Trends in Law Enforcement

Week 1 - Criminal Justice Trends Paper
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Week 1 - Criminal Justice Trends Paper
The criminal justice system of the United States has seen drastic reforms and transformations across its diverse components of law enforcement, corrections, and courts. Many changes have occurred over the last decades through policy changes, leading to significant improvements. The law enforcement sector has a rich history replete with controversies over the conduct of police officers and the diverse policing techniques applied in the communities. This component has received equal praise and criticism for its approaches and interactions with the citizens in different contexts. However, it has continued to embrace legislation and department-stimulated changes to address some of its drawbacks and introduce more progressive tactics across the states in the nation. Experts agree that various elements in the law enforcement sector still attract divisive discourse, especially in the highly diversified American society that questions many techniques used by the officers. Different states have their challenges, including New York. In this context, this paper evaluates the law enforcement component’s past, present, and future trends, the budgetary and managerial effects of the future trends and compares community policing to the Stop and Frisk one in New York.
Law enforcement’s past remains crowded with questionable tactics indicating that it faced a crisis that required fundamental changes. Bayley and Nixon (2010) indicate that policing attracted heated criticism in the past for several reasons, including the divisive challenge of perpetrating discriminating approaches while cracking down on community crimes. Trends indicate that in the 1960s, claims showed that the police normalized aggressive use of force, unwarranted arrests, unnecessary street stops, shootings, and fictitious charging. These approaches cast a negative image on their reputation, considering that crime rates were also soring as the nation grappled with domestic and external terrorism. Despite these challenges, some positives also existed regarding the routine law enforcement activities of the time. For instance, Bayley and Nixon (2010) report that the structural changes seeking to reform the sector stirred the initiatives for increasing the police workforce in the nation. The departments also promoted motorized patrolling to complement the foot patrols allowing rapid responses. These changes were fundamental because they dictated the eventual revolutionization of the sector to advance contemporary times. Despite these noticeable aspects, the truth is that past policing in the nation attracts a dim image due to the widespread negative associations arising from the approaches of the time.
The many civil rights movements in the United States have triggered structural and systemic changes in law enforcement, leading to more inclusive policing. Diphoorn et al. (2021) indicate that the component has significantly transitioned through incorporating a community-based one, unlike in the past. The authors reveal that policing in many parts of the United States, in...