Civil Liability and Private Police, Essay Example

The possibility of civil liability exists when police officers fail to perform their expected duties, neglect public service, or fail to perform their mandated actions. Civil liability refers to the potential responsibility for payment of damages or another form of repayment as enforced by the court. It is different from criminal liability, which means that an individual or party is open to receiving punishment for a crime. Civil liability profoundly impacts how police members comport themselves because of the potential fiscal ramifications that their actions have. Indeed, the abuse of power by police officers is ubiquitous and rampant, although liability remains limited in certain instances such as violence or abuse during arrests in addition to other points of contact with the public.  Nonetheless, according to federal law, the policy can be rendered liable according to the United States Code Section 1983 in which the police can be held civilly liable for damages if the abuse of civil rights transpired. It is unequivocal that civil liability will profoundly impact how members of the police force comport themselves and how crimes are adjudicated.

Civil liability grants an individual rights to procure redress from another individual , such as the capacity to sue for damages for personal injury, in addition to the right to get an injunction. In order to get an award of damages, the party that claims injury has to have undergone a tangible loss, whether it is financial, related to property, or a personal loss. What is required of such liability is the burden of proof, which is far lower in civil matters than it is in criminal ones. If a criminal conviction for a certain matter is carried out, then the burden of proof for any civil action is reversed, which requires a defendant to prove to the jury or judge that he or she is not liable.  One example of civil liability is if a company is convicted for breaching extant health and safety policy, which is followed by the afflicted employee suing a company for any incurred damages related to personal injury. The only incentive to not file a lawsuit is that the losing party is obligated to pay for the costs of the winner.

Laws created that address civil liability provide correctives for abusive police acts against the basic rights of American citizens. Originally, this law germinated in 1871 in reaction to the Ku Klux Klan Act with the purpose of granting victims of crimes the means to sue government officials on the federal level if their states did not provide them the avenues to do so. In 1961, laws were passed aimed at checking the abuse against U.S. citizens at the behest of police officers. Monroe v. Pape was the main case in which the federal government addressed how authorities abused an African-American family on the basis of their race. In this case, the African-American family emerged as the victims of abuse at the hands of the police when they invaded the home of the family in the middle of the night. All of the members of the family were forced to stand naked while police officers searched through their entire apartment. The father of the family was finally arrested as the prime suspect for a murder that had transpired two days prior. Once this case was closed, the United States Supreme Court articulated their rationale for expanding the old law that addressed police liability in addition to the liability of other public officials since the courts proved unable to protect their citizens from infringement of the fourteenth amendment due to prejudice, neglect, intolerance, and passion. This case underscores how the federal courtroom has emerged as a platform for legislative and government reform at the state level regarding both criminal and civil liability.

The question over when the police are liable has emerged on a quotidian basis. In order to find the police liable, a police officer must have violated one of the Constitutional rights as outlined in order to effectively sue in a federal court of law. Police are most often accused of abuse in relation to unlawful search and seizure, unwarranted during amidst an arrest, unlawful arrests, and the unwarranted utilization of deadly force. Victims of police abuse are charged with the obligation that the police are indeed liable for actions that transpired under the color of law. A police officer thus must have been acting as a police officer when the incident purportedly occurred. One valid example of such an incident is if a police officer who is on duty knocks a victim unconscious after the victim has already surrendered to law enforcement. It is important to establish whether or not the police officer was acting as a state representative. In addition, it is important to establish whether or not a certain action deprived an individual of a federal statutory or any federal constitutional right. One example of such a situation is the arrest of an individual in their job because they have a Mexican accent. One example of a situation in which there would be no violation is if an individual is sent to a holding cell after he or she is arrested for driving under the influence.

In order to be liable for the abuse of authority, police officers have to engage in heinous behaviors since they are granted vast leeway in how they go about their jobs and how much force they are allowed to use on an idiosyncratic basis. If not, police officers would be overwhelmingly concerned about getting sued more so than arresting suspects of impactful crimes. As such, abuse transpires on an idiosyncratic basis, and most cases of liability involve deadly force. Courts unequivocally strive to balance out the various concerns regarding protecting the private rights of an individual and safeguarding the community at large.

