Section One; Introduction
Background
In the United Kingdom, police officers face several challenges in their day-to-day activities that necessitate using certain ethics for appropriate judgments. Typically, the goal of the police department is to enforce the law in such a way that it is done with honesty, reasonableness, and good judgment. However, several issues have surrounded police officers in recent times that have impacted their normal functioning. Aspects such as work stress, overwhelming conditions, and a relatively non-complying segment of the public are primary factors causing police challenges.
Four primary entries constitute this paper. These include ethics – discretion in policing, work Stress and Conflicts, Police Use of Force, and Building Trust with the Public. In the Ethic- discretion in policy entry, the issues discussed include defining and providing an understanding of discretion in policing, ethics involved in police discretion, and the significance of appropriate police discretion. Under the work Stress and Conflicts entry, the issues discussed include how occupation and personal characteristics are linked with professed work stressand mental well-being consequences in the British police force, work-family conflict among police officers in the United Kingdom, and the measures that can be taken to decrease police work stress and conflict.
In the Police Use of Force entry, the issues discussed include the perception of the public on force usage, police views on force usage, and excessive force usage by police officers in the UK. Under the entry of Building Trust with Public, the issues discussed include how police use to build trust with the public and the significance of building trust with the public by police.
To understand the functioning and efficiency of the police in the UK, this research focuses on three primary objectives.
- To examine discretion in policing and its significance
- To discuss conflict and stress within the police in the United Kingdom, potential causing factors, and consequences
- To investigate the relationship between law enforcers and the public
Section Two
Entry One: Ethic – discretion in policing
When it comes to policing obligations and structures, ethics, discretion, and professionalism are crucial components that help the executive branch function well when addressing the needs of the general populace. The ability of police officers to make choices while carrying out their official responsibilities is referred to in the term of discretion by the police. Employing their highest judgment and knowledge instead of a specific regulation is typically officers’ conduct daily. In this entry, discretion in policing is profoundly discussed, with three issues as the primary focus. Specifically, this entry defines and provides an understanding of discretion in policing. Officers must frequently make hasty choices before particular regulations are checked or studied. Therefore, exercising discretion is a valuable and crucial aspect of their position. To make the proper decisions under tension, law enforcement professionals must use their knowledge of what constitutes suitable and what is unlawful and irrational.
Secondly, this entry also discusses the ethics involved in police discretion. Allegiance, integrity, fidelity, and bravery are among the ethical principles that guide policing. Personal ethics are crucial for officers as well. The capacity of a police officer to decide how to react in any specific policing situation is referred to as their discretion. To attain equal and equitable products, discretion ought to be implemented. Police integrity will suffer from any sense of bias or unjust treatment. They ought to follow certain ethics to guide their actions in such moments. Thirdly, this entry discusses the significance of appropriate police discretion. Due to their employment discretion, police officers can execute their job. Furthermore, it allows the police officer to quickly understand the applicable legal requirement before acting appropriately. It is essential to note that these issues will be discussed in a similar sequence that they have been briefly highlighted above.
Discussion
Definition and understanding of discretion in policing
McGregor (Poyster, 2004) states that judgments made under the influence of law ought to be the sole ones to be seen as exercising discretion. He argues that persons employed by a corporation must have legal permission to use discretion and abide by the standards held in high regard by their peers in the trade or specialty. According to McGregor, such an aspect is essential as it allows officers’ discretion to be considered in permissible circumstances instead of only while they act unlawfully and opt to engage in activities that are not considered legal discretion. Accordingly, Epiphanio (2020) argues that instead of being choices, these illegal behaviors are acts of participation in illicit activities. Judgment in a law administration situation covers only choices taken within a legal environment. Despite being made honestly, decisions made by authorities that fail to achieve the desired results nevertheless fall under the discretionary classification. (Alpert et al., 2006).
The ethics involved in police discretion.
