Police_Reformers

Police Reformers POLICE REFORMERS: LESSONS FROM HISTORY The old adage states that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the Criminal Justice world it is important to remember our history and learn from what we have already discovered. The Reform Era began early in the twentieth century to deal with the political influence embedded in American Policing. Prior to the Reform Era police officers were under the command of politically appointed captains who “owed their allegiance and their jobs to the political party that appointed them, so they often promoted the interests of political leaders” (text, 84). This type of “sleeping with politics” policing can only invite and encourage corruption. “The ultimate goal of police reformers was the removal of politics from the police” (text, 84). The reformers idea was to get rid of such problems as police brutality, corruption, and political interference by instilling a sense of professionalism about policing. The reformers were made up of police administrators and urban elites. The police administrators sought to gain independence from political forces and to achieve a higher level of professionalism throughout the policing community. The urban elites idea of reform centered around police, policing, community, political, professional, professionalism, patterson, idea, history, urban, politics, officers, corruption, reformers, programs, problems, problem, power, new, model, local, city, administrators, throughout, text, take, state, solution, rise, reform, profession, oriented, gave, elites