Midterm Essay

Midterm Essay

Policies for Helping Police Officers for Dealing with Cases of Suicides by Cop

Recently, an increase has been witnessed in cases of suicide by cop where suicidal persons get engaged in life threatening activities in order to force police officers to shoot them ending their own lives. Three such cases within last eighteen months within my jurisdiction is a matter of concern. Being a chief of police in a city of 250,000 residents, I have decided to help police officers to deal with the issue by examining the causes of increase in such incidents and thereby creating an appropriate policy (Borum, 2000 Pp. 332-337). The most important thing that I have analyzed while looking in to these cases was that all the three cases involved people with mental illness which means all the three suicidal persons had some mental illness which lead them to eventually take such actions.

Once the common thing found in all the cases, I have decided to develop a policy for police officers in order to help them with this issue. I believe I will have to train generalist police officers to deal with such life threatening situations. The training must be focused on improving the police responses to such incidents. In order to deal with people having mental illness, my police force need to be really focused so to make sure no such incident take place again. Police needs to make sure their own safety as well (Borum, 2000 Pp. 332-337).

The next thing I would include in my policy will be to enhance the information pattern of the patrolling officers. Communicating with the society will be helpful in this regard. Another important thing of my policy will be the use of less lethal weapons. Police force needs to learn handling such mentally ill people through effectively communicating with them. The utilization of less lethal weapons like pepper spray and stun guns will be of benefit in this regard. Having such weapons, my police force can easily deal with persons having dangerous objects like knives (Borum, 2000 Pp. 332-337).

The last thing that my policy will include would the development and deployment of specialized police officers for the people with mental illness. Moreover, specialized non-police responders will also be involved in such circumstances. Non-police responders refer to social workers and mental health practitioners. Non-police responders will be engaged along with the police officers in order to deal with such situations that create life threatening issues for police officers (Borum, 2000 Pp. 332-337).

Employment Laws Protecting Criminal Justice Employees

Criminal justice employees are also protected by employment laws like all other employees. The various acts protect the rights of criminal justice employees. The Civil Rights Act Of 1964 (Title VII) provides the criminal justice employees protection from intentional discrimination. Moreover, it also provides the right to equal opportunities for employment. Criminal justice agencies are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, language, race or even religion for hiring the employees. Moreover, employees also possess the right ...