Police officers who value competence are more inclined to act competently while respecting ethics and responsibilities. Wortley (2003) noted that when discretionary authority is curtailed, officers express irritation because they believe their superiors lack confidence in them to make judgments. This quickly leads to an understanding that expertise and moderation are perceived to rise together. Thus, when adequately educated, discretion will lead to ethical choices and a moral force of law enforcement (Dymond, 2019). Philip (2011) derives the inference that although officers are granted great discretion, their degree of knowledge is greatly limited by the regulatory framework within which they operate.
The significance of appropriate police discretion
The state can successfully conserve resources while executing just the offenses that the general population wants to execute if discretion is used appropriately within the confines of McGregor’s concept (as mentioned in Wortley, 2003). According to Philip (2011), the police continuously need discretion since they can only carry out some laws due to a lack of funding. Even when they cannot consistently officially implement every control, police agencies must enable officers to decide which laws will be followed at the operational level. Police organizations can concentrate on crimes that should be pursued following their personal beliefs and the fundamentals of the population they protect because of discretion allowed at the lowest levels of the entity, relieving the few workers on the front lines. (Dymond, 2019). The proper functioning selections should be taken at the essential stages of organizational structure for discretion to establish an effective structure. This will help the agency by encouraging leadership across the board.
Police discretion shapes the decision-making of police officers. While certain aspects negatively influence this decision-making, officers must be allowed to make appropriate judgments by supervision. This entry directly answers the research objective of understanding police discretion and its significance.
Entry Two: Work Stress and Conflicts
While serving as a police officer in the United Kingdom can be financially beneficial, this occupation may be highly stressful and might often force individuals to quit. Workplace conflict arises whenever two people cannot get along or when someone’s beliefs, choices, or behaviors explicitly related to the job disagree. Police officers and workers in stressful environments risk developing mental health issues, including anxiety or depression.
In this entry, one of the issues discussed is how occupation and personal characteristics are linked with professed work stress and mental well-being consequences in the British police force. The following stressors have been linked to poor medical conditions in law enforcement: physical disease, mental illness, and decreased psychological well-being (Nelson & Smith, 2016: Zhang & Chen, 2019). Quality of life, beneficial impact, and adverse consequences are all examples of psychological well-being (PWB), which is thought to be a good indicator of mental health. Secondly, this entry will also cover work-family conflict among police officers in the United Kingdom. Police work is naturally demanding since officers are continually exposed to risk, the prospect of mortality, brutality, and extremely high requirements, which can cause problems between work and family. Thirdly, the entry will also discuss the measures that can be taken to decrease police work stress and conflict. Practitioners and researchers have suggested strategies to reduce workplace stress and conflict among police officers. However, it is still a significant public health problem because chronic stress and trauma exposure can have adverse, even lethal, effects. It is essential to note that the sequence of discussion follows how they have been briefly highlighted above.
Discussion
How occupation and personal characteristics are linked with professed work stressand mental well-being consequences in the British police force.
Police officers actively participate in their stress reaction since it is formed by their evaluations and coping mechanisms. Numerous studies have found that sense of over-commitment is a strong predictor of greater felt job stress and workplace anxiety for police officers (Weinberg & Doyle, 2017; Bergman et al., 2016). Over-commitment is associated with their desire for acceptance and the perceived freedom to leave a job. Police officers overcommit to their jobs to impress their superiors, which leads to stress.
Work-family conflict among police officers in the United Kingdom
For police officers, there is a correlation between work-family conflict and work stress. Job anxiety and work fulfillment in the police profession are substantially correlated with straining and conduct-based conflict between work and family, according to various research findings (Kinman et al., 2012; Islam et al., 2020). However, there are differences in the occupation-family conflict between male and female law enforcers. Female officers have higher levels of stress at work than male police constables, according to research by Sharma et al. (2020).
The measures that can be taken to decrease police work stress and conflict
Since overcommitting is a significant cause of stress, police departments may implement procedures to lessen the perception of over-committing. Additionally, (Violanti et al., 2018) highlight that managers can be trained to monitor their employees’ progress, offer encouraging feedback, and reassure them that they are free to “switch off.” Additionally, there is a requirement for social reward, which the organization might fulfill by recognizing personal and group achievements (Carlson-Johnson et al., 2020) or by the general public by alerting police officers of their favorable experiences after engaging with the police. Generally, stress and workplace conflict are major concerns for law enforcers in the UK. The discussion from this entry will contribute to understanding the concerns facing police officers.
