Introduction
Evidently, the policemen’s jobs and responsibilities are highly challenging since they are forced to deal with crimes and other misbehaviors on a daily basis. Still, some officers might share biased and prejudiced opinions about numerous factors, so they tend to judge people not by their misdeeds but by their background, hence, negatively impacting public attitude toward the police in general. Overall, it can be claimed that police officers are strongly associated with society; however, their decisions and judgments might be influenced by external factors that should not matter during the investigation.
Main body
To begin with, it seems fair that everyone is judged by their misdeeds and not the color of skin, sexual orientation, religion, or culture. Nevertheless, some police officers may not agree with this point, considering that they are ignorant, homophobic, and racist. For instance, in relatively recent events of black people’s deaths, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others prove that not all law enforcement officers are fit for modern society. Still, according to Travis Mitchell (line 2), around 70% of police officers genuinely believe that people can be trusted, and the same results relate to the number of individuals who respect police officers. On and whole, most publicity considers police as a primary reason for their safety and are not afraid of law enforcement officers.
Furthermore, establishing an efficient relationship between police and publicity is impossible without the officers appropriately fulfilling their responsibilities in their neighborhoods. In other words, law enforcers must be familiar with the areas’ residents, places, and general cultures. Fortunately, Travis Mitchell (line 3) claims that 90% of police officers agree that they must know the neighborhoods “to be effective at their job.” Altogether, a responsible attitude of law enforcers to their jobs is a highly crucial factor for ensuring the safety of society and maintaining trusting relationships with residents.
Therefore, police officers should attempt to maintain respectful relationships with people with different backgrounds. Unfortunately, only 56% of law enforcers have excellent connections with black people in the community, which is almost 1.5 times lower compared to the friendly associations with white people (Mitchell line 4). Furthermore, Travis Mitchell (line 4) determine the following number of good relationships of police officers with Hispanics — 70%. Overall, it appears that an individual’s ethnicity, race, and culture play a pivotal role in the law enforcer’s judgment and attitude towards one.
It is crucial to note that the sexual preferences of the person influence one’s relationship with a policeman during interrogation and further stages of the investigation. Another critical point is that most crimes towards people of unorthodox orientation are not shared among society and are hidden in archives by homophobic law enforcers (Mitchell line 9). Still, police officers who do not support the LGBTQ+ community tend to use aggressive tactics or violate the human rights of this group’s members.
Summary
To sum up, it seems evident that sometimes police officers opt for judging perpetrators with the consideration of aspects that are unsuitable in the investigation process. In other words, an individual’s race, culture, or sexuality might cloud the mind of law enforcers that do not share the same opinions regarding the topics. As a result, the people are discriminated against due to callousness and law violations by officers that have a negative attitude towards them based on the external factors stated previously.
Work Cited
Mitchell, Travis. “Police and the Community.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, 2020, Web.