing in some police officers every day life and this is not okay. It is very apparent what a police officers job is and that is to protect and serve the community and make sure that real criminals are being served justice, however; some may come across police officers that use the fact that they have badges and weapons to their advantage in order to basically become a bully instead of a hero. Of course not all police officers are corrupt, most are actually doing their job and are concerned with the safety of all people and not just their own but those few that are corr upt need to be stopped and be punished for their police brutality and/or abuse of power. So the question is, are police men and women being evaluated thoroughly enough so as not to hire corrupt officers? Are police officers being punished and or brought to justice because of their wrong doings? In this paper I will bring some cases of police brutality and or abuse of police powers to your attention as well as if and how police are being punished because of their illegal or down right cruel behavior. Becoming a police officer is far from an easy task as it should be, but why is it that after so much questioning and tests of integrity and moral values citizens are becoming more and more victimized by police officers? In my opinion police officers are not being as extensively tested for a corrupt mind set as we are led to believe they are. Possible police officers are asked questions on a polygraph test that mostly tie in with the questions asked in the application process so as to get details and obviously the truth out of anything remotely suspicious on the application. These questions mostly having to do with drug use or theft and anything that may prove an officer to be dishonest about questions already asked prior to the polygraph. These questions however rarely have to do with how officers view a citizens race, religion, gender, levels of class, etc. For example, a police officer is not asked in a polygraph test if he does not like Muslim people or if he is disgusted by gay individuals.