РефератыИностранный языкTaTarnished Badges The History Of Corruption

Tarnished Badges The History Of Corruption

Tarnished Badges ? The History Of Corruption Essay, Research Paper


Tarnished Badges ? The History of Corruption


in the Police Department The skin of the man


lying on the ground was dark by nature, his original pigmentation made darker


still by the impact of repeated blows from four nightsticks. Four nightsticks


held by four sets of hands with pigmentation of a lighter degree. A crowd of


about a dozen or so stood by casually, their nightsticks idle as they watched


the scene unfold, a scene that would end with a final score of nightsticks 56,


victim 0 (Dempsey, 1994). This


particular scene was not an occurrence from America?s turbulent 1960s, however


much it might resemble an event from that era. Nor was it a vigilante incident


from the frontier days of America?s wild and untamed west. The scene described


above is circa late twentieth century America, Los Angeles, and California in


March of 1991, to be exact (Dempsey, 1994). This scene, a scene that a


passer-by happened to capture while out experimenting with his new video


camera, was to be replayed countless times across the screens of America?s


television sets during the coming weeks. This scene, which depicted the assault


of California resident Rodney King by four Los Angeles police off

icers, told a


shocked America that all was not well within its law enforcement system. This


scene, followed by a trial in which all four officers were acquitted, attested


to the fact that, despite a number of reforms and improvement measures,


corruption still exists in America?s police departments (Dempsey, 1994). The


history of the organized police force is a chequered one, and it is a concept


that dates back to the days of the early Romans emperors. One of these


emperors, Augustus, established one of the earliest law enforcement


organizations known to the world about the time Jesus Christ was born (Dempsey,


1994). The sole purpose of this organization, known as the Praetorian Guard,


was the protection of the emperor and palace. Augustus followed this


organization with the formation of the Praefectus Urbi, an urban force designed


to protect the city of Rome (Dempsey, 1994). A third organization established


by Augustus, a group known as the Vigiles of Rome, were originally formed to


fight fires in the city of Rome, but eventually took on the responsibility of


patrolling the city?s streets in an effort to protect Roman citizens from


crime. It is from this organization that the word and the concept of vigilante


originated (Dempsey, 1994).

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