Law enforcement officers are faced with a myriad of challenges in their line of duty. Some of these challenges include corruption, deadly force, racial profiling, violence by suspects, and trauma from murders and multifaceted cultural differences from other cultures. According to Shusta and others (2015), in their book, “Multicultural law enforcement: Strategies for peacekeeping in a diverse society," civilians from different cultures may misinterpret the gestures and facial expressions the police officers use knowingly or unknowingly while on duty thereby putting their lives in danger. As a result, law enforcement officers need to be well trained to execute their responsibilities well without being offended or offending civilians from different cultural affiliations. For instance, different cultures have different interpretations of gestures and facial expressions (Kras, 2017). To understand this, it is important first to examine the types of American gestures that may be offensive to other people from different cultures. The US is one of the countries with the most multicultural diversity in the world. Therefore, it is essential to learn the prohibited and acceptable behaviors and habits of all the cultures as law enforcement officers.
Culture has a significant role since it determines how people need to behave in a given setting. Culture can make specific behavior to appear normal while others abnormal. For instance, in some cultures such as in Russia and Saudi Arabia, it is normal for men to hug and kiss each other while in Egypt, China, and Korea women are free to hold their hands together (Shusta et al., 2015. In some cultures such as African cultures may view such behavior as homosexuality. As law officers, it is crucial to know those behaviors that are considered normal and abnormal in other cultures.
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Moreover, there are non-verbal cues that are normal in the US, yet they are offensive to other people of different cultures depending on age and acculturation to the US. Shusta et al. (2015) assert that there are a few gestures that are offensive to other people from different cultures. The crossed finger for ‘good luck' in American culture is offensive in Vietnam. Also, the OK finger gesture is obscene in Latin America and Germany, and it means "zero" in the French culture. Additionally, the "come here" finger gesture marked by a curled index finger with the palm up is offensive in most Latin American and Asian cultures.
It is critical that law enforcement officers understand and respect the different customs, habits, behaviors, and cultures in the case they do not wish to offend other people (Kras, 2017). Failure to identify and learn different habits and behaviors of people from different cultures can be disastrous for both law enforcement officers and civilians. Such misinterpretations can make some people overreact by applying excessive force to the police officers and vice versa. According to Kras (2017), the priority of law enforcement officers is to serve the civilians without biases and prejudices by taking into consideration the disparity in cultural make-up of a country.
All these factors make the law enforcement a challenging task that requires proper and efficient training to raise awareness on how to handle, respect and respond to civilians, suspects and criminals from different cultures. Different cultures have different interpretations of human gestures, eye contact, body posture, facial expressions, and intentions. As discussed earlier, for instance, the "come here" finger gesture marked by a curled index finger with the palm up is offensive in most Latin American and Asian cultures. As a result, a police officer trying to summon a suspect of Asian origin may assume that the suspect was violent and trying to resist arrest while that is not the case since the victim sees the officer as rude and offensive.
References
Kras, K. R. (2017). Community-Based Justice Systems. Oxford Bibliographies . Retrieved on 28 January 2019, http://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195396607-0216
Shusta, R. M., Levine, D. R., Wong, H. Z., Olson, A. T., & Harris, P. R. (2015). Multicultural law enforcement: Strategies for peacekeeping in a diverse society (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