Entry three; Police Use of Force
The Criminal Law Act 1967 permits law enforcers to utilize rational force in specific circumstances in the UK. These include stopping a crime from happening, legally detaining or assisting in detaining someone who has committed a crime, is suspected of being responsible for a crime, or has illegally fled from detention. Then again, using force in the United Kingdom has been an issue of concern, primarily among minority groups. In this entry, three primary observations will be discussed. The initial discussion will base on public perception of the use of force. While there generally seems like a level of trust amongst the public in the police use of force, certain groups and localities in the United Kingdom have divergent perceptions of how officers use force. However, their views can be validated by increasing arrests and shootings of minor groupings in the United Kingdom.
Secondly, this entry also discusses police views on the use of force. Law enforcers in the United Kingdom uniformly define reasonable force as what is required for someone to be obedient and restrained to reduce the possibility that they would hurt themselves, the police officer, or other public members. Alternatively, police officers typically view excessive force as unusual, characterized as using force after the tactical goal has been met or after the subject has submitted, been subdued, and no longer poses a threat. Thirdly, this entry will also examine the excessive use of force by police officers in the UK. Excessive force may refer to any physical intervention by an enforcement officer that extends past what is considered required to resolve the issue. An act of excessive force can occur without anyone being hurt directly. These discussion points are discussed in the order they have briefly highlighted above.
Discussion
Perception of Public on Force Usage
The UK public usually believes that “reasonable force” is a response that is seen as appropriate for the circumstance, whereas “excessive force” is described as a force applied “and is extreme than the circumstance necessitates” (TNS-BMRB, 2015; Mourtgos & Adams, 2019) Moreover four in five individuals in the United Kingdom indicate they regard the police to employ justifiable force. According to research by TNS-BMRB (2015), Black and Minority Ethnic groups (BME), young people, and Londoners, on the other hand, were discovered to have a less favorable opinion of the employing of force by law enforcement (TNS-BMRB, 2015). There needs to be more concern about how frequently police use force. According to a 2019 research by Mourtgos & Adams, one in every 25 persons said they were apprehensive regarding the number of times law enforcement uses force. A quarter of the public also expressed concern about this issue.
Police Views on the Use of Force
The threat and behavior, the location, the setting, the circumstances, and the perceived consequence of employing force were the main criteria that police officers considered when determining the degree of danger and consequence. (TNS-BMRB, 2015). Police officers believe that a person’s age or degree of contact and interaction with the police affects their perception of the forms of force that the police might employ and how well they use force properly. (Kyprianides et al., 2020). Police officers and personnel broadly believe that each crisis ought to be handled differently and that there is no usual scenario where force is employed.
The Excessive Use of Force by police officers in the UK
As per the data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and as reported by Guardian (2023), there were 1,177 alleged police-perpetrated assaults involving sexual misconduct and harm registered between October 2021 and April 2022. In addition, there are increased instances of excessive force being used by police in the UK. There were 608,164 documented cases when a police officer employed force in the year ended March 31, 2022, compared to the years ended March 31, 2021, and 2020, which had 562,277 and 491,984, respectively (Gov. UK., 2022). Overall, while there are diverse opinions on force usage by police and the public, it is clear that excessive force usage is predominant. The findings of this entry will contribute to the second objective of this research, as the use of force is potentially due to work stress and conflict.
Entry Four: Building Trust with Public
In the United Kingdom, police departments strive to build trust with the public. Typically, humans build trust by showing that they are caring and honest. Alternatively, trust in humans is built by letting others know they are proficient, skilled, and can attain noteworthy outcomes. While the methods, essence, and significance of police building trust with being public may differ, it is crucial for various reasons. The foundation of community stability is trust between the police and the people of a country. There are only four procedural rules that police officers should follow. These principles are identified as Handling people who are citizens with honor and respect; allowing individuals to speak up during interactions; remaining impartial and open-minded while making decisions; and expressing sincere intentions. Understanding and recognizing explicit and implicit human prejudices is the foundation of fair and unbiased policing.
