Private firms have also developed the tendency to buy policemen since they operate on a smaller scale and charge highly for their services thus they are able to pay better. This is also coupled by criminal elements compromising uncommitted police officers by paying them to perpetrate crimes. Luckily, in most cases this situation is unsustainable since any police division that involves itself in such kinds of deals with criminals soon find themselves being victims of the very crime they are perpetuating. Those who join security firms also realise that their scope of operations, availability of equipment and back up is so limited that they have to resort back to the thin blue line for support (Neocleous, 2004).
Emergent crimes have always posed challenges to the police as well. The officers are called upon to constantly devise ways of dealing with these new crimes and then request for the enactment of laws to ensure that convictions are made. The main difficulty always stems from retraining officers to be able to deal with new and more sophisticated forms of crime. The areas of concern include detection of the crimes, investigation and the kind of evidence to be gathered and finding of credible witnesses even in areas where it may not be so easy to find any, like in cyber crime. Nevertheless, the Police always have to endeavour to do all these so as to remain relevant (Gissel, 2005).
The emergence of technology has also rendered the police either minimally required or even irrelevant. The police beat is still useful in apprehending criminals on the spot, but the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) is now able to play the role of crime detection in areas where only the eyes of the policeman could be relied upon before. In fact, CCTV also helps in gathering accurate and convincing evidence in certain crimes which make it easier to achieve convictions.
This is because it actually records the crime in progress, keeps exact appearances of the criminals and even records the time and place of the crime. In a sense this makes the investigative work of the Police easier, but it also renders irrelevant the need for their hawk eyed presence of neighbourhood watch. The connection CCTV to satellites has also made it impossible to erase evidence of crime on the spot by the criminal. As technology advances, the police maintain a delicate balance with it alongside their regular services (U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented policing Services, 2010).
White collar crime still poses a major challenge to police officers in many countries. The line of command of the Police is such that politicians and other leaders are privy their internal secrets, plans, activities and problems. When the public leader becomes involved in crime therefore, he tries his best to keep the information from the police thus making these crimes pretty hard to detect. Even though the truth will always come out, it sometimes does when it is too late to prevent the damage from happening.
Enforcing the law against white collar crime therefore remains a constant challenge to the police. Unfortunately, the disgruntled public often judges the performance of the police not against how many muggers they pick off the streets, but by the one white collar criminal they fail to apprehend. This is understandable since white collar criminals tend to steal in millions (U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented policing Services, 2010). This is a clear demonstration where the police need assisted by other organisations in order to stop this type of criminality.
Conclusion
The Police remain a relevant service in modern society just as much as they were in medieval times. The one thing that remains constant however is that their roles have kept changing and will keep on doing so in future. For them to continue remaining relevant and useful, they have to keep changing with the demands in the society. This of course applies not just to them but to any other institution that aids the police. Pluralisation has resulted in a method of mediation between the police and communities. With the changes from the Patten Report and the Morgan Report, it has made a significant change in feelings towards policing bodies, society does not hold as much hostility as community agents are working with the public to reinforce the law at a community level and reducing what would have been regarded as ‘bad’ experiences with the police and replacing with ‘good’ mutual feelings.
Although even with these changes, the Police will continue to remain relevant and needed even as the society progresses. Everyone can rest assure that there will always be elements in society incapable of keeping to its norms without being forced to. Answering the question has the place of the public police become less important? On a personal note, yes it has but only to be reinstated by low level community and private security where policing officials cannot tend to 24/7; but we will always resort back to the Police, regardless whether they are a force or service or whatever other name shall be coined for them.
Bibliography
Beito L. R., (1999). Leadership Effectiveness in Community Policing. Indiana: Wyndham Hall Press. Carmichael, P. & Knox, C., (1999). Towards ‘a new era’? Some developments in governance Of Northern Ireland. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 65(3), 103-116. Committee on Law and Justice (2004). Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing. Washington: National Academies Press. Embar-seddon, A. & Pass A. D., (eds.). (2008). Forensic Science. New York: Salem Press.