The quantity of private police has increased because of the increase of gated communities and the need for more protection in such arenas in addition to more mass private property. Individuals who have access to property have increasingly feared increases in crime, and the U.S. government has expressed its unwillingness to spend money on protecting the police forces. Such a fear of crime among those who have property has been catalyzed by a shift in the nature of rule from authoritarian to democratic rule. Moreover, there has been more currency placed on private police rule over public, which has resulted in the deterrence of crime via the presence of private police.  Private policing nonetheless retains various advantages despite the endemic flaws that have hitherto been observed, including: the abatement of crime rates; the influence over public police as private police has been propelled by the private police force to ameliorate their services vis-a-vis competition; and the ability to free up public police because of private patrols, so the public police can engage in more specialized activities pertaining to combating crime.  However, there are also various negative ramifications and disadvantages tied to the presence of a private police. These disadvantages include: 1. the likelihood of the bifurcation between the wealthy and the poor as a result because the wealthy retain the capacity to insulate themselves from crime by hiring private police while the socioeconomically disadvantaged are forced to rely on the circumscribed services that the public police offer; the traditional horizons that have been rendered nebulous by private police forces between public and private space, so the private communities and businesses entice the public police to their property and mandate that they enforce any and all legal infractions that are frivolous and that would not usually be a major concern for them; the overwhelming lack of public accountability within private police systems; the fact that both formal and familiar mechanisms have been implemented traversing the globe that make the public police accountable for their actions despite the fact that accountability mechanisms for private police remained misunderstood and often germinate from private rather than public institutions (Reiss, 1988).

Private policing welcomes a vast array of protective services that include meter maids, the investigation of missing persons and cold cases, gathering intelligence on behalf of various union and industry strikebreakers, amongst advocating for other special interests. Private security has thus emerged as a critical component of urban life in various contexts, which is why civil liability has emerged as a pressing issue. For example, in South Africa there are 5 basic components of private policing, which include: private investigators, consultants of risk management, guarding,  armed response, and the security of hardware and electronics.  The so-called guarding sector oversees schools, residential infrastructure, governmental institutions, the protection of commodities in transit, and the complexes of shopping. With regards to the house security sector, various operations of security within business contexts in addition to other armed responses in houses and businesses for quick response. Private police members are prohibited from having any type of working relationship with clients, as the public police is charged with responsibility of being accountable for groups such as ombudsmen, governors, and cities in various ways. Via the internal command and integrity structure, the private police remain internally accountable to various circumstances that manifest (Chaiken, 1987).

One major accountability of private police manifests via criminal prosecution in which the public narrates the abuses perpetrated by private security to the police and subsequently press charges against a company or security firm. Indeed, civil accountability proffers an avenue through which action can take place. The case study of Mexico underscores what institutional and organizational liability includes: public security law proffers instructions that govern fiscal policy in the attempt to supervise how PBI is administered. As such, members of the police force are accountable to upper-level executives in addition to the police corporation that they themselves belong to. In order to amplify the performance of guards within the community justice system, managers have adopted a punitive approach to check the behaviors of guards. Those who fail to perform various services according to their mandates receive harsh punishments.

It is unequivocal that private police retain an immense level of accountability. Governmental controls are limited in scope, yet private firms are robust enough to develop various internal controls. In addition, strong incentives assist various firms to protect their officers from being subject to lawsuits that have been filed against them in addition to eschewing the humiliation to the customers. As mentioned previously, private security officers are culpable to civil liability, public reporting, and the investigation of various crimes. As such, within public policing, it is of paramount importance to align internal and external incentives within the realm of private policing. Incentives retain currency when dictating the behavior of the public police force. To do so, the government must take charge in ensuring that the employers of the private police grant ample training to officers; note an annual review of the performance of each and every officer; and render them subject to court in the case of civil liability for the misconduct carried out by any officers; and preserve the records of officers to make sure that they comply with industry standards through active involvement and engagement (Chaiken, 1987). Ultimately, the articulated safeguards has the capacity to eradicate police misconduct from a conceptual perspective.

References

Chaiken, M. & Chaiken, J. (1987). Public policing: privately provided. Washington: NIJ. 

Reiss, A. (1998): Private employment of public police. Washington: NIJ. 

Sarre R. (1994): The legal powers or private police. Australia: Pluto press.