Criminal Justice : Policy and Practice

Police Deviance : Rotten Apple or Rotten Barrel?

Jessica

18th November 2010

Contents

1. Abtract……………………………………………………………………..….P.3
2. Bad Barrel : Police culture leads to corruption………………………..…..…..P.5
3. Application : IRA Miscarriage of Justice………………………………….....P.10
4. Application : Case of Rolando Mandoza………….…………………………P.12
5. Policy implication…………………………………………………………….P.14
6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………P.16
7. References……………………………………………………………………P.18

Abstract
The term paper attempts to examine the problem of Police Corruption. Police force is the only body in the society who are given authority to use the force towards citizens, any malpractice in the police
Police offers have been described by Kappeler as “submissive to superiors but are intolerant towards those who do not submit to their own authority”(1998,P.94) Therefore, when their authority is challenged, as argued before, officers make choice on their own which gives the room for corruption.
The inherent suspicious character of police and the authoritarian personality paves the road to social isolation. The uniqueness of the police work enhances the solidarity among the police and develops the mentality of “us-and-them” (Rob & Santina, 2001). The suspicion to the non-police society isolated the police society itself from the community. As suggested by scholar, the isolation from the community is not confined by a certain racial group but the non-police society as a whole(as stated in Stephen.K & Micheal.D, 2010). In other words, the isolation is not a racial issue. The isolation of police officers from the community widens the gap between the ordinary citizen and police which in turn create alienation from the ordinary citizens. Alienation may crate the discrepancy between the moral standard of the police officers and of the ordinary society. Alienation from the public facilitates the miscommunication and misunderstanding between the two groups and intensifies the suspicion of police officers towards the public. The vicious cycle goes on implies that, the police culture created