Criminal justice administration Essay

Administrators in the criminal justice system are responsible for punishing offenders and foreseeing illicit activity before it occurs. To ensure that everyone upholds the law of the country, they manage the personnel and resources at their disposal. However, they encounter a number of difficulties in carrying out their everyday tasks that could ultimately cost them their careers. The law requires everyone to abide by it exactly, and any deviation has serious consequences. Some individuals choose to break the law despite the consequences. In such cases, criminal justice administrators must provide a remedy in such situations by ensuring they are punished in upholding the law (“Criminal Justice Administration Degree Programs of 2017”). This paper will look the challenges that police administrators face in their daily activities in the US.

Police administrators must ensure maintenance of law and order in the US despite the diversity of its citizens. Their challenges keep on changing all the time, and they need to have skills such as perceptiveness, leadership, empathy and physical strength to ensure they ensure the law is adequately upheld. Administrators oversee the working of the police officers to ensure that criminal offenders have punished as per the requirement. Their jobs are typically full-time, and sometimes they may have overtime as they act as watchdogs to providing peace in the country. These post is challenging as they meet people of different caliber in their operation who might expose them to different dangers (“What Is Criminal Justice Administration?”).

According to Herald (2014), using the example of Oskaloosa Police Department in the US, Police Administrators have the job of making the people trust the police officers in the US. Police Officers are involved in many scandals that make them disliked by many people in the society these posing imminent danger to their lives. Some of the challenges that administrators face include;

Assault to Police Officers

In the US, police officers have been accused of being racists and discriminating the blacks against the whites which have resulted in civil unrest. These have created animosity among the black American citizen and the police officers leading to the citizens assaulting the officers. According to BBC news (2015), the citizens accused the officers of killing Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott and Freddie Gray who were unarmed black American citizen leading to demonstrations because of the deemed racism. Additionally, Al Jazeera news (2017), an Ohio Judge declared mistrial a case against Ray Tensing a white police officer who killed a black man Sam DuBose resulting in numerous street protests.

Healthy Issues Among their Officers

The police officers carry out duties which are strenuous making a majority of them engage in drug abuse in an attempt to reduce stress. These make them face health issues such as damage to liver among others. The night shifts and overtime make the police lack sleep hence make wrong judgments in their work. According to MYRES (2015), an in-depth research showed that almost 250 police officers were on steroids which explain their bad behaviors to the public. Police Officer was always protected by the doctors to cover over up drug abuse cases when involved in lawsuits or had instances of domestic abuse while off their daily duties.

Federal Agency Involvement/Oversight

Oversight of the police matters with the public is done by the justice department and other federal agencies in the US. In the past few years, these bodies have intervened on local police matters due to either political pressure from the D.C or using the history of failure of some sheriff’s departments. These pressure, however, does not have interests of both parties leading to it being focused mainly on the police. Oversight is excellent, but the police should not always be in the receiving end despite executing their duties. Some incidents are life-threatening hence justifying excessive force they might use on the victims. The oversight agencies should allow the police administrators to do their work with no interference.

Recruitment and Retention

The police job in the US is becoming a tough job hence the willingness of the public to join is a challenge. A recent article indicated that there were 603 open positions for California law enforcement officers as per the Peace Standards and Training Commission. Majority of the citizens who wish to join the forces fear to make the mistake that will lead to criminal persecution. Also, other factors that deter people from entering the police force is the reduced pension benefits, understaffing, etc. The police job is no longer attractive to the people as it has a lot of challenges (Cappitelli, 2016).

Social Media

The social media has been a platform for scrutiny of the police officers by the public over the years. Plaintiffs’ attorneys are using social media to help in the persecution of the officers. Additionally, rogue people have used social media to circulate their extremist ideas which have increased the crime rates. Technological advancement has posed significant challenges to the police administrators as social media platform have been used by extremist to do crime instead of websites. The administrators are in an increased war of new threats, weapons, and technologies. For example in a San Francisco shooting by transit police, the protests were organized on the social media platform aiming to block Bay Area Rapid Transit (HANSON, 2011).

Police officers challenges are the same ones that face their administrators. They have a massive role in making people appreciate the job of the officers as well as making the officers love their job and persevere the many challenges they face daily. The law requires them to be just when judging between the public and the officers and avoid being bias. However, this course has brought great insight to me on the challenges that the law enforcers face in their duties. They have a hard task of maintaining law and order, and we as the public should assist them instead of making their jobs more difficult. Police administrators should be given quiet time to oversee officers and ensure all uphold the law. Police officers are trained to be fair and just in their duties, and the citizen should stop seeing them as racists when they do their tasks.

References

Cappitelli, P. (2016, January 08). 7 of the biggest issues facing law enforcement in 2016. Retrieved from http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/60959006-7-of-the-biggest-issues-facing-law-enforcement-in-2016/.

Criminal Justice Administration Degree Programs of 2017. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.criminaljusticedegreeschools.com/criminal-justice-degrees/criminal-justice-administration-degree/

HANSON, W. (2011, December 2). How Social Media Is Changing Law Enforcement. Retrieved from http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/How-Social-Media-Is-Changing-Law-Enforcement.html

Herald, J. R. (2014, August 07). The challenges of being a police officer. Retrieved from http://www.oskaloosa.com/news/local_news/the-challenges-of-being-a-police-officer/article_e3e22adc-1e38-11e4-a4bb-001a4bcf887a.html

Jazeera, A. (2017, June 23). Another mistrial of US officer who killed black man. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/mistrial-officer-shot-black-man-170624011543218.html.

MYERS, G. (2015, February 10). 10 Problems the United States Police System Needs to Address. Retrieved from http://www.toptenz.net/10-problems-united-states-police-system-needs-address.php

Simkins, C. (2016, July 25). US Police Face New Challenges After Targeted Officer Shootings. Retrieved from https://www.voanews.com/a/us-police-face-news-challenges-after-targeted-officer-shootings/3431778.html

What Is Criminal Justice Administration? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://learn.org/articles/What_is_Criminal_Justice_Administration.html

Why do US police keep killing unarmed black men? (2015, May 26). Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32740523