Liability of Law Enforcement Officers

Liability of Law Enforcement Officers

Introduction

This paper discusses the various aspects and perspectives of liabilities pertaining to law enforcement officers. It further elaborates the issues and challenges faced by civilians and officers causing the problem between each other. Therefore, such issues of liability are highly considered with regards to both police officers individual liability as well as the potential civil liability of government entities.

Discussion

There is a trend in country towards stopping litigation against law enforcement officials. The speculations indicate that there is a significantly high rate of discontinuing litigations and court proceedings against law enforcement officers. This causes various consequences in different viewpoints. The litigations towards law enforcement officials might point towards the inappropriate conduct of officers which is not considered adequate. The behavioral characteristics are questioned if such activities are observed by officers such as using Tasered for compelling civilians. However, the civilians should also be aware of the consequences (Adams, 1999).

The decisions in cases are conflicting in many angles. These decisions should not be directed towards supporting any particular side such as law enforcement officers only. The civilians have certain rights which are concerned with their wellbeing. Officers have enough to worry about without being concerned with potential lawsuits. People have sued cops for various reasons. This has compelled them to control the rate of misconducts. However, people have sued government officials for their misbehavior such as tasering for personal tasks.

Officers typically are not concerned with potential lawsuits due to various reasons. They have the support from government which has setting the trend towards stopping litigation against them. The main problem arises when officers violate their conducts for personal issues or tasks. Public usually complain about such problems but fails to compel government into such issues. Therefore, it is observed that the trend ...