NCJ Number
88247
Date Published
1982
Length
99 pages
Annotation
The professionalization model of police work in America should be implemented as quickly and extensively as possible. This will require significant efforts at upgrading recruitment, training, pay scale, command structure, and occupational self-definitions.
Abstract
Professionalization is desirable because the individual police officer has been granted a high degree of discretionary authority. In order to use this discretion to serve the common good, police decisionmaking must be informed by ethical principles that are defensible in the public forum. Police corruption continues to be a major problem in American law enforcement. To correct this situation, there must be a public commitment to increased salary scales, to realistic vice laws, and to adequate training. In addition, there must be full public accountability by police leadership for misdeeds which are discovered. The level of harm threatened to the common good by the continued freedom of the wrongdoer must be the primary rationale for invoking imprisonment. Capital punishment cannot be justified in terms of deterrence, and at the present time there is no legitimate reason for invoking this punishment in the United States. The book provides 106 footnotes.