In this entry, two primary issues will be discussed. To begin with, this entry discusses how police use it to build trust with the public. There is no doubt that alarming news stories about police-involved shootings have entered our daily news cycle and taken center stage, highlighting purported brutality by police and prejudice. Given the relationship between municipalities and their police forces, chosen and nominated local government officials are also under the sharp focus of this negative limelight. This emphasizes that the entire community is burdened with enhancing trust, not just the police. Secondly, this entry will discuss the significance of building trust with the public police. Building community trust is necessary for effective law enforcement. Sound police practices encourage collaboration in the fight against crime and disorder and foster ties to and involvement in the broader society.
Discussion
The ways the police use to build trust with the public
Public faith in the police has come to stand for confidence, legitimacy, and consent in Britain. As a result, the phrase frequently condenses several related but conceptually and factually different ideas. Consistency, fairness, and legal procedures are only a few components in laying the basis of validity and confidence. They might initiate community-wide dialogues on societal equality, racial tensions, transparency and diversity, and policing justice (Hough, 2012; Sindal et al., 2016). Bradford & Jackson (2010) list several ways that law enforcement can improve their behavior, including acknowledging prejudices, discussing and addressing issues related to various forms of inclusion, such as racial, generational, sex, and linguistic diversity, and building and sustaining interpersonal connections.
The significance of building trust with the public by police
Effective policing requires developing confidence among citizens. Good law enforcement behavior encourages collaboration in reducing crime and disorder while improving interaction and comprehension among the community. Building strong relationships based on mutual trust among police departments and the communities they patrol is essential to maintaining all security and ensuring effective policing (Horowitz, 2010). Law enforcement agencies are dependent on the participation of community members’ cooperation to learn more about criminality in their neighborhoods and to work with them to find solutions to issues relating to disturbance and criminal activity (Higgins, 2020). Similarly, the degree to which a neighborhood views its law enforcement as working according to its ideals and with its standards of fairness in procedures and legality determines whether society is likely to trust them.
Generally, this entry has highlighted the crucial aspects of police building trust with the public. Understanding and recognizing explicit and implicit human prejudices is the foundation of fair and unbiased policing. Further, building this trust is crucial in helping mitigate crime in public. This entry is crucial to the objective of this research as it provides information on the relationship between the public and law enforcers.
Section Three
Conclusion
In conclusion, this paper’s primary objectives were to examine discretion in policing and its significance, to discuss conflict and stress within the law enforcers department in the UK, potential causing factors and consequences, and to examine the relations between law enforcers and the public. Under discretion in policing entry, police discretion essentially shapes the decision-making of police officers. While certain aspects negatively influence this decision-making, officers must be allowed to make appropriate judgments by supervision. This entry directly provides essential information on research objective one: examine discretion in policing and its significance, as it defines and analyzes ethics and the importance of discretion in policing. Under Building Trust with Public, it was established that effective policing requires developing confidence in the community. Ways police use to build trust with the public include acknowledging prejudices, discussing and addressing issues related to various forms of inclusion, such as racial, generational, sex, and linguistic diversity, and building and sustaining interpersonal connections. This entry responds to objective three, examining the relationship between law enforcers and the public, as it analyzes the dynamics between the relations of law enforcers and the public.
In the use of force by police entry, it is clear that while there are diverse opinions on the force usage by police and the public, it is clear that excessive use of force is predominant. This entry relates to objective two: discuss conflict and stress within the police in the UK, potential causing factors, and consequences, and three, examine the relationship between law enforcers and the public. Use of force may be an outcome of stress, impacting the police-public relation. Under the work stress and conflicts entry, it is evident that stress and workplace conflict continues to be a significant concern for police officers in the United Kingdom. This entry relates directly to objective two: discuss conflict and stress within the police in the United Kingdom, potential causing factors, and consequences. It addresses work stress and conflict.
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