Changing Times: Police Functions and Technological Changes

If you could look back in time to 60 years ago, you would see a totally different make-up and focus of police officers and police departments. Just as society is radically different than it was back then, so is the make-up and role of law enforcement. There is a much higher ratio of officers to the public today. Police are better educated, better trained, and better equipped than at any other time in history.

As drastically as the look of the police force has changed, their function has perhaps changed even more. Today, police perform three common functions: Crime control, order maintenance, and social work.

For this Assignment, write a 500–700-word essay describing the primary functions police perform today and how technological changes have impacted these functions. Include the following in your essay:

Describe each function and discuss what type of activities police are responsible for within each function.

Choose one of the three that you would consider the primary function of law enforcement. Justify your reasoning.

Discuss how growing diversity and technological changes have impacted and will continue to impact these functions and the police force.

Provide examples of how technological changes will impact criminal justice organizations in the future.

Cite a minimum of two sources in addition to the textbook within the body of your paper using in-text citations where appropriate.
Include a title and reference page.

SAMPLE SOLUTION

Changing Times: Police Functions and Technological Changes

Police Functions

The past few decades have seen unprecedented innovation in the American policing system. Approaches like community policing, problem-oriented policing, and crime mapping, are widely used by the police agencies in performing the modern day police functions. These services include crime control, maintenance of order, and social work. Aided by technological advancement, the modern police can perform those duties, which leave the population safe and improve the well-being of the people in the country (Dunham & Alpert, 2015). The police fight crime by performing various actions like mapping out crime rates in a given neighborhood. Through statistics, they can identify which areas are at a higher risk of being targeted and the type of crime prevalent in those areas. The police gather intelligence to allow them to neutralize planned criminal activities. Policing in America effectively stands in between anarchy and order through patrols and presence…