What Is Police Misconduct?
Police officers are a boon to society when they fulfill the duties they have sworn to perform and for which they have been given authority. Foremost among these duties are the maintenance of public order, prevention and detection of crimes, and apprehension of criminals. These responsibilities are broad and extremely challenging. Discretion, moderation and wise judgment need to be exercised by police officers while discharging these duties. However, due in large part to the extensive powers granted to them and the instantaneous judgment calls that often surround the dangerous circumstances they're faced with, officers of the law have in many cases been guilty of breaking the law they have sworn to enforce.
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Type of Abuse
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When an officer of the law violates the constitutional rights of a citizen in the performance of his duties, that is police misconduct. Some common examples of abuse include threat and intimidation, excessive force, discrimination and privacy violations.
Police officers sometimes wittingly put a person in fear of imminent bodily harm in order to get the person to do what they want. The threat may be veiled or blatant, but the effect is to put the person in mortal fear.
Use of excessive physical force is also a common form of misconduct. This is often termed police brutality and is a violation of a citizen's civil rights. It occurs when an officer uses more force than is necessary towards a citizen.
Discrimination is also considered misconduct. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids favoritism or prejudice of people on the basis of sex, race, nationality, color or religion.
Finally, when police use their surveillance technology to monitor the activities of an individual or a group in a way that violates their civil rights, this constitutes surveillance abuse.
Harassment and Coercion
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Harassment and coercing confessions are two related types of police misconduct. Police harassment occurs when police use questioning, search and seizure, arrest and accusation methods to bully ordinary citizens without reason. When the harassment is done for the intent of coercing a confession or getting someone to confess to a crime using inappropriate interrogation methods, this is considered coercion. To coerce a confession does not necessitate force. Psychological means are often used as much as physical abuse.
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Fasle Arrest
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Intentional false arrest and false imprisonment are two other related forms of police misconduct. A false arrest is an arrest made without legal authority, as when a police officer knowingly detains someone who he knows has not committed a crime.
When a person is illegally deprived of liberty without due process or under bogus authority, and without consideration as to whether a crime has been committed, this is called false imprisonment. It can take the form of being locked in a closet or in a car, being tied to a chair or being driven around without an occasion to get out. False imprisonment usually occurs after a false arrest.
Intentional Fabrication of Evidence
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Intentional fabrication of evidence is the creation or falsification of evidence to either convict an innocent person or to guarantee conviction or a guilty person without actual evidence. Examples of false evidence are the planting of drugs on a person to justify his arrest or the planting of a gun in a crime scene to justify gunfire.
Sexual Abuse
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When an officer uses his authority to subject a person to unwelcome sexual advances or to receive sexual favors from that person, this is sexual abuse. It may include acts of a sexual nature such as touching, feeling and groping, and also inlcudes degrading, sexist remarks.
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