Police Reforms In The Criminal Justice System

Police Reforms in the Criminal Justice System
Name
Institution
The United States of America is one of the most dynamic nations in the whole world. Though, it is built on the basis of unity, there are many differences in the way people relate to one another, to the government and also to the authorities. However, marginalization is the order of the day in most American communities. For instance, in the criminal justice people are treated regarding their color. The blacks are the most suffering among all the groups, the Hispanic follows and lastly the whites who in one way or the other experience no challenge with the department. As a result, many people have lost trust in the criminal justice and hence increasing chances of insecurity in the entire country impeding the government efforts to improve public safety. The first group that makes contact with the criminal justice is the police department. They are given the responsibility of reporting any wrongdoing in the whole country. Moreover, they are required to serve people beyond tribal and race boundaries. On the contrary, the police department has continued to raise issues of mistrust in the community. For instance, many cases have been reported whereby police officers are witnessed shooting citizens. For instance, Michael Brown, a black teenager was shot 12 times by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer. Other cases of police officers killing people of color have been reported and hence causing public tension that is worrying the entire country (Neugebauer, 2008).

The fore mentioned issues of police and the mass have raised the need to address the issue of racial inequality in the department of criminal justice. This paper discusses the ideas to reform this system: improved training of police; improved police accountability; reconciling police and community, and independent investigations and prosecutions of police involved in gross misconduct.
However, there are different ways of reforming the police department in the criminal justice. First, improving the training of police; it is the most crucial course that needs to be incorporated during and after the recruitment of the police. All police officers need to understand their obligations and the reason to why they are chosen to serve people. They are chosen for the purpose of ensuring public safety and making sure the whole society trust them and always refer to them whenever faced with a situation that requires their attention. Various cases that have been reported relating to police assaults show that the police officers involved are not aware of their crimes (Craig, 2007). Therefore, the whole situation lies to the recruiters and the individuals involved in training. To solve both present and future problems in the criminal justice concerning police training is necessary at all costs.
The second way of police reformation is improving police accountability. It is one way of letting each of the police officer know what consequence befalls every action he/she takes against human rights. Issuing accountability, police officers will concentrate on the public welfare rather than racial differences. Moreover, the department of police should set an example for some individuals who never mind about the community. Once police accountability has been amended, it is clear that all individuals will work within the line of duty. Accountability will also define the role of each officer; therefore, one is accountable to all results that come out in the given area of duty. Police officers will tend to fear to do wrong once accountability has been modified and hence resulting in reduced cases of murder through careless shooting.
The third way of police reform in the criminal justice system is reconciling police and community. There is a large gap between the police officers and the people in the community. The gap has been formed by various restrictions that have been set. The consequences of such policies end up causing chaos to people. Police need to feel themselves as the part of the community and hence making others suffer is not a right thing to do. To reconcile the police department and the community, policies that have been set to restrict officers from interrelating with the mass need to be adjusted. Police officers need to learn the importance of valuing people’s life and that killing is not the only option for solving a problem.
Therefore, all individuals regardless of work, race and even status are entitled to the law; police officers who insist on dong wrong to the public need to be investigated and prosecuted by the court of law before the judge. The approach will ensure all police officers act according to the given obligations and for the purpose of serving the community (Burns, 2007). The incidence will raise fear among police officers and thus ensuring they do not go against their standards.
In conclusion, the main objective of the police department in the criminal justice system is to ensure all people irrespective of their color, race and even personality live well and secure. Police officers are chosen to protect people and always attend to them when there is a problem. The fact that police officers are shooting people of color and walking clean on the streets is raising controversies that need to be addressed.
References
Burns, R. (2007). The criminal justice system. Upper Saddle River, N.J. Pearson Prentice Hall.
Craig, H. (2007). Current legal issues in criminal justice: readings. New York: Oxford University Press.
Neugebauer, R. (2008). Criminal injustice: racism in the criminal justice system: Toronto. Canadian Scholars’ Press.