In: Psychology
The first police department in the US was established in 1844 and organized in 1845. The purpose of the police force is to provide safety and maintain law and order, help in investigating the criminal proceedings.
With time the US police force has also changed, it is loaded with modern technologies, and the number of police personalities has increased. There are more stringent rules that are made to provide safety like 3 strike law, war on drugs, etc.
At present the police force is facing challenges at every front with modern technologies the events and news have not remained local it becomes international within minutes. The new form of crimes like cyber crimes and other modus operandi used by the criminals have made the police department to be on their toes. The criminals are always found to be one step ahead of the police strategies.
The police department has gone away from using pistols and collecting information from their spy to using Drone, body cameras, and other equipment. The streets are having CCTV cameras to catch the activities of the citizen and can be used in case of emergency to nab the culprits and anti-social elements.
The US is a large country with an adverse culture the police department has to be careful while dealing with other people. For example, the recent case of Floyd sparked protests and demanded justice for him. He was the black it was taken as the stereotype bias attitudes of the police towards black people.
The three significant changes that can be seen in the US law enforcement would be
1. They have to keep themselves abreast of the new technology; the mode of crime is changing with every new technology. Usually, the culprit responsible for cybercrime is never caught, because the criminal can be sitting in any part of the world. The strategy should be made that can protect the personal data of its people. The police department adopts new technologies fairly well and they are good with technology. Police are absorbing new technologies and the crime world is equally changing; they sell everything on the net from drugs to organ selling to cyber money laundering and human trafficking. The police force should try to develop a system that can encrypt those messages. They have to always on the move with modern technologies.
2. At the local level, the police force should engage local communities. The research is done to find out what is people’s opinions about the police jobs. It was found out the young generation takes a police job as a job versus profession, they think of serving for a few years and then move on to the next suitable job. They do not see themselves serving the police force as a profession. This mindset has to be changed. It is not only the technologies and tools that we want to see changes in the next 20 years; it is how the people are looking at the police force as a profession. Police in the US are still looked upon as a white-dominant force pro-white and against blacks that mindset has to be changed. It has to be made proactive policing.
3. The system has to find the new talent that can be both tech-savvy and can build communication between different communities it will provide natural evolution and new technologies necessary for policing in the future to work together. The police department has to increase the number of police personals and the government should provide funding to the police personals to have better equipment and adopt safety measures for them to serve better.
We have seen the changes in the police department and their way of working. With times they are adapting to new technologies, what they were 20 years back they are not the same now. The same way the police force will change in the next 20 years as innovations are giving rise to more crimes. It is not local but it is international now.
The local needs and patrolling can be done by taking local communities in their confidence and making people aware to keep themselves away from crimes but on the international level there will be a tremendous change in policing. Law enforcement is the part of policing that is done for the safety and security of the people.